Community Service and Civic Literacy

In a speech urging students at Stanford University to get involved in community service, John W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and author of Self-Renewal, asked rhetorically, Why bother

Partnerships: The Community Education Process in Action

Partnerships represent such a simple concept, it is amazing that they - and the whole community education process - have taken so long to become widely recognized. The benefits seem so obvious that the real wonder is that we haven\u27t been operating this way all along. Partnerships - and, by extension, community education - are tools that can be used to address many of the problems we face as members of modern society

Partnerships: The Community Education Process in Action

Partnerships represent such a simple concept, it is amazing that they-- and the whole community education process-- have taken so long to become widely recognized. The benefits seem so obvious that the real wonder is that we haven\u27t been operating this way all along. Partnerships-- and, by extension, community education-- are tools that can be used to address many of the problems we face as members of modern society

A simple quantum gate with atom chips

We present a simple scheme for implementing an atomic phase gate using two degrees of freedom for each atom and discuss its realization with cold rubidium atoms on atom chips. We investigate the performance of this collisional phase gate and show that gate operations with high fidelity can be realized in magnetic traps that are currently available on atom chips.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. One missing reference added in v2. To appear in European Physical Journal

Modulation of visual processing in the rat superior colliculus by metabotropic glutamate receptors

Neurones in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus (SSC) respond to novel visual events. Cells in the SSC project via neurones in the deep layer of the superior colliculus to motor nuclei which generate appropriate behavioural and avoidance responses to novel sensory stimuli. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter at the retino-collicular and cortico-collicular synapse. Glutamate receptors can be classified as either ionotropic or metabotropic (mGluRs). At present, 8 mGluRs have been cloned (mGluRI - mGluR8), and these can be divided into 3 groups based on sequence homology, pharmacology and coupling to 2nd messenger pathways. There is evidence that metabotropic glutamate receptors may be present on SSC neurones and SSC afferents. This study examines how mGluRs may modulate the response properties of visually responsive cells in the SSC. Iontophoretic application of pharmacological agents including selective mGluR agonists and antagonists are used to probe the functional effects of mGluR manipulation in an in- Wvo preparation. All three groups of receptor appear to be activated by endogenous glutamate during visual synaptic transmission. Activation of Group I mGluRs (mGluRl and mGluR5) cause a depression of the visual response. Activation of both Group 11 (mGluR2 and mGluR3) and Group HI mGluRs (mGluR4, mGluR6, mGluR7 and mGIuR8) causes a facilitation or inhibition of the visual response in individual neurones. Neurones in the SSC detect novel visual stimuli by producing a decline in the response to repeated stimuli, this is called habituation. Group HI (but not Group I or Group H) mGluRs contribute to response habituation in the SSC and therefore have a functional role in detecting stimulus novelty. Activation of Group R receptors is dependent upon the intensity of the stimulus, probably due to their location away from the central region of the synapse. Immunohisto chemical data presented here details the distribution of selected mGluRs in the sub-cortical retinofugal pathway of the rat, ferret and cat. Analysis shows that the distribution in these three species is dissimilar. This suggests that mGluRs may have different functional roles in visual processing in different species

Casimir-Polder interatomic potential between two atoms at finite temperature and in the presence of boundary conditions

We evaluate the Casimir-Polder potential between two atoms in the presence of an infinite perfectly conducting plate and at nonzero temperature. In order to calculate the potential, we use a method based on equal-time spatial correlations of the electric field, already used to evaluate the effect of boundary conditions on interatomic potentials. This method gives also a transparent physical picture of the role of a finite temperature and boundary conditions on the Casimir-Polder potential. We obtain an analytical expression of the potential both in the near and far zones, and consider several limiting cases of interest, according to the values of the parameters involved, such as atom-atom distance, atoms-wall distance and temperature.Comment: 11 page

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS OF LABOR SHORTAGES IN THE SKILLED TRADES SUPPORTING NAVY SHIPYARD MAINTENANCE AND MODERNIZATION

The U.S. Navy is experiencing significant delays in ship and submarine maintenance periods. A major factor in these delays is the lack of skilled trades engaged in the shipyard industry, both in the public and private sectors. Often referred to as “blue-collar,” these trades include electrical, welding, piping, mechanical, machining, and others. This thesis is a research-based root cause analysis aimed at understanding and addressing the fundamental reasons for this labor shortage. Utilizing the Ishikawa method adapted for this application, including a fishbone diagram, a multitude of root causes are identified, touching on topics such as economics, public policy, federal government contracting, education, and national security. Recommendations for actions to be taken include recruiting and training initiatives, while topic areas like government contracting are recommended for future research.Civilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Collective decoherence of cold atoms coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate

We examine the time evolution of cold atoms (impurities) interacting with an environment consisting of a degenerate bosonic quantum gas. The impurity atoms differ from the environment atoms, being of a different species. This allows one to superimpose two independent trapping potentials, each being effective only on one atomic kind, while transparent to the other. When the environment is homogeneous and the impurities are confined in a potential consisting of a set of double wells, the system can be described in terms of an effective spin-boson model, where the occupation of the left or right well of each site represents the two (pseudo)-spin states. The irreversible dynamics of such system is here studied exactly, i.e., not in terms of a Markovian master equation. The dynamics of one and two impurities is remarkably different in respect of the standard decoherence of the spin - boson system. In particular we show: i) the appearance of coherence oscillations, i) the presence of super and sub decoherent states which differ from the standard ones of the spin boson model, and iii) the persistence of coherence in the system at long times. We show that this behaviour is due to the fact that the pseudospins have an internal spatial structure. We argue that collective decoherence also prompts information about the correlation length of the environment. In a one dimensional configuration one can change even stronger the qualitative behaviour of the dephasing just by tuning the interaction of the bath.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, two references adde