Children's understanding of inherited resemblance: The case of two parents. [IF 1.0]

Four-, 6-, and 10-year-old children were tested in a forced-choice procedure about their beliefs on the inheritance of physical characteristics. They were presented with pictures of two biological parents, and then asked to select the most likely descendant out of three alternatives: a father look-alike, a mother look-alike, and an alternative representing the combined influence of both parents. In several question pairs, additional information was given about the parent-child relationship that was clearly irrelevant to the principles of heredity to examine the extent to which domain confusions were likely to occur. The majority of the 10-year-olds consistently preferred the alternative in which the combined influence of both parents was shown and domain confusions hardly ever occurred. Four- and 6-year-olds, in contrast, were still influenced by information from alien domains, although even their reasoning about inheritance seemed to be theory-like. Overall, the results suggest that with age, children develop a more restricted and better-defined conception of the principles of heredity, in which the combined influence of both parents is acknowledged

The mediating effect of task presentation on collaboration and children's acquisition of scientific reasoning

There has been considerable research concerning peer interaction and the acquisition of children's scientific reasoning. This study investigated differences in collaborative activity between pairs of children working around a computer with pairs of children working with physical apparatus and related any differences to the development of children's scientific reasoning. Children aged between 9 and 10 years old (48 boys and 48 girls) were placed into either same ability or mixed ability pairs according to their individual, pre-test performance on a scientific reasoning task. These pairs then worked on either a computer version or a physical version of Inhelder and Piaget's (1958) chemical combination task. Type of presentation was found to mediate the nature and type of collaborative activity. The mixed-ability pairs working around the computer talked proportionally more about the task and management of the task; had proportionally more transactive discussions and used the record more productively than children working with the physical apparatus. Type of presentation was also found to mediated children's learning. Children in same ability pairs who worked with the physical apparatus improved significantly more than same ability pairs who worked around the computer. These findings were partially predicted from a socio-cultural theory and show the importance of tools for mediating collaborative activity and collaborative learning

Spatial Light Modulators for the Manipulation of Individual Atoms

We propose a novel dipole trapping scheme using spatial light modulators (SLM) for the manipulation of individual atoms. The scheme uses a high numerical aperture microscope to map the intensity distribution of a SLM onto a cloud of cold atoms. The regions of high intensity act as optical dipole force traps. With a SLM fast enough to modify the trapping potential in real time, this technique is well suited for the controlled addressing and manipulation of arbitrarily selected atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

A-dependence of nuclear transparency in quasielastic A(e,e'p) at high Q^2

The A-dependence of the quasielastic A(e,e'p) reaction has been studied at SLAC with H-2, C, Fe, and Au nuclei at momentum transfers Q^2 = 1, 3, 5, and 6.8 (GeV/c)^2. We extract the nuclear transparency T(A,Q^2), a measure of the average probability that the struck proton escapes from the nucleus A without interaction. Several calculations predict a significant increase in T with momentum transfer, a phenomenon known as Color Transparency. No significant rise within errors is seen for any of the nuclei studied.Comment: 5 pages incl. 2 figures, Caltech preprint OAP-73

Applying SNP marker technology in the cacao breeding programme in Ghana

In this investigation 45 parental cacao plants and five progeny derived from the parental stock studied were genotyped using six SNP markers to determine off-types or mislabeled clones and to authenticate crosses made in the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) breeding programme. Investigation was based on the 5\u2019 nuclease SNPassay using Illustra Hot Start mix Ready-To-Go PCR strips and BioTek FLx800TBP Fluorescence Microplate Reader. In a group of six cacao plants labeled as PA150 clones and another five labeled as Pound7, one clone in each group was unambiguously determined as off-type or mislabeled. Similarly, in a cohort of 23 PA7 "clones", four genotypes were differentiated. Cross-checking the fidelity of five progeny from the parental stock under study, it was established that no errors were made in the crossing. The most significant outcome of this study, however, was that out of the four categories of 23 PA7 candidate parental trees only one category can be comparable to the reference clone in the International Cacao Germplasm collection, Trinidad (ICG,T); thus informing the need for further work to find the correct clone among these for the breeding programme. It was thus concluded that thissimple yet cutting-edge genotyping procedure can be used in applied cocoa breeding programmes in a cocoa producing country. This work represents a first step in the genotypic characterisation of the CRIG germplasm collection and Seed Gardens.Au cours de cette recherche, 45 plants de cacao parentaux et 5 descendants d\ue9rivant du stock parental ont \ue9t\ue9 g\ue9notyp\ue9 en utilisant 6 marqueurs SNP, afin de d\ue9terminer les clones mal \ue9tiquet\ue9s et d\u2019authentifier les croisements effectu\ue9s dans le programme d\u2019am\ue9lioration de l\u2019Institut de Recherche sur le Cacao au Ghana (CRIG). Cette \ue9tude a \ue9t\ue9 bas\ue9e sur les 5' nucl\ue9ases SNP en utilisant des bandes PCR "Hot Start mix Ready-To-Go PCR strips" et un Lecteur Microplat \ue0 Fluorescence "BioTek FLx800TBP". Au sein d\u2019un groupe de six plants de cacao \ue9tiquet\ue9 PA150 et d\u2019un autre groupe de cinq \ue9tiquet\ue9 Pound 7, il a \ue9t\ue9 d\ue9termin\ue9 sans ambigu\ueft\ue9 qu\u2019un clone par groupe \ue9tait mal \ue9tiquet\ue9. De fa\ue7on similaire, quatre g\ue9notypes diff\ue9rents ont \ue9t\ue9 identifi\ue9s dans une m\ueame cohorte de clones 23PA7. En v\ue9rifiant la fid\ue9lit\ue9 de cinq descendants issus du stock parental \ue9tudi\ue9, il a \ue9t\ue9 \ue9tabli qu\u2019aucune erreur n\u2019avait \ue9t\ue9 faite lors du croisement. Le r\ue9sultat le plus significatif de cette \ue9tude a \ue9t\ue9 que, sur quatre cat\ue9gories de 23 candidats PA7 de souches parentales, une seule pouvait \ueatre comparable au clone de r\ue9f\ue9rence dans la collection Internationale du Germoplasme de Cacao, Trinidad (ICG,T), d\ue9montrant ainsi la n\ue9cessit\ue9 de travaux suppl\ue9mentaires pour d\ue9terminer le clone exact parmi ceux \ue9voqu\ue9s pr\ue9c\ue9demment. Il a ainsi \ue9t\ue9 conclu que cette m\ue9thode avant-gardiste de g\ue9notypage, pourtantsimple, peut \ueatre utilis\ue9e dans les programmes appliqu\ue9s d\u2019am\ue9lioration du cacao dans un pays producteur. Ce travail repr\ue9sente une premi\ue8re \ue9tape dans la caract\ue9risation g\ue9n\ue9tique de la collection du germoplasme CRIG et jardins semenciers

Heavy-quark mass dependence in global PDF analyses and 3- and 4-flavour parton distributions

We study the sensitivity of our recent MSTW 2008 NLO and NNLO PDF analyses to the values of the charm- and bottom-quark masses, and we provide additional public PDF sets for a wide range of these heavy-quark masses. We quantify the impact of varying m_c and m_b on the cross sections for W, Z and Higgs production at the Tevatron and the LHC. We generate 3- and 4-flavour versions of the (5-flavour) MSTW 2008 PDFs by evolving the input PDFs and alpha_S determined from fits in the 5-flavour scheme, including the eigenvector PDF sets necessary for calculation of PDF uncertainties. As an example of their use, we study the difference in the Z total cross sections at the Tevatron and LHC in the 4- and 5-flavour schemes. Significant differences are found, illustrating the need to resum large logarithms in Q^2/m_b^2 by using the 5-flavour scheme. The 4-flavour scheme is still necessary, however, if cuts are imposed on associated (massive) b-quarks, as is the case for the experimental measurement of Z b bbar production and similar processes.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figures. Grids can be found at http://projects.hepforge.org/mstwpdf/ and in LHAPDF V5.8.4. v2: version published in EPJ

Professionalism, Golf Coaching and a Master of Science Degree: A commentary

As a point of reference I congratulate Simon Jenkins on tackling the issue of professionalism in coaching. As he points out coaching is not a profession, but this does not mean that coaching would not benefit from going through a professionalization process. As things stand I find that the stimulus article unpacks some critically important issues of professionalism, broadly within the context of golf coaching. However, I am not sure enough is made of understanding what professional (golf) coaching actually is nor how the development of a professional golf coach can be facilitated by a Master of Science Degree (M.Sc.). I will focus my commentary on these two issues

Electron Scattering From High-Momentum Neutrons in Deuterium

We report results from an experiment measuring the semi-inclusive reaction $d(e,e'p_s)$ where the proton $p_s$ is moving at a large angle relative to the momentum transfer. If we assume that the proton was a spectator to the reaction taking place on the neutron in deuterium, the initial state of that neutron can be inferred. This method, known as spectator tagging, can be used to study electron scattering from high-momentum (off-shell) neutrons in deuterium. The data were taken with a 5.765 GeV electron beam on a deuterium target in Jefferson Laboratory's Hall B, using the CLAS detector. A reduced cross section was extracted for different values of final-state missing mass $W^{*}$, backward proton momentum $\vec{p}_{s}$ and momentum transfer $Q^{2}$. The data are compared to a simple PWIA spectator model. A strong enhancement in the data observed at transverse kinematics is not reproduced by the PWIA model. This enhancement can likely be associated with the contribution of final state interactions (FSI) that were not incorporated into the model. A ``bound neutron structure function'' $F_{2n}^{eff}$ was extracted as a function of $W^{*}$ and the scaling variable $x^{*}$ at extreme backward kinematics, where effects of FSI appear to be smaller. For $p_{s}>400$ MeV/c, where the neutron is far off-shell, the model overestimates the value of $F_{2n}^{eff}$ in the region of $x^{*}$ between 0.25 and 0.6. A modification of the bound neutron structure function is one of possible effects that can cause the observed deviation.Comment: 33 pages RevTeX, 9 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. C. Fixed 1 Referenc