Predictor Aided Tracking in a System with Time Delay - Performance Involving Flat Surface, Roll, and Pitch Conditions

Predictor aided human tracking performance with time delay control under flat surface, roll, pitch, and roll and pitch condition

Coherence-enhanced imaging of a degenerate Bose gas

We present coherence-enhanced imaging, an in situ technique that uses Raman superradiance to probe the spatial coherence properties of an ultracold gas. Applying this method, we obtain a spatially resolved measurement of the condensate number and more generally, of the first-order spatial correlation function in a gas of $^{87}$Rb atoms. We observe the enhanced decay of propagating spin gratings in high density regions of a Bose condensate, a decay we ascribe to collective, non-linear atom-atom scattering. Further, we directly observe spatial inhomogeneities that arise generally in the course of extended sample superradiance.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Amplification of Fluctuations in a Spinor Bose Einstein Condensate

Dynamical instabilities due to spin-mixing collisions in a $^{87}$Rb F=1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate are used as an amplifier of quantum spin fluctuations. We demonstrate the spectrum of this amplifier to be tunable, in quantitative agreement with mean-field calculations. We quantify the microscopic spin fluctuations of the initially paramagnetic condensate by applying this amplifier and measuring the resulting macroscopic magnetization. The magnitude of these fluctuations is consistent with predictions of a beyond-mean-field theory. The spinor-condensate-based spin amplifier is thus shown to be nearly quantum-limited at a gain as high as 30 dB

Consolidation of complex events via reinstatement in posterior cingulate cortex

It is well-established that active rehearsal increases the efficacy of memory consolidation. It is also known that complex events are interpreted with reference to prior knowledge. However, comparatively little attention has been given to the neural underpinnings of these effects. In healthy adult humans, we investigated the impact of effortful, active rehearsal on memory for events by showing people several short video clips and then asking them to recall these clips, either aloud (Experiment 1) or silently while in an MRI scanner (Experiment 2). In both experiments, actively rehearsed clips were remembered in far greater detail than unrehearsed clips when tested a week later. In Experiment 1, highly similar descriptions of events were produced across retrieval trials, suggesting a degree of semanticization of the memories had taken place. In Experiment 2, spatial patterns of BOLD signal in medial temporal and posterior midline regions were correlated when encoding and rehearsing the same video. Moreover, the strength of this correlation in the posterior cingulate predicted the amount of information subsequently recalled. This is likely to reflect a strengthening of the representation of the video's content. We argue that these representations combine both new episodic information and stored semantic knowledge (or "schemas"). We therefore suggest that posterior midline structures aid consolidation by reinstating and strengthening the associations between episodic details and more generic schematic information. This leads to the creation of coherent memory representations of lifelike, complex events that are resistant to forgetting, but somewhat inflexible and semantic-like in nature

Six Districts Begin the Principal Pipeline Initiative

This first report of an ongoing evaluation of The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative describes the six participating school districts' plans and activities during the first year of their grants. The evaluation, conducted by Policy Studies Associates and the RAND Corporation, isintended to inform policy makers and practitioners about the process of carrying out new policies and practices for school leadership and about the results of investments in the Principal Pipeline Initiative. This report is based on collection and analysis of qualitative data, including the districts' proposals, work plans, and progress reports and semi-structured interviews in spring 2012 with 91 administrators employed by districts and their partner institutions. Leaders in all districts report wanting to enlarge their pools of strong applicants for principal positions and to identify and cultivate leadership talent as early as possible in educators' careers.Districts are actively working on allrequired pipeline components: (1) with stakeholder participation, they have developed standards and identified competencies for principals, which they plan to use to guide principal training, hiring, evaluation, and support; (2) they are initiating or strengthening partnerships with university training programs; (3) for hiring, they have standard performance tasks and are developing systems to capture data on candidates' experience; (4) they have diagnostic evaluation tools and are working to build the capacity of principals' supervisors and mentors to support principals' skill development. In addition, all are also bolstering district-run training programs for graduates of university training programs who aspire to become principals

An experimental investigation of the relationships among race, prayer, and pain

Background and aims Compared to White individuals, Black individuals demonstrate a lower pain tolerance. Research suggests that differences in pain coping strategies, such as prayer, may mediate this race difference. However, previous research has been cross-sectional and has not determined whether prayer in and of itself or rather the passive nature of prayer is driving the effects on pain tolerance. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationships among race, prayer (both active and passive), and pain tolerance. Methods We randomly assigned 208 pain-free participants (47% Black, 53% White) to one of three groups: active prayer (“God, help me endure the pain”), passive prayer (“God, take the pain away”), or no prayer (“The sky is blue”). Participants first completed a series of questionnaires including the Duke University Religion Index, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire-Revised (CSQ-R), and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Participants were then instructed to repeat a specified prayer or distractor coping statement while undergoing a cold pressor task. Cold pain tolerance was measured by the number of seconds that had elapsed while the participant’s hand remained in the cold water bath (maximum 180 s). Results Results of independent samples t-tests indicated that Black participants scored higher on the CSQ-R prayer/hoping subscale. However, there were no race differences among other coping strategies, religiosity, or catastrophizing. Results of a 2 (Race: White vs. Black)×3 (Prayer: active vs. passive vs. no prayer) ANCOVA controlling for a general tendency to pray and catastrophizing in response to prayer indicated a main effect of prayer that approached significance (p=0.06). Pairwise comparisons indicated that those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater pain tolerance than those in the passive (p=0.06) and no prayer (p=0.03) conditions. Those in the passive and no prayer distractor conditions did not significantly differ (p=0.70). There was also a trending main effect of race [p=0.08], with White participants demonstrating greater pain tolerance than Black participants. Conclusions Taken together, these results indicate that Black participants demonstrated a lower pain tolerance than White participants, and those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater tolerance than those in the passive and no prayer conditions. Furthermore, Black participants in the passive prayer group demonstrated the lowest pain tolerance, while White participants in the active prayer group exhibited the greatest tolerance. Results of this study suggest that passive prayer, like other passive coping strategies, may be related to lower pain tolerance and thus poorer pain outcomes, perhaps especially for Black individuals. On the other hand, results suggest active prayer is associated with greater pain tolerance, especially for White individuals. Implications These results suggest that understanding the influence of prayer on pain may require differentiation between active versus passive prayer strategies. Like other active coping strategies for pain, active prayer may facilitate self-management of pain and thus enhance pain outcomes independent of race. Psychosocial interventions may help religiously-oriented individuals, regardless of race, cultivate a more active style of prayer to improve their quality of life