Spinor Dynamics in an Antiferromagnetic Spin-1 Condensate

We observe coherent spin oscillations in an antiferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium. The variation of the spin oscillations with magnetic field shows a clear signature of nonlinearity, in agreement with theory, which also predicts anharmonic oscillations near a critical magnetic field. Measurements of the magnetic phase diagram agree with predictions made in the approximation of a single spatial mode. The oscillation period yields the best measurement to date of the sodium spin-dependent interaction coefficient, determining that the difference between the sodium spin-dependent s-wave scattering lengths $a_{f=2}-a_{f=0}$ is $2.47\pm0.27$ Bohr radii.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Changes: added reference, minor correction

Trapping of Neutral Rubidium with a Macroscopic Three-Phase Electric Trap

We trap neutral ground-state rubidium atoms in a macroscopic trap based on purely electric fields. For this, three electrostatic field configurations are alternated in a periodic manner. The rubidium is precooled in a magneto-optical trap, transferred into a magnetic trap and then translated into the electric trap. The electric trap consists of six rod-shaped electrodes in cubic arrangement, giving ample optical access. Up to 10^5 atoms have been trapped with an initial temperature of around 20 microkelvin in the three-phase electric trap. The observations are in good agreement with detailed numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Piloting an Educational Response to Violence in Uganda: Prospects for a New Curriculum

This pilot study assessed Mato-Oput5 (hereafter the curriculum), a new peace education curriculum, for indications of beneficial efficacy, specifically the capacity to reduce negative attitudes towards conflict and violence, and injury and violence rates. A cluster randomisedcontrol design was used. Three of the six purposively selected schools were exposed to the curriculum. Mato-Oput5 is a value-based, formalised curriculum taught by specifically trainedteachers. Its learning areas include conflict, conscience, violence, non-violence, impulse control, anger management, kindness, forgiveness, empathy and reconciliation. The results showed the baseline and post-intervention bio-demographic characteristics of the treatment arms to be comparable, thus suggesting baseline group equivalence and randomisation success. The follow-up loss was 9%. The mean pre- and post-intervention intentional incidentrates of the intervention and control groups were 270/1000 and 370/1000, and 190/1000 and 350/1000, respectively: these differences were not significant. The intervention had no effect onpost-intervention intentional incident rates. There were indications of beneficial efficacy in the curriculum, especially its ability to cause attitude shifts in support of non-violence. Statisticallysignificant behavioural effects were not detected although a downward rate trend was seen in the intervention group

Piloting an Educational Response to Violence in Uganda: Prospects for a New Curriculum

This pilot study assessed Mato-Oput5 (hereafter the curriculum), a new peace education curriculum, for indications of beneficial efficacy, specifically the capacity to reduce negative attitudes towards conflict and violence, and injury and violence rates. A cluster randomised control design was used. Three of the six purposively selected schools were exposed to the curriculum. Mato-Oput5 is a value-based, formalised curriculum taught by specifically trained teachers. Its learning areas include conflict, conscience, violence, non-violence, impulse control, anger management, kindness, forgiveness, empathy and reconciliation. The results showed the baseline and post-intervention bio-demographic characteristics of the treatment arms to be comparable, thus suggesting baseline group equivalence and randomisation success. The follow-up loss was 9%. The mean pre- and post-intervention intentional incident rates of the intervention and control groups were 270/1000 and 370/1000, and 190/1000 and 350/1000, respectively: these differences were not significant. The intervention had no effect on post-intervention intentional incident rates. There were indications of beneficial efficacy in the curriculum, especially its ability to cause attitude shifts in support of non-violence. Statistically significant behavioural effects were not detected although a downward rate trend was seen in the intervention group

Atomic density and temperature distributions in magneto-optical traps

A theoretical investigation into density, pressure, and temperature distributions in magneto-optical traps is presented. After a brief overview of the forces that arise from reradiation and absorption, a condition that the absorptive force be conservative is used to show that, if the temperature is uniform throughout the trap, any. density solutions to the force equations will not be physical. Further, consistent density solutions are unlikely to exist at all. In contrast, with a varying temperature reasonable solutions are demonstrated, with some restrictions. Doppler forces involved in ring-shaped trap structures are used to calculate orbit radii in racetrack geometry traps, and corrections to the present discrepancy between theoretical and experimental studies are discussed in the context of reradiation and diffusion

Ultraslow propagation of matched pulses by four-wave mixing in an atomic vapor

We have observed the ultraslow propagation of matched pulses in nondegenerate four-wave mixing in a hot atomic vapor. Probe pulses as short as 70 ns can be delayed by a tunable time of up to 40 ns with little broadening or distortion. During the propagation, a probe pulse is amplified and generates a conjugate pulse which is faster and separates from the probe pulse before getting locked to it at a fixed delay. The precise timing of this process allows us to determine the key coefficients of the susceptibility tensor. The presence of gain in this system makes this system very interesting in the context of all-optical information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Detection ofEchinococcus granulosus and Echinococcus equinus in dogs and epidemiology of canine echinococcosis in the UK

Echinococcus granulosus is a canid cestode species that causes hydatid disease or cysticechinococcosis (CE) in domestic animals or humans. Echinococcus equinus formerlyrecognised as the ‘horse strain’ (E.granulosus genotype G4) is not known to be zoonoticand predominantly involves equines as its intermediate host. The domestic dog is themain definitive host for both species, which are also both endemic in the UK but data islacking especially for E.equinus. An E.equinus-specific PCR assay was designed toamplify a 299bp product within the ND2 gene and expressed 100% specificity against apanel of 14 other cestode species and showed detection sensitivity up to 48.8pg (approx.6 eggs). Horse hydatid cyst isolates (n = 54) were obtained from 14 infected horse liverscollected from an abattoir in Nantwich, Cheshire and hydatid cyst tissue was amplifiedusing the ND2 PCR primers to confirm the presence of E.equinus and used toexperimentally infect dogs in Tunisia from which serial post-infection faecal sampleswere collected for coproanalysis, and indicated Echinococcus coproantigen andE.equinus DNA was present in faeces by 7 and 10 days post infection, respectively.Canine echinococcosis due to E.granulosus appears to have re-emerged in South Powys(Wales) and in order to determine the prevalence of canine echinococcosis a coproantigensurvey was undertaken. The Welsh Assembly Government also funded a 2 year hydatiddisease eradication campaign (2008-10) as a preventative public health measure andfaecal samples were tested from farm dogs in the control area. In addition 8 foxhoundpacks (5 from Wales and 3 from England) were sampled and screened for echinococcosisinfection using an Echinococcus genus-specific coproantigen ELISA that was optimisedagainst a panel of known Echinococcus and control faecal samples. Farm dogs andfoxhounds were also screened using two coproPCR assays (predominantly E.granulosusG1 or E.equinus G4 specific). In the Welsh farm dog study, 609 dog faecal samples werecollected at baseline (pre-treatment) of which 10.8% (66/609) were found to becoproantigen positive, 5.1% (31/609) were G1 E.granulosus coproPCR positive, and1.8% (12/609) were E.equinus ND2 coproPCR positive. A total of 742 farm dog sampleswere tested after 3 quarterly deworming treatments and showed a coproantigen decreaseto 0.7% (5/742). One year after the last dosing round 4.2% (45/1076) of farm dogs werefound to be coproantigen positive; of these only 123 were tested with the G1 primers ofwhich 15.4% (19/123) were positive for E.granulosus DNA. Of 8 foxhound packsscreened by the Echinococcus genus specific coproantigen ELISA and by the twocoproPCR tests (E.granulosus, E.equinus) 3 of the 4 Welsh hunts had copropositive dogs(hunt prevalence 30.9%, 9.7%, 61.2%) and 2 of the 3 English hunts (hunt prevalence17.5%, 44.5%). Hounds in 6 of the 8 hunts were coproPCR positive for E.granulosusDNA and 2 of the 8 hunts were positive for E.equinus coproDNA. Additional foxhounddata was collected in the form of a survey questionnaire to hunt staff which suggestedthat there may be a link between increased Echinococcus coproantigen prevalence andinadequate worming protocols and unsafe feeding practices. The study showed thatcanine echinococcosis due to E.granulosus and E.equinus occurred in farm dogs andfoxhounds in Wales and England and that an intervention programme in mid-Walesreduced canine echinococcosis in farm dogs after four dosing rounds, but coproprevalenceincreased by 12 months after cessation of dosing. The data are discussed withreference to potential human infection, risk factors and optimal intervention approaches.The study showed that the distribution of canine echinococcosis in farm dogs andfoxhounds was not homogenous and also confirms the continued presence of bothE.granulosus and E.equinus in foxhounds in England and Wales

Violation of the Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality in the Macroscopic Regime

We have observed a violation of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality in the macroscopic regime by more than 8 standard deviations. The violation has been obtained while filtering out only the low frequency noise of the quantum-correlated beams that results from the technical noise of the laser used to generate them. We use bright intensity-difference squeezed beams produced by four-wave mixing as the source of the correlated fields. We also demonstrate that squeezing does not necessarily imply a violation of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Growth, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Economy in Two \u3ci\u3eLotus Glaber\u3c/i\u3e Mill. Cytotypes Grown Under Contrasting P-Availability

Lotus glaber Mill. (lotus) is a forage legume with its origin in Europe which has shown an excellent adaptation to the Depressed Pampas of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The soils colonized by lotus usually have poor drainage, moderate sodium and low extractable P concentrations. An experiment was performed with the aim of comparing the early growth and economy of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) within two L. glaber cytotypes differing in their ploidy level, a commercial diploid versus an induced autotetraploid population (Barufaldi et al., 2001)