Caffeine's Effect on Creative Production

This study attempted to determine a link between caffeine consumption and an increase in the creative production of an individual. Participants, college-aged students at Texas A&M University, completed Form A of the figural portion of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking to establish a baseline score. Participants then received chewing gum containing either 100mg of caffeine or no caffeine (placebo) and completed a survey containing biometric data as well as caffeine consumption habits. After one hour the students took Form B of the figural portion of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. Scores from these tests were compared among experimental groups and variables reported on the survey were taken into consideration. The experiment showed a statistically significant (p<0.05) decrease in the fluency scores of those individuals who received caffeinated gum over their placebo counterparts. Additionally the overall, originality, and elaboration scores trended downwards in the group receiving caffeine. This data shows that caffeine does play a role in the creative thought process, although its effects are complex. Further research is necessary to verify and elucidate the role of caffeine in creative thinking

EFFECTS OF ALTERNATIVE ACREAGE RESTRICTION PROVISIONS ON ALABAMA COTTON FARMS

The 1985 Farm Bill departs from recent farm bills in moving toward more restrictive acreage control. The change from a two- to a five-year average in calculating base acreage and enforcement of limited cross-compliance appear to significantly alter crop mix decisions on representative Alabama cotton farms.Political Economy,

Cyber event artifact investigation training in a virtual environment

The Internet has created many new technology advances that make everyday life easier and more efficient. However, technology has also enabled new attack capabilities and platforms that have the potential to cripple Department of Defense (DOD) and civilian information systems and cyber infrastructure. In order to minimize damages these threats could cause, the DOD needs well-trained operators and skilled cyber incident first responders at the helm. The first portion of this research focused on identifying operating system artifacts that give first responders the best information with which to identify if a cyber incident has occurred, or is occurring, and to determine the type of incident. The second portion of this research focused on developing virtual environments where students can participate in guided training and challenge labs. These labs can train system operators to recognize incident indicators and allow first responders to focus on collecting necessary information quickly. The Training Lab focuses on leading the student through an investigation of each designated artifact, while the Challenge Lab provides less guidance in order to test the students' acquired skills. This partnered learning experience should lead to more proficient cyber incident reporting and should decrease the response delay between detection and recovery.http://archive.org/details/cybereventrtifac1094556767Outstanding ThesisLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Symposium on State and Local Taxation

The commerce clause as an instrument of federalism facilitates a system of government that places a national government over fifty sovereign states. Federalism requires a balancing of the interest in a unified national approach to government with the competing interest in state sovereignty. As Justice Brennan explained: Our Constitution is an instrument of federalism. The Constitution furnishes the structure for the operation of the States with respect to the National Government and with respect to each other.. ..Because there are 49 States and much of the Nation\u27s commercial activity is carried on by enterprises having contacts with more States than one, a common and continuing problem of constitutional interpretation has been that of adjusting the demands of individual States to regulate and tax these enterprises in light of the multi-state nature of our federation. The commerce clause provides: The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes. \u27 The commerce clause has been interpreted not only as conferring power on the national government to regulate commerce, but also as limiting the states\u27 power to interfere with commerce. This restriction on state power often is referred to as the negative implication of the commerce clause or as the dormant commerce clause principle. Under the authority of the commerce clause, the United States Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional a variety of state regulatory and taxation measures as unduly burdening commerce

Quantum theory for electron spin decoherence induced by nuclear spin dynamics in semiconductor quantum computer architectures: Spectral diffusion of localized electron spins in the nuclear solid-state environment

We consider the decoherence of a single localized electron spin due to its coupling to the lattice nuclear spin bath in a semiconductor quantum computer architecture. In the presence of an external magnetic field and at low temperatures, the dominant decoherence mechanism is the spectral diffusion of the electron spin resonance frequency due to the temporally fluctuating random magnetic field associated with the dipolar interaction induced flip-flops of nuclear spin pairs. The electron spin dephasing due to this random magnetic field depends intricately on the quantum dynamics of the nuclear spin bath, making the coupled decoherence problem difficult to solve. We provide a formally exact solution of this non-Markovian quantum decoherence problem which numerically calculates accurate spin decoherence at short times, which is of particular relevance in solid-state spin quantum computer architectures. A quantum cluster expansion method is developed, motivated, and tested for the problem of localized electron spin decoherence due to dipolar fluctuations of lattice nuclear spins. The method is presented with enough generality for possible application to other types of spin decoherence problems. We present numerical results which are in quantitative agreement with electron spin echo measurements in phosphorus doped silicon. We also present spin echo decay results for quantum dots in GaAs which differ qualitatively from that of the phosphorus doped silicon system. Our theoretical results provide the ultimate limit on the spin coherence (at least, as characterized by Hahn spin echo measurements) of localized electrons in semiconductors in the low temperature and the moderate to high magnetic field regime of interest in scalable semiconductor quantum computer architectures.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figure

Wavefunction considerations for the central spin decoherence problem in a nuclear spin bath

Decoherence of a localized electron spin in a solid state material (the ``central spin'' problem) at low temperature is believed to be dominated by interactions with nuclear spins in the lattice. This decoherence is partially suppressed through the application of a large magnetic field that splits the energy levels of the electron spin and prevents depolarization. However, dephasing decoherence resulting from a dynamical nuclear spin bath cannot be removed in this way. Fluctuations of the nuclear field lead to uncertainty of the electron's precessional frequency in a process known as spectral diffusion. This article considers the effect of the electron's wavefunction shape upon spectral diffusion and provides wavefunction dependent decoherence time formulas for free induction decay as well as spin echoes and concatenated dynamical decoupling schemes for enhancing coherence. We also discuss dephasing of a qubit encoded in singlet-triplet states of a double quantum dot. A central theoretical result of this work is the development of a continuum approximation for the spectral diffusion problem which we have applied to GaAs and InAs materials specifically