Evaluating the Adoption of Virtual Reality Equine Selection and Judging Curricula: Instructional Responses to a COVID-19 Consequence

Virtual reality is a technology that is on the leading edge of agricultural sciences dissemination. Virtual reality can be beneficial to improving global food security and better understanding climate impacts, due to its capabilities to reach mass media with critical information. Virtual reality, with the proper access, can connect users from all backgrounds to an immersive experience at their will. The impact of virtual reality as a dissemination tool in agriculture studies is relatively unknown in the literature. Therefore, the researchers chose to implement a mixed-methods research study to investigate the outcomes of student learning in a virtual reality course within the Texas A&M University Equine selection and judging team. Twelve students were purposively sampled within this study, with students taking the course in both 2020 and 2021. Findings from this study suggested that virtual reality could help students reach their desired learning outcomes. Students were also able to provide necessary information on improvements for the course, as it could possibly be a future barrier for student use if headsets are uncomfortable. Another finding of this research is that it further proved virtual reality technologies can be resourceful for disseminating agriculture education. Future studies should look to investigate virtual reality technologies and agriculture education on a wider array, as the results generated from this study are only applicable to the sample

Athletics, Gymnastics, and Agon in Plato

In the Panathenaic Games, there was a torch race for teams of ephebes that started from the altars of Eros and Prometheus at Plato’s Academy and finished on the Acropolis at the altar of Athena, goddess of wisdom. It was competitive, yes, but it was also sacred, aimed at a noble goal. To win, you needed to cooperate with your teammates and keep the delicate flame alive as you ran up the hill. Likewise, Plato’s philosophy combines competition and cooperation in pursuit of the goal of wisdom. On one level, agonism in Plato is explicit: he taught in a gymnasium and featured gymnastic training in his educational theory. On another level, it is mimetic: Socratic dialogue resembles intellectual wrestling. On a third level, it is metaphorical: the athlete’s struggle illustrates the struggle to be morally good. And at its highest level, it is divine: the human soul is a chariot that races toward heaven. This volume explores agonism in Plato on all of these levels, inviting the reader—as Plato does—to engage in the megas agōn of life. Once in the contest, as Plato’s Socrates says, we’re allowed no excuses

Solvable models of Bose-Einstein condensates: a new algebraic Bethe ansatz scheme

A new algebraic Bethe ansatz scheme is proposed to diagonalise classes of integrable models relevant to the description of Bose-Einstein condensates in dilute alkali gases. This is achieved by introducing the notion of Z-graded representations of the Yang-Baxter algebra.Comment: 14 pages, latex, no figure

Quantum Kinetic Theory III: Quantum kinetic master equation for strongly condensed trapped systems

We extend quantum kinetic theory to deal with a strongly Bose-condensed atomic vapor in a trap. The method assumes that the majority of the vapor is not condensed, and acts as a bath of heat and atoms for the condensate. The condensate is described by the particle number conserving Bogoliubov method developed by one of the authors. We derive equations which describe the fluctuations of particle number and phase, and the growth of the Bose-Einstein condensate. The equilibrium state of the condensate is a mixture of states with different numbers of particles and quasiparticles. It is not a quantum superposition of states with different numbers of particles---nevertheless, the stationary state exhibits the property of off-diagonal long range order, to the extent that this concept makes sense in a tightly trapped condensate.Comment: 3 figures submitted to Physical Review

Remote optimization of an ultra-cold atoms experiment by experts and citizen scientists

We introduce a novel remote interface to control and optimize the experimental production of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and find improved solutions using two distinct implementations. First, a team of theoreticians employed a Remote version of their dCRAB optimization algorithm (RedCRAB), and second a gamified interface allowed 600 citizen scientists from around the world to participate in real-time optimization. Quantitative studies of player search behavior demonstrated that they collectively engage in a combination of local and global search. This form of adaptive search prevents premature convergence by the explorative behavior of low-performing players while high-performing players locally refine their solutions. In addition, many successful citizen science games have relied on a problem representation that directly engaged the visual or experiential intuition of the players. Here we demonstrate that citizen scientists can also be successful in an entirely abstract problem visualization. This gives encouragement that a much wider range of challenges could potentially be open to gamification in the future

Quantum Kinetic Theory I: A Quantum Kinetic Master Equation for Condensation of a weakly interacting Bose gas without a trapping potential

A Quantum Kinetic Master Equation (QKME) for bosonic atoms is formulated. It is a quantum stochastic equation for the kinetics of a dilute quantum Bose gas, and describes the behavior and formation of Bose condensation. The key assumption in deriving the QKME is a Markov approximation for the atomic collision terms. In the present paper the basic structure of the theory is developed, and approximations are stated and justified to delineate the region of validity of the theory. Limiting cases of the QKME include the Quantum Boltzmann master equation and the Uehling-Uhlenbeck equation, as well as an equation analogous to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure