The Human Behind the Data: Reflections from an Ongoing Co-Design and Deployment of a Data-Navigation Interface for Front-Line Emergency Housing Shelter Staff

On any night in Canada, at least 35,000 individuals experience homelessness. These individuals use emergency shelters to transition out of homelessness and into permanent housing. We designed and deployed a technology to support front-line staff at the largest emergency housing shelter in Calgary, Canada. Over a period of five months in 2022, we worked closely with front-line staff to co-design an interface for supporting a holistic understanding of client context and facilitating decision-making. The tool is currently in-use and our collaboration is ongoing. In this paper, we reflect on preliminary findings regarding the second iteration of the tool. We find that supporting shelter staff in understanding the human behind the data was a critical component of design. This work contributes to literature on how data tools may be integrated into homeless shelters in a way that aligns with shelters' values.Comment: 7 page

Blending of nanoscale and microscale in uniform large-area sculptured thin-film architectures

The combination of large thickness ($>3$ $\mu$m), large--area uniformity (75 mm diameter), high growth rate (up to 0.4 $\mu$m/min) in assemblies of complex--shaped nanowires on lithographically defined patterns has been achieved for the first time. The nanoscale and the microscale have thus been blended together in sculptured thin films with transverse architectures. SiO$_x$ ($x\approx 2$) nanowires were grown by electron--beam evaporation onto silicon substrates both with and without photoresist lines (1--D arrays) and checkerboard (2--D arrays) patterns. Atomic self--shadowing due to oblique--angle deposition enables the nanowires to grow continuously, to change direction abruptly, and to maintain constant cross--sectional diameter. The selective growth of nanowire assemblies on the top surfaces of both 1--D and 2--D arrays can be understood and predicted using simple geometrical shadowing equations.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure

Limits on isotropic Lorentz violation in QED from collider physics

We consider the possibility that Lorentz violation can generate differences between the limiting velocities of light and charged matter. Such effects would lead to efficient vacuum Cherenkov radiation or rapid photon decay. The absence of such effects for 104.5 GeV electrons at the Large Electron Positron collider and for 300 GeV photons at the Tevatron therefore constrains this type of Lorentz breakdown. Within the context of the standard-model extension, these ideas imply an experimental bound at the level of -5.8 x 10^{-12} <= \tilde{\kappa}_{tr}-(4/3)c_e^{00} <= 1.2 x 10^{-11} tightening existing laboratory measurements by 3-4 orders of magnitude. Prospects for further improvements with terrestrial and astrophysical methods are discussed.Comment: Replaced with final version published in PR

Activity and Movement Patterns of Polar Bears Inhabiting Consolidated versus Active Pack Ice

We investigated the influence of ice conditions on activity and movement patterns of polar bears in the Canadian-West Greenland Arctic. We used radiotelemetry data gathered over 11 years (1989-99) from 160 adult female polar bears to test for differences in movement and activity of bears inhabiting active ice and consolidated ice. Bears inhabiting active ice moved more than those inhabiting consolidated ice (12 versus 8 km/day), but their activity throughout the year did not differ (bears of both groups were active for 21% of the day). Differences in activity and movement of bears in the two study areas appeared to be related to differences in predominant ice conditions and presumed prey availability. Seals, particularly juveniles, are most plentiful in spring and summer, when polar bears moved more and were most active. During winter, when juvenile seals were less available in consolidated ice areas, bears in that habitat were less active and moved less than bears in active ice areas. Polar bears have evolved flexible patterns of seasonal activity, movements, and facultative den use as adaptations to different sea-ice environments.On a étudié l'influence des conditions de glace sur le régime de l'activité et du déplacement de l'ours polaire dans l'Arctique canadien de l'ouest du Groenland. On s'est servi de données prélevées par radiomesure sur une période de 11 ans (de 1989 à 1999) portant sur 160 ourses polaires adultes afin de déterminer s'il existe des différences dans le déplacement et l'activité des ourses entre celles qui vivent sur la glace mobile et celles qui vivent sur la glace soudée. Les ourses vivant sur la glace mobile se déplaçaient plus que celles vivant sur la glace soudée (12 km/jour contre 8), mais leur activité tout au long de l'année ne différait pas (les ourses des deux groupes étaient actives 21 p. cent de la journée). Les différences dans l'activité et le déplacement des ourses entre les deux zones d'étude semblaient être reliées à des différences dans les conditions de glace prédominantes et dans la disponibilité présumée des proies. L'abondance des phoques, en particulier les jeunes, atteint son maximum au printemps et en été, au moment où les ourses polaires étaient souvent le plus actives et se déplaçaient le plus. Durant l'hiver, quand les phoques juvéniles étaient moins disponibles dans les zones de glace soudée, les ourses vivant dans cet habitat étaient moins actives et se déplaçaient moins que les ourses vivant dans les zones de glace mobile. L'ourse polaire a développé une certaine flexibilité de comportement dans son activité, son déplacement et son utilisation facultative d'une tanière, pour s'adapter à différents environnements de glace de mer

Bounds on Lorentz and CPT Violation from the Earth-Ionosphere Cavity

Electromagnetic resonant cavities form the basis of many tests of Lorentz invariance involving photons. The effects of some forms of Lorentz violation scale with cavity size. We investigate possible signals of violations in the naturally occurring resonances formed in the Earth-ionosphere cavity. Comparison with observed resonances places the first terrestrial constraints on coefficients associated with dimension-three Lorentz-violating operators at the level of 10^{-20} GeV.Comment: 8 pages REVTe

Evidence for an outer disk in the Prototype `Compact Elliptical' Galaxy M32

M32 is the prototype for the relatively rare class of galaxies referred to as `compact ellipticals'. It has been suggested that M32 may be a tidally disturbed r^(1/4) elliptical galaxy, or the remnant bulge of a disk-stripped early-type spiral galaxy. This paper reveals that the surface brightness profile, the velocity dispersion measurements, and the estimated supermassive black hole mass in M32 are inconsistent with the galaxy having, and probably ever having had, an r^(1/4) light profile. Instead, the radial surface brightness distribution of M32 resembles an almost perfect (bulge + exponential disk) profile, which is accompanied by a marked increase in the ellipticity profile and an associated change in the position angle profile where the `disk' starts to dominate. Compelling evidence that this bulge/disk interpretation is accurate comes from the best-fitting r^(1/n) bulge model which has a Sersic index n=1.5, in agreement with the recently discovered relation between a bulge's Sersic index and the mass of its supermassive black hole. An index n>4 would also be inconsistent with the stellar velocity dispersion of M32. The bulge-to-disk size ratio r_e /h equals 0.20, and the logarithm of the bulge-to-disk luminosity ratio log(B/D) equals 0.22, typical of lenticular galaxies. The effective radius of the bulge is 27" (~100 pc), while the scale-length of the disk is less well determined: due to possible tidal- stripping of the outer profile beyond 220-250", the scale-length may be as large as 1.3 kpc. M32 is a relatively face-on, nucleated, dwarf galaxy with a low surface brightness disk and a high surface brightness bulge. This finding brings into question the existence of the compact elliptical class of galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Matter-gravity couplings and Lorentz violation

The gravitational couplings of matter are studied in the presence of Lorentz and CPT violation. At leading order in the coefficients for Lorentz violation, the relativistic quantum hamiltonian is derived from the gravitationally coupled minimal Standard-Model Extension. For spin-independent effects, the nonrelativistic quantum hamiltonian and the classical dynamics for test and source bodies are obtained. A systematic perturbative method is developed to treat small metric and coefficient fluctuations about a Lorentz-violating and Minkowski background. The post-newtonian metric and the trajectory of a test body freely falling under gravity in the presence of Lorentz violation are established. An illustrative example is presented for a bumblebee model. The general methodology is used to identify observable signals of Lorentz and CPT violation in a variety of gravitational experiments and observations, including gravimeter measurements, laboratory and satellite tests of the weak equivalence principle, antimatter studies, solar-system observations, and investigations of the gravitational properties of light. Numerous sensitivities to coefficients for Lorentz violation can be achieved in existing or near-future experiments at the level of parts in 10^3 down to parts in 10^{15}. Certain coefficients are uniquely detectable in gravitational searches and remain unmeasured to date.Comment: 59 pages two-column REVTe

Light and tree size influence belowground development in yellow birch and sugar maple

The effects of light and tree size on the root architecture and mycorrhiza of yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britton) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh) growing in the understory of deciduous forests in southern Qu