Near field modal noise reduction using annealed optical fiber

Incomplete and unstable mode population has long complicated the application of optical fiber for transferring star and calibration light to high precision spectrographs. The need for improved precision calibrators in support of radial velocity planet surveys has led to the introduction of coherent wavelengths sources using single mode fibers that are then coupled into multi-mode fibers, further exacerbating this problem. We explore mode scrambling in annealed optical fiber with and without agitation, as compared to that obtained using octagonal fiber and using an integrating sphere. We observe improved scrambling with annealed fibers compared to conventional and octagonal fibers

Connecting People and Place Prosperity: Workforce Development and Urban Planning in Scholarship and Practice

In recent years, the field of workforce development has emerged as a distinct area of policy and practice. While planning scholars have begun to engage with the workforce development field, its relevance and points of connection to planning scholarship remain underexplored. This article attempts to define the workforce development field by articulating its core concerns as well as its domains of practice and scholarship outside the planning field. The article locates workforce development within three stands of planning scholarship, concluding that workforce development represents an important bridge for planners between “place” and “people” prosperity within communities

Linking synchronization to self-assembly using magnetic Janus colloids

Synchronization occurs widely in the natural and technological worlds, from the rhythm of applause and neuron firing to the quantum mechanics of coupled Josephson junctions, but has not been used to produce new spatial structures. Our understanding of self-assembly has evolved independently in the fields of chemistry and materials, and with a few notable exceptions has focused on equilibrium rather than dynamical systems. Here we combine these two phenomena to create synchronization-selected microtubes of Janus colloids, micron-sized spherical particles with different surface chemistry on their opposing hemispheres, which we study using imaging and computer simulation. A thin nickel film coats one hemisphere of each silica particle to generate a discoid magnetic symmetry, such that in a precessing magnetic field its dynamics retain crucial phase freedom. Synchronizing their motion, these Janus spheres self-organize into micrometre-scale tubes in which the constituent particles rotate and oscillate continuously. In addition, the microtube must be tidally locked to the particles, that is, the particles must maintain their orientation within the rotating microtube. This requirement leads to a synchronization- induced structural transition that offers various applications based on the potential to form, disintegrate and fine-tune self-assembled in-motion structures in situ. Furthermore, it offers a generalizable method of controlling structure using dynamic synchronization criteria rather than static energy minimization, and of designing new field-driven microscale devices in which components do not slavishly follow the external field.close715

Social partnership agreements in Britain: labor cooperation and compliance

This article reviews evidence on the outcomes of British social partnership agreements using matched comparisons. It concludes that in industries marked by employment decline, partnership firms often have shed jobs at a faster rate than nonpartnership firms. However, in expanding sectors, partnership firms have created jobs at a faster rate than nonpartnership rivals. There is no discernible impact of partnership on either wage settlements or union density. It is argued that we need evidence on information sharing, trust, and power and suggested that partnership agreements are unlikely to contribute significantly to union revitalization