1,236 research outputs found
Too Afraid to Learn: Attitudes towards Statistics as a Barrier to Learning Statistics and to Acquiring Quantitative Skills
Quantitative skills are important for studying and understanding social reality. Political science students, however, experience difficulties in acquiring and retaining such skills. Fear of statistics has often been listed among the major causes for this problem. This study aims at understanding the underlying factors for this anxiety and proposes a potential remedy. More specifically, we advocate the integration of quantitative material into non-methodological courses. After assessing the influence of dispositional, course-related and person-related factors on the attitudes towards statistics among political science students, we provide insights into the relation between these attitudes on the one hand and the learning and retention of statistics skills on the other. Our results indicate that a curriculum-wide approach to normalise the use of quantitative methods can not only foster interest in statistics but also foster retention of the acquired skills
Tunneling spectroscopy in the magnetic superconductor TmNi2B2C
We present new measurements about the tunneling conductance in the
borocarbide superconductor TmNiBC. The results show a very good
agreement with weak coupling BCS theory, without any lifetime broadening
parameter, over the whole sample surface. We detect no particular change of the
tunneling spectroscopy below 1.5K, when both the antiferromagnetic (AF) phase
and the superconducting order coexist.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. B, Rapid Communication
Power spectrum of many impurities in a d-wave superconductor
Recently the structure of the measured local density of states power spectrum
of a small area of the \BSCCO (BSCCO) surface has been interpreted in terms of
peaks at an "octet" of scattering wave vectors determined assuming weak,
noninterfering scattering centers. Using analytical arguments and numerical
solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, we discuss how the
interference between many impurities in a d-wave superconductor alters this
scenario. We propose that the peaks observed in the power spectrum are not the
features identified in the simpler analyses, but rather "background" structures
which disperse along with the octet vectors. We further consider how our
results constrain the form of the actual disorder potential found in this
material.Comment: 5 pages.2 figure
A Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Graph 3-Coloring
The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) is the name of an optimization algorithm that
was inspired by the intelligent behavior of a honey bee swarm. It is widely
recognized as a quick, reliable, and efficient methods for solving optimization
problems. This paper proposes a hybrid ABC (HABC) algorithm for graph
3-coloring, which is a well-known discrete optimization problem. The results of
HABC are compared with results of the well-known graph coloring algorithms of
today, i.e. the Tabucol and Hybrid Evolutionary algorithm (HEA) and results of
the traditional evolutionary algorithm with SAW method (EA-SAW). Extensive
experimentations has shown that the HABC matched the competitive results of the
best graph coloring algorithms, and did better than the traditional heuristics
EA-SAW when solving equi-partite, flat, and random generated medium-sized
graphs
The effects of macroscopic inhomogeneities on the magneto transport properties of the electron gas in two dimensions
In experiments on electron transport the macroscopic inhomogeneities in the
sample play a fundamental role. In this paper and a subsequent one we introduce
and develop a general formalism that captures the principal features of sample
inhomogeneities (density gradients, contact misalignments) in the magneto
resistance data taken from low mobility heterostructures. We present detailed
assessments and experimental investigations of the different regimes of
physical interest, notably the regime of semiclassical transport at weak
magnetic fields, the plateau-plateau transitions as well as the
plateau-insulator transition that generally occurs at much stronger values of
the external field only.
It is shown that the semiclassical regime at weak fields plays an integral
role in the general understanding of the experiments on the quantum Hall
regime. The results of this paper clearly indicate that the plateau-plateau
transitions, unlike the the plateau-insulator transition, are fundamentally
affected by the presence of sample inhomogeneities. We propose a universal
scaling result for the magneto resistance parameters. This result facilitates,
amongst many other things, a detailed understanding of the difficulties
associated with the experimental methodology of H.P. Wei et.al in extracting
the quantum critical behavior of the electron gas from the transport
measurements conducted on the plateau-plateau transitions.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure
Impurity induced resonant state in a pseudogap state of a high temperature superconductor
We predict a resonance impurity state generated by the substitution of one Cu
atom with a nonmagnetic atom, such as Zn, in the pseudogap state of a high-T_c
superconductor. The precise microscopic origin of the pseudogap is not
important for this state to be formed, in particular this resonance will be
present even in the absence of superconducting fluctuations in the normal
state. In the presence of superconducting fluctuations, we predict the
existence of a counterpart impurity peak on a symmetric bias.
The nature of impurity resonance is similar to the previously studied
resonance in the d-wave superconducting state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
The Energy-dependent Checkerboard Patterns in Cuprate Superconductors
Motivated by the recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments [J.
E. Hoffman {\it et al.}, Science {\bf 297}, 1148 (2002); K. McElroy {\it et
al.}, Nature (to be published)], we investigate the real space local density of
states (LDOS) induced by weak disorder in a d-wave superconductor. We first
present the energy dependent LDOS images around a single weak defect at several
energies, and then point out that the experimentally observed checkerboard
pattern in the LDOS could be understood as a result of quasiparticle
interferences by randomly distributed defects. It is also shown that the
checkerboard pattern oriented along to the Cu-O bonds at low energies
would transform to that oriented parallel to the Cu-O bonds at higher energies.
This result is consistent with the experiments.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure
Magnetization of a two-dimensional electron gas with a second filled subband
We have measured the magnetization of a dual-subband two-dimensional electron
gas, confined in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction. In contrast to two-dimensional
electron gases with a single subband, we observe non-1/B-periodic, triangularly
shaped oscillations of the magnetization with an amplitude significantly less
than per electron. All three effects are explained by a
field dependent self-consistent model, demonstrating the shape of the
magnetization is dominated by oscillations in the confining potential.
Additionally, at 1 K, we observe small oscillations at magnetic fields where
Landau-levels of the two different subbands cross.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Chiral persistent currents and magnetic susceptibilities in the parafermion quantum Hall states in the second Landau level with Aharonov-Bohm flux
Using the effective conformal field theory for the quantum Hall edge states
we propose a compact and convenient scheme for the computation of the periods,
amplitudes and temperature behavior of the chiral persistent currents and the
magnetic susceptibilities in the mesoscopic disk version of the Z_k parafermion
quantum Hall states in the second Landau level. Our numerical calculations show
that the persistent currents are periodic in the Aharonov-Bohm flux with period
exactly one flux quantum and have a diamagnetic nature. In the high-temperature
regime their amplitudes decay exponentially with increasing the temperature and
the corresponding exponents are universal characteristics of non-Fermi liquids.
Our theoretical results for these exponents are in perfect agreement with those
extracted from the numerical data and demonstrate that there is in general a
non-trivial contribution coming from the neutral sector. We emphasize the
crucial role of the non-holomorphic factors, first proposed by Cappelli and
Zemba in the context of the conformal field theory partition functions for the
quantum Hall states, which ensure the invariance of the annulus partition
function under the Laughlin spectral flow.Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX4, 7 figures (eps
Vortex structure in d-density wave scenario of pseudogap
We investigate the vortex structure assuming the d-density wave scenario of
the pseudogap. We discuss the profiles of the order parameters in the vicinity
of the vortex, effective vortex charge and the local density of states. We find
a pronounced modification of these quantities when compared to a purely
superconducting case. Results have been obtained for a clean system as well as
in the presence of a nonmagnetic impurity. We show that the competition between
superconductivity and the density wave may explain some experimental data
recently obtained for high-temperature superconductors. In particular, we show
that the d-density wave scenario explains the asymmetry of the gap observed in
the vicinity of the vortex core.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
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