Symmetry Breaking in Bose-Einstein Condensates

A gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) offers an ideal testing ground for studying symmetry breaking, because a trapped BEC system is in a mesoscopic regime, and situations exist under which symmetry breaking may or may not occur. Investigating this problem can explain why mean-field theories have been so successful in elucidating gaseous BEC systems and when many-body effects play a significant role. We substantiate these ideas in four distinct situations: namely, soliton formation in attractive BECs, vortex nucleation in rotating BECs, spontaneous magnetization in spinor BECs, and spin texture formation in dipolar BECs.Comment: Submitted to the proceedings of International Conference on Atomic Physics 200

Symmetry Breaking and Enhanced Condensate Fraction in a Matter-Wave Bright Soliton

An exact diagonalization study reveals that a matter-wave bright soliton and the Goldstone mode are simultaneously created in a quasi-one-dimensional attractive Bose-Einstein condensate by superpositions of quasi-degenerate low-lying many-body states. Upon formation of the soliton the maximum eigenvalue of the single-particle density matrix increases dramatically, indicating that a fragmented condensate converts into a single condensate as a consequence of the breaking of translation symmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revised versio

Ultrasensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein using large gold nanoparticle-enhanced surface plasmon resonance

The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for rapid detection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Herein, we report highly sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N protein) using nanoparticle-enhanced surface plasmon resonance (SPR) techniques. A crucial plasmonic role in significantly enhancing the limit of detection (LOD) is revealed for exceptionally large gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with diameters of hundreds of nm. SPR enhanced by these large nanoparticles lowered the LOD of SARS-CoV-2 N protein to 85 fM, resulting in the highest SPR detection sensitivity ever obtained for SARS-CoV-2 N protein

早期離床に対する看護師の認識と課題 －プロジェクトＦの活動を通じて－

早期離床を院内に定着させることを目標に，看護部でプロジェクトＦを発足させ活動を行った．まず，現状把握のため看護師538名に対し早期離床の認識についてのアンケート調査を行った．有効回答は428名（有効回答率79.6％）から得られた．その結果，離床援助技術の卒後の教育は不十分で，ほとんどの看護師が体位変換や移乗を困難であると感じていた．また，早期離床に関する医師の指示や離床に関する記録が統一されていないことがわかった．早期離床を妨げる要因として，記録などの多忙な業務や，痛みや循環変動，複数のラインなど患者の要因が挙げられた．看護師が行う早期離床の現実と理想との間に大きな乖離があり，現状に満足していない状況が示唆された．調査の結果から，「離床援助技術の教育」「早期離床フローチャートの策定と運用」「離床に関する記録整備」を課題とし，組織をあげて改善への取り組みを行った．その経緯についても加えて報告する．In order to establish early mobilization in the hospital, the "project F" was created in the Nursing Department and activities were started. A questionnaire was held regarding early wake-up and valid response were obtained from 428 out of 538 people. According to the results, factors such as busyness due to nursing records were one of the reasons that hindered this. As a result, post-graduate education for mobilization skills was inadequate, and most nurses felt it was difficult to change positions or transfer. It was also found that doctors' instructions regarding early mobilization, and records related to mobilization, were not unified. Factors that hindered early mobilization included diligent work such as nursing records, patient factors such as pain and circulatory fluctuations, and multiple lines. There was a big divergence between the reality, and the ideals of early mobilization performed by nurses, suggesting that they are not satisfied with the current situation. Based on the results of the survey, the issues were "education of mobilization assistance technology", "development and operation of early mobilization flowchart", and "maintenance of records concerning mobilization", and the entire organization worked on improvement. We will also report on the process

A Report on Overseas Teaching Practicum by Graduate Students in Elementary/Secondary Schools in the United States (IX)

This short paper reports on the 9th overseas teaching practicum in the United States by 12 graduate students of Hiroshima University, Japan, partly organized by Hiroshima University Global Partnership School Center (GPSC). The grand total has become 89 since this project started in 2006. The participants this year were those majoring in elementary/secondary school education, including one in-service teacher. They observed and conducted lessons in English in four local public schools in North Carolina. The aim of this project was threefold: 1) to self-develop practical instructional competence by teaching pupils with different cultural backgrounds; 2) to enhance the abilities in developing teaching materials through hands-on teaching experiences in English; and 3) to acquire the abilities to design, implement and evaluate programs for promoting global partnership. Like past years, their teachings were very positively covered by the local newspapers and websites. Later, the project was followed by cross-cultural field study visits to NC State Capitol, Raleigh and the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. It is hoped that this intensive experience overseas will broaden the young future Japanese teachers’ global awareness and confidence in teaching