Community Preparatory School: 2013-2014 Public Relations Plan

Community Prep sends out seasonal newsletters during fall, winter, spring, and summer of each year that promote recent activities in school, discuss recent events, profile important donors, and give updates on alumni’s successes. These newsletters are sent out in the mail, and are also accessible on Community Prep’s website. Each newsletter comes in one color, with black and white photographs, and has a readable and attractive layout. Email updates have similar information, but sometimes have embedded videos, and provide links to a site where donations can be made or tickets can be bought for future events

A Global Hypothesis for Women in Journalism and Mass Communications: The Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum

This paper examines the status of women in communications industries and on university faculties. It specifically tests the Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum or R3 hypothesis, as developed by Rush in the early 1980s [Rush, Buck & Ogan,1982]. The R3 hypothesis predicts that the percentage of women in the communications industries and on university faculties will follow the ratio residing around 1/4:3/4 or 1/3:2/3 proportion females to males. This paper presents data from a nationwide U.S. survey and compares them to data from global surveys and United Nations reports. The evidence is overwhelming and shows the relevance and validity of the R3 hypothesis across different socio-economic and cultural contexts. The paper argues that the ratio is the outcome of systemic discrimination that operates at multiple levels. The obstacles to achieving equality in the academy as well as media industries are discussed and suggestions for breaking out of the R3 ratio are included.

Effects of ecstasy/polydrug use on memory for associative information

Rationale. Associative learning underpins behaviours that are fundamental to the everyday functioning of the individual. Evidence pointing to learning deficits in recreational drug users merits further examination. Objectives. A word pair learning task was administered to examine associative learning processes in ecstasy/polydrug users. Methods. After assignment to either single or divided attention conditions, 44 ecstasy/polydrug users, and 48 nonusers were presented with 80 word pairs at encoding. Following this, four types of stimuli were presented at the recognition phase; the words as originally paired (old pairs), previously presented words in different pairings (conjunction pairs), old words paired with new words, and pairs of new words (not presented previously). The task was to identify which of the stimuli were intact old pairs. Results. Ecstasy/ploydrug users produced significantly more false positive responses overall compared to nonusers. Increased long-term frequency of ecstasy use was positively associated with the propensity to produce false positive responses. It was also associated with a more liberal signal detection theory (SDT) decision criterion value. Measures of long term and recent cannabis use were also associated with these same word pair learning outcome measures. Conjunction word pairs, irrespective of drug use, generated the highest level of false positive responses and significantly more false positive responses were made in the DA condition compared to the SA condition. Conclusions. Overall, the results suggest that long-term ecstasy exposure may induce a deficit in associative learning and this may be in part a consequence of users adopting a more liberal decision criterion value. Key Words: Ecstasy, Drug Use, Cognition, Memory, Associative Learning, Word Pair

A Global Hypothesis for Women in Journalism and Mass Communications: The Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum

This paper examines the status of women in communications industries and on university faculties. It specifically tests the Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum or R3 hypothesis, as developed by Rush in the early 1980s [Rush, Buck & Ogan,1982]. The R3 hypothesis predicts that the percentage of women in the communications industries and on university faculties will follow the ratio residing around 1/4:3/4 or 1/3:2/3 proportion females to males. This paper presents data from a nationwide U.S. survey and compares them to data from global surveys and United Nations reports. The evidence is overwhelming and shows the relevance and validity of the R3 hypothesis across different socio-economic and cultural contexts. The paper argues that the ratio is the outcome of systemic discrimination that operates at multiple levels. The obstacles to achieving equality in the academy as well as media industries are discussed and suggestions for breaking out of the R3 ratio are included.

Prospective memory deficits in illicit polydrug users are associated with the average long term typical dose of ecstasy typically consumed in a single session

Rationale Neuroimaging evidence suggests that ecstasy-related reductions in SERT densities relate more closely to the number of tablets typically consumed per session rather than estimated total lifetime use. In order to better understand the basis of drug related deficits in prospective memory (PM) we explored the association between PM and average long-term typical dose and long-term frequency of use. Method Study 1: Sixty five ecstasy/polydrug users and 85 non-ecstasy users completed an event based, a short-term and a long-term time based PM task. Study 2: Study 1 data were merged with outcomes on the same PM measures from a previous study creating a combined sample of 103 ecstasy/polydrug users, 38 cannabis-only users and 65 nonusers of illicit drugs. Results Study 1: Ecstasy/polydrug users had significant impairments on all PM outcomes compared to non-ecstasy users. Study 2: Ecstasy/polydrug users were impaired in event based PM compared to both other groups and in long-term time based PM compared to non illicit drug users. Both drug using groups did worse on the short-term time based PM task compared to nonusers. Higher long-term average typical dose of ecstasy was associated with poorer performance on the event and short-term time based PM tasks and accounted for unique variance in the two PM measures over and above the variance associated with cannabis and cocaine use. Conclusions The typical ecstasy dose consumed in a single session is an important predictor of PM impairments with higher doses reflecting increasing tolerance giving rise to greater PM impairment

High Resolution Rydberg Spectroscopy of ultracold Rubidium Atoms

We present experiments on two-photon excitation of ${\rm ^{87}}$Rb atoms to Rydberg states. For this purpose, two continuous-wave (cw)-laser systems for both 780 nm and 480 nm have been set up. These systems are optimized to a small linewidth (well below 1 MHz) to get both an efficient excitation process and good spectroscopic resolution. To test the performance of our laser system, we investigated the Stark splitting of Rydberg states. For n=40 we were able to see the hyperfine levels splitting in the electrical field for different finestructure states. To show the ability of spatially selective excitation to Rydberg states, we excited rubidium atoms in an electrical field gradient and investigated both linewidths and lineshifts. Furthermore we were able to excite the atoms selectively from the two hyperfine ground states to Rydberg states. Finally, we investigated the Autler-Townes splitting of the 5S$_{1/2}$$\to$5P$_{3/2}$ transition via a Rydberg state to determine the Rabi frequency of this excitation step.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Towards a Phylogenetic Analysis of Galaxy Evolution : a Case Study with the Dwarf Galaxies of the Local Group

Context: The Hubble tuning fork diagram has always been the preferred scheme for classification of galaxies. It is based on morphology only. At the opposite, biologists have long taken into account the genealogical relatedness of living entities for classification purposes. Aims: Assuming branching evolution of galaxies as a 'descent with modification', we show here that the concepts and tools of phylogenetic systematics widely used in biology can be heuristically transposed to the case of galaxies. Methods: This approach that we call "astrocladistics" is applied to Dwarf Galaxies of the Local Group and provides the first evolutionary tree for real galaxies. Results: The trees that we present here are sufficiently solid to support the existence of a hierarchical organization in the diversity of dwarf galaxies of the Local Group. This also shows that these galaxies all derive from a common ancestral kind of objects. We find that some kinds of dIrrs are progenitors of both dSphs and other kinds of dIrrs.We also identify three evolutionary groups, each one having its own characteristics and own evolution. Conclusions: The present work opens a new way to analyze galaxy evolution and a path towards a new systematics of galaxies. Work on other galaxies in the Universe is in progress.Comment: 13 pages 5 figures with 3 online onl

Three-dimensional stability of Burgers vortices

Burgers vortices are explicit stationary solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations which are often used to describe the vortex tubes observed in numerical simulations of three-dimensional turbulence. In this model, the velocity field is a two-dimensional perturbation of a linear straining flow with axial symmetry. The only free parameter is the Reynolds number $Re = \Gamma/\nu$, where $\Gamma$ is the total circulation of the vortex and $\nu$ is the kinematic viscosity. The purpose of this paper is to show that Burgers vortex is asymptotically stable with respect to general three-dimensional perturbations, for all values of the Reynolds number. This definitive result subsumes earlier studies by various authors, which were either restricted to small Reynolds numbers or to two-dimensional perturbations. Our proof relies on the crucial observation that the linearized operator at Burgers vortex has a simple and very specific dependence upon the axial variable. This allows to reduce the full linearized equations to a vectorial two-dimensional problem, which can be treated using an extension of the techniques developped in earlier works. Although Burgers vortices are found to be stable for all Reynolds numbers, the proof indicates that perturbations may undergo an important transient amplification if $Re$ is large, a phenomenon that was indeed observed in numerical simulations.Comment: 31 pages, no figur