2,150 research outputs found
The Long Road: Eisenhower’s Inter-American Highway: The Path to Economic Investment, Political Stability, and Collective Security in Central America
This paper explores the anti-communist Cold War tactics of public diplomacy as undertaken by the Eisenhower Administration. The focus of this paper is the Inter-American Highway: a program which the U.S. government funded and constructed to develop Central America economically, politically, and beyond. Funding for this program was increased and supported by the president because it fit the axiom of spending as little money as possible in the Cold War, but spending it in a way to be effective in the battle against Soviet communism. The stance of the U.S. government was to provide Central America with increased infrastructure development in an effort to make the region attractive to foreign investors, whose capital investments in the region would spur on economic growth and create political stability. The tactic was relatively successful, and eventually led to economic unification through the Central American Common Market (similar to the European Coal and Steel Community). It was believed that the CACM would eventually lead to political unification and collective security in a similar way that the ECSC led to the EU, but nationalism and regional jealousies fragmented the CACM before political unification could be realized. Nevertheless, the Inter-American Highway and resulting CACM did economically benefit all nations involved, and instituted a rare era of regional peace
Metrology and Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Metastable Helium
Ultracold dilute gases provide ideal settings for measurements of atomic
structure. Helium has an internal structure sufficiently simple to permit
highly accurate predictions of its resonances and transition rates. Precise
laser spectroscopy of helium thus yields empirical constraints on such
calculations. These are desirable in the ongoing investigations seeking to
reconcile the disagreement between independent determinations of nuclear charge
radius data in both hydrogenic and helium atoms. Either the size of these
particles are truly constant and quantum electrodynamics (QED) is flawed, or
the theory is correct and some new physics is at play at the atomic scale.
Ultracold bose gases also serve as ideal testing ground to better understand
the physics of Bose-Einstein condensation, superfluidity, and the effects of
weak interactions in condensed-matter systems. The large internal energy of
helium's metastable excited state enables the measurement of the momentum of
single atoms, providing a new lens through which to examine both
weakly-interacting and strongly-correlated systems. This feature is employed to
investigate the quantum depletion of a BEC after expansion into the far-field.
Finally, the appendix reports on early progress towards the realization of an
optical lattice trap for helium.Comment: PhD thesis. Abstract truncated per arxiv requirement
Lessons learned in promoting evidence-based public health: Perspectives from managers in state public health departments
Evidence-based public health (EBPH) practice, also called evidence-informed public health, can improve population health and reduce disease burden in populations. Organizational structures and processes can facilitate capacity-building for EBPH in public health agencies. This study involved 51 structured interviews with leaders and program managers in 12 state health department chronic disease prevention units to identify factors that facilitate the implementation of EBPH. Verbatim transcripts of the de-identified interviews were consensus coded in NVIVO qualitative software. Content analyses of coded texts were used to identify themes and illustrative quotes. Facilitator themes included leadership support within the chronic disease prevention unit and division, unit processes to enhance information sharing across program areas and recruitment and retention of qualified personnel, training and technical assistance to build skills, and the ability to provide support to external partners. Chronic disease prevention leaders\u27 role modeling of EBPH processes and expectations for staff to justify proposed plans and approaches were key aspects of leadership support. Leaders protected staff time in order to identify and digest evidence to address the common barrier of lack of time for EBPH. Funding uncertainties or budget cuts, lack of political will for EBPH, and staff turnover remained challenges. In conclusion, leadership support is a key facilitator of EBPH capacity building and practice. Section and division leaders in public health agencies with authority and skills can institute management practices to help staff learn and apply EBPH processes and spread EBPH with partners
Lem2 is essential for cardiac development by maintaining nuclear integrity
AIMS: Nuclear envelope integrity is essential for the compartmentalization of the nucleus and cytoplasm. Importantly, mutations in genes encoding nuclear envelope (NE) and associated proteins are the second highest cause of familial dilated cardiomyopathy. One such NE protein that causes cardiomyopathy in humans and affects mouse heart development is Lem2. However, its role in the heart remains poorly understood.
METHODS AND RESULTS: We generated mice in which Lem2 was specifically ablated either in embryonic cardiomyocytes (Lem2 cKO) or in adult cardiomyocytes (Lem2 iCKO) and carried out detailed physiological, tissue, and cellular analyses. High-resolution episcopic microscopy was used for three-dimensional reconstructions and detailed morphological analyses. RNA-sequencing and immunofluorescence identified altered pathways and cellular phenotypes, and cardiomyocytes were isolated to interrogate nuclear integrity in more detail. In addition, echocardiography provided a physiological assessment of Lem2 iCKO adult mice. We found that Lem2 was essential for cardiac development, and hearts from Lem2 cKO mice were morphologically and transcriptionally underdeveloped. Lem2 cKO hearts displayed high levels of DNA damage, nuclear rupture, and apoptosis. Crucially, we found that these defects were driven by muscle contraction as they were ameliorated by inhibiting myosin contraction and L-type calcium channels. Conversely, reducing Lem2 levels to ∼45% in adult cardiomyocytes did not lead to overt cardiac dysfunction up to 18 months of age.
CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that Lem2 is critical for integrity at the nascent NE in foetal hearts, and protects the nucleus from the mechanical forces of muscle contraction. In contrast, the adult heart is not detectably affected by partial Lem2 depletion, perhaps owing to a more established NE and increased adaptation to mechanical stress. Taken together, these data provide insights into mechanisms underlying cardiomyopathy in patients with mutations in Lem2 and cardio-laminopathies in general
Definitive Evidence for Order-by-Quantum-Disorder in Er2Ti2O7
Here we establish the systematic existence of a U(1) degeneracy of all
symmetry-allowed Hamiltonians quadratic in the spins on the pyrochlore lattice,
at the mean-field level. By extracting the Hamiltonian of Er2Ti2O7 from
inelastic neutron scattering measurements, we then show that the
U(1)-degenerate states of Er2Ti2O7 are its classical ground states, and
unambiguously show that quantum fluctuations break the degeneracy in a way
which is confirmed by experiment. This is the first definitive observation of
order-by-disorder in any material. We provide further verifiable consequences
of this phenomenon, and several additional comparisons between theory and
experiment.Comment: 4.5 pages, 3 figures, 7.5 pages of Supplemental Material, 8
supplemental figure
Approaching the adiabatic timescale with machine-learning
The control and manipulation of quantum systems without excitation is
challenging, due to the complexities in fully modeling such systems accurately
and the difficulties in controlling these inherently fragile systems
experimentally. For example, while protocols to decompress Bose-Einstein
condensates (BEC) faster than the adiabatic timescale (without excitation or
loss) have been well developed theoretically, experimental implementations of
these protocols have yet to reach speeds faster than the adiabatic timescale.
In this work, we experimentally demonstrate an alternative approach based on a
machine learning algorithm which makes progress towards this goal. The
algorithm is given control of the coupled decompression and transport of a
metastable helium condensate, with its performance determined after each
experimental iteration by measuring the excitations of the resultant BEC. After
each iteration the algorithm adjusts its internal model of the system to create
an improved control output for the next iteration. Given sufficient control
over the decompression, the algorithm converges to a novel solution that sets
the current speed record in relation to the adiabatic timescale, beating out
other experimental realizations based on theoretical approaches. This method
presents a feasible approach for implementing fast state preparations or
transformations in other quantum systems, without requiring a solution to a
theoretical model of the system. Implications for fundamental physics and
cooling are discussed.Comment: 7 pages main text, 2 pages supporting informatio
Demographic characteristics of exploited tropical lutjanids: a comparative analysis
Demographic parameters from seven exploited coral reef lutjanid species were compared as a case study of the implications of intrafamily variation in life histories for
multispecies harvest management. Modal lengths varied by 4 cm among four species (Lutjanus fulviflamma, L. vitta, L. carponotatus, L. adetii), which were at least 6 cm smaller than the modal lengths of the largest species (L. gibbus, Symphorus nematophorus, Aprion virescens). Modal ages, indicating ages of full selection to fishing gear, were 10 years or less for all species, but maximum ages ranged from
12 (L. gibbus) to 36 years (S. nematophorus). Each species had a unique growth pattern, with differences in length-at-age and mean asymptotic fork length (L∞), but smaller species generally grew fast during the first 1–2 years of life and larger species grew more slowly over a longer period. Total mortality rates varied among species; L. gibbus had the highest mortality and L. fulviflamma, the
lowest mortality. The variability in life history strategies of these tropical lutjanids makes generalizations about lutjanid life histories difficult, but the fact that all seven had characteristics that would make them particularly vulnerable to fishing indicates that
harvest of tropical lutjanids should be managed with caution
Travelling waves in a mixture of gases with bimolecular reversible reactions
Starting from the kinetic approach for a mixture of reacting gases whose
particles interact through elastic scattering and a bimolecular reversible
chemical reaction, the equations that govern the dynamics of the system are
obtained by means of the relevant Boltzmann-like equation. Conservation laws
are considered. Fluid dynamic approximations are used at the Euler level to
obtain a close set of PDEs for six unknown macroscopic fields. The dispersion
relation of the mixture of reacting gases is explicitly derived in the
homogeneous equilibrium state. A set of ODE that governs the propagation of a
plane travelling wave is obtained using the Galilei invariance. After numerical
integration some solutions, including the well-known Maxwellian and the hard
spheres cases, are found for various meaningful interaction laws. The main
macroscopic observables for the gas mixture such as the drift velocity,
temperature, total density, pressure and its chemical composition are shown.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, accepted on Physica
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