Loading of a surface-electrode ion trap from a remote, precooled source

We demonstrate loading of ions into a surface-electrode trap (SET) from a remote, laser-cooled source of neutral atoms. We first cool and load $\sim$ $10^6$ neutral $^{88}$Sr atoms into a magneto-optical trap from an oven that has no line of sight with the SET. The cold atoms are then pushed with a resonant laser into the trap region where they are subsequently photoionized and trapped in an SET operated at a cryogenic temperature of 4.6 K. We present studies of the loading process and show that our technique achieves ion loading into a shallow (15 meV depth) trap at rates as high as 125 ions/s while drastically reducing the amount of metal deposition on the trap surface as compared with direct loading from a hot vapor. Furthermore, we note that due to multiple stages of isotopic filtering in our loading process, this technique has the potential for enhanced isotopic selectivity over other loading methods. Rapid loading from a clean, isotopically pure, and precooled source may enable scalable quantum information processing with trapped ions in large, low-depth surface trap arrays that are not amenable to loading from a hot atomic beam

Production and state-selective detection of ultracold, ground state RbCs molecules

Using resonance-enhanced two-photon ionization, we detect ultracold, ground-state RbCs molecules formed via photoassociation in a laser-cooled mixture of 85Rb and 133Cs atoms. We obtain extensive bound-bound excitation spectra of these molecules, which provide detailed information about their vibrational distribution, as well as spectroscopic data on the RbCs ground a^3\Sigma^+ and excited (2)^3\Sigma^+, (1)^1\Pi states. Analysis of this data allows us to predict strong transitions from observed excited levels to the absolute vibronic ground state of RbCs, potentially allowing the production of stable, ultracold polar molecules at rates as large as 10^7 s^{-1}

Enhancing Communication Within Multi-Generational organizations

In order to capture the essence of employee dynamics within the ever-changing landscape of modern organizations, a naturalistic inquiry using a holistic approach was employed. This technique emphasized the millennial generation’s communication strengths as compared to those of previous generation workers. The perceptions of millennial students, millennial workers, multi-generational managers, university professors, and IT professionals were analyzed through a constant, comparative analysis and grouped so that grounded theory was allowed to emerge. The products of this inquiry include practical solutions aimed at reducing the uncertainty for multi-generational managers, specifically regarding the supervision of younger generation workers. In addition, the results of this study suggest that traditional business communication practices, when coupled with an increased use of information and communication technologies that are specifically designed to bolster collaboration and interpersonal communication, have the potential to maximize internal and external communication effectiveness. The data collected within this study provided an overview of the underlying values and perceptions behind millennial behavior. This synopsis, captured through millennial focus groups and face-to-face interviews, acquiesces to the literature surrounding the millennial generation. As outwardly portrayed, the individuals within this study are technically advanced, goal-oriented people who want the freedom and balance to work efficiently and effectively. In addition, the millennials used herein respect the traditional organizational structure, but only to the limit that its hierarchical nature does not stunt innovation achieved through adaptability and collaboration

Thinking the ontological politics of managerial and critical performativities: an examination of project failure

Recent contributions within Critical Management Studies have argued for critical engagements with performativity to acknowledge and advance the plurality of performance calculi within organizations. However, even critically minded authors persist in deploying managerial calculi of performance when criticizing the failure of management on its own terms. Equally, interpretive analyses of performance narratives as discursive power games have thus far offered little substantive challenge to managerial understandings of performativity, as orientated around maxims of efficiency, control and profit. Positioned against these managerialist and conservative tendencies in extant understandings of performativity, we draw together the ANT- derived notions of ontological performativity and politics, alongside empirical research on projects, and specifically project failure, to propose that if ontologies are performative, multiple, and political, then performativities are ontological, multiple and political, and are thus capable of being realized otherwise; but crucially, we can advance this thesis only if we better understand how managerial performativity simultaneously others and depends on that which is outside it: an absent hinterland of different performative realities. This theoretical move challenges how we might not only understand but assemble multiple performed realities — demanding new methodological, analytical and political resources and responses to engage with performativities

Who reads the project file? Exploring the power effects of knowledge tools in construction project management

Various critical authors have questioned the salience, efficacy and power effects of formal project management bodies of knowledge (PMBoKs). As a result project management knowledge tools are increasingly being conceptualized along more flexible, adaptable, reflexive, democratic and informal terms. A central driver for this shift is that PM knowledge will be more relevant and useful for practitioners if it can be reflexively tailored to fit local project scenarios, emergent problems and different communities of practice, rather than projects being structured to fit generic ‘best practice’ ideals. Hence new knowledge tools increasingly would appear critical to alleviate various detrimental power effects associated with bureaucratic knowledge practices within project‐based industries, not least construction. This assumption is examined through a study of a formal and codified project management knowledge tool—a project file—within a small team of project practitioners in a large civil engineering consultancy. Various concepts of power related to actor‐network theory (ANT) are mobilized to understand how non‐human artefacts can enact power and knowledge in nuanced ways within organizations. This theoretically informed study will aid both researchers and practitioners interested in the consequences of developing prescriptive or reflexive project management knowledge within construction contexts and beyond

Atmospheric CO2 decline and the timing of CAM plant evolution

Background and Aims: CAM photosynthesis is hypothesized to have evolved in atmospheres of low CO2 concentration in recent geological time because of its ability to concentrate CO2 around Rubisco and boost water use efficiency relative to C3 photosynthesis. We assess this hypothesis by compiling estimates of when CAM clades arose using phylogenetic chronograms for 73 CAM clades. We further consider evidence of how atmospheric CO2 affects CAM relative to C3 photosynthesis. Results: Where CAM origins can be inferred, strong CAM is estimated to have appeared in the past 30 million years in 46 of 48 examined clades, after atmospheric CO2 had declined from high (near 800 ppm) to lower (<450 ppm) values. In turn, 21 of 25 clades containing CAM species (but where CAM origins are less certain) also arose in the past 30 million years. In these clades, CAM is probably younger than the clade origin. We found evidence for repeated weak CAM evolution during the higher CO2 conditions before 30 million years ago, and possible strong CAM origins in the Crassulaceae during the Cretaceous period prior to atmospheric CO2 decline. Most CAM-specific clades arose in the past 15 million years, in a similar pattern observed for origins of C4 clades. Conclusions: The evidence indicates strong CAM repeatedly evolved in reduced CO2 conditions of the past 30 million years. Weaker CAM can pre-date low CO2 and, in the Crassulaceae, strong CAM may also have arisen in water-limited microsites under relatively high CO2. Experimental evidence from extant CAM species demonstrates that elevated CO2 reduces the importance of nocturnal CO2 fixation by increasing the contribution of C3 photosynthesis to daily carbon gain. Thus, the advantage of strong CAM would be reduced in high CO2, such that its evolution appears less likely and restricted to more extreme environments than possible in low CO2

Affective atmospheres of sensemaking and learning:Workplace meetings as aesthetic and anaesthetic

The aim of this article is to explore sensemaking and learning processes with and through affective atmospheres. We engage with recent research within the ‘affective turn’ across the social sciences and humanities to conceptualize the significance of quasi-autonomous affective atmospheres that emanate from, and also condition, collectives of humans and non-humans. Drawing on this atmospheric scholarship, we propose and elaborate an atmospheric analysis of sensemaking and learning processes to examine how such atmospheres aesthetically transform, and anaesthetically constrain, the potential of bodies, including our own as researchers, to affect and be affected to sense and learn. Through empirical engagement with workplace meetings in a UK housebuilding firm, our analysis contributes by explaining how such atmospheres condition sensemaking that both registers the disorganizing novelty of events and reduces such ambiguity and equivocality to enable purposeful action. While extant research has suggested how the interplay of these two dimensions of sensemaking enables learning, our analysis contributes by drawing attention to how the production, maintenance and transformation of specific atmospheres in workplace meetings imbues affects that condition these two dimensions of sensemaking. Such atmospheres thus constitute vital, yet seldom discussed, phenomena in conditioning learning within organizational life

Exploring the organizational proliferation of new technologies:an affective actor-network theory

In this paper we explore the role of affective encounters between human and non-human bodies in the proliferation of new technologies within and across work organizations. Our exploration challenges not only the long-standing rationalism within studies of technological innovation but the anthropocentrism of burgeoning studies of technology, innovation and affect. Responding to these proclivities, we propose and elaborate an affective Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as an alternative analytical approach by cross-fertilizing ANT concepts with Deleuze’s reading of the affective philosophy of Spinoza. Our approach is elaborated further with the technological innovation of zero-carbon homes in the United Kingdom. Affective ANT is proposed to explain the profound role of affects in the circulation of technologies and of technologies in the circulation of affects. This theory contributes by challenging: studies of affect, innovation and technology to examine the significance of relational human affects in the proliferation of new technologies; organizational studies to consider the interplay of human and technical affects; and Deleuzo-Spinozian organizational studies to conceptualize how affects are organized to serve managerial interests and agendas, such as technological innovation