The Development and Evaluation of a Training Program for Residential Child Care Worker Consultants

In 1975 and 1976, a training program for consultants to residential child care workers was developed at Boys Town, Nebraska. A study was conducted to analyze the training program\u27s effectiveness in teaching Boys Town consultants the skills needed to initiate relationships, to conduct direct observation visits, and to give feedback and advice to child care workers. Two groups of consultants received one week of training in July and November, 1976, and a third group did not receive training. Pre and post training data were collected in the form of appropriate and inappropriate consulting behaviors engaged in during videotaped behavior simulations. The data were analyzed using a multiple baseline design across the three groups of subjects. Increases in appropriate behavior and decreases in inappropriate behavior were shown following training in each consultant skill area. Scores for the untrained group remained low and showed little change across baseline assessments. These results suggest that the training program is an effective way to teach skills to consultants in a short period of time

Preparation of an Exciton Condensate of Photons on a 53-Qubit Quantum Computer

Quantum computation promises an exponential speedup of certain classes of classical calculations through the preparation and manipulation of entangled quantum states. So far most molecular simulations on quantum computers, however, have been limited to small numbers of particles. Here we prepare a highly entangled state on a 53-qubit IBM quantum computer, representing 53 particles, which reveals the formation of an exciton condensate of photon particles and holes. While elusive for more than 50 years, such condensates were recently achieved for electron-hole pairs in graphene bilayers and metal chalcogenides. Our result with a photon condensate has the potential to further the exploration of this new form of condensate that may play a significant role in realizing efficient room-temperature energy transport

Increasing Warm-Season Native Grass Biomass Using Fire, Herbicide, and Nitrogen Applications

The North American Great Plains tallgrass prairie was once a system of native cool and warm season grasses, which have been degraded by non-native invasive plants. Native grass restoration is highly desirable to improve ecosystem functions and productivity. In this two-year study, the impact of fire, herbicide, and nitrogen on productivity and the presence of invasive species [primarily the cool season grass, smooth brome (Bromus inermis Leyss.)] and native warm season native grass species [big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), sideoats and blue grama (Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr.), and B. gracilis (Willd. Ex Kunth) Lag. ex Griffiths] were investigated. Spring fire or a glyphosate application increased warm season grass biomass and decreased cool season grass biomass at peak warm season growth (August) during the treatment year. A second consecutive year of fire or herbicide further increased warm season grass biomass. If left untreated in the second year, cool season grasses tended to increase when sampled in August. Long-term management implementation is needed to suppress the tenacious cool season species and encourage the reestablishment of warm season grass populations

Qubit Condensation for Assessing Efficacy of Molecular Simulation on Quantum Computers

Quantum computers may demonstrate significant advantages over classical devices, as they are able to exploit a purely quantum-mechanical phenomenon known as entanglement in which a single quantum state simultaneously populates two-or-more classical configurations. However, due to environmental noise and device errors, elaborate quantum entanglement can be difficult to prepare on modern quantum computers. In this paper, we introduce a metric based on the condensation of qubits to assess the ability of a quantum device to simulate many-electron systems. Qubit condensation occurs when the qubits on a quantum computer condense into a single, highly correlated particle-hole state. While conventional metrics like gate errors and quantum volume do not directly target entanglement, the qubit-condensation metric measures the quantum computer's ability to generate an entangled state that achieves nonclassical long-range order across the device. To demonstrate, we prepare qubit condensations on various quantum devices and probe the degree to which qubit condensation is realized via postmeasurement analysis. We show that the predicted ranking of the quantum devices is consistent with the errors obtained from molecular simulations of H2 using a contracted quantum eigensolver

Bioethanol Production from Brewers Spent Grains Using a Fungal Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) Approach.

Production of bioethanol from brewers spent grains (BSG) using consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) is reported. Each CBP system consists of a primary filamentous fungal species, which secretes the enzymes required to deconstruct biomass, paired with a secondary yeast species to ferment liberated sugars to ethanol. Interestingly, although several pairings of fungi were investigated, the sake fermentation system (A. oryzae and S. cerevisiae NCYC479) was found to yield the highest concentrations of ethanol (37 g/L of ethanol within 10 days). On this basis, 1 t of BSG (dry weight) would yield 94 kg of ethanol using 36 hL of water in the process. QRT-PCR analysis of selected carbohydrate degrading (CAZy) genes expressed by A. oryzae in the BSG sake system showed that hemicellulose was deconstructed first, followed by cellulose. One drawback of the CBP approach is lower ethanol productivity rates; however, it requires low energy and water inputs, and hence is worthy of further investigation and optimisation