Expectations, outcomes, and satisfactions.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityAmong the many interesting research studies reported in The American Soldier one in particular presented the I. & E. Division of the U.S. Army with seemingly inexplicable findings. An assumption which most personnel workers blithely make appeared to be proven untenable. It was found that Air Force personnel were much more critical of promotion opportunities than were men in other branches of the Army, despite the fact that objectively the promotion opportunities were far superior in the AAF. This inverse relationship between promotion opportunities and satisfaction with the promotion system is contrary to common sense knowledge, and current practices of personnel workers. The present research, therefore, has attempted to experimentally verily the I. & E. findings and tested several hypotheses from reference group theory. [TRUNCATED

Characterization of optical systems for the ALPS II experiment

ALPS II is a light shining through a wall style experiment that will use the principle of resonant enhancement to boost the conversion and reconversion probabilities of photons to relativistic WISPs. This will require the use of long baseline low-loss optical cavities. Very high power build up factors in the cavities must be achieved in order to reach the design sensitivity of ALPS II. This necessitates a number of different sophisticated optical and control systems to maintain the resonance and ensure maximal coupling between the laser and the cavity. In this paper we report on the results of the characterization of these optical systems with a 20 m cavity and discuss the results in the context of ALPS II

The heterodyne sensing system for the ALPS II search for sub-eV weakly interacting particles

ALPS II, the Any Light Particle Search, is a second-generation Light Shining through a Wall experiment that hunts for axion-like particles. The experiment is currently transitioning from the design and construction phase to the commissioning phase, with science runs expected to start in 2021. ALPS II plans to use two different sensing schemes to confirm the potential detection of axion-like particles or to verify an upper limit on their coupling strength to two photons of $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\leq2\times10^{-11}\text{GeV}^{-1}$. This paper discusses a heterodyne sensing scheme (HET) which will be the first scheme deployed to detect the regenerated light. It presents critical details of the optical layout, the length and alignment sensing scheme, design features to minimize spurious signals from stray light, as well as several control and veto channels specific to HET which are needed to commission and operate the instrument and to calibrate the detector sensitivity.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Citizen Science 2.0 : Data Management Principles to Harness the Power of the Crowd

Citizen science refers to voluntary participation by the general public in scientific endeavors. Although citizen science has a long tradition, the rise of online communities and user-generated web content has the potential to greatly expand its scope and contributions. Citizens spread across a large area will collect more information than an individual researcher can. Because citizen scientists tend to make observations about areas they know well, data are likely to be very detailed. Although the potential for engaging citizen scientists is extensive, there are challenges as well. In this paper we consider one such challenge – creating an environment in which non-experts in a scientific domain can provide appropriate and accurate data regarding their observations. We describe the problem in the context of a research project that includes the development of a website to collect citizen-generated data on the distribution of plants and animals in a geographic region. We propose an approach that can improve the quantity and quality of data collected in such projects by organizing data using instance-based data structures. Potential implications of this approach are discussed and plans for future research to validate the design are described