Phase Transitions and Conductivties of Floquet Fluids

We investigate the phase structure and conductivity of a relativistic fluid in a circulating electric field with a transverse magnetic field. This system exhibits behavior similar to other driven systems such as strongly coupled driven CFTs [Rangamani2015] or a simple anharmonic oscillator. We identify distinct regions of fluid behavior as a function of driving frequency, and argue that a "phase" transition will occur. Such a transition could be measurable in graphene, and may be characterized by sudden discontinuous increase in the Hall conductivity. The presence of the discontinuity depends on how the boundary is approached as the frequency or amplitude is dialed. In the region where two solution exists the measured conductivity will depend on how the system is prepared.Comment: v2: corrected typos and updated reference

Leading From the Middle: Mid-Level District Staff and Instructional Improvement

This three-year research project demonstrates that mid-level central office staff can make or break critical reform initiatives. It also provides strong recommendations for a new vision of leadership in which central office and school staff become equal partners

Thermal Corrections to R\'enyi entropies for Free Fermions

We calculate thermal corrections to R\'{e}nyi entropies for free massless fermions on a sphere. More specifically, we take a free fermion on $\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ and calculate the leading thermal correction to the R\'{e}nyi entropies for a cap like region with opening angle $2\theta$. By expanding the density matrix in a Boltzmann sum, the problem of finding the R\'{e}nyi entropies can be mapped to the problem of calculating a two point function on an $n$ sheeted cover of the sphere. We follow previous work for conformal field theories to map the problem on the sphere to a conical region in Euclidean space. By using the method of images, we calculate the two point function and recover the R\'{e}nyi entropies.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Tracing Through Scalar Entanglement

As a toy model of a gapped system, we investigate the entanglement entropy of a massive scalar field in 1+1 dimensions at nonzero temperature. In a small mass m and temperature T limit, we put upper and lower bounds on the two largest eigenvalues of the covariance matrix used to compute the entanglement entropy. We argue that the entanglement entropy has exp(-m/T) scaling in the limit m >> T. We comment on the relation between our work and the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal for computing the entanglement entropy holographically.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures; v2 ref added, typos fixed; v3 refs added, minor clarifications, version to appear in PR

Integrating gender into index-based agricultural insurance: a focus on South Africa

Index insurance is an agricultural risk management tool that can provide a safety net for smallholder farmers experiencing climate risk. While uptake and scale-out of index insurance may be slow among smallholders, we can learn from experiences that demonstrate where crop insurance can protect smallholders’ livelihoods from climate risk. Integrating gender into climate risk management is necessary to ensure that the benefits of index insurance are experienced by both men and women. A dedicated intention to integrate gender may be required. Taking South Africa as a case study, the potential for gender-sensitive index insurance scale-out among smallholders is investigated

An insight into the impact of arable farming on Irish biodiversity: A scarcity of studies hinders a rigorous assessment

peer-reviewedTo help understand and counteract future agronomic challenges to farmland biodiversity, it is essential to know how present farming practices have affected biodiversity on Irish farms. We present an overview of existing research data and conclusions, describing the impact of crop cultivation on biodiversity on Irish arable farms. An extensive literature review clearly indicates that peer-reviewed publications on research conducted in Ireland on this topic are quite scarce: just 21 papers investigating the effect of conventional crop cultivation on Irish biodiversity have been published within the past 30 years. Principally, these studies have concluded that conventional crop cultivation has had an adverse impact on biodiversity on Irish farms, with 15 of the 21 studies demonstrating negative trends for the taxa investigated. Compared to other EU states, the relative dearth of baseline data and absence of monitoring programmes designed to assess the specific impacts of crop cultivation on Irish biodiversity highlight the need to develop long-term research studies. With many new challenges facing Irish agriculture, a research programme must be initiated to measure current levels of biodiversity on arable land and to assess the main farming ‘pressures’ causing significant biodiversity loss or gains in these systems.This work was funded under the EPA ERTDI Research Programme (Grant 2006-B-MS-46)

Modal coupling in traveling-wave resonators

High-Q traveling-wave-resonators can enter a regime in which even minute scattering amplitudes associated with either bulk or surface imperfections can drive the system into the so-called strong modal coupling regime. Resonators that enter this regime have their coupling properties radically altered and can mimic a narrowband reflector. We experimentally confirm recently predicted deviations from criticality in such strongly coupled systems. Observations of resonators that had Q>10^8 and modal coupling parameters as large as 30 were shown to reflect more than 94% of an incoming optical signal within a narrow bandwidth of 40 MHz

The Failure of Whiteness in Art Education: A Personal Narrative Informed by Critical Race Theory

This article explores failure from the perspective of a white art educator interested in social justice and educational equity. Interconnected notions of failure are explored, including: the author’s learning from personal failure as a process of professional growth over the course of her career; the specter of “school failure” and its impact on K-12 students’ educational opportunities and experiences; entrenched, systemic inequities in public schools and their failure to serve marginalized students and communities; and the potential complicity of the author’s individual professional failures – if left unaddressed – in perpetuating racialized inequities in art education. Whiteness, or white power, knowledge, and privilege, is implicit in all these failures, both in the ways it shapes the uneven landscape of public education and in the author’s own process of professional growth as an art educator. The article is structured as a personal narrative that highlights salient professional failures over three phases of the author’s career, including: her early years as an elementary art teacher in a low-income African American community in Florida; her work as a doctoral student, which was informed by critical race theory; and her evolving practice as a university art educator working with racially diverse pre-service teachers

Diatom Frustules as a Mechanical Defense Against Predation by Heterotrophic Dinoflagellates

Diatoms contribute up to 40% of the total primary production in the ocean and heavily influence the cycling of carbon and silica. Much of their success results from their silica frustule, which may provide a mechanical defense against grazers. In this study, I sought to determine the possible defense mechanism of the diatom’s frustule in the presence of one of their dominant grazers, heterotrophic dinoflagellates. I grew two species of diatoms, Thalassiosira rotula and Coscinodiscus radiatus, in semicontinuous culture with 80 μM or 20 μM silicic acid. Based on a 2-fold higher BSi cell-1, BSi:C, and BSi:N, this culture method successfully resulted in diatoms of both species with thick and thin frustules. I performed three predation experiments to determine if frustule thickness would affect predator ingestion, digestion or growth rate. I first fed thick and thin T. rotula to Gyrodinium spirale and measured ingestion and growth rate over 48 hr. I found no difference in ingestion rate between the thick and thin treatments, however G. spirale grew significantly slower on the thick-frustuled diatoms. I then fed thick and thin C. radiatus to Noctiluca scintillans, measuring ingestion rate in one experiment and digestion rate in a second. I found no difference in predator ingestion rate at the end of the 4 hr experiment. However, I did observe a significantly lower predator digestion rate when feeding on the thick-frustuled diatoms. The results strongly suggest that the frustule is providing a defense to the diatoms by slowing the predator’s digestion rate, which then decreases their population growth rate. This is the first reported evidence in favor of diatom frustules as a means of defense against microzooplankton. As such, this proposed mechanism has important implications for diatom bloom dynamics as well as global carbon and silica cycling