Towards perspectives for research, policy and practice:rethinking educational inequality and segregation in Dutch primary education

Recent discussions in science, politics and society offer starting points for rethinking the approach to the wicked problem of educational inequality. In our paper, we want to do this by reviewing research, policy and practice in primary education in the Netherlands. Our reflections are first focused on the state of the art in research and the complex educational system from a theoretical perspective (section 2); next we focus on examples of how educational inequality and segregation in policy and practice are addressed in the Netherlands (section 3). Finally, we discuss the new methodological approaches that should be complemented with a new philosophical perspective on segregation and inequality in public policy (section 4). We develop new perspectives using the Netherlands as a specific case study, expecting our perspectives have a more general meaning and might also be useful in the fight against educational inequality and segregation elsewhere

Atom-dimer scattering and long-lived trimers in fermionic mixtures

We consider a heteronuclear fermionic mixture on the molecular side of an interspecies Feshbach resonance and discuss atom-dimer scattering properties in uniform space and in the presence of an external confining potential, restricting the system to a quasi-2D geometry. We find that there is a peculiar atom-dimer p-wave resonance which can be tuned by changing the frequency of the confinement. Our results have implications for the ongoing experiments on Lithium-Potassium mixtures, where this mechanism allows for switching the p-wave interaction between a K atom and Li-K dimer from attractive to repulsive, and forming a weakly bound trimer with unit angular momentum. We show that such trimers are long-lived and the atom-dimer resonance does not enhance inelastic relaxation in the mixture, making it an outstanding candidate for studies of p-wave resonance effects in a many-body system.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, published versio

Laser cooling of new atomic and molecular species with ultrafast pulses

We propose a new laser cooling method for atomic species whose level structure makes traditional laser cooling difficult. For instance, laser cooling of hydrogen requires single-frequency vacuum-ultraviolet light, while multielectron atoms need single-frequency light at many widely separated frequencies. These restrictions can be eased by laser cooling on two-photon transitions with ultrafast pulse trains. Laser cooling of hydrogen, antihydrogen, and many other species appears feasible, and extension of the technique to molecules may be possible.Comment: revision of quant-ph/0306099, submitted to PR

Artesunate reduces but does not prevent posttreatment transmission of Plasmodium falciparum to Anopheles gambiae.

Combination therapy that includes artemisinin derivatives cures most falciparum malaria infections. Lowering transmission by reducing gametocyte infectivity would be an additional benefit. To examine the effect of such therapy on transmission, Gambian children with Plasmodium falciparum malaria were treated with standard regimens of chloroquine or pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine alone or in combination with 1 or 3 doses of artesunate. The infectivity to mosquitoes of gametocytes in peripheral blood was determined 4 or 7 days after treatment. Infection of mosquitoes was observed in all treatment groups and was positively associated with gametocyte density. The probability of transmission was lowest in those who received pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine and 3 doses of artesunate, and it was 8-fold higher in the group that received pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine alone. Artesunate reduced posttreatment infectivity dramatically but did not abolish it completely. The study raises questions about any policy to use pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine alone as the first-line treatment for malaria

Asymptotic Bound-state Model for Feshbach Resonances

We present an Asymptotic Bound-state Model which can be used to accurately describe all Feshbach resonance positions and widths in a two-body system. With this model we determine the coupled bound states of a particular two-body system. The model is based on analytic properties of the two-body Hamiltonian, and on asymptotic properties of uncoupled bound states in the interaction potentials. In its most simple version, the only necessary parameters are the least bound state energies and actual potentials are not used. The complexity of the model can be stepwise increased by introducing threshold effects, multiple vibrational levels and additional potential parameters. The model is extensively tested on the 6Li-40K system and additional calculations on the 40K-87Rb system are presented.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Comparative Nationalism: Imperial Legacies and the Strength of Nationalism: The Case of China and India since the 1990s

Since the 1990s, there have been strong displays of nationalism in China, while in India the once dominant ‘secular’ nationalism has been challenged by a fragmentation of national identity along ethno--‐religious lines. This thesis seeks to explain why Chinese nationalism, since the 1990s, appears to be stronger and indeed more prevalent than nationalism in India. The phenomenon of nationalism in India and China has been extensively researched, yet there remains a deficiency in comparative research. Thereby, this thesis takes a historical Comparative approach through which five explanatory hypotheses are evaluated; these are entitled: direct rule, types of foreign rule, regime type, foreign threat, and diversity. The findings of this thesis suggest that China’s nationalism remains more prevalent since the 1990s, due to its experience of informal imperialism, a strong centralized Chinese state, and higher levels of militarized inter--‐state disputes. Simply, it is illustrated that because the experience of informal imperialism has centrally defined Chinese nationalism, it reacts Intensely to foreign threats that are equated to imperial acts, while the unified nature of nationalism is reinforced by a strong centralized state

Broad Feshbach resonance in the 6Li-40K mixture

We study the widths of interspecies Feshbach resonances in a mixture of the fermionic quantum gases 6Li and 40K. We develop a model to calculate the width and position of all available Feshbach resonances for a system. Using the model we select the optimal resonance to study the 6Li/40K mixture. Experimentally, we obtain the asymmetric Fano lineshape of the interspecies elastic cross section by measuring the distillation rate of 6Li atoms from a potassium-rich 6Li/40K mixture as a function of magnetic field. This provides us with the first experimental determination of the width of a resonance in this mixture, Delta B=1.5(5) G. Our results offer good perspectives for the observation of universal crossover physics using this mass-imbalanced fermionic mixture.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure