Higher Education\u27s Greatest Current Opportunity and Responsibility

Preparing the next generation of teachers at all levels from kindergarten through college is higher education’s greatest current opportunity. Getting it right may be our greatest challenge. The face of science and technology is by definition changing constantly. Today, many feel that the most important work in science is going on increasingly at and across the interfaces of the traditional discipline. To serve our society well, education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering, and technology must change accordingly. In my view, curricula at all levels (K-16) too often continue to reflect only the narrow traditional disciplinary approaches that science has taken in the past, in part due to the existing political structures within academe. Teachers should both appreciate and have understanding of the interdisciplinarity of scientific thought and technological application. I propose that the preparation of all future elementary school teachers contain an interdisciplinary emphasis encompassing all the sciences including mathematics; and that middle and high school science and mathematics teachers’ training be largely interdisciplinary in nature as well

Aspects of the confinement mechanism in Coulomb-gauge QCD

Phenomenological consequences of the infrared singular, instantaneous part of the gluon propagator in Coulomb gauge are investigated. The corresponding quark Dyson-Schwinger equation is solved, neglecting retardation and transverse gluons and regulating the resulting infrared singularities. While the quark propagator vanishes as the infrared regulator goes to zero, the frequency integral over the quark propagator stays finite and well-defined. Solutions of the homogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equation for the pseudoscalar and vector mesons as well as for scalar and axial-vector diquarks are obtained. In the limit of a vanishing infrared regulator the diquark masses diverge, while meson properties and diquark radii remain finite and well-defined. These features are interpreted with respect to the resulting aspects of confinement for colored quark-quark correlations.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Principal component analysis-based inversion of effective temperatures for late-type stars

We show how the range of application of the principal component analysis-based inversion method of Paletou et al. (2015) can be extended to late-type stars data. Besides being an extension of its original application domain, for FGK stars, we also used synthetic spectra for our learning database. We discuss our results on effective temperatures against previous evaluations made available from Vizier and Simbad services at CDS.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

A new method for the inversion of atmospheric parameters of A/Am stars

We present an automated procedure that derives simultaneously the effective temperature $T_{eff}$, the surface gravity logg, the metallicity [Fe/H], and the equatorial projected rotational velocity vsini for "normal" A and Am stars. The procedure is based on the principal component analysis inversion method of Paletou et al. (2015a). A sample of 322 high resolution spectra of F0-B9 stars, retrieved from the Polarbase, SOPHIE, and ELODIE databases, were used to test this technique with real data. We have selected the spectral region from 4400-5000\AA\ as it contains many metallic lines and the Balmer H$\beta$ line. Using 3 datasets at resolving powers of R=42000, 65000 and 76000, about 6.6x$10^6$ synthetic spectra were calculated to build a large learning database. The Online Power Iteration algorithm was applied to these learning datasets to estimate the principal components (PC). The projection of spectra onto the few PCs offered an efficient comparison metric in a low dimensional space. The spectra of the well known A0- and A1-type stars, Vega and Sirius A, were used as control spectra in the three databases. Spectra of other well known A-type stars were also employed in order to characterize the accuracy of the inversion technique. All observational spectra were inverted and atmospheric parameters derived. After removal of a few outliers, the PCA-inversion method appears to be very efficient in determining $T_{eff}$, [Fe/H], and vsini for A/Am stars. The derived parameters agree very well with previous determinations. Using a statistical approach, deviations of around 150 K, 0.35 dex, 0.15 dex, and 2 km/s were found for $T_{eff}$, logg, [Fe/H], and vsini with respect to literature values for A-type stars. The PCA-inversion proves to be a very fast, practical, and reliable tool for estimating stellar parameters of FGK and A stars, and deriving effective temperatures of M stars.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures. Accepted in A&

Present state of knowledge of the upper atmosphere: An assessment report; processes that control ozone and other climatically important trace gases

The state of knowledge of the upper atmosphere was assessed as of January 1986. The physical, chemical, and radiative processes which control the spatial and temporal distribution of ozone in the atmosphere; the predicted magnitude of ozone perturbations and climate changes for a variety of trace gas scenarios; and the ozone and temperature data used to detect the presence or absence of a long term trend were discussed. This assessment report was written by a small group of NASA scientists, was peer reviewed, and is based primarily on the comprehensive international assessment document entitled Atmospheric Ozone 1985: Assessment of Our Understanding of the Processes Controlling Its Present Distribution and Change, to be published as the World Meteorological Organization Global Ozone Research and Monitoring Project Report No. 16

Semiquantitative Infrared Analysis of Diketones and Anhydrides in a Reaction Mixture

The ozonolysis of a hydroxymethylene ketone yields a mixture of diketone and anhydride. Treatment of hydroxymethylene camphor with ozone affords, in addition to the expected camphor quinone, a surprisingly large amount of camphoric anhydride (56%) via Baeyer-Villager reaction. Use of infrared absorption to analyze the relative amounts of camphor quinone and camphoric anhydride in a reaction mixture was studied by comparing peak heights of their carbonyl stretching bands

Dissociating task difficulty from incongruence in face-voice emotion integration

In the everyday environment, affective information is conveyed by both the face and the voice. Studies have demonstrated that a concurrently presented voice can alter the way that an emotional face expression is perceived, and vice versa, leading to emotional conflict if the information in the two modalities is mismatched. Additionally, evidence suggests that incongruence of emotional valence activates cerebral networks involved in conflict monitoring and resolution. However, it is currently unclear whether this is due to task difficulty—that incongruent stimuli are harder to categorize—or simply to the detection of mismatching information in the two modalities. The aim of the present fMRI study was to examine the neurophysiological correlates of processing incongruent emotional information, independent of task difficulty. Subjects were scanned while judging the emotion of face-voice affective stimuli. Both the face and voice were parametrically morphed between anger and happiness and then paired in all audiovisual combinations, resulting in stimuli each defined by two separate values: the degree of incongruence between the face and voice, and the degree of clarity of the combined face-voice information. Due to the specific morphing procedure utilized, we hypothesized that the clarity value, rather than incongruence value, would better reflect task difficulty. Behavioral data revealed that participants integrated face and voice affective information, and that the clarity, as opposed to incongruence value correlated with categorization difficulty. Cerebrally, incongruence was more associated with activity in the superior temporal region, which emerged after task difficulty had been accounted for. Overall, our results suggest that activation in the superior temporal region in response to incongruent information cannot be explained simply by task difficulty, and may rather be due to detection of mismatching information between the two modalities

Indicator systems - resource use in organic systems

A balanced use of resources within organic farming systems is required to maintain sustainable systems. Hence, it is essential to have tools that can assess the use of resources within the farming system and their impact on the environment. The range of tools that have been developed include those assessing local farm-scale issues together with those that assess impacts at the global scale. At the global scale assessments are usually made on the basis of a unit of product whereas at the local scale assessments can also be made on an area basis. In addition, the tools also assess a variety of issues, e.g. biodiversity, pollution potential, energy and water use. The level of detail required for the different assessment tools differs substantially; nevertheless it is essential that the indicator systems developed are based on sound knowledge, are acceptable to the farmers and can guide their future actions

Strong Upper Limits on Sterile Neutrino Warm Dark Matter

Sterile neutrinos are attractive dark matter candidates. Their parameter space of mass and mixing angle has not yet been fully tested despite intensive efforts that exploit their gravitational clustering properties and radiative decays. We use the limits on gamma-ray line emission from the Galactic Center region obtained with the SPI spectrometer on the INTEGRAL satellite to set new constraints, which improve on the earlier bounds on mixing by more than two orders of magnitude, and thus strongly restrict a wide and interesting range of models.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; minor revisions, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Cardiac Depression Scale: Mokken scaling in heart failure patients

Background: There is a high prevalence of depression in patients with heart failure (HF) that is associated with worsening prognosis. The value of using a reliable and valid instrument to measure depression in this population is therefore essential. We validated the Cardiac Depression Scale (CDS) in heart failure patients using a model of ordinal unidimensional measurement known as Mokken scaling. Findings: We administered in face-to-face interviews the CDS to 603 patients with HF. Data were analysed using Mokken scale analysis. Items of the CDS formed a statistically significant unidimensional Mokken scale of low strength (H<0.40) and high reliability (Rho>0.8). Conclusions: The CDS has a hierarchy of items which can be interpreted in terms of the increasingly serious effects of depression occurring as a result of HF. Identifying an appropriate instrument to measure depression in patients with HF allows for early identification and better medical management. Keywords: Cardiac Depression Scale, Heart failure, Depression, Mokken scalin