From Bad to Worse: Senior Economic Insecurity on the Rise

Based on the Senior Financial Stability Index, examines the increase in the number of economically insecure seniors by race/ethnicity, gender, and marital status between 2004 and 2008; contributing factors; and options for reversing the trend

Decoherence Models for Discrete-Time Quantum Walks and their Application to Neutral Atom Experiments

We discuss decoherence in discrete-time quantum walks in terms of a phenomenological model that distinguishes spin and spatial decoherence. We identify the dominating mechanisms that affect quantum walk experiments realized with neutral atoms walking in an optical lattice. From the measured spatial distributions, we determine with good precision the amount of decoherence per step, which provides a quantitative indication of the quality of our quantum walks. In particular, we find that spin decoherence is the main mechanism responsible for the loss of coherence in our experiment. We also find that the sole observation of ballistic instead of diffusive expansion in position space is not a good indicator for the range of coherent delocalization. We provide further physical insight by distinguishing the effects of short and long time spin dephasing mechanisms. We introduce the concept of coherence length in the discrete-time quantum walk, which quantifies the range of spatial coherences. Unexpectedly, we find that quasi-stationary dephasing does not modify the local properties of the quantum walk, but instead affects spatial coherences. For a visual representation of decoherence phenomena in phase space, we have developed a formalism based on a discrete analogue of the Wigner function. We show that the effects of spin and spatial decoherence differ dramatically in momentum space.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, replaced fig. 10 in the new versio

Economic (In)Security: The Experience of the African-American and Latino Middle Classes

As the next installment in the By a Thread series, Economic (In)Security uses the Middle Class Security Index to provide the first comprehensive portrait of the level of financial security enjoyed by African-American and Latino middle-class families. The findings show that, in the wake of fading economic opportunity, these two rapidly growing groups face mounting obstacles in becoming part of, and remaining securely in, America's middle class

From Middle to Shaky Ground: The Economic Decline of America's Middle Class

A middle-class standard of living requires that families have adequate financial security to meet current obligations, invest in the future, and access opportunities. The most recent findings from the Middle Class Security Index show that between 2000 and 2006--even before the most recent economic downturn--the economic well-being of middle-class families slipped noticeably.Between 2000 and 2006 an estimated 4 million middle-class families lost their financial security, bringing the total number of middle-income families on shaky ground to 23 million.These worrisome changes in the overall financial health of the middle class were driven by a decline in assets, rising housing costs, and a growing lack of health insurance

Moving Here Saved My Life: The Experience of Formerly Chronically Homeless Women and Men in Quincy\u27s Housing First Projects

For the past ten years, Father Bill’s Place (FBP) in Quincy, Massachusetts, has moved steadily towards providing permanent housing with supportive services rather than emergency shelter as a solution to ending homelessness. According to John Yazwinski, executive director of FBP, the vision for the future is to be able to independently house every homeless person entering FBP within a short period of time instead of “housing” people in the shelter for prolonged periods. As such, sheltering homeless people in mass emergency shelters should be a picture of the past. Yazwinski’s Housing First Model builds upon an approach of housing “chronically” homeless street dwellers with psychiatric disabilities. This “Housing First” model is a non-linear housing and service program that attempts to move the most disabled homeless people directly to housing, prior to treatment, using housing as the transforming element to support participation in treatment. This approach does not require sobriety or participation in long-term treatment programs like the traditional continuum of care approach. A comparison of this low demand housing approach with the traditional treatment model revealed that 88 percent of the Housing First participants remained in housing after a five year period as compared to 47 percent of those in the traditional treatment/housing model (Tsemberis & Eisenberg, 2000). Compared to the traditional homeless Continuum of Care (CoC) approach to housing, this approach also reduced public costs at a greater rate (Gulcur, Stefancic, Shinn, Tsemberis, & Fischer, 2003). In May, 2005, ten mostly chronically homeless women moved from the shelter into the first Housing First project operated by FBP, the Claremont Street Residence. Claremont Street provides 12 single room occupancy units with shared kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities. Claremont Street residents receive supportive services to help them live independently, including onsite staff that connect them with resources, services, and employment opportunities. In November of the same year, a group of eight men moved into the Winter Street Residence. The Winter Street Residence provides single room occupancy housing for up to 19 men (although not all are former guests of Father Bill’s Place). By April, 2006, a total of 12 formerly homeless men had moved to Winter Street. This report focuses on these formerly homeless women and men

Ideal negative measurements in quantum walks disprove theories based on classical trajectories

We report on a stringent test of the non-classicality of the motion of a massive quantum particle, which propagates on a discrete lattice. Measuring temporal correlations of the position of single atoms performing a quantum walk, we observe a $6\sigma$ violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality. Our results rigorously excludes (i.e. falsifies) any explanation of quantum transport based on classical, well-defined trajectories. We use so-called ideal negative measurements -- an essential requisite for any genuine Leggett-Garg test -- to acquire information about the atom's position, yet avoiding any direct interaction with it. The interaction-free measurement is based on a novel atom transport system, which allows us to directly probe the absence rather than the presence of atoms at a chosen lattice site. Beyond the fundamental aspect of this test, we demonstrate the application of the Leggett-Garg correlation function as a witness of quantum superposition. We here employ the witness to discriminate different types of walks spanning from merely classical to wholly quantum dynamics.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

The First Two Years of Housing First in Quincy, Massachusetts: This Place Gives Me Peace, Happiness, and Hope

Housing First is a housing and support services program that attempts to move the most disabled homeless people directly to housing prior to treatment, using housing as the transforming element to support participation in treatment. This approach does not require sobriety or participation in long-term treatment programs unlike the traditional continuum of care approach. Promising results have been demonstrated in a number of projects using this model (Tsemberis & Eisenberg, 2000). For the past ten years, Father Bill’s Place (FBP), a homeless shelter and housing program in Quincy, Massachusetts, has moved steadily towards providing permanent housing with supportive services, rather than emergency shelter, as the preferred solution to ending homelessness. In May, 2005, FBP opened the doors to its first Housing First project providing 12 units to chronically homeless women. By May of 2007, FBP had a created a total of 52 Housing First units. This evaluation report draws on a range of data sources, including qualitative in-person interviews and focus groups with Housing First residents and their case managers, as well as quantitative information on each Housing First resident. The sections to follow describe the characteristics of Housing First resident, document their experience in moving from long-term shelter life to their Housing First residences, and highlight the impact of Housing First on its residents as well as the larger community

Ultra-sensitive surface absorption spectroscopy using sub-wavelength diameter optical fibers

The guided modes of sub-wavelength diameter air-clad optical fibers exhibit a pronounced evanescent field. The absorption of particles on the fiber surface is therefore readily detected via the fiber transmission. We show that the resulting absorption for a given surface coverage can be orders of magnitude higher than for conventional surface spectroscopy. As a demonstration, we present measurements on sub-monolayers of 3,4,9,10-perylene-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) molecules at ambient conditions, revealing the agglomeration dynamics on a second to minutes timescale.Comment: 4 pages, Fig.1a corrected y-axis, p.2 minor text changes to facilitate the understanding of eq. 4 and

Quantum Fluctuations of a Single Trapped Atom: Transient Rabi Oscillations and Magnetic Bistability

Isolation of a single atomic particle and monitoring its resonance fluorescence is a powerful tool for studies of quantum effects in radiation-matter interaction. Here we present observations of quantum dynamics of an isolated neutral atom stored in a magneto-optical trap. By means of photon correlations in the atom's resonance fluorescence we demonstrate the well-known phenomenon of photon antibunching which corresponds to transient Rabi oscillations in the atom. Through polarization-sensitive photon correlations we show a novel example of resolved quantum fluctuations: spontaneous magnetic orientation of an atom. These effects can only be observed with a single atom.Comment: LaTeX 2e, 14 pages, 7 Postscript figure