Notes from Mrs. Hadgu\u27s Class: Conceptualizing Music Education Curriculum for a Changing World

How can we conceptualize curriculum and school knowledge to better address important questions of social change, contingency of knowledge, life in mediated worlds, and inequalities? To answer this question I wrote fictional stories from students about their favorite moments from their 8th grade music class. Each account deals with a specific activity or instance in which the teacher included social change and/or student centered knowledge in the curriculum. The explanation at the end of the accounts details the reasons for creating each activity and the relation of the stories to texts utilized in class

Bond Order via Light-Induced Synthetic Many-body Interactions of Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices

We show how bond order emerges due to light mediated synthetic interactions in ultracold atoms in optical lattices in an optical cavity. This is a consequence of the competition between both short- and long-range interactions designed by choosing the optical geometry. Light induces effective many-body interactions that modify the landscape of quantum phases supported by the typical Bose-Hubbard model. Using exact diagonalization of small system sizes in one dimension, we present the many-body quantum phases the system can support via the interplay between the density and bond (or matter-wave coherence) interactions. We find numerical evidence to support that dimer phases due to bond order are analogous to valence bond states. Different possibilities of light-induced atomic interactions are considered that go beyond the typical atomic system with dipolar and other intrinsic interactions. This will broaden the Hamiltonian toolbox available for quantum simulation of condensed matter physics via atomic systems.Comment: Accepted in New Journal of Physic

Non-Hermitian Dynamics in the Quantum Zeno Limit

Measurement is one of the most counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics. Frequent measurements of a quantum system lead to quantum Zeno dynamics where time evolution becomes confined to a subspace defined by the projections. However, weak measurement performed at a finite rate is also capable of locking the system into such a Zeno subspace in an unconventional way: by Raman-like transitions via virtual intermediate states outside this subspace, which are not forbidden. Here, we extend this concept into the realm of non-Hermitian dynamics by showing that the stochastic competition between measurement and a system's own dynamics can be described by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. We obtain an analytic solution for ultracold bosons in a lattice and show that a dark state of the tunnelling operator is a steady state in which the observable's fluctuations are zero and tunnelling is suppressed by destructive matter-wave interference. This opens a new venue of investigation beyond the canonical quantum Zeno dynamics and leads to a new paradigm of competition between global measurement backaction and short-range atomic dynamics.Comment: Accepted in Phys. Rev.

Intravenous ketamine for subacute treatment of refractory chronic migraine: a case series.

BACKGROUND: Refractory migraine is a challenging condition with great impact on health related quality of life. Intravenous (IV) ketamine has been previously used to treat various refractory pain conditions. We present a series of patients with refractory migraine treated with intravenous ketamine in the hospital setting. METHODS: Based on retrospective chart review, we identified six patients with refractory migraine admitted from 2010 through 2014 for treatment with intravenous ketamine. Ketamine was administered using a standard protocol starting with a dose of 0.1 mg/kg/hr and increased by 0.1 mg/kg/hr every 3 to 4 h as tolerated until the target pain score of 3/10 was achieved and maintained for at least 8 h. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) scores at time of hospital admission were obtained as well as average baseline VAS scores prior to ketamine infusion. A phone interview was conducted for follow-up of migraine response in the 3 to 6 months following ketamine infusion. RESULTS: The study sample had a median age of 36.5 years (range 29-54) and 83% were women. Pre-treatment pain scores ranged from 9 to 10. All patients achieved a target pain level of 3 or less for 8 h; the average ketamine infusion rate at target was 0.34 mg/kg/hour (range 0.12-0.42 mg/kg/hr). One patient reported a transient out-of-body hallucination following an increase in the infusion rate, which resolved after decreasing the rate. There were no other significant side effects. CONCLUSION: IV ketamine was safely administered in the hospital setting to patients with refractory chronic migraine. Treatment was associated with short term improvement in pain severity in 6 of 6 patients with refractory chronic migraine. Prospective placebo-controlled trials are needed to assess short term and long-term efficacy of IV ketamine in refractory chronic migraine