Students’ Reasoning About One-Object Stochastic Phenomena in an ICT-Environment

This paper focuses on the different ways in which students in lower secondary school (14–16 year olds) experience compound random events, presented to them in the form of combined junctions. A carefully designed ICT environment was developed enabling the students to interact with different representations of such structures. Data for the analysis was gathered from two interview sessions. The analysis of the interaction is based on constructivist principles on learning; i.e. we adopted a student-oriented perspective, taking into consideration the different ways students try to make sense of chance encounters. Our results show how some students give priority to geometrical and physical concerns, and we discuss how seeking causal explanations of random phenomena may have encouraged this. With respect to numerically oriented models a division strategy appears to stand out as the preferred one.     

Gauge Modules for the Lie Algebras of Vector Fields on Affine Varieties

Algebras and Representation Theory - For a smooth irreducible affine algebraic variety we study a class of gauge modules admitting compatible actions of both the algebra $mathcal {A}$ of functions...     

Temperature-dependent hydrogen-bond geometry in liquid water

We have determined the hydrogen-bond geometry in liquid water from 0 to 80 degrees C by combining measurements of the proton magnetic shielding tensor with ab initio density functional calculations. The resulting moments of the distributions of hydrogen-bond length and angle are direct measures of thermal disorder in the hydrogen-bond network. These moments, and the distribution functions that can be reconstructed from them, impose quantitative constraints on structural models of liquid water.     

The REX-ISOLDE project

The Radioactive Beam Experiment REX-ISOLDE [1–3] is a pilot experiment at ISOLDE (CERN) testing the new concept of post acceleration of radioactive ion beams by using charge breeding of the ions in a high charge state ion source and the efficient acceleration of the highly charged ions in a short LINAC using modern ion accelerator structures. In order to prepare the ions for the experiments singly charged radioactive ions from the on-line mass separator ISOLDE will be cooled and bunched in a Penning trap, charge bred in an electron beam ion source (EBIS) and finally accelerated in the LINAC. The LINAC consists of a radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator, which accelerates the ions up to 0.3 MeV/u, an interdigital H-type (IH) structure with a final energy between 1.1 and 1.2 MeV/u and three seven gap resonators, which allow the variation of the final energy. With an energy of the radioactive beams between 0.8 MeV/u and 2.2 MeV/u a wide range of experiments in the field of nuclear spectroscopy, astrophysics and solid state physics will be addressed by REX-ISOLDE. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Single-mode plane-polarized ytterbium-doped large-core fiber laser with 633-W continuous-wave output power

We demonstrate a cladding-pumped single-mode plane-polarized ytterbium-doped fiber laser generating 633 W of continuous-wave output power at 1.1 microm with 67% slope efficiency and a polarization extinction ratio better than 16 dB. The laser is end pumped through both fiber ends and shows no evidence of roll-over, even at the highest output power, which is limited only by the available pump power.     

"Safe" Coulomb excitation of 30Mg

We report on the first radioactive beam experiment performed at the recently commissioned REX-ISOLDE facility at CERN in conjunction with the highly efficient gamma spectrometer MINIBALL. Using 30Mg ions accelerated to an energy of 2.25 MeV/u together with a thin (nat)Ni target, Coulomb excitation of the first excited 2+ states of the projectile and target nuclei well below the Coulomb barrier was observed. From the measured relative deexcitation gamma-ray yields the B(E2;0(+)gs-->2(+)1) value of 30Mg was determined to be 241(31)e2 fm4. Our result is lower than values obtained at projectile fragmentation facilities using the intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation method, and confirms the theoretical conjecture that the neutron-rich magnesium isotope 30Mg resides outside the "island of inversion."     

Hyperfine structure in the 6p5d configuration and isotope shifts in transitions between the 6s5d and the 6p5d configurations in Ba I

High-resolution laser fluorescence spectroscopy, using a single-mode dye laser acting on a collimated atomic beam, has been performed to determine the hyperfine-structure (hfs) constants in six states of the 6p 5d configuration of¹³⁵Ba and¹³⁷Ba. Isotope shifts (IS) for eleven transitions between the 6s 5d and the 6p 5d configurations have also been measured. From an analysis of the energy levels, intermediate angular wavefunctions have been deduced. The wavefunctions are used to evaluate experimental hyperfine parameters from the experimental hfs constants. The parameters are, for the magnetic-dipole interaction compared with theoretical values, and for the electricquadrupole interaction used to estimate the nuclear quadrupole moments for the odd isotopes. The IS in the measured transitions are analysed using a King-plot, with the first resonance line in Ba II as the reference. Specific mass and field shifts are evaluated for the measured transitions. The field shifts have been used to determine the change in mean-square radius between the natural abundant Ba-isotopes.     

Amplification reduction in fiber amplifiers due to up-conversion at Er3 concentrations below 1000 ppm

The parasitic effect of two-ion up-conversion in Er³⁺ -doped fibers have been investigated. Maximum amplification for eight different Er³⁺ concentrations have been measured and it is shown that up-conversion drastically reduces amplification for Er³⁺ concentrations in the range of 140-1680 ppm by weight. We have also measured an up-conversion induced luminescence at 980 nm. By comparison of experimental and simulated characteristics, we obtain an up-conversion coefficient of 10^-22 m³/s.     

2,3,5,6-Tetramethylmorpholine: II—1H n.m.r. structural studies of the isomers of 2,3,5,6-tetramethylmorpholine

The structures of the six isomers of 2,3,5,6-tetramethyl-morpholine have been determined by means of proton nuclear magnetic resonance studies at 100 MHz. The spectra have been analysed in terms of spin–spin coupling constants and population distributions of the possible conformers at low temperatures. Also included in this paper are results from n.m.r. studies on the six 4-benzyl-2,3,5,6-tetramethylmorpholine derivatives, which give information about the stereochemistry of the methyl groups α to the amine group.