Looking Back at the Sputnik Era and Its Impact on Science Education

In celebration of the recent golden anniversary of the launching of the Soviet satellite, Sputnik I, this paper takes an historical perspectives approach to examine the social, political, and educational climate in the United States leading up to the launch. Ramifications to science education are discussed, and implications are made for the relevance of this event to science education today.     

Bayesian subset selection for threshold autoregressive moving-average models

Optimal subset selection among a general family of threshold autoregressive moving-average (TARMA) models is considered. The usual complexity of model/order selection is increased by capturing the uncertainty of unknown threshold levels and an unknown delay lag. The Monte Carlo method of Bayesian model averaging provides a possible way to overcome such model uncertainty. Incorporating with the idea of Bayesian model averaging, a modified stochastic search variable selection method is adapted to consider subset selection in TARMA models, by adding latent indicator variables for all potential model lags as part of the proposed Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling scheme. Metropolis–Hastings methods are employed to deal with the well-known difficulty of including moving-average terms in the model and a novel proposal mechanism is designed for this purpose. Bayesian comparison of two hyper-parameter settings is carried out via a simulation study. The results demonstrate that the modified method has favourable performance under reasonable sample size and appropriate settings of the necessary hyper-parameters. Finally, the application to four real datasets illustrates that the proposed method can provide promising and parsimonious models from more than 16 million possible subsets.     

Fabrication of an optical fiber reflective notch coupler

A method of fabricating a reflective notch coupler in an optical fiber has been developed. The coupler consists of a 45° microprism that penetrates into the core of a multimode optical fiber. One face, at 90° to the fiber axis, is nonreflective, and one face, at 45° to the fiber axis, is reflective. Our method of fabricating a notch and selectively mirroring only the 45° face is low-cost, precise, and easily scalable. The coupler allows near-100% coupling of light into an optical fiber from the side, while allowing coupling of any desired fraction of light out from the core at a 90° angle on the opposite side of the fiber.     

The bases of effective field theories

With reference to the equivalence theorem, we discuss the selection of basis operators for effective field theories in general. The equivalence relation can be used to partition operators into equivalence classes, from which inequivalent basis operators are selected. These classes can also be identified as containing Potential-Tree-Generated (PTG) operators, Loop-Generated (LG) operators, or both, independently of the specific dynamics of the underlying extended models, so long as it is perturbatively decoupling. For an equivalence class containing both, we argue that the basis operator should be chosen from among the PTG operators, because they may have the largest coefficients. We apply this classification scheme to dimension-six operators in an illustrative Yukawa model as well in the Standard Model (SM). We show that the basis chosen by Grzadkowski et al. [5] for the SM satisfies this criterion. In this light, we also revisit and verify our earlier result [6] that the dimension-six corrections to the triple-gauge-boson couplings only arise from LG operators, so the magnitude of the coefficients should only be a few parts per thousand of the SM gauge coupling if BSM dynamics respects decoupling. The same is true of the quartic-gauge-boson couplings.     

30th annual SSRL users’ meeting and workshops

Over the last 15 years, many 3^rd generation SR sources have been built throughout the world, either at energies of 1/2.5 or at 6 (ESRF, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), 7 (APS, Advanced Photon Source), or 8 (SPring-8) GeV. These sources are characterized by a horizontal emittance in the range of 3–7 nm.rad with less than 1% coupling. With in-vacuum undulators, this kind of emittance enables the obtainment of brilliances between 10¹⁹–10²¹ph/s/mm²/mrad²/0.1% bw.     

Threshold variable selection of asymmetric stochastic volatility models

A threshold stochastic volatility (SV) model is used for capturing time-varying volatilities and nonlinearity. Two adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods of model selection are designed for the selection of threshold variables for this family of SV models. The first method is the direct estimation which approximates the model posterior probabilities of competing models. Using parallel MCMC sampling to estimate these probabilities, the best threshold variable is selected with the highest posterior model probability. The second method is to use the deviance information criterion to compare among these competing models and select the best one. Simulation results lead us to conclude that for large samples the posterior model probability approximation method can give an accurate approximation of the posterior probability in Bayesian model selection. The method delivers a powerful and sharp model selection tool. An empirical study of five Asian stock markets provides strong support for the threshold variable which is formulated as a weighted average of important variables.     

Choosing more mathematics: happiness through work?

This paper examines how A-level students construct relationships between work and happiness in their accounts of choosing mathematics and further mathematics A-level. I develop a theoretical framework that positions work and happiness as opposed, managed and working on the self and use this to examine students' dual engagement with individual practices of the self and institutional practices of school mathematics. Interviews with students acknowledge four imperatives that they use as discursive resources to position themselves as successful/unsuccessful students: you have to work, you have to not work, you have to be happy, you have to work at being happy. Tensions in these positions lead students to rework their identities or drop further mathematics. I then identify the practices of mathematics teaching that students use to explain un/happiness in work, and show how dependable mathematics and working together are constructed as ‘happy objects’ for students, who develop strategies for claiming control over these shapers of happiness.     

Influence on Pore Structure of Micro/Nanofibrillar Cellulose in Pigmented Coating Formulations

Nano and microfibrillated cellulose (NFC and MFC, respectively, collectively termed MNFC) is known to interact strongly with water, related to its high polarity and surface area. The swelling behaviour acts to form a gel with high water retention properties. The observation that nanocellulose could possibly be used in paper or other coating formulations, as a co-binder, for example, raises a question about the possible effects it could have on coating pore structure. In this study, we analyse the pore structure of pigmented coatings, liquid absorption and permeability, in respect to the influence of partially substituting traditional co-binder carboxymethyl cellulose with MNFC. The contrast between polar water and non-polar liquid, such as alkane, is used to probe the water interactive and extractable in-coating (internal) gel-formation properties of the nanocellulosic materials. These contrasting liquids are important in many processes, such as offset printing, but also in respect to exposure of coatings in general to environmental factors in application. Results show that permeability to liquid water is dramatically reduced when nanocellulosic material is present, though water can permeate by diffusion through the nanocellulose gel network. Long timescale exposure to water during absorption leads to extraction of any soluble salts remaining after the chemical treatment of the fibrillar material during production. Inert alkane, on the other hand, can absorb and permeate freely without interactive hindrance from the nanocellulose, with no extractive effect. Such a construct could in principle be considered for use as an oil-water differential membrane or for slow release concepts in aqueous systems by loading soluble deliverable materials within the nanocellulosic gel.     

Spontaneous Inertial Imbibition in Porous Media Using a Fractal Representation of Pore Wall Rugosity

Considering the separable phenomena of imbibition in complex fine porous media as a function of timescale, it is noted that there are two discrete imbibition rate regimes when expressed in the Lucas–Washburn (L–W) equation. Commonly, to account for this deviation from the single equivalent hydraulic capillary, experimentalists propose an effective contact angle change. In this work, we consider rather the general term of the Wilhelmy wetting force regarding the wetting line length, and apply a proposed increase in the liquid–solid contact line and wetting force provided by the introduction of surface meso/nanoscale structure to the pore wall roughness. An experimental surface pore wall feature size regarding the rugosity area is determined by means of capillary condensation during nitrogen gas sorption in a ground calcium carbonate tablet compact. On this nano size scale, a fractal structure of pore wall is proposed to characterize for the internal rugosity of the porous medium. Comparative models based on the Lucas–Washburn and Bosanquet inertial absorption equations, respectively, for the short timescale imbibition are constructed by applying the extended wetting line length and wetting force to the equivalent hydraulic capillary observed at the long timescale imbibition. The results comparing the models adopting the fractal structure with experimental imbibition rate suggest that the L–W equation at the short timescale cannot match experiment, but that the inertial plug flow in the Bosanquet equation matches the experimental results very well. If the fractal structure can be supported in nature, then this stresses the role of the inertial term in the initial stage of imbibition. Relaxation to a smooth-walled capillary then takes place over the longer timescale as the surface rugosity wetting is overwhelmed by the pore condensation and film flow of the liquid ahead of the bulk wetting front, and thus to a smooth walled capillary undergoing permeation viscosity-controlled flow.