Hampshire College

About: Hampshire College is a education organization based out in Amherst Center, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Genetic programming & Population. The organization has 461 authors who have published 998 publications receiving 40827 citations.

SuperDense Quantum Teleportation

Abstract: Recent advances in experimental technique make SuperDense Teleportation (SDT) possible only now, ten years after my first proposal at an ISI Torino summer conference on Quantum Computing. The effect uses remote state preparation to send more state-specifying parameters per bit than ordinary quantum teleportation (QT) can transmit. The SDT uses a maximally entangled state to teleport the relative phases of an n-dimensional state with equal amplitudes on every standard basis vector. For n greater than or equal to 3, the SDT sends more of these state-specifying parameters than QT. In the limit of large n the ratio is 2 to 1, hence the nomenclature by analogy with Super Dense Coding. Alice's measurements and Bob's transformations are far simpler than their corresponding operations in QT. The roles of Charles who chooses the state and Diana who deploys it are different than in QT. My discussion includes a brief review of the progress and possibilities of realization for several different experimental approaches around the world. This paper is the write-up of my remarks at the Festschrift conference for Anton Zeilinger, for many years a close collaborator in the Hampshire College NSF grant continuing our work with Mike Horne and Danny Greenberger started under Cliff Shull at MIT in the late 20th century.

Lexicase selection of specialists

Abstract: Lexicase parent selection filters the population by considering one random training case at a time, eliminating any individuals with errors for the current case that are worse than the best error in the selection pool, until a single individual remains. This process often stops before considering all training cases, meaning that it will ignore the error values on any cases that were not yet considered. Lexicase selection can therefore select specialist individuals that have poor errors on some training cases, if they have great errors on others and those errors come near the start of the random list of cases used for the parent selection event in question. We hypothesize here that selecting these specialists, which may have poor total error, plays an important role in lexicase selection's observed performance advantages over error-aggregating parent selection methods such as tournament selection, which select specialists much less frequently. We conduct experiments examining this hypothesis, and find that lexicase selection's performance and diversity maintenance degrade when we deprive it of the ability of selecting specialists. These findings help explain the improved performance of lexicase selection compared to tournament selection, and suggest that specialists help drive evolution under lexicase selection toward global solutions.

Project labs in physiology.

Abstract: Projects in which students design and carry out their own experiments can be a basis for physiology laboratories. A sequence of such projects is described and evaluated informally. It is argued that these inquiry-oriented project labs serve to motivate and teach students important concepts and attitudes about the nature of science and their ability to participate actively in it. Although physiology laboratories are a standard part of physiology courses, teachers are not always clear about the purposes of these activities. At least three categories of purpose seem important: the conceptual, the motivational, and the technical. As laboratories are being replaced in some cases by videodisc or computer simulations, it is important to see which purposes can be served by simulations and which cannot. Project-based laboratories, even more than standard laboratories, can serve the technical, motivational, and conceptual purposes for our laboratory teaching.

Determination of lead concentration and lead isotope ratios in calcium supplements by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after high pressure, high temperature digestion

Abstract: The presence of lead as a contaminant in calcium supplements has aroused considerable public health interest in recent years. In this investigation lead and lead isotope ratios were determined by ICP-MS in ten brands of calcium supplements after high pressure/temperature digestion. Calcium supplements (200 to 250 mg) were digested in 2 mL of nitric acid at 230 °C and at a pressure of 1770 psi (1.2 × 104 kPa). Lead concentrations were determined by matrix-matched lead standards prepared in a high-purity calcium carbonate matrix. Good recoveries of lead and calcium were obtained for certified animal bone reference material. High levels of Pb (8 to 28 μg Pb per g of calcium) were found in calcium supplements that contain dolomite or bone meal. Chelated and refined calcium supplements had lower Pb levels (0.8 to 0.9 μg Pb/g Ca). Application of lead isotope ratios to distinguish the origin of calcium sources was also explored.