Techniques for engineering quantum states

In this thesis I theoretically study quantum states of ultracold atoms. The majority of the Chapters focus on engineering specific quantum states of single atoms with high fidelity in experimentally realistic systems. In the sixth Chapter, I investigate the stability and dynamics of new multidimensional solitonic states that can be created in inhomogeneous atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. In Chapter three I present two papers in which I demonstrate how the coherent tunnelling by adiabatic passage (CTAP) process can be implemented in an experimentally realistic atom chip system, to coherently transfer the centre-of-mass of a single atom between two spatially distinct magnetic waveguides. In these works I also utilise GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) computing which offers a significant performance increase in the numerical simulation of the Schrödinger equation. In Chapter four I investigate the CTAP process for a linear arrangement of radio frequency traps where the centre-of-mass of both, single atoms and clouds of interacting atoms, can be coherently controlled. In Chapter five I present a theoretical study of adiabatic radio frequency potentials where I use Floquet theory to more accurately model situations where frequencies are close and/or field amplitudes are large. I also show how one can create highly versatile 2D adiabatic radio frequency potentials using multiple radio frequency fields with arbitrary field orientation and demonstrate their utility by simulating the creation of ring vortex solitons. In the sixth Chapter I discuss the stability and dynamics of a family of multidimensional solitonic states created in harmonically confined Bose-Einstein condensates. I demonstrate that these solitonic states have interesting dynamical instabilities, where a continuous collapse and revival of the initial state occurs. Through Bogoliubov analysis, I determine the modes responsible for the observed instabilities of each solitonic state and also extract information related to the time at which instability can be observed.

Beginning primary teachers’ perspectives on becoming a teacher in the workplace: Contextual, emotional, and temporo-spatial dimensions of identity shaping

The issue, with international and national overtones, of direct relevance to the present study, relates to the shaping of beginning teachers’ identities in the workplace. As the shift from an initial teacher education programme into initial practice in schools is a period of identity change worthy of investigation, this study focuses on the transformative search by nine beginning primary teachers for their teaching identities, throughout the course of their initial year of occupational experience, post-graduation. The nine beginning teacher participants work in a variety of primary school settings, thus strengthening the representativeness of the research cohort. Privileging ‘insider’ perspectives, the research goal is to understand the complexities of lived experience from the viewpoints of the participating informants. The shaping of identity is conceived of in dimensional terms. Accordingly, a framework composed of three dimensions of beginning teacher experience is devised, namely: contextual; emotional; temporo-spatial. Data collection and analysis is informed by principles derived from sociocultural theories; activity theory; figured worlds theory; and, dialogical self theory. Individual, face-to-face semi-structured interviews, and the maintenance of solicited digital diaries, are the principal methods of data collection employed. The use of a dimensional model fragments the integrated learning experiences of beginning teachers into constituent parts for the purpose of analysis. While acknowledging that the actual journey articulated by each participant is a more complex whole than the sum of its parts, key empirically-based claims are presented as per the dimensional framework employed: contextuality; emotionality; temporo-spatiality. As a result of applying the foci of an international literature to an under-researched aspect of Irish education, this study is offered as a context-specific contribution to the knowledge base on beginning teaching. As the developmental needs of beginning teachers constitute an emerging area of intense policy focus in Ireland, this research undertaking is both relevant and timely.

States of play: Irish childhoods, race and belonging

This thesis explores the meaning-making practices of migrant and non-migrant children in relation to identities, race, belonging and childhood itself in their everyday lives and in the context of ‘normalizing’ discourses and spaces in Ireland. The relational, spatial and institutional contexts of children’s worlds are examined in the arenas of school, home, family, peer groups and consumer culture. The research develops a situated account of children’s complex subject positions, belongings and exclusions, as negotiated within discursive constructs, emerging in the ‘in-between’ spaces explored with other children and with adults. As a peripheral EU area both geographically and economically, Ireland has traditionally been a country of net emigration. This situation changed briefly in the late 1990s to early 2000s, sparking broad debate on Ireland’s perceived ‘new’ ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity arising from the arrival of migrant people both from within and beyond the EU as workers and as asylum seekers, and drawing attention to issues of race, identity, equality and integration in Irish society. Based in a West of Ireland town where migrant children and children of migrants comprise very small minorities in classroom settings, this research engages with a particular demographic of children who have started primary school since these changes have occurred. It seeks to represent the complexities of the processes which constitute children’s subjectivities, and which also produce and reproduce race and childhood itself in this context. The role of local, national and global spaces, relational networks and discursive currents as they are experienced and negotiated by children are explored, and the significance of embodied, sensory and affective processes are integrated into the analysis. Notions of the functions and rhetorics of play and playfulness (Sutton-Smith 1997) form a central thread that runs throughout the thesis, where play is both a feature of children’s cultural worlds and a site of resistance or ‘thinking otherwise’. The study seeks to examine how children actively participate in (re)producing definitions of both childhood and race arising in local, national and global spaces, demonstrating that while contestations of the boundaries of childhood discourses are contingently successful, race tends to be strongly reiterated, clinging to bodies and places and compromising belonging. In addition, it explores how children access belongings through agentic and imaginative practices with regard to peer and family relationships, particularly highlighting constructions of home, while also illustrating practices of excluding children positioned as unintelligible, including the role of silences in such situations. Finally, drawing on teachers’ understandings and on children’s playful micro-level negotiations of race, the study argues that assumptions of childhood innocence contribute to justifying depoliticised discourses of race in the early primary school years, and also tend to silence children’s own dialogues with this issue. Central throughout the thesis is an emphasis on the productive potentials of children’s marginal positioning in processes of transgressing definitional boundaries, including the generation of post-race conceptualisations that revealed the borders of race as performative and fluid. It suggests that interrupting exclusionary raced identities in Irish primary schools requires engagement with children’s world-making practices and the multiple resources that inform their lives.

Preserving patent policy space and securing access to medicines in developing countries: the role of states and pharmaceutical corporations

This thesis examines the tension between patent rights and the right to health and it recognizes patent rights on pharmaceutical products as one of the factors responsible for the problem of lack of access to affordable medicines in developing countries. The thesis contends that, in order to preserve their patent policy space and secure access to affordable medicines for their citizens, developing countries should incorporate a model of human rights into the design, implementation, interpretation, and enforcement of their national patent laws. The thesis provides a systematic analysis of court decisions from four key developing countries (Brazil, India, Kenya, and South Africa) and it assesses how the national courts in these countries resolve the tension between patent rights and the right to health. Essentially, this thesis demonstrates how a model of human rights can be incorporated into the adjudication of disputes involving patent rights in national courts. Focusing specifically on Brazil, the thesis equally demonstrates how policy makers and law makers at the national level can incorporate a model of human rights into the design or amendment of their national patent law. This thesis also contributes to the ongoing debate in the field of business and human rights with regard to the mechanisms that can be used to hold corporate actors accountable for their human rights responsibilities. This thesis recognizes that, while states bear the primary responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfil the right to health, corporate actors such as pharmaceutical companies also have a baseline responsibility to respect the right to health. This thesis therefore contends that pharmaceutical companies that own patent rights on pharmaceutical products can be held accountable for their right to health responsibilities at the national level through the incorporation of a model of civic participation into a country’s patent law system.

Pairing QuantiFERON gold in-tube with opt-out HIV testing in a tuberculosis contact investigation in the Southeastern United States.

Knowing one's HIV status is particularly important in the setting of recent tuberculosis (TB) exposure. Blood tests for assessment of tuberculosis infection, such as the QuantiFERON Gold in-tube test (QFT; Cellestis Limited, Carnegie, Victoria, Australia), offer the possibility of simultaneous screening for TB and HIV with a single blood draw. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of all contacts to a highly infectious TB case in a large meatpacking factory. Twenty-two percent were foreign-born and 73% were black. Contacts were tested with both tuberculin skin testing (TST) and QFT. HIV testing was offered on an opt-out basis. Persons with TST >or=10 mm, positive QFT, and/or positive HIV test were offered latent TB treatment. Three hundred twenty-six contacts were screened: TST results were available for 266 people and an additional 24 reported a prior positive TST for a total of 290 persons with any TST result (89.0%). Adequate QFT specimens were obtained for 312 (95.7%) of persons. Thirty-two persons had QFT results but did not return for TST reading. Twenty-two percent met the criteria for latent TB infection. Eighty-eight percent accepted HIV testing. Two (0.7%) were HIV seropositive; both individuals were already aware of their HIV status, but one had stopped care a year previously. None of the HIV-seropositive persons had latent TB, but all were offered latent TB treatment per standard guidelines. This demonstrates that opt-out HIV testing combined with QFT in a large TB contact investigation was feasible and useful. HIV testing was also widely accepted. Pairing QFT with opt-out HIV testing should be strongly considered when possible.

The impact of shame on health-related quality of life among HIV-positive adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse.

Childhood sexual abuse is prevalent among people living with HIV, and the experience of shame is a common consequence of childhood sexual abuse and HIV infection. This study examined the role of shame in health-related quality of life among HIV-positive adults who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. Data from 247 HIV-infected adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse were analyzed. Hierarchical linear regression was conducted to assess the impact of shame regarding both sexual abuse and HIV infection, while controlling for demographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors. In bivariate analyses, shame regarding sexual abuse and HIV infection were each negatively associated with health-related quality of life and its components (physical well-being, function and global well-being, emotional and social well-being, and cognitive functioning). After controlling for demographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors, HIV-related, but not sexual abuse-related, shame remained a significant predictor of reduced health-related quality of life, explaining up to 10% of the variance in multivariable models for overall health-related quality of life, emotional, function and global, and social well-being and cognitive functioning over and above that of other variables entered into the model. Additionally, HIV symptoms, perceived stress, and perceived availability of social support were associated with health-related quality of life in multivariable models. Shame is an important and modifiable predictor of health-related quality of life in HIV-positive populations, and medical and mental health providers serving HIV-infected populations should be aware of the importance of shame and its impact on the well-being of their patients.