Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2019 Annual Spring Meeting of the APS Ohio-Region Section
Volume 64, Number 7
Friday–Saturday, March 29–30, 2019; The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio
Session F04: Biophysics, Computational Physics, and Physics Education |
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Chair: Richelle Teeling-Smith, University of Mount Union Room: Ruth W. Williams Hall 160 |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 9:30AM - 9:45AM |
F04.00001: Trajectory Simulation and Optimization for Shortcuts to Adiabaticity using Artificial Neural Network Hok Wai Chang, John Femiani, E. Carlo Samson Adiabatic transportation for a sensitive quantum system such as Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) has implications to quantum control and quantum computing, and transporting a BEC in anharmonic traps is still a difficult issue to approach mathematically. Therefore, we developed a computational method to optimize the transportation trajectory. We first created an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to simulate the transportation of a BEC by inputting the trajectory into the ANN and let the ANN predicts the behavior of the transportation. Then we apply the ANN as an objective function of the BFGS optimization algorithm and using it to obtain the optimal trajectory. Compare to using Gross-Pitaevski equation (GPE) to compute the behavior of the transportation as the objective function, using ANN can substantially decrease the optimization time since computing a pre-trained ANN is much simpler than computing each step of the trajectory using GPE. This research shows the ability to use ANN to simulate a series of GPE calculations and gives preliminary results on the trajectory for adiabatic transportation of BECs in anharmonic traps. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 9:45AM - 10:00AM |
F04.00002: Mechanisms of High Sensitivity and Active Amplification in Sensory Hair Cells Mahvand Khamesian, Alexander Neiman Hair cells mediating the senses of hearing and balance rely on active mechanisms for amplification of mechanical signals. In amphibians, hair cells exhibit spontaneous self-sustained mechanical oscillations of their hair bundles. We study the response of the mechanical oscillations to perturbation of the cell’s membrane potential in a model for hair bundle of bullfrog saccular hair cells. Our results indicate that the fast adaptation is necessary to account for an increase of the amplitude of the hair bundle oscillation with the increase of the membrane potential, observed in voltage clamp experiments. In vivo, hair bundles of the bullfrog sacculus are coupled by an overlying otolithic membrane across a significant fraction of epithelium. We develop a model for coupled hair bundles in which non-identical hair cells are distributed on a regular grid and coupled mechanically via elastic springs connected to the hair bundles. Our simulations of coupled hair bundles identify two distinct regimes of collective spontaneous dynamics: oscillation quenching and synchronization. We show that variations of the membrane potential alter mechanical response significantly and thus may yield an effective mechanism of sensitivity enhancement and gain control. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 10:00AM - 10:15AM |
F04.00003: Measurement and Calculation of the Acoustic Impedance of Air Columns Herbert Jaeger The behavior of an air column may be described in terms of the applied pressure and the resulting flow of air. The acoustic impedance is defined as the ratio of pressure to the resulting air flow. Knowledge of the acoustic impedance reveals important characteristics of the air column; thus it is desirable to perform impedance measurements to characterize an acoustic system. A simple method of measuring the acoustic impedance is presented, along with some examples of acoustic effects and properties of air columns. Moreover, a method for calculation of the acoustic impedance of an air column of arbitrary shape is outlined. Agreement -- or lack thereof -- of measurements and calculations are discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 10:15AM - 10:30AM |
F04.00004: A Controlled Study of Stereoscopic Virtual Reality in Freshman Electrodynamics Joseph Smith, Chris Porter, Chris Orban Virtual reality (VR) has long promised to revolutionize education, but thus far it has been difficult to perform large studies to determine best practices. Part of the reason for this is the prohibitive cost of immersive VR headsets or caves. This has changed with the advent of smartphone-based VR (such as Google Cardboard), which allows students to use smartphones and inexpensive plastic or cardboard viewers to enjoy stereoscopic VR simulations. We have completed the largest-ever such study on 1,189 students enrolled in calculus-based freshman physics at The Ohio State University. The study has covered several areas in electricity and magnetism including electric fields, Gauss’s Law, and magnetic fields, as well as comparing different presentations of material through either VR, video, WebGL, or static images. Data have been collected through pre-post assessment, as well as monitoring perspective tracking within the VR environment. In this talk we present an overview of findings. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 10:30AM - 10:45AM |
F04.00005: Effect of frequent testing on learning physics Nenad Stojilovic Above eighty percent of students reread, underline or highlight text when they study even though these are some of the least effective learning strategies. Some studies have shown that when students take frequent tests on the studied subject, their performance on the final test is improved. Repeated testing had shown greater long-term retention of information than repeated and spaced study. This effect is known as the testing effect. However, most of the studies on the testing effect involved memorization, and many of them were conducted in the laboratories of cognitive scientists. In this talk I will share some preliminary findings of the testing effect in general physics and upper-level physics classes. I will also discuss negative testing effect and how it can be reversed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 30, 2019 10:45AM - 11:00AM |
F04.00006: Interactive Modules for Integrating Computation into Introductory Physics Courses Richelle Teeling-Smith, Chris Orban While there is a growing need to integrate computation into the physics curriculum at every level, incorporating new content into an already jam-packed introductory physics course is a delicate task that involves many choices that may have a big impact on student learning. We introduce a series of hour-long programming activities for classical mechanics and electricity and magnetism. These interactive modules resemble popular games such as ``angry birds'', ``pong'', and ``bonk.io''. The activities are browser-based (requiring no software installation) and modular in nature so that they can be easily integrated into existing courses. We will describe the effort to integrate these programming modules into existing introductory physics labs and the ongoing effort to probe the impact of these coding activities on student conceptual learning through animated questions inspired by the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). These activities are currently being used at Mount Union and OSU Marion, as well in as in high school physics classrooms across Ohio. The STEMcoding Project is supported by the AIP Meggers Award and internal funding from OSU. [Preview Abstract] |
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