University Of Notre Dame Research Articles

Introduction for John T. McGreevy, Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis (2022)

Approximately one third of the world is Christian, and half of those are Roman Catholics. The demographics alone make writing a global history of Catholicism a mammoth task. To attempt the impossible, Professor John T. McGreevy of Notre Dame University has tackled a theme that plays itself out over multiple centuries and diverse cultural settings—the conversation, negotiation, tension, and conflict between traditionalism and modernization. Given that conservatism and progressivism shift meanings according to historical context, the implications of each position in situ are complex and surprising. Only a scholar of McGreevy's maturity and erudition could hope to succeed in such a bold enterprise.

Chiang Mai Workshop in Traditional Architecture and Urbanism

This workshop was initiated by the Thai architects Ong-ard Satrabhandhu and Purisa Nimmanahaeminda and brought together some 30 students from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University with their professors Pirast Pacharaswate and Sayanee Virochrut. A three-day workshop, with an educational charrette on traditional architecture and urbanism, was led by Professor Lucien Steil from the University of Notre Dame. Besides investigating and practicing the toolkit of the legendary Beaux-Arts pedagogy, consisting of in-situ urban and architectural sketching, observational and gesture drawings, the use of analytique, the production of an esquisse, etc., the participants learned about capriccio drawings as well as experimenting with pastel and charcoal on tone paper. The workshop offered a comprehensive immersion into the work of Ong-ard Architects, the oeuvre of which was the background and inspiration for a rewarding didactic adventure.

Assessing the readiness and confidence of 4th–year University of Notre Dame, Sydney medical students to prescribe effectively

Prescribing is a well-known source of anxiety and perceived weakness for graduating medical students. Fourth-year medical students at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney tested a learning tool designed to assess students’ confidence in prescribing. The study results show that students performed significantly better in topics that had previously been formally taught. All of the students who completed the post-survey found the learning tool useful. The results support the need for greater emphasis on prescribing and pharmacology teaching in the clinical years of the medical curriculum

“What the hell do you want to build missiles for?!”

The following speech was delivered at the 50th anniversary banquet of the American Society of Missiology, held at St. Mary’s College, University of Notre Dame, on June 17, 2023. Its content addresses two guiding questions posed by Darrell Whiteman: “Why am I passionate about missiology,” and “What do I hope to see in the field of missiology and in ASM in the next 50 years?”

The St. Benedict Facility: Probing Fundamental Symmetries through Mixed Mirror β-Decays

Precise measurements of nuclear beta decays provide a unique insight into the Standard Model due to their connection to the electroweak interaction. These decays help constrain the unitarity or non-unitarity of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix, and can uniquely probe the existence of exotic scalar or tensor currents. Of these decays, superallowed mixed mirror transitions have been the least well-studied, in part due to the absence of data on their Fermi to Gamow-Teller mixing ratios (ρ). At the Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL) at the University of Notre Dame, the Superallowed Transition Beta-Neutrino Decay Ion Coincidence Trap (St. Benedict) is being constructed to determine the ρ for various mirror decays via a measurement of the beta–neutrino angular correlation parameter (aβν) to a relative precision of 0.5%. In this work, we present an overview of the St. Benedict facility and the impact it will have on various Beyond the Standard Model studies, including an expanded sensitivity study of ρ for various mirror nuclei accessible to the facility. A feasibility evaluation is also presented that indicates the measurement goals for many mirror nuclei, which are currently attainable in a week of radioactive beam delivery at the NSL.

Preface

XLIV Symposium on Nuclear Physics Hacienda Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico January 9-12, 2023The 44th Symposium on Nuclear Physics was celebrated from January 9th to 12th, 2023 at the Hacienda Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico. This Symposium has been held every year since its inauguration in 1978 until 2020 despite earth quakes, last minute cancelations by the venue and economic crises. The COVID-19 crisis presented too much of a challenge and the Symposium had to be postponed for two years in a row.In this 2023, the Symposium is back! We had a tremendous response from the international community of nuclear physics which led to a very successful and lively meeting. The program consisted of 32 plenary talks and 20 posters over a broad range of hot topics, such as nuclear structure and reactions, instrumentation, relativistic heavy ions, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental symmetries and hadron physics.This proceedings contain 20 articles of exciting new results and developments in progress of amazing instrumentation that were presented at the meeting.At the meeting there were representatives of several international collaborations to report on the most recent research progress and the most recent developments in laboratories like FRIBS, ORNL, INFN-LNS, INFN-LNL, INFN-LUNA, ININ and the Texas A&M, Notre Dame University and IF-UNAM facilities. During the presentations, recent data from NUMEN, AGATA, SUGAR@LNL, NNBAR, nEDM@SNS and the NOPTREX collaborations were shown. Many apparatus were as well presented, either as recent developments or showing their recent results; such as the K600 spectrometer, LHASA, SUGAR, AGATA, MUGAST, VAMOS, TriSol, FRAISE, FARCOS, CHIMERA and PROSPECT-I.Regarding the theoretical studies, interesting new developments involving different topics were presented on this edition, such as Shell Model, QCD, QED, Abinitio, baryons and pentaquarks, Nuclear Equation of State, Artificial Intelligence Approaches, nuclear clusters, R-matrix, nuclear dynamics and neutrino physics. The high quality of the talks and posters, the expertise of the speakers and the broad spectrum of subjects covered in the meeting, shows that nuclear physics continued working hard despite the Pandemic restrictions, being a very active area at the frontier of scientific research which establishes bridges between many different disciplines, putting together theoretical and experimental researchers and having an extension to the instrumentation developments and applications.Unfortunately, during the last three years we had to say goodbye to four distinguished colleagues who made pioneering contributions to nuclear physics in Mexico and were very instrumental in the success of this series of symposia. María Esther Ortiz (1936-2021) was the last surviving member of the organizing committee of the first symposium in 1978, Jorge Flores (1941-2020) and Pier Mello (1939-2022) were among the first graduate students in nuclear theory in Mexico, and Alfonso Mondragón (1941-2020) was a regular participant in the Symposium for some 35 years. All four were members of the Instituto de Física of the UNAM. The 44th Symposium is dedicated to their memory in celebration of their distinguished careers and in recognition of their important contributions to the development of nuclear physics in Mexico. Some local colleagues presented part of the history of these distinguish researchers at the beginning of the Symposium. In the following lines, some words coming from this homage:List of Editors, International Advisory Committee, Organizing Committee, Sponsors, Photograph of the event are available in this pdf.

Preface

The 2023 9th International Conference on Applied Materials and Manufacturing Technology (ICAMMT 2023) was held in Qingyuan, China on April 24th–26th, 2023 (hybrid conference). The series of ICAMMT workshops was created in 2014 with the aim to be an interdisciplinary incubator for the worldwide exchange of innovative ideas and information about the latest research results.At ICAMMT 2023, we wished to bring together a broad community of researchers from different branches of the rapidly developing science to discuss the fundamental theoretical challenges as well as experimental and applied aspects of many practical problems. The program of ICAMMT 2023 was prepared based on three categories.ICAMMT 2023 attracted about 200 participants from about 15 countries. There were four invited speeches and many regular oral talks in the morning and afternoon sessions. The speakers are: Prof. Xun E (Bohai University, China), working on Internet of Things Intelligent Computing, Food Safety Informatization; Prof. Honggang Dong (Dalian University of Technology, China), committed to dissimilar materials joining technology and metallurgy, composition design of welding materials, and numerical simulation of welding processes; Prof. Robert G. Landers (University of Notre Dame, America), devoted to modeling, analysis, monitoring, and control of manufacturing processes, and the estimation and control of lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen fuel cells; Prof. Yusri Yusof (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Malaysia), interested in the manufacturing of smart devices & technology development and digitalization & Retro-Fit CNC machines. The keynote speeches allowed all the participants to interact with the speakers and people around as well as get some novel insights.The papers submitted to this volume were carefully reviewed by referees, covering topics on: Corrosion of Materials and Surface Treatment Technology, Mechanical Behavior & Fracture, Mechanical Transmission Theory, Vibration, Noise Analysis and Control, Measure Control Technologies and Intelligent Systems, Micro-Electronic Packaging Technology and Equipment, etc.. We are very grateful to the referees for their very efficient and thoughtful review actions. A few submitted papers were unfortunately not included based on the referee reports.We are very grateful to the members of the Technical Committee for their time and hard preparing the program of ICAMMT 2023. We also appreciate the behind-the-scenes work of the members of the Organizing Committee in preparing the conference site, arrangements for excursions and accommodation, handling the financial support for participants, and so on. Finally, we acknowledge the publishing support from Journal of Physics: Conference Series.The Committee of ICAMMT 2023List of Committee Member is available in this Pdf.

20Ne(α,p)23Na studied to constrain type Ia nucleosynthesis

The 20Ne(α,p)23Na reaction rate is important in determining the final abundances of various nuclei produced in type Ia supernovae. Previously, the ground state cross section was calculated from time reversal reaction experiments using detailed balance. The reaction rates extracted from these studies do not consider contributions from the population of excited states, and therefore, are only estimates. A resonance scan, populating both the ground and first excited states, was performed for the 20Ne(α,p)23Na reaction, measuring between 2.9 and 5 MeV center of mass energies at the Nuclear Science Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Data analysis is underway and preliminary results show substantial contribution from the excited state reaction.

Jordan Daniel Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus Confessor (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2022), pp. xxv + 356. $70.00.

Jordan Daniel Wood, The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus Confessor (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2022), pp. xxv + 356. $70.00.

Insight into the Structural Ambiguity of Actinide(IV) Oxalate Sheet Structures: A Case for Alternate Coordination Geometries.

Invited for the cover of this issue is the group of Amy Hixon at the University of Notre Dame. The image depicts the newly identified structure of a PuIV oxalate sheet compared to the historically assumed structure. Read the full text of the article at 10.1002/chem.202301164.

Multiscale analysis of Benjamin Franklin’s innovations in American paper money

Benjamin Franklin was a preeminent proponent of the new colonial and Continental paper monetary system in 18th-century America. He established a network of printers, designing and printing money notes at the same time. Franklin recognized the necessity of paper money in breaking American dependence on the British trading system, and he helped print Continental money to finance the American War of Independence. We use a unique combination of nondistractive, microdestructive, and advanced atomic-level imaging methods, including Raman, Infrared, electron energy loss spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, to analyze pre-Federal American paper money from the Rare Books and Special Collections of the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame. We investigate and compare the chemical compositions of the paper fibers, the inks, and fillers made of special crystals in the bills printed by Franklin's printing network, other colonial printers, and counterfeit money. Our results reveal previously unknown ways that Franklin developed to safeguard printed money notes against counterfeiting. Franklin used natural graphite pigments to print money and developed durable "money paper" with colored fibers and translucent muscovite fillers, along with his own unique designs of "nature-printed" patterns and paper watermarks. These features and inventions made pre-Federal American paper currency an archetype for developing paper money for centuries to come. Our multiscale analysis also provides essential information for the preservation of historical paper money.

Factors affecting the intentions to implement a “no plastic policy” in Cotabato City, Philippines

Plastic materials are one of the contributors to environmental problems. The detrimental effects of plastic pollution on the environment and human health are well established. Currently, the Philippines has been considered one of the countries which have high plastic loads which are mostly mismanaged. Although several measures and policies were already laid down, however, these were not properly implemented. Thus, determining the factors that may affect the proper implementation of pro-environmental policies is very important to mitigate the effects of plastic pollution. In this study, the factors affecting the intentions to implement the no-plastic policy among the junior high school students at Notre Dame University, Cotabato City were investigated. This study applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and employs Structural Equation Model (SEM) to determine the factors affecting the intentions to implement a no-plastic policy. A total of 210 students were randomly surveyed in this study. Results showed that attitude (ATT) and subjective norms (SN) were found to have no significant direct effect on implementing the no-plastic policy. School administrators and policymakers should come up with plans and programs that may boost the students’ attitudes and subjective norms to improve their intention to implement a no-plastic policy. The conduct further studies to increase the number of respondents and inclusion of tertiary students will help to validate the results of this study.

An exploration of contemporary pastoral care practices used by teachers and leaders in Australian Catholic schools and their connection to Catholic identity

This research provides a snapshot of the perceptions of 14 teachers and leaders who had just completed the Pastoral Care and the School course, offered as part of their Master of Education programme by The University of Notre Dame, Australia (UNDA). The participants were surveyed at the completion of the course through a qualitative survey that included both open and closed questions. The survey was designed to provide a snapshot of their understandings of pastoral care practices from their course and experiences as teachers/leaders. Results indicated that 29% of the participants were unaware of their school’s pastoral care policy or programmes. Many envisaged leadership support and early career mentoring as influential in planning pastoral care interventions, considering 43% of participants were still in their early stages of teaching {3rd to 7th years of teaching}. Four common themes were found across the study that strongly link pastoral care to the heart of leading Catholic identity in a Catholic school. These were: providing a contemporary definition of pastoral care that links Catholic identity for staff; the role of pastoral care in supporting Catholic identity through sacramental programmes; the importance of leadership in providing clear dialogue to staff about pastoral care and student wellbeing concerns; and implementing training of pastoral care programmes to assist early career teachers. As such, pastoral care becomes more than knowledge about student or staff welfare, it embodies a key element of leading and promoting Catholic identity within a school itself.

Measurement of K39(p,γ)Ca40 resonance strengths below 900 keV for nucleosynthesis in classical novae

Classical novae are one of the most frequent explosive nucleosynthesis events in our universe but are still not sufficiently understood. To this day, nuclear astrophysics cannot explain the endpoint of the nucleosynthesis networks that drive them. This is mainly due to a scarce experimental database of nuclear reaction rates for proton induced reactions in the mass region above silicon at temperatures between 0.1 and 0.4 GK. Because some nova ejecta hint at the production of elements in the calcium range (Centauri V1065), and some possibly even up to the iron region (Cygni V1974), it is of utmost interest to investigate possible paths towards heavier elements. Here we report on new measurements of resonance strengths for the $^{39}\mathrm{K}(p,\ensuremath{\gamma})^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ reaction below 900 keV. Measurements were performed at the 5U accelerator at the University of Notre Dame. The implications of these new strengths for the $^{39}\mathrm{K}(p,\ensuremath{\gamma})^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ reaction rate are discussed.

Improvements for heavy-ion accelerator mass spectrometry at the university of Notre Dame’s nuclear science laboratory

The detection of heavy (A > 127), long-lived trace radionuclides using accelerator mass spectrometry requires accelerator systems with high mass resolution and detectors with high efficiency, timing and energy resolution, and resistance to degradation. At the University of Notre Dame’s Nuclear Science Laboratory, a two-anode gas ionization detector, similar to others employed at ETH Zurich, Vienna, and the Australia National University, has been built to be used with a time-of-flight system. This new detector is more robust than the existing Si detector, with two high resolution ΔE segments. This work describes the detector design and modifications to the time-of-flight system, summarizes the observed performance, and provides comparisons to a Geant4 model. The energy resolution (9% for 44 MeV 238U beams) was found to be better than the existing Si detector and its larger acceptance contributed a factor of five improvement (from 4% to 20%) in transmission through the detection system for uranium beams.

A multi-dimensional reality: Carol Lally Shields.

A multi-dimensional reality: Carol Lally Shields.

Measuring changes with traditional and retrospective pre-posttest self-report surveys for a brief intervention program

Traditional and retrospective pre-posttest self-report surveys were used to evaluate a brief intervention program, the Latino Enrollment Institute (LEI) at the University of Notre Dame. Results showed that the retrospective approach yielded a greater magnitude of change in participants’ perceptions of changes in their understanding and practices related to the LEI content. In addition, the retrospective approach identified changes in participant’s beliefs that were unable to be detected using traditional pre-posttest surveys due to ceiling effects at the time of the pretest. Implications for evaluators are to consider retrospective designs to measure changes in beliefs when participants self-select into interventions and therefore presumably hold high beliefs about the content at the outset of the intervention.

Nuclear physics with TriSol at Notre Dame’s Nuclear Science Laboratory

The detailed study of radioactive nuclei has resulted in opportunities for addressing many open questions in low-energy nuclear physics. For over three decades, the TwinSol separator at the University of Notre Dame has produced high-quality in-flight radioactive beams at low-energy for light isotopes that have been used in experiments aimed at nuclear structure, astrophysics, and fundamental symmetries studies. We have recently upgraded the TwinSol separator by adding additional elements: a dipole magnet, and a third solenoid. This new TriSol separator will improve the quality and purity of future radioactive beams. This improvement will enable the use of heavier beams and address beam contamination that has hindered past experiments. The current status of TriSol and its science program will be presented along with the role the TriSol program plays in the current landscape of nuclear physics user facilities. The TriSol program includes plans for studies of 11C(p, p)11C reaction for investigating the nature of the first stars, 14O(α, p)17F and its influence on reaction networks in X-ray bursts, the measurement of fusion reactions on Ne isotopes important for pycnonuclear reactions, precision half-life measurements for fundamental symmetries studies, and the use of TriSol as a magnetic spectrometer.

First person – Julia Spear

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Julia Spear is first author on ‘ Single-cell intracellular pH dynamics regulate the cell cycle by timing the G1 exit and G2 transition’, published in JCS. Julia is a PhD student in the lab of Katharine White at the Harper Cancer Research Institute, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, USA, investigating single-cell intracellular pH dynamics during the cell cycle and intracellular pH heterogeneity in diseases such as cancer.

Estimation of Covid-19 Prevalence Dynamics from Pooled Data

Abstract Estimating the prevalence of a disease, such as COVID-19, is necessary for evaluating and mitigating risks of its transmission. Estimates that consider how prevalence changes with time provide more information about these risks but are difficult to obtain due to the necessary survey intensity and commensurate testing costs. Motivated by a dataset on COVID-19, from the University of Notre Dame, we propose pooling and jointly testing multiple samples to reduce testing costs. A nonparametric, hierarchical Bayesian model is used to infer population prevalence from the pooled test results without needing to retest individuals from pools that test positive. This approach is shown to reduce uncertainty compared to individual testing at the same budget and to produce similar estimates compared to individual testing at a much higher budget through simulation studies and an analysis of COVID-19 infections at Notre Dame.