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The Florida IT Graduation Attainment Pathways (Flit-GAP), an NSF S-STEM, Track 3 grant effort, involves three public metropolitan institutions from Florida’s three most populous areas: Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, and University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa. Flit-GAP supports up to 50 students per year for each of the first 3 years of the project’; recruits are juniors from Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, and Cybersecurity, and other computing majors. The relationship among the three institutions is formalized as the Consortium of Florida Metropolitan Research Universities. The consortium is a strategic priority of each institution. In Year 1, 42 students participated in the scholarship program at the three institutions (16 FIU; 14 UCF; 11 USF). 

The Florida IT Graduation Attainment Pathways (Flit-GAP), an NSF S-STEM, Track 3 grant effort, involves three public metropolitan institutions from Florida’s three most populous areas: Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, and University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa. Flit-GAP supports up to 50 students per year for each of the first 3 years of the project’; recruits are juniors from Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, and Cybersecurity, and other computing majors. The relationship among the three institutions is formalized as the Consortium of Florida Metropolitan Research Universities. The consortium is a strategic priority of each institution. In Year 1, 42 students participated in the scholarship program at the three institutions (16 FIU; 14 UCF; 11 USF). 

The Florida IT Graduation Attainment Pathways (Flit-GAP), an NSF S-STEM, Track 3 grant effort, involves three public metropolitan institutions from Florida’s three most populous areas: Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, and University of South Florida(USF) in Tampa. Flit-GAP supports up to 50 students per year for each of the first 3 years of the project’; recruits are juniors from Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, and Cybersecurity, and other computing majors. The relationship among the three institutions is formalized as the Consortium of Florida Metropolitan Research Universities. The consortium is a strategic priority of each institution. In Year 1, 42 students participated in the scholarship program at the three institutions (16 FIU; 14 UCF; 11 USF). 

While starting a career may be challenging in any field, in computing the process tends to be aggravated by requirements of digital portfolios and technical interviews that necessitate coding extemporaneously. During the programming components, candidates are expected to offer a solution, while also giving consideration to the choice of algorithm and its time complexity. Although intended to assess the competency of the job applicants, the process is often more akin to a professional examination. Applicants are encouraged to prepare months, or even years before they begin looking for a position, an expectation that neglects to consider the obligations and responsibilities students already have. Moreover, this presumption can result in an unequal divide between those who have the time to commit, and those who are unable to do so. To examine students’ preparation for technical interviews and their own cultural experiences, we administered a survey at three metropolitan universities in Florida. Specifically, we utilized social cognitive career theory to examine: 1) Students' preparation practices for technical interviews; 2) The impact of cultural experiences on preparation time; and 3) The relationship between preparation and job attainment. To address these topics, we used descriptive statistics, Shapiro-Wilk tests, Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. We also applied the community cultural wealth model to interpret our results. We observed that, in our sample, White students began preparing earlier for technical interviews, spent more time preparing, and received more job offers than non-White students. Females also spent more hours preparing on average, and received more job offers than students that did not identify as female. However, female, Black/African American, and Hispanic/Latinx students were more likely to have cultural experiences that would impact their availability to prepare, including non-computing related jobs, caring for a family member, or ongoing health issues. While we do consider the support mechanisms students may leverage to overcome obstacles, in general, these results emphasize the larger issues in existing hiring structures, and demonstrate the importance of not treating students as a monolith. The findings from this work are intended to inform educators about how to better prepare students to succeed on technical interviews, and to encourage industry to reform the process to make it more equitable. 

Xenon dual-phase time projections chambers (TPCs) have proven to be a successful technology in studying physical phenomena that require low-background conditions. With$$40\,\textrm{t}$$$40\text{t}$of liquid xenon (LXe) in the TPC baseline design, DARWIN will have a high sensitivity for the detection of particle dark matter, neutrinoless double beta decay ($$0\upnu \upbeta \upbeta $$$0\nu \beta \beta$), and axion-like particles (ALPs). Although cosmic muons are a source of background that cannot be entirely eliminated, they may be greatly diminished by placing the detector deep underground. In this study, we used Monte Carlo simulations to model the cosmogenic background expected for the DARWIN observatory at four underground laboratories: Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) and SNOLAB. We present here the results of simulations performed to determine the production rate of$${}^{137}$$${}^{137}$Xe, the most crucial isotope in the search for$$0\upnu \upbeta \upbeta $$$0\nu \beta \beta$of$${}^{136}$$${}^{136}$Xe. Additionally, we explore the contribution that other muon-induced spallation products, such as other unstable xenon isotopes and tritium, may have on the cosmogenic background.

 

Abstract The XENONnT detector uses the latest and largest liquid xenon-based time projection chamber (TPC) operated by the XENON Collaboration, aimed at detecting Weakly Interacting Massive Particles and conducting other rare event searches.The XENONnT data acquisition (DAQ) system constitutes an upgraded and expanded version of the XENON1T DAQ system.For its operation, it relies predominantly on commercially available hardware accompanied by open-source and custom-developed software.The three constituent subsystems of the XENONnT detector, the TPC (main detector), muon veto, and the newly introduced neutron veto, are integrated into a single DAQ, and can be operated both independently and as a unified system.In total, the DAQ digitizes the signals of 698 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), of which 253 from the top PMT array of the TPC are digitized twice, at ×10 and ×0.5 gain.The DAQ for the most part is a triggerless system, reading out and storing every signal that exceeds the digitization thresholds.Custom-developed software is used to process the acquired data, making it available within ∼30 s for live data quality monitoring and online analyses.The entire system with all the three subsystems was successfully commissioned and has been operating continuously, comfortably withstanding readout rates that exceed ∼500 MB/s during calibration.Livetime during normal operation exceeds 99% and is ∼90% during most high-rate calibrations.The combined DAQ system has collected more than 2 PB of both calibration and science data during the commissioning of XENONnT and the first science run. 

Abstract A low-energy electronic recoil calibration of XENON1T, a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber, with an internal $${}^{37}$$ 37 Ar source was performed. This calibration source features a 35-day half-life and provides two mono-energetic lines at 2.82 keV and 0.27 keV. The photon yield and electron yield at 2.82 keV are measured to be ( $$32.3\,\pm \,0.3$$ 32.3 ± 0.3 ) photons/keV and ( $$40.6\,\pm \,0.5$$ 40.6 ± 0.5 ) electrons/keV, respectively, in agreement with other measurements and with NEST predictions. The electron yield at 0.27 keV is also measured and it is ( $$68.0^{+6.3}_{-3.7}$$ 68 . 0 - 3.7 + 6.3 ) electrons/keV. The $${}^{37}$$ 37 Ar calibration confirms that the detector is well-understood in the energy region close to the detection threshold, with the 2.82 keV line reconstructed at ( $$2.83\,\pm \,0.02$$ 2.83 ± 0.02 ) keV, which further validates the model used to interpret the low-energy electronic recoil excess previously reported by XENON1T. The ability to efficiently remove argon with cryogenic distillation after the calibration proves that $${}^{37}$$ 37 Ar can be considered as a regular calibration source for multi-tonne xenon detectors.