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The high school minimal competency examination described in this document is part one of a three-part program that requires that all students satisfactorily complete tests in reading, language arts, and mathematics prior to receiving a high school diploma. The document outlines the test development and assessment program and describes the plan for phase two, that will require junior high school students to pass a minimal competency examination before entering high school, and phase three, which will test third grade students for areas of weakness before admitting them to the intermediate level. Competency goals and objectives for the high school level are listed for (1) mathematics--simple arithmetic, computation of percentages, measurement and the metric system, fractions, and the practical application of mathematics in money, budget, grocery costs, taxes, and loan interest; (2) reading--filling out forms and applications, following directions, discerning fact from opinion, reading labels, road signs, contracts, and reference materials, and identifying the main idea in a paragraph; and (3) language arts--following oral directions, spelling, writing checks, personal and business letters, the use of basic grammar, planning a speech, and recognizing the contextual meaning of words. (MAI)

We examine the energy level structure of a Josephson charge qubit (Cooper pair box) coupled to its environment, utilising a backreaction technique originally proposed for characterising persistent current qubits. The system consists of a model charge qubit coupled to three electromagnetic modes: a low frequency bias field, a higher frequency microwave to excite the qubit into higher states, and a lossy reservoir representing the cavity containing the qubit and control fields. Specifically, the qubit is a small superconducting island connected to a bulk superconductor via a weak Josephson junction, allowing Cooper pairs to tunnel on and off the island coherently. The classical bias field experiences a backreaction from the qubit and the noise power increases when the qubit is operating near a transition. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]