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Comparing two authentic assessments for mechanical engineering students: moderating ill-structuredness and transferring learning
Get PDFThis study examined the efficacy of ill-structured and moderately structured authentic assessment strategies in facilitating the transfer of learning (ToL) among first-year year Mechanical Engineering students. Two student cohorts undertook separate authentic assessments, one ill-structured and the other moderately structured. High-fidelity computer modelling and simulation using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a common tool widely adopted in engineering education, supported the solving of these complex problem tasks. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from junior engineering students revealed no significant effect on moderating the ill-structuredness of authentic assessments on the transfer of learning. Nonetheless, there were notable decreases in students’ barriers to transfer associated with moderately structured assessment without compromising learning quality. The findings suggest that authentic learning experiences generally enhanced learning outcomes and were positively received by students. However, while increased ill-structuredness may foster greater integration of knowledge across modules, educators should exercise caution when reducing the structure of assessments intended to build foundational understanding
Functional and moral brand lapses sparking negative online brand engagement and anti-brand community growth
Get PDFAlthough brand negativity presents a significant challenge for managers, research has not fully engaged with brand-related factors that contribute to its emergence. Guided by attribution theory and social identity theory and using two online surveys targeting distinct groups (anti-brand communities’ non-members and members), this work examines how the perceptions of functional (brand failure severity, perceived brand quality) and moral (unacceptable brand behaviour) brand lapses shape engagement evolution from individual action (negative online brand engagement) to collective behaviour (intention to join or participate in anti-brand communities). Structural-equation modelling tests the intricate relationship between brand lapses and the four negative online brand engagement dimensions (negative cognition, negative affection, online constructive and destructive behaviours), further disclosing how individual online negativity can drive collective movements within anti-brand communities, showing how lone complaints can escalate into organised opposition. The results offer managers early-warning indicators and segment-specific tactics for containing functional and moral crises
Turning the spotlight on Intellectual Humility: A potentially novel approach to fostering doctoral development (and researcher independence)
No full textStriking a balance between managing intellectual uncertainties and pursuing researcher independence is a key challenge facing many doctoral scholars. Our collaborative autoethnographic research in the British, Japanese and South African contexts examines the uncharted role of intellectual humility – what it is and how it can affect doctoral learning, progress and overall development. Drawing upon the hidden curriculum’s perspectives, we propose a practical pathway to practising intellectual humility, particularly in navigating intellectual uncertainties, complexities and growth based on three principles: understanding, disposition and effort. Our findings highlight the complementary benefits of cultivating intellectual humility within and even beyond the academic realm for doctoral scholars and supervisors; first, as an antecedent that scaffolds all future learning; second, as an underlying factor for developing positive, healthy relationships and a secure sense of belonging. Our study offers insights essential for innovatively advancing researcher independence and fostering ongoing cognitive and character development among scholars
First detailed MeerKAT imaging spectroscopy of a solar flare
No full textRadio observations provide powerful diagnostics of energy release, particle acceleration, and transport processes in solar flares. However, despite recent progress in radio interferometric imaging spectroscopy, current instruments still face limitations in image fidelity and resolution, restricting detailed spectroscopic studies of flaring regions. Here we present high-fidelity imaging spectroscopy of an M1.3 GOES class flare with MeerKAT, a precursor to the future-generation array SKA-Mid. Radio emissions at the observed frequencies typically originate in the low corona, offering valuable insights into magnetic reconnection and primary energy-release sites. The obtained images achieve an unprecedented dynamic range exceeding 103, enabling simultaneous analysis of bright coherent bursts and faint incoherent emission from the active region. Multiple spatially distinct coherent sources are identified, implying contributions from different populations of accelerated electrons. The incoherent emission extends beyond Atmospheric Imaging Assembly structures, highlighting MeerKAT’s ability to detect dilute but hot plasma invisible to extreme-ultraviolet instruments. Combined with cotemporal hard X-ray images and magnetic field extrapolations, the radio sources are located within distinct magnetic structures, further revealing their association with different populations of accelerated electrons. These results demonstrate MeerKAT imaging spectroscopy as a powerful diagnostic of solar flares and pave the way for future solar flare studies with SKA-Mid
Black hole spectroscopy and tests of general relativity with GW250114
Get PDFThe binary black hole signal GW250114, the loudest gravitational wave detected to date, offers a unique opportunity to test Einstein’s general relativity (GR) in the high-velocity, strong-gravity regime and probe whether the remnant conforms to the Kerr metric. Upon perturbation, black holes emit a spectrum of damped sinusoids with specific, complex frequencies. Our analysis of the postmerger signal shows that at least two quasinormal modes are required to explain the data, with the most damped remaining statistically significant for about one cycle. We probe the remnant’s Kerr nature by constraining the spectroscopic pattern of the dominant quadrupolar ( ℓ = m = 2 ) mode and its first overtone to match the Kerr prediction to tens of percent at multiple postpeak times. The measured mode amplitudes and phases agree with a numerical-relativity simulation having parameters close to GW250114. By fitting a parametrized waveform that incorporates the full inspiral-merger-ringdown sequence, we constrain the fundamental ( ℓ = m = 4 ) mode to tens of percent and bound the quadrupolar frequency to within a few percent of the GR prediction. We perform a suite of tests—spanning inspiral, merger, and ringdown—finding constraints that are comparable to, and in some cases 2–3 times more stringent than those obtained by combining dozens of events in the fourth Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog. These results constitute the most stringent single-event verification of GR and the Kerr nature of black holes to date, and outline the power of black-hole spectroscopy for future gravitational-wave observations
Daily associations of three types of social control with physical activity, reactance, and mood in romantic couples: a dyadic intensive longitudinal study
Get PDFObjective: Romantic partners influence each other’s
moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) through social control (intentional influence). Non-autonomy-limiting strategies (persuasion) may yield favourable outcomes, whereas autonomy-limiting
strategies (pressure) may provoke reactance and fail. Although
strategies likely lie on a continuum of how autonomy-limiting they
are, research typically treats them dichotomously. We introduce
plan-related pushing as an intermediate strategy. We examine daily
dyadic associations of control with MVPA, mood, and reactance.
Methods: Thirty-eight inactive couples attempting to increase
MVPA wore accelerometers and completed daily questionnaires for
55days. We employed dyadic Bayesian multilevel modelling.
Results: When individuals experienced more persuasion, they were
more likely to engage in (self-reported) MVPA. When individuals
experienced more pressure or plan-related pushing, reactance was
more likely. When individuals’ partners experienced more control
(any type), individuals were more likely to engage in MVPA, but
these links disappeared when accounting for social support. No
robust associations for mood emerged.
Conclusions: While persuasion may promote MVPA, both pressure
and plan-related pushing may backfire. Future studies should further evaluate the utility of conceptualising control strategies along
a continuum of autonomy-limitation. Moreover, future research
should continue to disentangle dyadic effects of support and control on health behaviour change in close relationships
The application of nitrogen isotopic labelling in operando powder neutron diffraction studies of metal nitride ammonia synthesis catalysts
Get PDFRecently we found that doping tungsten into Co3Mo3N reduces its ammonia synthesis activity, despite indications that nitrogen is still mobile in its lattice and similar energies for surface nitrogen vacancy formation. In this short paper, we demonstrate operando powder neutron diffraction (PND) to directly compare the behaviour of Co3Mo3N and W-doped Co3Mo2.6W0.4N as a method, to understand nitrogen exchange and mobility differences. PND is ideal for this purpose due to the large scattering length of nitrogen (9.37 fm natural abundance or 14N 9.36 fm) and good contrast with 15N (6.44 fm), that lead to sensitivity to nitrogen site behaviours during the changes
How can we maximise the benefits of smoke-free prisons? Decision analytic model to predict potential impacts on public health
No full textIntroduction:
Tobacco smoking prevalence remains high in disadvantaged populations such as people in prison. Smokefree prisons protect health, however around 90% of people who smoke pre-prison, relapse to smoking shortly after release. If people released from smokefree prisons maintain smoking abstinence this could benefit their health and finances. Knock-on effects of smoking relapse on families could also be avoided. Offering an intervention to reduce relapse to smoking on release has the potential to benefit released people and their families.
This study assesses potential costs and outcomes for released people and their families, of introducing a smokefree prison policy and an intervention to reduce post-release smoking relapse.
Methods:
Based on the smoking/vaping status of released people we modelled the impact, on costs and outcomes, of four scenarios. We modelled scenarios which varied across two dimensions: (1) whether people were/were not permitted to vape in smokefree prisons, and (2) whether a smoking cessation intervention was offered/was not offered in smokefree prisons. The scenarios reflect different combinations of these factors. We estimated costs and outcomes (benefits) for released people, their partners and children over a lifetime. We included personal costs (vaping and smoking), healthcare and intervention costs, and outcomes included quality of life.
Results:
For released people, results indicated that not permitting vaping in prison was less costly and more beneficial than when vaping was permitted. Offering a smoking cessation intervention to released people was less costly than not offering a smoking cessation intervention, irrespective of whether vaping was permitted or not. However, whilst offering a smoking cessation intervention was beneficial when vaping was permitted in prison, results are uncertain for the benefits of offering a smoking cessation intervention when vaping is not permitted in prison. Sensitivity analyses indicate uncertainty and show that changing the values for vaping prevalence and smoking relapse rates would change these results.
For both partner and child (ren), costs were higher and quality of life lower for those living with released people who relapse to smoking compared to those who vape or neither smoke nor vape.
Interpretation:
Targeted support for smoking cessation interventions to improve health outcomes for people released from smokefree prison and their families can ultimately contribute to broader public health improvements and improve health in a priority group. There is a need for greater evidence in this area to inform future modelling, particularly on relapse to smoking on release and the long-term effects of vaping. Results indicate uncertainty about the overall value of permitting vaping in smokefree prisons; wider factors associated with not allowing vaping in prisons would need to be assessed in future work. Study findings enhance understanding of the potential cost-effectiveness of smokefree prison policy, highlight uncertainty in some model inputs, and can inform decisions about how value could be maximised
Non-contact lung disease classification via orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based passive 6G integrated sensing and communication
Get PDFBackground: The screening tools for respiratory diseases typically involve spirometry (for asthma and COPD), CT scans (for interstitial lung disease), chest X-rays (for pneumonia and tuberculosis), and sputum analysis (for tuberculosis).
Methods: This work examines a diagnostic approach whereby a subject’s chest is radio exposed to non-ionizing 6G/WiFi multi-carrier radio signals at a frequency of 5.23 GHz. The fact that each respiratory disease modulates the amplitude, frequency, and phase of each radio frequency differently allows us to screen for fiverespiratory diseases: asthma,chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, interstitial lung disease, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. We collect a new dataset (OFDM-Breathe) from 220 individuals in a hospital setting, including 190 patients and 30 healthy controls. The dataset contains over 26,000s of radio signal recordings across 64 frequencies. Several machine learning and deep learning models are evaluated to classify disease type based on the discriminatory signatures of radio signals.
Results: We learn that a vanilla convolutional neural network achieves 98% accuracy in differentiating between the five respiratory diseases, along with strong performance in precision, recall, and F1-score. An ablation study demonstrates that reliable screening with up to 96% accuracy is possible using only eight frequencies, representing just 12.5% of the total bandwidth and leaving 87.5% available for 6G/WiFi data communication.
Conclusions: The proposed method could enable real-time respiratory disease screening, could help realize the health equity in developing countries, and lays the groundwork for 6G/ WiFi-enabled integrated sensing and communication platforms for healthcare systems of the future
Photonic and quantum thermometry using active resonator compound semiconductor photonic integrated circuits
Get PDFSemiconductors are extremely useful for temperature sensing owing to the strong temperature dependence of their optical and electronic properties. Silicon, the most widely used semiconductor, underpins modern electronics and is increasingly important in integrated photonics, offering a cost-effective platform for optical sensors. Silicon-based ring resonator (RR) temperature sensors operate via the temperature-dependent change in silicon’s refractive index (dn/dT), which affects the optical modes in the ring. However, silicon has two main limitations: its indirect band gap makes it a poor light emitter, necessitating external light sources, and its thermal properties are fixed. In contrast, compound semiconductors, such as indium phosphide (InP), gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN) and indium arsenide (InAs), have direct band gaps, making them efficient light emitters as commonly used in light-emitting diodes and lasers. Their thermal properties can also be tailored through alloying. These features make them ideal for ‘active resonator’ temperature sensors with integrated light sources, allowing customization for various temperature ranges. This paper focuses on InP-based alloys, highlighting their fundamental properties and potential for integration into active quantum well-based heterostructures. These can be fabricated into micro-ring and other resonator designs. Integrating light sources within the sensor enhances both simplicity and functionality, paving the way for versatile temperature sensors suited to a wide range of applications
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