1,127 research outputs found
Facing the Future: the Changing Shape of Academic Skills Support at Bournemouth University
No full textThis paper explores the potential impact of changes to higher education in England on student expectations, engagement, lifestyles and diversity, and outlines implications for the development of digital literacy within academic skills support at Bournemouth University (BU). We will investigate how tackling resource constraints with organisational change can also enable efficient, centralised provision of support materials that utilise networks to overcome the risk of fragmented support for digital literacy. We will also look at how changing delivery modes for support can accommodate changing student lifestyles whilst tackling a weakness of centralised support for digital literacy: that it can become detached from the student’s subject-focused academic practice. Finally we will explore how involving students in developing support can help us to face changes to student expectations and engagement whilst ensuring that materials are authentic and speak to learners in their own voice
The Total Synthesis of Dragmacidins D and F
Get PDFThe dragmacidins are an emerging class of bis(indole) natural products isolated from deep-water marine organisms. Although there has been a substantial effort to prepare the simple piperazine dragmacidins, little synthetic work has been done in the area of the pyrazinone-containing family members, dragmacidins D, E, and F. These compounds are particularly interesting due to their complex structures and broad range of biological activity.
A highly convergent strategy to access dragmacidin D has been developed. In this approach, sequential halogen-selective Suzuki couplings were used to assemble the carbon scaffold of the natural product. After executing a highly optimized sequence of final events, the first completed total synthesis of dragmacidin D was achieved.
An enantiodivergent strategy for the total chemical synthesis of both (+)- and (-)-dragmacidin F from a single enantiomer of quinic acid has been developed and successfully implemented. Although unique, the synthetic routes to these antipodes share a number of key features, including novel reductive isomerization reactions, Pd(II)-mediated oxidative carbocyclization reactions, halogen-selective Suzuki couplings, and high-yielding late-stage Neber rearrangements.
The formal total syntheses of dragmacidin B, trans-dragmacidin C, and dihydrohamacanthin A are described. In addition, preliminary studies involving a novel approach for the preparation of dragmacidin E are reported.</p
Maximizing Research Impact Through Institutional and National Open-Access Self-Archiving Mandates
No full textNo research institution can afford all the journals its researchers may need, so all articles are losing research impact (usage and citations). Articles made “Open Access,” (OA) by self-archiving them on the web are cited twice as much, but only 15% of articles are being spontaneously self-archived. The only institutions approaching 100% self-archiving are those that mandate it. Surveys show that 95% of authors will comply with a self-archiving mandate; the actual expe-rience of institutions with mandates has confirmed this. What institutions and funders need to mandate is that (1) immediately upon acceptance for publication, (2) the author’s final draft must be (3) deposited into the Institutional Repository. Only the depositing needs to be mandated; set-ting access privileges to the full-text as either OA or Restricted Access (RA) can be left up to the author. For articles published in the 93% of journals that have already endorsed self-archiving, access can be set as OA immediately; for the remaining 7%, authors can email the eprint in re-sponse to individual email requests automatically forwarded by the Repository
Jere Nash Interview with Neil McMillen (Part 1 of 2)
No full textInterview conducted by author Jere Nash with University of Southern Mississippi history professor Neil R. McMillen in the process of writing Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2006. Topics dicussed include race and politics in Mississippi; southern historians including Dewey Grantham, C. Vann Woodward, Numan V. Bartley, John Boles; segregation in Mississippi and resistance to change; genesis of McMillin\u27s book Dark Journey; fifteenth Freedom Summer reunion at Millsaps and Tougaloo; John Ditmer; contributing to A History of Mississippi edited by Richard Aubrey McLemore and reaction by the public and University of Southern Mississippi officials; hiring of African American faculty at USM; M.M. Roberts; and William D. McCain
Dissimilarity is used as evidence of category membership in multidimensional perceptual categorization: a test of the similarity-dissimilarity generalized context model
Get PDFIn exemplar models of categorization, the similarity between an exemplar and category members constitutes evidence that the exemplar belongs to the category. We test the possibility that the dissimilarity to members of competing categories also contributes to this evidence. Data were collected from two 2-dimensional perceptual categorization experiments, one with lines varying in orientation and length and the other with coloured patches varying in saturation and brightness. Model fits of the similarity-dissimilarity generalized context model were used to compare a model where only similarity was used with a model where both similarity and dissimilarity were used. For the majority of participants the similarity-dissimilarity model provided both a significantly better fit and better generalization, suggesting that people do also use dissimilarity as evidence
Effect of accommodation on peripheral ocular aberrations
No full textChanges in peripheral aberrations, particularly higher-order aberrations, as a function of accommodation have received little attention. Wavefront aberrations were measured for the right eyes of 9 young adult emmetropes at 38 field positions in the central 42 x 32 degrees of the visual field. Subjects accommodated monocularly to targets at vergences of either 0.3 or 4.0 D. Wavefront data for a 5 mm diameter pupil were analyzed either in terms of the vector components of refraction or Zernike coefficients and total RMS wavefront aberrations. Relative peripheral refractive error (RPRE) was myopic at both accommodation demands and showed only a slight, not statistically significant, hypermetropic shift in the vertical meridian with the higher accommodation demand. There was little change in the astigmatic components of refraction or the higher-order Zernike coefficients, apart from fourth-order spherical aberration which became more negative (by 0.10 µm) at all field locations. Although it has been suggested that nearwork and the state of peripheral refraction may play some role in myopia development, for most of our adult emmetropes any changes with accommodation in RPRE and aberration were small. Hence it seems unlikely that such changes can be of importance to late-onset myopisation
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Electrocaloric materials and devices
Get PDFThe temperature and/or entropy of electrically polarisable materials can be altered by changing electric field E. Research into this electrocaloric (EC) effect has focussed on increasing the size of the EC effects, with the long-term aim of building a cooler with an EC material at its heart.
Materials and experimental methods are briefly reviewed. A ‘resetting’ indirect route to isothermal entropy change ∆S for hysteretic first-order transitions is described. An indirect route to adiabatic temperature change ∆T, without the need for field-resolved heat capacity data, is also described.
Three temperature controllers were built: a cryogenic probe for 77-420 K with ∼5 mK resolution, a high-temperature stage with vacuum enclosure for 295-700 K with ∼15 mK resolution, and a low-temperature stage for 120-400 K with electrical access via micropositioners. Automation enables dense datasets to be compiled.
Single crystals of inorganic salts (NH4)2SO4 , KNO3 and NaNO2 were obtained. Applying 380 kV cm−1 across (NH4)2SO4 , it was found that |∆S| ∼ 20 J K−1 kg−1 and |∆T | ∼ 4 K, using the indirect method near the Curie temperature TC = 223 K. Without the ‘resetting’ indirect method, |∆S| ∼ 45 J K−1 kg−1 would have been spuriously found. Preliminary indirect measurements on KNO3 and NaNO2 give |∆S| ∼ 75 J K−1 kg−1 for ∆E ∼ 31 kV cm−1 near TC = 400 K and |∆S| ∼ 14 J K−1 kg−1 for ∆E ∼ 15 kV cm−1 near TC = 435 K, respectively.
A cation-ordered PbSc0.5Ta0.5O3 ceramic showing a nominally first-order transition at 295 K was obtained. The Clausius-Clapeyron phase diagram is revealed via indirect measurements where |∆S| ∼ 3.25 J K−1 kg−1 and |∆T | ∼ 2 K, and direct measurements where |∆T | ∼ 2 K. Clamped samples show broadening of the field-induced transition.
Epitaxial, ∼64 nm-thick SrTiO3 films were grown by pulsed laser deposition on NdGaO3 (001) substrates with a La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 bottom electrode. The indirect method gives |∆S| ∼ 8 J K−1 kg−1 and |∆T | ∼ 3.5 K near 180 K with |∆E| = 780 kV cm−1.
Finite element modelling (FEM) was used to optimise the geometry of multilayered capacitors (MLCs) for EC cooling. Intrinsic cooling powers of 25.9 kW kg−1 are predicted for an optimised MLC based on PVDF-TrFE with Ag electrodes
Millisecond accuracy video display using OpenGL under Linux
Get PDFTo measure people’s reaction times to the nearest millisecond, it is necessary to know exactly when
a stimulus is displayed. This article describes how to display stimuli with millisecond accuracy on a
normal CRT monitor, using a PC running Linux. A simple C program is presented to illustrate how this
may be done within X Windows using the OpenGL rendering system. A test of this system is reported
that demonstrates that stimuli may be consistently displayed with millisecond accuracy. An algorithm
is presented that allows the exact time of stimulus presentation to be deduced, even if there are relatively
large errors in measuring the display time
Hearing Faces and Seeing Voices: The Integration and Interaction of Face and Voice Processing
Get PDFCognitive understanding of voice recognition has borrowed much from the area of face processing, both in terms of the theoretical framework within which results are interpreted, and the methodology used to assess performance. A considerable body of research now exists to suggest that voice recognition may proceed in parallel with face recognition, and that the two pathways may combine to inform person recognition. However, rather than being independent or equivalent, these parallel pathways appear to interact to reveal interesting interference effects. The present paper reviews a series of studies that focus on a considerable and growing literature. The vulnerability of voice processing will be explored relative to face processing, and the interaction of these two pathways will be examined with reference to broader theoretical frameworks for person recognition
Stop Shackling Patients: A Petition to Humanize the Care of Incarcerated Patients at Boston Medical Center
Get PDFThis scholarly work, written by Neil Singh Bedi, Nisha Mathur, and Judy D. Wang, under the mentorship of Professors Sondra Crosby and George Annas, and with the support of members of the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition, compiles a series of arguments against the routine shackling of patients who are incarcerated while they receive healthcare in American hospitals. As medical students, NSB, NM, and JDW had a unique opportunity to collaborate with Boston Medical Center, their primary teaching institution, the largest trauma center in New England, and a nationally renowned health system that is dedicated towards achieving health equity, in changing their policy regarding care for patients who are incarcerated. Written and launched on the 5th of February, 2022, this petition launched a national discussion to understand and change one of the many concerns about how this patient population is treated: namely, the use of shackles as restraints in healthcare setting. In response to the robust discussion incited by this campaign, the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition (SSP) was founded. SSP is a task force and learning collaborative of health professionals, human rights advocates, and policymakers driven to raise the quality of care provided to incarcerated individuals by bringing an end to universal shackling. As of February 2023, Boston Medical Center amended its existing policy for the care of patients who are incarcerated, in response to this petition, and in collaboration with the Directors of SSP. Working directly with executive leadership, clinical leaders, the Office of the General Counsel, and public safety, authors NSB, NM, and JDW helped to develop and implement a revised policy that enables healthcare providers to not only assess whether patients who are incarcerated meet special circumstances (e.g. quadriplegia, sedation, or palliative care), but also to advocate for shackle removal
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