48,674 research outputs found
Reflection - quantifying a rare good
Based on a literature review, reflections in written text are rare. The reported proportions of reflection are based on different baselines, making comparisons difficult. In contrast, this research reports on the proportion of occurrences of elements of reflection based on sentence level. This metric allows to compare proportions of elements of reflection. Previous studies are based on courses tailored to foster reflection. The reported proportions represent more the success of a specific instruction than informing about proportions of reflections occurring in student writings in general. This study is based on a large sample of course forum posts of a virtual learning environment. In total 1000 sentences were randomly selected and manually classified according to six elements of reflection. Five raters rated each sentence. Agreement was calculated based on a majority vote. The proportions of elements of reflection are reported and its potential application for course analytics demonstrated. The results indicate that reflections in text are indeed rare, and that there are differences within elements of reflection
IDENTIFICATION OF RELEVANT TIME-SCALES IN NONEQUILIBRIUM COMMUNITY DYNAMICS - CONCLUSIONS FROM PHYTOPLANKTON SURVEYS
This paper is a reflection on J.B. Wilson's (1990) publication which presents an attempt to understand the development of terrestrial plant communities of New Zealand against twelve different explanations of Hutchinson's Paradox. I make a rough comparison between terrestrial and planktonic communities; then I briefly review Hutchinson's Paradox and some of the later relevant phytoplankton results. I summarize the relevance of the IDH in phytoplankton dynamics, assessing its strengths and weaknesses; and finally, try to project our conclusions to terrestrial plant communities; this concerns chiefly the need for appropriate spatial and temporal scaling
Calibrating evanescent-wave penetration depths for biological TIRF microscopy
Roughly half of a cells proteins are located at or near the plasma membrane.
In this restricted space the cell senses its environment, signals to its
neighbors and ex-changes cargo through exo- and endocytotic mechanisms. Ligands
bind to receptors, ions flow across channel pores, and transmitters and
metabolites are transported against con-centration gradients. Receptors, ion
channels, pumps and transporters are the molecular substrates of these
biological processes and they constitute important targets for drug discovery.
Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy suppresses background from
cell deeper layers and provides contrast for selectively imaging dynamic
processes near the basal membrane of live-cells. The optical sectioning of
total internal reflection fluorescence is based on the excitation confinement
of the evanescent wave generated at the glass-cell interface. How deep the
excitation light actually penetrates the sample is difficult to know, making
the quantitative interpretation of total internal reflection fluorescence data
problematic. Nevertheless, many applications like super-resolution microscopy,
colocalization, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, near-membrane
fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, uncaging or
photo-activation-switching, as well as single-particle tracking require the
quantitative interpretation of evanescent-wave excited images. Here, we review
existing techniques for characterizing evanescent fields and we provide a
roadmap for comparing total internal reflection fluorescence data across
images, experiments, and laboratories.Comment: 18 text pages, 7 figures and one supplemental figur
Large Deviations and Exit-times for reflected McKean-Vlasov equations with self-stabilizing terms and superlinear drifts
We study a class of reflected McKean-Vlasov diffusions over a convex domain
with self-stabilizing coefficients. This includes coefficients that do not
satisfy the classical Wasserstein Lipschitz condition. Further, the process is
constrained to a (not necessarily bounded) convex domain by a local time on the
boundary. These equations include the subclass of reflected self-stabilizing
diffusions that drift towards their mean via a convolution of the solution law
with a stabilizing potential.
Firstly, we establish existence and uniqueness results for this class and
address the propagation of chaos. We work with a broad class of coefficients,
including drift terms that are locally Lipschitz in spatial and measure
variables. However, we do not rely on the boundedness of the domain or the
coefficients to account for these non-linearities and instead use the
self-stabilizing properties.
We prove a Freidlin-Wentzell type Large Deviations Principle and an
Eyring-Kramer's law for the exit-time from subdomains contained in the interior
of the reflecting domain.Comment: 41 page
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Keywords of written reflection - a comparison between reflective and descriptive datasets
This study investigates reflection keywords by contrasting two datasets, one of reflective sentences and another of descriptive sentences. The log-likelihood statistic reveals several reflection keywords that are discussed in the context of a model for reflective writing. These keywords are seen as a useful building block for tools that can automatically analyse reflection in texts
Exploring the 'hidden' in organisations: methodological challenges in construction management research
There has been recognition of the limitations of technocratic approaches to construction management research, and critical theorists in the field have often rejected prescriptive explanations of social phenomena. Thus, there has been a rise in the use of interpretive methodological approaches and a proliferation of qualitative research methods in the construction management literature. Still, interpretive research that requires interaction between the researcher and her informants often confronts the age-old, fundamental challenge that is posed to social science research: that is, what really does go on in organisations, beyond what is (and can be) said and seen? Through post-hoc reflection of a recent study into innovation in construction, it was found that multiple perspectives matter in shaping our understanding of how innovative practices manifests in construction. An observation was also made regarding the hidden agendas of senior management participants in recognising, rewarding and promoting innovation, which potentially contribute to disconnections between theory and practice of innovation in construction. Questions are raised as to how researchers can help articulate these âhiddenâ agendas and methodological challenges discussed here points to the virtues and limitations of the ethnographic approach
Quantifying protein densities on cell membranes using super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging
Surface molecules, distributed in diverse patterns and clusters on cell
membranes, influence vital functions of living cells. It is therefore important
to understand their molecular surface organisation under different
physiological and pathological conditions. Here, we present a model-free,
quantitative method to determine the distribution of cell surface molecules
based on TIRF illumination and super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging
(SOFI). This SOFI-based approach is robust towards single emitter
multiple-blinking events, high labelling densities and high blinking rates. In
SOFI, the molecular density is not based on counting events, but results as an
intrinsic property due to the correlation of the intensity fluctuations. The
effectiveness and robustness of the method was validated using simulated data,
as well as experimental data investigating the impact of palmitoylation on CD4
protein nanoscale distribution in the plasma membrane of resting T cells.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures plus Supplementary Informatio
A high-fidelity photon gun: intensity-squeezed light from a single molecule
A two-level atom cannot emit more than one photon at a time. As early as the
1980s, this quantum feature was identified as a gateway to "single-photon
sources", where a regular excitation sequence would create a stream of light
particles with photon number fluctuations below the shot noise. Such an
intensity squeezed beam of light would be desirable for a range of applications
such as quantum imaging, sensing, enhanced precision measurements and
information processing. However, experimental realizations of these sources
have been hindered by large losses caused by low photon collection efficiencies
and photophysical shortcomings. By using a planar metallo-dielectric antenna
applied to an organic molecule, we demonstrate the most regular stream of
single photons reported to date. Measured intensity fluctuations reveal 2.2 dB
squeezing limited by our detection efficiency, equivalent to 6.2 dB intensity
squeezing right after the antenna.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
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