The State of the Guitar in Kathmandu

The thriving guitar scene in Kathmandu is not well known outside of the country, and particularly not in the West. It has also not been the topic of much recent scholarship. It has been assumed that for Nepalis the guitar, as a foreign instrument, represents freedom and modernity; but, is this true, and what else might it signify to Nepali guitarists themselves? This article gives an overview of the history of the guitar in Kathmandu by drawing on both published scholarship and interviews conducted by the authors with twelve prominent Nepalese guitarists and guitar educators to establish the current state and future outlook of the guitar in Nepal. Findings suggest that, in addition to freedom and modernity, the guitar is connected with individualism, and is becoming naturalized and less foreign than it used to be

The anatomy of high growth firms in Scotland

There is a growing volume of scholarly evidence from various countries which points to high growth firms (HGFs) as a key force fuelling economic growth. These businesses are typically highly dynamic enterprises which undertake very rapid growth, generating substantial levels of turnover and employment growth over relatively short periods of time (BERR, 2009; Anyadike-Danes et al, 2009; Mason et al, 2009; Henrekson and Johnannson, 2010)

High Growth Firms in Scotland

High growth firms (HGFs) are widely thought to be a key force driving economic growth in modern advanced economies (Acs et al, 2008; BERR, 2008; Henrekson and Johansson, 2010). One of the central aims of the current economic strategy of the Scottish Government is to provide responsive and focused enterprise support to increase the number of highly successful, competitive businesses (Scottish Government, 2007). Hence, for the past decade there have been a number of policy initiatives designed to stimulate high growth entrepreneurship in Scotland. Many of these policies have had a strong technology focus. Given the importance these firms have for a region’s economic growth potential and the policy attention they are beginning to receive, it was felt to be important that Scottish Enterprise develops a deeper understanding of these important generators of wealth creation in the Scottish economy. This report examines HGFs in Scotland from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives

Improving performance in quantum mechanics with explicit incentives to correct mistakes

An earlier investigation found that the performance of advanced students in a quantum mechanics course did not automatically improve from midterm to final exam on identical problems even when they were provided the correct solutions and their own graded exams. Here, we describe a study, which extended over four years, in which upper-level undergraduate students in a quantum physics course were given four identical problems in both the midterm exam and final exam. Approximately half of the students were given explicit incentives to correct their mistakes in the midterm exam. In particular, they could get back up to 50\% of the points lost on each midterm exam problem. The solutions to the midterm exam problems were provided to all students in both groups but those who corrected their mistakes were provided the solution after they submitted their corrections to the instructor. The performance on the same problems on the final exam suggests that students who were given incentives to correct their mistakes significantly outperformed those who were not given an incentive. The incentive to correct the mistakes had greater impact on the final exam performance of students who had not performed well on the midterm exam.Comment: accepted for publication Physical Review Physics Education Research in 2016, 20 pages, PACS: 01.40Fk,01.40.gb,01.40G-, Keywords: physics education research, learning from mistakes, pedagogy, quantum mechanics, teaching, learnin

The growth dynamics of technology-based firms in Scotland

In recent years high growth firms (HGFs) undertaking rapid, transformative growth, have been identified as important contributors to economic growth (Acs et al, 2008; Anyadike-Danes et al, 2009; OECD, 2010). For a wide variety of reasons, notably their contribution to employment growth, high export intensity, strong contribution to productivity growth and innovation, HGFs have been hailed as vital drivers of economic competitiveness (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010). As a consequence, these firms (often referred to as 'gazelles'), have been accorded a central role in many economic development strategies at both national and regional levels, especially during a time of economic austerity where employment growth has been an overriding policy goal for many governments (BERR, 2008; NESTA, 2011; OECD, 2010; Scottish Enterprise, 2011). Yet despite the strong policy focus on the promotion of HGFs in recent times, much remains unknown about these organisations and how best to support them (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010; Anyadike-Danes et al, 2012; Mason and Brown, forthcoming). Scottish Enterprise recently commissioned research on Scotland’s population of HGFs (Mason and Brown, 2010). This was the first comprehensive analysis of these firms ever conducted in Scotland and some of the findings were published in this journal (Brown and Mason, 2010). One of the most significant conclusions from this study was that they are extremely heterogeneous in terms of their age, size, ownership and industry sector. Few fit the stereotypical ‘gazelle’ definition which refers to young high growth firms that are less than five years old. The vast majority are over 10 years old, with some significantly older (Mason and Brown, 2010). Furthermore, only a relatively small proportion of these firms are in high-tech areas of the economy. According to some scholars, there is ‘no evidence that Gazelles are overrepresented in high- technology industries’ (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010, p.240). Despite their strong prioritisation by policy makers, the reality is that the representation of technology based firms (TBFs) in the population of HGFs is roughly on a par with their proportion in the economy (Mason and Brown, forthcoming). In view of these twin priorities of promoting high growth in general and high tech firms in particular, Scottish Enterprise commissioned further research to explore HGFs, especially in high tech areas of the economy. The objectives of this paper are twofold: to provide an update on the level of HGFs in Scotland and to assess the population of TBFs in Scotland. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the terms high growth and technology-based enterprises are defined. Second, the methodology is outlined. Third, the aggregate evidence on the levels of HGFs in Scotland is presented. Fourth, the population of TBFs in Scotland, including analysis of high growth TBFs is profiled. Fifth, some of the key characteristics of high growth TBFs in Scotland are examined. Sixth, some of features of these firms which were captured during the qualitative part of this research process are summarised. The paper finishes with some brief conclusions and issues for further research

Science Students and Student Researchers: Outreach Challenges Facing a Satellite Librarian

The CUNY (City University of New York) Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) has a small group of postdoctoral science students who are primarily onsite for lab work. I was asked to develop a series of library workshops that would appeal to both the ASRC students, and the more traditional grad students at the Graduate Center (GC) main campus. Developing seminars that appeal to users as both students and as researchers simultaneously have been a rewarding challenge. I will discuss how I developed and modified these topics over the course of one semester for two different audiences, as well as the challenges in communication and outreach that I am facing. I didn\u27t know how different my two constituencies were when I committed to the topics my workshops would be covering. By that time, I had to come up with ways to tweak the content of each section to appeal to the respective groups, and had to communicate to the two different groups just how useful the workshops could be to them. For example, for a workshop on open access, for the graduate students I highlighted how they can find author archived copies of journal articles that they might not otherwise have access to, while for the student researchers, I emphasized how they can use OA platforms to make their own work more visible, thus potentially increasing their readership

Regular Functions on the K-Nilpotent Cone

Let $G$ be a complex reductive algebraic group with Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ and let $G_{\mathbb{R}}$ be a real form of $G$ with maximal compact subgroup $K_{\mathbb{R}}$. Associated to $G_{\mathbb{R}}$ is a $K \times \mathbb{C}^{\times}$-invariant subvariety $\mathcal{N}_{\theta}$ of the (usual) nilpotent cone $\mathcal{N} \subset \mathfrak{g}^*$. In this article, we will derive a formula for the ring of regular functions $\mathbb{C}[\mathcal{N}_{\theta}]$ as a representation of $K \times \mathbb{C}^{\times}$. Some motivation comes from Hodge theory. In arXiv:1206.5547, Schmid and Vilonen use ideas from Saito's theory of mixed Hodge modules to define canonical good filtrations on many Harish-Chandra modules (including all standard and irreducible Harish-Chandra modules). Using these filtrations, they formulate a conjectural description of the unitary dual. If $G_{\mathbb{R}}$ is split, and $X$ is the spherical principal series representation of infinitesimal character $0$, then conjecturally $\mathrm{gr}(X) \simeq \mathbb{C}[\mathcal{N}_{\theta}]$ as representations of $K \times \mathbb{C}^{\times}$. So a formula for $\mathbb{C}[\mathcal{N}_{\theta}]$ is an essential ingredient for computing Hodge filtrations.Comment: comments welcome

Representation of South Asian people in randomised clinical trials: analysis of trials' data

Excluding patients of ethnic minority groups from clinical trials is unethical, introduces substantial bias, and means that findings are based on unrepresentative populations. The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act 1993 requires that all minority groups be represented in the sample in research projects supported by the National Institutes of Health, unless there is a clear and compelling justification not to do so. In the United Kingdom no such legislation exists