A degree for a job? : understanding the value of a UK masters degree for the international student.

This thesis examines the educational experiences of international students from Russia and Palestine who studied for Masters degrees in the UK. I investigate how these students value their UK Masters degrees and how this valuing is reflected in their shifting identities. I identify an entrepreneurial discourse of international education in the UK and in the national brand for UK education marketing overseas, Education UK, and I suggest that this discourse constructs students as entrepreneurial beings and frames students' value judgments and identities during their educational trajectories. My theoretical framework draws from theories of discourse and identity to establish this entrepreneurial identity and to analyse how students' value judgments and identities shift and become more multi-faceted during their educational trajectories. The empirical work for this study consisted of interviews with 28 graduates of taught Masters degrees from UK higher education institutions several years after these individuals had returned home to Russia and Palestine. My analysis of students' value judgments and identities is based on their recollections of the three stages of their educational trajectories: their experiences pre-study, in-study and post-study. My research findings suggest that these students embark on their international education with highly entrepreneurial motives that reflect the discourse of international education. However, as their educational trajectories proceed, and students narrated their in-study and post-study experiences, there are subtle shifts in their va1ue judgments and identities as they go beyond this discourse and as personal and trans formative aspects of this international experience become more significant. In conclusion, I argue that the emphasis on the economic benefits of international education on the part of policy makers and marketers of international education risks ignoring the more complex outcomes and value of international education and could potentially impact the UK's long-term success in the international education market

Determining the stellar masses of submillimetre galaxies: the critical importance of star formation histories

Submillimetre (submm) galaxies are among the most rapidly star-forming and most massive high-redshift galaxies; thus, their properties provide important constraints on galaxy evolution models. However, there is still a debate about their stellar masses and their nature in the context of the general galaxy population. To test the reliability of their stellar mass determinations, we used a sample of simulated submm galaxies for which we derived stellar masses via spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling (with Grasil, Magphys, Hyperz and LePhare) adopting various star formation histories (SFHs). We found that the assumption of SFHs with two independent components leads to the most accurate stellar masses. Exponentially declining SFHs (tau) lead to lower masses (albeit still consistent with the true values), while the assumption of single-burst SFHs results in a significant mass underestimation. Thus, we conclude that studies based on the higher masses inferred from fitting the SEDs of real submm galaxies with double SFHs are most likely to be correct, implying that submm galaxies lie on the high-mass end of the main sequence of star-forming galaxies. This conclusion appears robust to assumptions of whether or not submm galaxies are driven by major mergers, since the suite of simulated galaxies modelled here contains examples of both merging and isolated galaxies. We identified discrepancies between the true and inferred stellar ages (rather than the dust attenuation) as the primary determinant of the success/failure of the mass recovery. Regardless of the choice of SFH, the SED-derived stellar masses exhibit a factor of ~2 scatter around the true value; this scatter is an inherent limitation of the SED modelling due to simplified assumptions. Finally, we found that the contribution of active galactic nuclei does not have any significant impact on the derived stellar masses.Comment: Accepted to A&A. 11 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. V2 main changes: 1) discussion of the stellar age as the main parameter influencing the success of an SED model (Fig. 4, 5, 7); 2) discussion of the age-dust degeneracy (Fig 9); 3) the comparison of real and simulated submm galaxies (Fig 1

Time Cost of Standardized Nursing Screens in the Emergency Department

Introduction: Various policies require that screening questions be asked of all patients who present to the emergency department (ED). No studies have previously examined the potential time costs of standardized screens. Our objective was to analyze the time nursing spent conducting standardized nursing screens and calculate the corresponding time cost.Methods: This was a prospective observational study of ED registered nurses (RN) performing triage assessments on adults presenting to the ED. A study author timed nurses while the RN asked five pre-selected questions from their current triage protocol. The time cost of each question was determined by multiplying the length of time spent asking the question each year by the mean hourly wage of RNs at the study hospital. (T/3,600) x V x S; T = mean time per question (in seconds); V = annual patient volume; S = mean hourly RN wage.Results: We observed 200 triage assessments. During the triage assessments, 130 patients (65%) were asked about pneumococcal vaccine status; 161 (80.5%) about tetanus vaccine status; 184 (92%) about medication allergies; 172 (86%) about influenza vaccine; and 73 (36.5%) about recent travel. The mean time spent per question ranged from 4.37-6.26 seconds. The estimated annual time used to ask the five questions in the study ED is 590.73 hours, which equates to $20,675.50 in nursing costs per year.Conclusion: There are potential monetary and time costs of standardized screening questions in the ED. The values heavily impact time and cost efficiency in the ED and could be redirected to more pertinent patient care. The required screening questions often have an unclear utility on the care that the patient receives in the ED. Further studies are needed to determine cost effectiveness of required ED screenings

Analysing olfactory and auditory sensescapes in English cities: Sensory expectation and urban environmental perception

Cet article analyse la manière dont les individus perçoivent une gamme variée de stimuli, notamment les sons et les odeurs émis par l’activité humaine, lors de leur déambulation dans les espaces publics des villes anglaises. La démonstration s’appuie sur deux études portant sur la déambulation sensorielle (sensewalking) menées entre 2004 et 2009 indépendamment l’une de l’autre mais avec un objectif identique. La première explore la perception de l’environnement olfactif, tandis que l’autre, s’attarde sur les expériences sonores urbaines. La comparaison des résultats montre que les expectations sensorielles modifient l’attitude des individus dans le milieu urbain en induisant des niveaux de signification et de compréhension variés. Par conséquent, il y a là un défi pour les architectes et les aménageurs de créer des milieux où la prise en compte de ces différents modes de perception pourrait conduire à des réponses plus adéquates. Si l’on convient que la perception (ou la non perception) des odeurs et des sons est fortement influencée par l’environnement, il est donc fondamental que le contexte initial soit prise en compte au moment de redéfinir et de gérer les aménagements sensoriels urbains.This paper examines the role of sensory expectation in people’s experiences and perceptions of a range of different urban environments in English towns and cities by focussing upon those related to smell and sound specifically. It draws from two separate but related sensewalking studies undertaken between 2004 and 2009: one exploring urban smell experiences, the other examining urban sound experiences. In drawing from, and comparing the findings of these two studies, sensory expectations are argued as highly influential in urban place experience and perception, providing different layers of meaning and understanding of place, and presenting challenges and opportunities for architects and urban designers when creating more human-centred places in the city. In addition, perceptions of the smells and sounds themselves are revealed as highly influenced by the environmental context within which they are, or are not, detected. As a result, the authors advocate a more proactive approach to the consideration of smells and sound information when designing and managing urban sensory environments

Massive galaxies at 1 < z < 3

This thesis explores the evolution of massive galaxies (M * > 1011M ʘ) by conducting the largest multiple-component Sersic light-profile fitting study to date of the rest-frame optical and ultra-violet morphologies of galaxies at redshifts 1 < z < 3. Despite many of the recent advances in galaxy formation and evolution models, the physical processes which are responsible for driving morphological transformations and star-formation quenching remain unclear. By undertaking a detailed study of the individual bulge and disk components of these massive systems, the work presented in this thesis addresses these outstanding issues by exploring not only how the sizes of the individual components evolve with redshift, but also how the overall bulge and disk fractions evolve, and how these trends are connected to star-formation quenching of the separate components. In order to perform this analysis, I have combined the latest high-resolution near-infrared HST WFC3/IR and ACS imaging provided by the CANDELS survey in the UDS and COSMOS fields and have presented a robust procedure for morphological multiple-component Sersic light-pro le model fitting across the 0:6μ m to 1:6μ m wavelength range sampled by CANDELS. This procedure is discussed in depth along with the tests I have undertaken to assess its reliability and accuracy. This approach has enabled me to generate separate bulge and disk component model photometry, allowing me to conduct individual component SED fitting in order to determine decomposed stellar-mass and star-formation rate estimates for the separate bulge and disk components. The results presented in this work reveal that the sizes of the bulge and disk components lie both on and below the local size-mass relations, confirming that the size evolution required by the previously reported compact sizes of high-redshift galaxies extends to both galaxy components. However, I find evidence that the bulge components display a stronger size evolution with redshift than the disks as, at 1 < z < 3, the bulges are a median factor of 3:09 ± 0:2 times smaller than similarly massive local early-type galaxies, whereas the disks are a median factor of 1:77 ± 0:1 times smaller than similarly massive local late-type galaxies. By including decomposed star-formation rates for the individual bulge and disk components, this work also reveals that while the growth of individual components through, for example, inside-out processes such as minor merging, are consistent with the size evolution of these systems, the addition of larger newly quenched systems to the galaxy population, for the disk components at least, may also play an important role in the observed size evolution of massive galaxies. By exploring the evolution of the bulge and disk-dominated fractions with redshift, I find that 1 < z < 3 marks a key transition era in cosmic time where these most massive galaxies appear to be undergoing dramatic structural transformations. Within this redshift range there is a decline in the population of disk-dominated galaxies and a gradual emergence of increasingly bulge-dominated systems. However, despite the rise of S0-type galaxies, even by z = 1 I do not yet find a significant fraction of "pure" bulges comparable to the giant ellipticals which comprise the majority of the local massive galaxy population. In addition to studying how the overall bulge and disk dominated fractions evolve with redshift, by incorporating the star-formation rate and stellar-mass estimates for the separate components and imposing new, highly conservative criteria, I con firm that a significant fraction of passive galaxies are disk-dominated (18± 5%) and a significant fraction of star-forming galaxies are bulge-dominated (11 ±4%). The presence of passive disks and star-forming bulges has interesting implications for the models of galaxy evolution as they suggest that the processes which quench star-formation may be distinct from the mechanisms which cause morphological transformations. Finally, the detailed morphological analysis presented in this work has also allowed me to explore the axial ratio distributions of these most massive high-redshift galaxies, which provides additional insight into the structure of the passive and star-forming bulge and disk-dominated sub-populations. Whilst the overall axial ratio distributions for star-forming disks are peaked, I find tentative evidence that the largest and most active star-forming disks are flatter. I have also been able to further demonstrate that by selecting the most active star-forming disks and comparing to extreme star-forming (sub-)mm selected galaxies, the axial ratio distributions of the two samples appear to be comparably flat, thus reconciling the observed structures of these populations