Enquiring into writing development across research degrees: a new generative model

This paper reports a UK Higher Education Academy funded study aimed at exploring research students’ perceptions of what helps them develop their academic writing. Recent graduates and students from across disciplines were asked questions around four themes: (a) supervisors’ feedback; (b) training; (c) cohort experiences; and (d) personal strategies for writing development. This paper builds on the interim results discussed at BERA 2012 and presents a new generative model of research students’ academic writing development. The model includes the factors influencing this development and captures the dynamic processes that affect higher level thinking. The model may be used as a discussion tool to build a shared student-staff understanding of effective feedback for academic writing across research degree providers globally

Pioneer Venus

Venus before Pioneer, the Pioneer Venus mission, Pioneer Venus spacecraft, scientific investigation, mission to Venus scientific results, and results of Soviet studies of Venus are addressed. A chronology of exploration of Venus from Earth before the Pioneer Venus mission and Venus nomenclature and mythology are provided

An exploration of academic writing development across research degrees: the students’ perspective

This paper reports a HEA project aimed at exploring research students' perceptions of what helps them develop their academic writing. Students from across university subjects from the authors' institutions were asked questions about effective feedback for academic writing around these four themes: (a) supervisors' feedback; (b) training; (c) cohort experiences; and (d) personal strategies for academic writing development

Towards a warped inflationary brane scanning

We present a detailed systematics for comparing warped brane inflation with the observations, incorporating the effects of both moduli stabilization and ultraviolet bulk physics. We explicitly construct an example of the inflaton potential governing the motion of a mobile D3 brane in the entire warped deformed conifold. This allows us to precisely identify the corresponding scales of the cosmic microwave background. The effects due to bulk fluxes or localized sources are parametrized using gauge/string duality. We next perform some sample scannings to explore the parameter space of the complete potential, and first demonstrate that without the bulk effects there can be large degenerate sets of parameters with observationally consistent predictions. When the bulk perturbations are included, however, the observational predictions are generally spoiled. For them to remain consistent, the magnitudes of the bulk effects need to be highly suppressed via fine tuning.Comment: (v1) 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables; (v2) more clarifications and references added; (v3) 12 pages, more discussions, to appear in Physical Review

Reducing pitfalls in agricultural development projects: a case for the participatory project management cycle (PPMC)

The management of agricultural development projects is a factor that can contribute to their success or failure. In worst-case scenarios poorly managed projects seem to continue with a life of their own and without clear direction. In the cycle of agricultural development projects, including programmed extension, major pitfalls can occur if the necessary phases are ignored or incorrectly implemented. The argument is that these can be avoided if the Participatory Project Management Cycle (PPMC) is followed. While there are a number of methods available for trained agricultural extensionists these are not readily available for agricultural researchers who do not undergo such training but are often expected to carry out technology transfer. This is often done without the collaboration of trained extensionists. Subsequently, a method had to be developed using the basic project management knowledge that some agricultural researchers had obtained through experience and short courses. Two case studies are used to highlight what happens when the PPMC is followed or not. Case Study One is a project that was implemented to completion without following the Participatory Project Management Cycle. For the purpose of this study the PPMC was used during the ex-post evaluation to identify where and why major pitfalls occurred. Case Study Two concerns a project that was initiated using the PPMC but was temporarily suspended at the beginning of phase four of the cycle. This decision was based on the information obtained while following the PPMC and avoided the unnecessary use of scarce resources. Keywords: participatory project management cycle, agricultural development, case studies, Southern and Eastern Cape South African Journal of Agricultural Extension Vol. 34(1) 2005: 104-12

Field-calibrated model of melt, refreezing, and runoff for polar ice caps : Application to Devon Ice Cap

Acknowledgments R.M.M. was supported by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES). The field data collection contributed to the validation of the European Space Agency Cryosat mission and was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada, the Meteorological Service of Canada (CRYSYS program), the Polar Continental Shelf Project (an agency of Natural Resources Canada), and by UK Natural Environment Research Council consortium grant NER/O/S/2003/00620. Support for D.O.B. was provided by the Canadian Circumpolar Institute and the Climate Change Geoscience Program, Earth Sciences Sector, Natural Resources Canada (ESS contribution 20130371). Thanks are also due to the Nunavut Research Institute and the communities of Resolute Bay and Grise Fjord for permission to conduct fieldwork on Devon Ice Cap. M.J. Sharp, A. Gardner, F. Cawkwell, R. Bingham, S. Williamson, L. Colgan, J. Davis, B. Danielson, J. Sekerka, L. Gray, and J. Zheng are thanked for logistical support and field assistance during the data collection. We thank Ruzica Dadic, two other anonymous reviewers, and the Editor, Bryn Hubbard, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper and which resulted in significant improvements.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Modeling population structure and adaptation in a Hawaiian stream goby: Sicyopterus stimpsoni

Due to the environmental problem of climate change, it has been forecasted that the Hawaiian islands can expect increased drought and increased rainfall variability. This could cause a change in stream flow and threaten the amphidromous waterfall climbing gobies, Sicyopterus stimpsoni. To study the impact of these projected changes, we used spatially-explicit, individual-based population models with four levels drought and three levels of rainfall variability for three islands with different topographies (Hawai\u27i, O\u27ahu and Kaua\u27i) and looked at the effect on the goby population dynamics after 10 years. Our results showed that total abundance was impacted by drought, variability, and island shape, especially under extreme conditions. The rate of morphological change and percent of juveniles was also negatively affected by the extreme conditions. Overall, the populations were stable under moderate drought conditions, but suffered when conditions reached extreme levels