Using debates to develop and assess critical reasoning abilities

The ability to construct evidence based arguments is an important and necessary skill in biosciences, health and other areas and arguably helps to define the concept of graduateness – the acquisition of a set of advanced transferable skills that are useful in any employment area. However, developing critical reasoning abilities progressively throughout a three year degree course is often implicitly rather than explicitly addressed. We often assume that our students understand that this is what we expect them to do when we direct them to the evidence base and this is not really good enough in a student centred ethos. Students have to know what they are meant to be learning and need to be able to self evaluate the extent of their learning. Learning outcomes need to be both explicit and transparent. Deconstructing what is meant by critical reasoning is for me relatively straight forward; I want my students to observe the world around them, ask questions about what might be going on, consider possible answers and explanations and determine which ones, on the evidence available, seem most plausible. In other words, I want them to think things through before they express opinions. Critical reasoning is also central to reflective practice – it is about evaluating one’s own reasoning to see how it holds up to new experiences and it is also about ‘the ability to use language with clarity and discrimination’ (Thomson 2002 p2). Opportunities abound on science and health courses to confront radically opposite viewpoints as ethical dilemmas present themselves almost daily. Examples here include reproductive technologies, end of life decisions, ecological ethics and the nature of doctor/patient relationships. Many of these dilemmas are based on debating ‘should we because we can’ and provide a valuable learning opportunity for students to engage in critical examination of both sides of the argument; whilst raising their awareness of the social responsibility of scientists and the impact of scientific developments. In the Faculty of Health here at Leeds Met, on our Health Sciences and Public Health courses we have a first year, first semester module, Concepts of Science and Health. This was designed to explore definitions and views of both of those terms and discuss moral and ethical frameworks that may help to evaluate and construct reasoned arguments around contested issues. 60% of the module assessment is for the production of a group report that sets out the arguments that either support or refute an ethical standpoint followed by a debate with their opposing group based on the written reports

Effects of Various Combinations and Numbers of Lead: Iron Pellets Dosed in Wild-Type Captive Mallards

Final Report, Contract No. 14-16-0008-914INHS Technical Report prepared for unspecified recipien

Portable Gamma Spectrometry Surveys of Sites in Portugal in Support of the VADOSE Project

The VADOSE project involves the use of multiple techniques to evaluate dose rate variability on different spatial scales. Several sites in central northern Portugal, mostly in the vicinity of Aveiro, have been investigated. As part of this investigation, portable gamma spectrometry techniques were used to map areas of approximately 100x100m around each sampling location. The SUERC portable gamma spectrometry system used consists of a 3x3” NaI(Tl) spectrometer with integral GPS receiver. Measurements were conducted with 10s integration time. Maps of the dose rate variability in each area were generated in the field, and used to confirm data quality and coverage and identify any remaining locations that would benefit from further measurements prior to leaving the site. Maps of natural radionuclide distribution (40K, 214Bi from the 238U decay series, and 208Tl from the 232Th decay series) were produced after the conclusion of measurements each day. Natural radionuclide specific activities (Bq kg-1 ) were estimated using a spectral windows method with stripping1 , using a working calibration assuming planar geometry and uniform activity distribution. As agreed prior to the start of work, a working calibration derived from field measurements and photon fluence calculations conducted for similar detectors in the 1990s2 has been used here, with calibration parameters given in the appendix. This report presents the dose rate maps produced during the field work, with a very brief description of the data. Summary statistics for each data set are presented in Table 1. All data have been mapped using a UTM (zone 29T) grid, with the approximate location of ground features added by hand as a guide. Further work could be conducted to produce more accurate overlays of ground features. At each site in-situ gamma spectrometry measurements were also conducted by ITN, and the data collected by the two detector systems and the soil samples will be compared at a later date

Demonstration of lightweight gamma spectrometry systems in urban environments

Urban areas present highly complex radiation environments; with small scale features resulting from different construction materials, topographic effects and potential anthropogenic inputs from past industrial activity or other sources. Mapping of the radiation fields in urban areas allows a detailed assessment of exposure pathways for the people who live and work there, as well as locating discrete sources of activity that may warrant removal to mitigate dose to the general public. These areas also present access difficulties for radiometric mapping using vehicles or aircraft. A lightweight portable gamma spectrometry system has been used to survey sites in the vicinity of Glasgow to demonstrate the possibilities of radiometric mapping of urban areas, and to investigate the complex radiometric features such areas present. Variations in natural activity due to construction materials have been described, the presence of 137Cs used to identify relatively undisturbed ground, and a previously unknown NORM feature identified. The effect of topographic enclosure on measurements of activity concentration has been quantified. The portable system is compared with the outputs that might be expected from larger vehicular or airborne systems. For large areas airborne surveys are the most cost effective approach, but provide limited spatial resolution, vehicular surveys can provide sparse exploratory data rapidly or detailed mapping of open areas where off-road access is possible. Backpack systems are ideally suited to detailed surveys of small areas, especially where vehicular access is difficult

Equivariant configuration spaces

The compression theorem is used to prove results for equivariant configuration spaces that are analogous to the well-known non-equivariant results of May, Milgram and Segal

A new perspective on population aging

In Sanderson and Scherbov (2005) we introduced a new forward-looking definition of age and argued that its use, along with the traditional backward-looking concept of age, provides a more informative basis upon which to discuss population aging. Age is a measure of how many years a person has already lived. In contrast, our new approach to measuring age is concerned about the future. In this paper, we first explore our new age measure in detail and show, using an analytic formulation, historical data, and forecasts, that it is, in most cases, insensitive to whether it is measured using period or cohort life tables. We, then, show, using new forward-looking definitions of median age and the old age dependency ratio, how combining the traditional age concept and our new one enhances our understanding of population aging.age/aging, historical demography, life expectancy, median age, population forecasting, prospective age

A New Perspective on Population Ageing.

In Sanderson and Scherbov (2005) we introduced a new forwardlooking definition of age called “prospective age” and argued that its use, along with the traditional backward-looking concept of age, provides a more informative basis upon which to discuss population ageing. Age is a measure of how many years a person has already lived. Everyone of the same age has lived the same number of years. In contrast, prospective age is concerned about the future. Everyone with the same prospective age has the same expected remaining years of life. In this paper, we first explore the concept of prospective age in detail and show, using an analytic formulation, historical data, and forecasts, that prospective age is, in most cases, insensitive to whether it is measured using period or cohort life tables. We, then, use the two age concepts in concert and demonstrate how this enriches our understanding of population ageing in developed countries since 1960.

Task sequence planning in a robot workcell using AND/OR nets

An approach to task sequence planning for a generalized robotic manufacturing or material handling workcell is described. Given the descriptions of the objects in this system and all feasible geometric relationships among these objects, an AND/OR net which describes the relationships of all feasible geometric states and associated feasibility criteria for net transitions is generated. This AND/OR net is mapped into a Petri net which incorporates all feasible sequences of operations. The resulting Petri net is shown to be bounded and have guaranteed properties of liveness, safeness, and reversibility. Sequences are found from the reachability tree of the Petri net. Feasibility criteria for net transitions may be used to generate an extended Petri net representation of lower level command sequences. The resulting Petri net representation may be used for on-line scheduling and control of the system of feasible sequences. A simulation example of the sequences is described