RELEVANCY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE POLICY ARENA: IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: DISCUSSION

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Brave New World: Can We Engineer a Better Start for Freshers?

Abstract - The crucial importance of first experiences in shaping future success has been widely acknowledged. Creating the best foundations in large cohorts of students from diverse backgrounds presents special problems of its own. But a secure foundation can enhance student achievement and improve retention – and the students may even have fun too. Research has suggested that building learning communities can enhance student engagement and achievement. This paper examines how introducing non-technical activities can establish sound foundations for a university career by a) addressing objectives in the wider curriculum and b) promoting non-technical skills and experience of group working. A set of changes introduced to five degree cohorts in our academic school were designed to complement enhancements to our technical curriculum introduced during many years of debate and consideration. The changes have impacted upon generic and technical educational experiences. The paper presents an evaluation of the programme of changes through two iterations from the perspective of both faculty and student

Dynamics of kinks in the Ginzburg-Landau equation: Approach to a metastable shape and collapse of embedded pairs of kinks

We consider initial data for the real Ginzburg-Landau equation having two widely separated zeros. We require these initial conditions to be locally close to a stationary solution (the ``kink'' solution) except for a perturbation supported in a small interval between the two kinks. We show that such a perturbation vanishes on a time scale much shorter than the time scale for the motion of the kinks. The consequences of this bound, in the context of earlier studies of the dynamics of kinks in the Ginzburg-Landau equation, [ER], are as follows: we consider initial conditions $v_0$ whose restriction to a bounded interval $I$ have several zeros, not too regularly spaced, and other zeros of $v_0$ are very far from $I$. We show that all these zeros eventually disappear by colliding with each other. This relaxation process is very slow: it takes a time of order exponential of the length of $I$

The case for long range chemoreceptive piloting in Chelonia

The reproductive ecology and migration habits of Chelonia are investigated. Efforts were made to determine if the turtle navigates by chemoreception and if sensory responses of the migrating animals could be electronically tracked through telemetry. Efforts were also made to: (1) explain why certain small islands or restricted areas of mainland shore are chosen by Chelonia as nesting grounds, even when located a thousand miles or more from the year round feeding grounds of the population; (2) identify guidance mechanisms used by migrants in their periodic open ocean travels; and (3) account for the so called lost year - the virtually complete disappearance of young sea turtles during their first year of life. It was suggested that turtle migration is aided by an olfactory mechanism, sun compass, and ocean currents. The tracking experiment was unsuccessful; the equipment was lost or damaged and stopped functioning after about two hours

Acoustical Society Of America Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal In Physical Acoustics, Biomedical Acoustics, And Engineering Acoustics: Armen Sarvazyan

The Silver Medal is presented to individuals, without age limitation, for contributions to the advancement of science, engineering, or human welfare through the application of acoustic principles, or through research accomplishment in acoustics

Persistence of black holes through a cosmological bounce

We discuss whether black holes could persist in a universe which recollapses and then bounces into a new expansion phase. Whether the bounce is of classical or quantum gravitational origin, such cosmological models are of great current interest. In particular, we investigate the mass range in which black holes might survive a bounce and ways of differentiating observationally between black holes formed just after and just before the last bounce. We also discuss the consequences of the universe going through a sequence of dimensional changes as it passes through a bounce.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Parent support for very young children’s interaction with digital technology

Objective: Touch screen technology potentially affords very young children a developmentally appropriate means of interacting with digital content, ie through sensorimotor exploration. However, limitations in fine motor and cognitive development inevitably constrain the extent to which these early digital interactions are meaningful. The current study examines how parents scaffold children’s early understanding and interaction with digital technology by examining parent-child play in digital (tablet) and physical (toy) contexts. Design: The study adopted a quasi-experimental, between-subjects design with two play conditions: tablet versus toy. Methods: Parent-child interactions were recorded in an observation lab. Each session lasted about an hour and comprised periods of parent-child play (tablet versus toy), parent questionnaires and individual child assessments. Across both studies children ranged in age from 10 – 42 months (N = 30). Results: Interactions were coded for parental support, joint attention, positive and negative affect and engagement. Results suggest that the youngest children needed significant support, with both the physical and cognitive dimensions of the task, with some of the very youngest never managing meaningful interactions with the tablet despite parental help. We observed a marked difference in children’s ability to master the technology, and thus engage in more meaningful interactions at around 18 – 24 months. From age 2 parental scaffolding focused on maintaining engagement with the content of the games, with frequent episodes of successful joint attention observed. Conclusions: Although very young children, even infants, are using touch screen technologies with increasing frequency, meaningful engagement is largely dependent on parent support, compared to early play in general