A sound education: using podcasts to develop study skills

Coping with the demands of academic study at university level can be a challenging experience for many students, and effective study skills are crucial in achieving academic success. However, librarians and teachers in higher education will know that it is not always easy to engage students in developing their study skills. How can we find new ways of stimulating the interest of our students? An innovative approach to teaching and the exploitation of new technologies can provide solutions and ideas. Podcasting has been very popular in recent years for delivering entertainment, news and other information, but podcasts are also extensively used in education, enabling students to watch or listen at a time that suits them – at home, at work or while travelling. The Skills for learning website was established over ten years ago as part of the library service at Leeds Metropolitan University to support the teaching and learning of study skills. The website offers students a wide range of resources including topics such as academic writing, time management, group skills, reflection and how to do research. There is also a team of tutors who provide workshops and tutorials. We felt that a podcast series could provide an alternative and flexible way of delivering study skills support that might appeal to a new audience. The podcasts could also be used as a stimulus in classroom teaching. As they are usually released episodically, we hoped that subscribers or visitors to our podcast page would become ‘hooked’ on the series and want to tune in to future podcasts. All the podcasts were created in-house by members of the Skills for learning team

Personal propulsion unit Patent

Lightweight propulsion unit for movement of personnel and equipment across lunar surfac

Investigation of single crystal microwave acoustical delay line materials Final report

Single crystals for microwave acoustical equipment improved by MgO dopin

Women's health physiotherapy facebook group: using social media to develop an international clinical special interest group

Background: The Women's Health Physiotherapy Facebook group was set up in 2013 to support 20 physiotherapists who had attended a UK based Pelvic Floor course. It has since grown to become a leading International women's Health group with approximately 1500 members from all the WCPT regions. The members comprise women's health clinicians, tutors, researchers, academics, post graduate and undergraduate students but also representing midwifery, oncology, urogynaecological and the obstetric medical community. Purpose: The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate the potential offered by social media to establish an international clinical interest group within physiotherapy. Methods: Facebook was selected as the social media platform for the group due to it's wide spread use by physiotherapists, ease of access and it's functionality for posting comments, links, images and discussions. The group was established by two physiotherapists, one with expertise in social media and the other an expert clinician in women's health. A closed group format was selected with membership and postings being moderated by the group's administrators. It was promoted through social media platforms, email, conferences, professional and special interest groups. It was subsequently supported by a Twitter feed with the aim of fostering further international and national links. Results: The group is now well established with members from the CSP, APTA, APA, CPA and other WCPT member organisations. There are daily postings of discussions relating to clinical practice, research and education. It facilitates sharing of resources such as clinical guidelines, patient resources, podcasts, blogs, research papers and webinars. The Facebook group supported the first International women's Health Tweetchat with the UK based PhysioTalk group. Research projects in the USA, Australia and UK have been supported by the group's members and it has also generated research projects. It has also been instrumental in increasing media exposure for the role of Women's Health Physiotherapy [CC1] in the UK through TV, Radio, Online forums and printed media. The group has played a role in connecting MSc and PhD students with international mentors and forging links with the midwifery community which enhances collaborative working and optimal patient management. Conclusion(s): Women's Health Facebook group now serves as an educational platform for the experienced and inexperienced therapist to share information on women's health. Implications: The success of the group demonstrates the potential social media and, in particular, Facebook has for the physiotherapy profession. It is an example of international collaboration among clinicians with the aim of optimising patient care. The group hopes to organise its first International Conference in 2015. There is also an ongoing project to support undergraduate physiotherapy students in developing an interest in this area of clinical practice. Now that the group is well established some public facing projects are planned to further publicise the role of women's health physiotherapy in the public sphere

Magnesium oxide doping reduces acoustic wave attenuation in lithium metatantalate and lithium metaniobate crystals

Single crystals of lithium metatantalate and lithium metaniobate, grown from melts having different stoichiometries and different amounts of magnesium oxide, show that doping lowers temperature-independent portion of attenuation of acoustic waves. Doped crystals possess optical properties well suited for electro-optical and photoelastic applications

The Acoustic Peak in the Lyman Alpha Forest

We present the first simulation of the signature of baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) in Lyman alpha forest data containing 180,000 mock quasar sight-lines. We use eight large dark-matter only simulations onto which we paint the Lyman alpha field using the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation. We argue that this approach should be sufficient for the mean signature on the scales of interest. Our results indicate that Lyman alpha flux provides a good tracer of the underlying dark matter field on large scales and that redshift space distortions are well described by a simple linear theory prescription. We compare Fourier and configuration space approaches to describing the signal and argue that configuration space statistics provide useful data compression. We also investigate the effect of a fluctuating photo-ionizing background using a simplified model and find that such fluctuations do add smooth power on large scales. The acoustic peak position is, however, unaffected for small amplitude fluctuations (<10%). Larger amplitude fluctuations make the recovery of the BAO signal more difficult and may degrade the achievable significance of the measurement.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor revision matching version accepted by JCAP (new references, better figures, clarifications