Deep and shallow approaches to learning mathematics are not mutually exclusive

From time to time, students are characterised as having a deep or shallow approach to learning. A deep approach to learning tends to attract more approval than a shallow approach, at least in the West. Students on a university-based Foundation course to prepare them for undergraduate studies were divided into those likely to have a deep approach (26) and those likely to have a shallow approach (18). Their performance in a test of problem solving in an aspect of applied mathematics was compared. Contrary to expectations, the test scores and interviews with the students indicated that those with a deep approach did not benefit when asked to apply their learning in new contexts, and those with a shallow approach were not markedly disadvantaged. It is suggested that, at least amongst learners, neither approach is likely to be entirely self-sufficient, but should be seen as acceptable starting points of potential routes to success. Although a small scale study, mathematics tutors should be able to relate the findings and suggestions to their own experiences and practices

The Impact of Selective-Logging and Forest Clearance for Oil Palm on Fungal Communities in Borneo

Tropical forests are being rapidly altered by logging, and cleared for agriculture. Understanding the effects of these land use changes on soil fungi, which play vital roles in the soil ecosystem functioning and services, is a major conservation frontier. Using 454-pyrosequencing of the ITS1 region of extracted soil DNA, we compared communities of soil fungi between unlogged, once-logged, and twice-logged rainforest, and areas cleared for oil palm, in Sabah, Malaysia. Overall fungal community composition differed significantly between forest and oil palm plantation. The OTU richness and Chao 1 were higher in forest, compared to oil palm plantation. As a proportion of total reads, Basidiomycota were more abundant in forest soil, compared to oil palm plantation soil. The turnover of fungal OTUs across space, true β-diversity, was also higher in forest than oil palm plantation. Ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungal abundance was significantly different between land uses, with highest relative abundance (out of total fungal reads) observed in unlogged forest soil, lower abundance in logged forest, and lowest in oil palm. In their entirety, these results indicate a pervasive effect of conversion to oil palm on fungal community structure. Such wholesale changes in fungal communities might impact the long-term sustainability of oil palm agriculture. Logging also has more subtle long term effects, on relative abundance of EcM fungi, which might affect tree recruitment and nutrient cycling. However, in general the logged forest retains most of the diversity and community composition of unlogged forest

Evolution of surface roughness during CVD growth

Monte Carlo simulations of physical and chemical vapor deposition are used to study roughening kinetics of films that grow by nucleation and coalescence of clusters. The effects of interlayer transport, preferential dissociation of molecular precursors and energetic differences between the clusters and the substrate are examined

Micrometer-Scale Machining of Metals and Polymers Enabled by Focused Ion Beam Sputtering

This work combines focused ion beam sputtering and ultra-precision machining for microfabrication of metal alloys and polymers. Specifically, micro-end mills are made by Ga ion beam sputtering of a cylindrical tool shank. Using an ion energy of 20keV, the focused beam defines the tool cutting edges that have submicrometer radii of curvature. We demonstrate 25 {micro}m diameter micromilling tools having 2, 4 and 5 cutting edges. These tools fabricate fine channels, 26-28 microns wide, in 6061 aluminum, brass, and polymethyl methacrylate. Micro-tools are structurally robust and operate for more than 5 hours without fracture

Indication on the universal hadron substructure - constituent quarks

The universality of single-spin asymmetry on inclusive pi-meson production is discussed. This universality can be related to the hadron substructure - constituent quarks.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, references adde

Optimized flow cytometric detection of transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) in human hematological malignancies

The ectopic overexpression of transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) has been detected in numerous solid cancers, including breast, prostate, pancreatic, and tongue epithelium cancer. However, the expression of TRPV1 in hematological malignancies remains unknown. Here we show through in silico analysis that elevated TRPV1 mRNA expression occurs in a range of hematological malignancies and presents an optimized flow cytometry method to rapidly assess TRPV1 protein expression for both cell lines and primary patient samples. Three anti-TRPV1 antibodies were evaluated for intracellular TRPV1 detection using flow cytometry resulting in an optimized protocol for the evaluation of TRPV1 in hematological malignant cell lines and patients’ peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Overexpression of TRPV1 was observed in THP-1 (acute monocytic leukemia) and U266B1 (multiple myeloma, MM), but not U937 (histiocytic lymphoma) compared to healthy PBMC. TRPV1 was also detected in all 49 patients including B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (B-NHL), MM, and others and 20 healthy controls. TRPV1 expression was increased in 8% of patients (MM = 2, B-NHL = 2). In conclusion, we provide an optimized flow cytometry method for routine expression analysis of clinical samples and show that TRPV1 is increased in a subset of patients with hematological malignancies

Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-I alter hippocampal excitatory synaptic transmission in young and old rats

In rats, as in humans, normal aging is characterized by a decline in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, as well as in glutamatergic function. Both growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) levels have been reported to decrease with age, and treatment with either GH or IGF-I can ameliorate age-related cognitive decline. Interestingly, acute GH and IGF-I treatments enhance glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the rat hippocampus of juvenile animals. However, whether this enhancement also occurs in old rats, when cognitive impairment is ameliorated by GH and IGF-I (des-IGF-I), remains to be determined. To address this issue, we used an in vitro CA1 hippocampal slice preparation and extracellular recording techniques to study the effects of acute application of GH and IGF-I on compound field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs), as well as AMPA- and NMDA-dependent fEPSPs, in young adult (10 months) and old (28 months) rats. The results indicated that both GH and IGF-I increased compound-, AMPA-and NMDA-dependent fEPSPs to a similar extent in slices from both age groups and that this augmentation was likely mediated via a postsynaptic mechanism. Initial characterization of the signaling cascades underlying these effects revealed that the GH-induced enhancement was not mediated by the JAK2 signaling element in either young adult or old rats but that the IGF-Iinduced enhancement involved a PI3K-mediated mechanism in old, but not young adults. The present findings are consistent with a role for a GH-or IGF-I-induced enhancement of glutamatergic transmission in mitigating age-related cognitive impairment in old rats. © 2012 American Aging Association

Transverse Energy per Charged Particle and Freeze-Out Criteria in Heavy-Ion Collisions

In relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions the transverse energy per charged particle, E_T/N_ch, increases rapidly with beam energy and remains approximately constant at about 800 MeV for beam energies from SPS to RHIC. It is shown that the hadron resonance gas model describes the energy dependence, as well as the lack of centrality dependence, qualitatively. The values of E_T/N_ch are related to the chemical freeze-out criterium E/N about 1 GeV valid for primordial hadrons.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Comments on Noncommutative Sigma Models

We review the derivation of a noncommutative version of the nonlinear sigma model on \CPn and it's soliton solutions for finite $\theta$ emphasizing the similarities it bears to the GMS scalar field theory. It is also shown that unlike the scalar theory, some care needs to be taken in defining the topological charge of BPS solitons of the theory due to nonvanishing surface terms in the energy functional. Finally it is shown that, like its commutative analogue, the noncommutative \CPn-model also exhibits a non-BPS sector. Unlike the commutative case however, there are some surprises in the noncommutative case that merit further study.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX (JHEP3), Minor changes, Discussion expanded and references adde