Researcher-led teaching:embodiment of academic practice

This paper explores the embodied practices of leading researchers(and/or leading scholars/practitioners), suggesting that distinctive‘researcher-led teaching’ depends on educators who are willing and able to be their research in the teaching setting. We advocate an approach to the development of higher education pedagogy which makes lead-researchers the objects of inquiry and we summarise case study analyses (in neuroscience and humanities) where the knowledge-making‘signatures’ of academic leaders are used to exhibit the otherwise hidden identities of research. We distinguish between learning readymade knowledge and the process of knowledge in the making and point towards the importance of inquiry in the flesh. We develop a view of higher education teaching that depends upon academic status a priori, but we argue that this stance is inclusive because it has the propensity to locate students as participants in academic culture

Constraining Dark Energy with X-ray Galaxy Clusters, Supernovae and the Cosmic Microwave Background

We present new constraints on the evolution of dark energy from an analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background, supernova and X-ray galaxy cluster data. Our analysis employs a minimum of priors and exploits the complementary nature of these data sets. We examine a series of dark energy models with up to three free parameters: the current dark energy equation of state w_0, the early time equation of state w_et and the scale factor at transition, a_t. From a combined analysis of all three data sets, assuming a constant equation of state and that the Universe is flat, we measure w_0=-1.05+0.10-0.12. Including w_et as a free parameter and allowing a_t to vary over the range 0.5<a_t<0.95 where the data sets have discriminating power, we measure w_0=-1.27+0.33-0.39 and w_et=-0.66+0.44-0.62. We find no significant evidence for evolution in the dark energy equation of state parameter with redshift. Marginal hints of evolution in the supernovae data become less significant when the cluster constraints are also included in the analysis. The complementary nature of the data sets leads to a tight constraint on the mean matter density, Omega_m and alleviates a number of other parameter degeneracies, including that between the scalar spectral index n_s, the physical baryon density Omega_bh^2 and the optical depth tau. This complementary nature also allows us to examine models in which we drop the prior on the curvature. For non-flat models with a constant equation of state, we measure w_0=-1.09+0.12-0.15 and Omega_de=0.70+-0.03. Our analysis includes spatial perturbations in the dark energy fluid, assuming a sound speed c_s^2 =1. For our most general dark energy model, not including such perturbations would lead to spurious constraints on w_et which would be tighter by approximately a factor two with the current data. (abridged)Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Two new figures added: Fig.9 shows the effects of including dark energy perturbations and Fig.10 compares X-ray cluster data with 2dF dat

Evidence for Action on HIV Treatment and Care Systems in low and middle-income countries: background and introduction.

Despite the unprecedented scale-up of treatment for HIV in low and middle-income countries over the past decade, 49% of adults and 77% of children in need of HIV treatment still do not have access to it. ART programmes that were initially set up as an emergency response now need to be adapted to ensure that they include all the essential components and are well integrated with other health services; meet the needs of special groups, including children, adolescents, pregnant women and older people; address the mental health needs of HIV-positive people; and monitor as well as report their impact in valid and comparable ways.This supplement is an output from the Evidence for Action on HIV Treatment and Care Systems research programme consortium. Evidence for Action was a 5-year, multidisciplinary research programme, which ran from 2006 to 2011, with partners in India, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and the United Kingdom.The primary aim of this supplement is to stimulate reflection and provide guidance on what should be in the package of HIV treatment and care systems, as national programmes look to maintain the major advances of the past decade and scale-up treatment to the other 50% of people in need of it

High-Speed, Photon Counting CCD Cameras for Astronomy

The design of electron multiplying CCD cameras require a very different approach from that appropriate for slow scan CCD operation. This paper describes the main problems in using electron multiplying CCDs for high-speed, photon counting applications in astronomy and how these may be substantially overcome. With careful design it is possible to operate the E2V Technologies L3CCDs at rates well in excess of that claimed by the manufacturer, and that levels of clock induced charge dramatically lower than those experienced with commercial cameras that need to operate at unity gain. Measurements of the performance of the E2V Technologies CCD201 operating at 26 MHz will be presented together with a guide to the effective reduction of clock induced charge levels. Examples of astronomical results obtained with our cameras are presented.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Migrating eastern North Pacific gray whale call and blow rates estimated from acoustic recordings, infrared camera video, and visual sightings.

During the eastern North Pacific gray whale 2014-2015 southbound migration, acoustic call recordings, infrared blow detections, and visual sightings were combined to estimate cue rates, needed to convert detections into abundance. The gray whale acoustic call rate ranged from 2.3-24 calls/whale/day during the peak of the southbound migration with an average of 7.5 calls/whale/day over both the southbound and northbound migrations. The average daily calling rate increased between 30 December-13 February. With a call rate model, we estimated that 4,340 gray whales migrated south before visual observations began on 30 December, which is 2,829 more gray whales than used in the visual estimate, and would add approximately 10% to the abundance estimate. We suggest that visual observers increase their survey effort to all of December to document gray whale presence. The infrared camera blow rate averaged 49 blows/whale/hour over 5-8 January. Probability of detection of a whale blow by the infrared camera was the same at night as during the day. However, probability of detection decreased beyond 2.1 km offshore, whereas visual sightings revealed consistent whale densities up to 3 km offshore. We suggest that future infrared camera surveys use multiple cameras optimised for different ranges offshore

High-resolution imaging and spectroscopy in the visible from large ground-based telescopes with natural guide stars

Near-diffraction limited imaging and spectroscopy in the visible on large (8-10 meter) class telescopes has proved to be beyond the capabilities of current adaptive optics technologies, even when using laser guide stars. The need for high resolution visible imaging in any part of the sky suggests that a rather different approach is needed. This paper describes the results of simulations, experiments and astronomical observations that show that a combination of low order adaptive optic correction using a 4-field curvature sensor and fast Lucky Imaging strategies with a photon counting CCD camera systems should deliver 20-25 milliarcsecond resolution in the visible with reference stars as faint as 18.5 magnitude in I band on large telescopes. Such an instrument may be used to feed an integral field spectrograph efficiently using configurations that will also be described.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Improved primordial non-gaussianity constraints from measurements of galaxy clustering and the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect

We present the strongest robust constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) from currently available galaxy surveys, combining large-scale clustering measurements and their cross-correlations with the cosmic microwave background. We update the data sets used by Giannantonio et al. (2012), and broaden that analysis to include the full set of two-point correlation functions between all surveys. In order to obtain the most reliable constraints on PNG, we advocate the use of the cross-correlations between the catalogs as a robust estimator and we perform an extended analysis of the possible systematics to reduce their impact on the results. To minimize the impact of stellar contamination in our luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample, we use the recent Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey catalog of Ross et al. (2011). We also find evidence for a new systematic in the NVSS radio galaxy survey similar to, but smaller than, the known declination-dependent issue; this is difficult to remove without affecting the inferred PNG signal, and thus we do not include the NVSS auto-correlation function in our analyses. We find no evidence of primordial non-Gaussianity; for the local-type configuration we obtain for the skewness parameter $-36 < f_{\mathrm{NL}} < 45$ at 95 % c.l. ($5 \pm 21$ at $1\sigma$) when using the most conservative part of our data set, improving previous results; we also find no evidence for significant kurtosis, parameterized by $g_{\mathrm{NL}}$. In addition to PNG, we simultaneously constrain dark energy and find that it is required with a form consistent with a cosmological constant.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures. More conservative treatment of the NVSS data, version accepted by Phys. Rev.

Biobank: Who'd bank on it?

The document attached has been archived with permission from the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included

Study of a Flexible Low Profile Tunable Dipole Antenna Using Barium Strontium Titanate Varactors

In this paper a flexible low profile dipole antenna using a frequency selective surface (FSS) with interdigital barium strontium titanate (BST) varactor-tuned unit cells is presented. The varactor chips were placed only along one dimension of the FSS to avoid the use of vias and simplify the DC bias network. The antenna uses overlapping metallic plates that resemble fish scales as a ground plane to improve the flexibility of the multi-material stack structure. The measured data of the antenna demonstrate tunability from 2.42 GHz to 2.66 GHz and 1.3 dB gain drop when using overlapping metallic plates instead of continuous ground plane. The total antenna thickness is approximately lambda/24