Taking A Stand: The Effects Of Standing Desks On Task Performance And Engagement

Time spent sitting is associated with negative health outcomes, motivating some individuals to adopt standing desk workstations. This study represents the first investigation of the effects of standing desk use on reading comprehension and creativity. In a counterbalanced, within-subjects design, 96 participants completed reading comprehension and creativity tasks while both sitting and standing. Participants self-reported their mood during the tasks and also responded to measures of expended effort and task difficulty. In addition, participants indicated whether they expected that they would perform better on work-relevant tasks while sitting or standing. Despite participants’ beliefs that they would perform worse on most tasks while standing, body position did not affect reading comprehension or creativity performance, nor did it affect perceptions of effort or difficulty. Mood was also unaffected by position, with a few exceptions: Participants exhibited greater task engagement (i.e., interest, enthusiasm, and alertness) and less comfort while standing rather than sitting. In sum, performance and psychological experience as related to task completion were nearly entirely uninfluenced by acute (~30-min) standing desk use. View Full-Tex

Time reversal in thermoacoustic tomography - an error estimate

The time reversal method in thermoacoustic tomography is used for approximating the initial pressure inside a biological object using measurements of the pressure wave made on a surface surrounding the object. This article presents error estimates for the time reversal method in the cases of variable, non-trapping sound speeds.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, expanded "Remarks and Conclusions" section, added one figure, added reference

Characteristics of Innovation in a Non-Metropolitan Area: The Okanagan Valley of British Columbia

This paper addresses the characteristics of innovation in industrial clusters in a Non-Metropolitan area of British Columbia. The Okanagan houses strong high technology, agrifood, forest products, and construction sectors. These sectors were surveyed for common characteristics indicative of a strong industrial cluster

The great ideas of biology: Exploration through experimentation in an undergraduate lab course

We developed an introductory laboratory course to provide a visceral experience that aims at getting students truly excited about scientific study of the living world. Our vehicle to do that was to focus on what Paul Nurse dubbed “the great ideas of biology” rather than an approach to biology that celebrates specific factual knowledge. To that end, we developed eight diverse experimental modules, each of which highlights a key biological concept and gives an opportunity to use theory to generate testable hypotheses, to perform high quality measurements to test those hypotheses (some of which are clearly wrong), and to perform sophisticated computational data analysis. Some modules incorporate modern microscopy and computational techniques in classic experiments, such as bacterial growth and the Luria‐Delbrück experiment, while others address current research questions using methods like optogenetics and single molecule measurements. We have offered the course eight times, and in the most recent edition of the course, we conducted pre/post‐course interviews and attitude surveys. The students, both bio and non‐bio majors alike, reported being captivated by seeing life occur across the broad range of experiments and model organisms. We observed demonstrable development of their curiosity and enthusiasm for biology. Additionally, we found that prior to the course, students had only vague notions about what it means to make quantitative biological measurements and interpret them. They completed the course with a clearer understanding of scientific inquiry in biology and the skills and confidence to actually perform and interpret measurements in living systems

New Monte Carlo method for planar Poisson-Voronoi cells

By a new Monte Carlo algorithm we evaluate the sidedness probability p_n of a planar Poisson-Voronoi cell in the range 3 \leq n \leq 1600. The algorithm is developed on the basis of earlier theoretical work; it exploits, in particular, the known asymptotic behavior of p_n as n\to\infty. Our p_n values all have between four and six significant digits. Accurate n dependent averages, second moments, and variances are obtained for the cell area and the cell perimeter. The numerical large n behavior of these quantities is analyzed in terms of asymptotic power series in 1/n. Snapshots are shown of typical occurrences of extremely rare events implicating cells of up to n=1600 sides embedded in an ordinary Poisson-Voronoi diagram. We reveal and discuss the characteristic features of such many-sided cells and their immediate environment. Their relevance for observable properties is stressed.Comment: 35 pages including 10 figures and 4 table

Development of a pilot data management infrastructure for biomedical researchers at University of Manchester – approach, findings, challenges and outlook of the MaDAM Project

Management and curation of digital data has been becoming ever more important in a higher education and research environment characterised by large and complex data, demand for more interdisciplinary and collaborative work, extended funder requirements and use of e-infrastructures to facilitate new research methods and paradigms. This paper presents the approach, technical infrastructure, findings, challenges and outlook (including future development within the successor project, MiSS) of the ‘MaDAM: Pilot data management infrastructure for biomedical researchers at University of Manchester’ project funded under the infrastructure strand of the JISC Managing Research Data (JISCMRD) programme. MaDAM developed a pilot research data management solution at the University of Manchester based on biomedical researchers’ requirements, which includes technical and governance components with the flexibility to meet future needs across multiple research groups and disciplines

Universal Baxterization for Z\mathbb{Z}-graded Hopf algebras

We present a method for Baxterizing solutions of the constant Yang-Baxter equation associated with $\mathbb{Z}$-graded Hopf algebras. To demonstrate the approach, we provide examples for the Taft algebras and the quantum group $U_q[sl(2)]$.Comment: 8 page