Study on the use of a combination of IPython Notebook and an industry‐standard package in educating a CFD course

It is common that industry‐standard packages are used in teaching professional engineering courses in final‐year undergraduate and postgraduate levels. To improve the competency of students in using such professional packages, it is important that students develop a good understanding of theoretical/fundamental concepts used on the packages. However, it is always a challenge to teach theoretical/fundamental concepts in the computational‐related courses. The teaching of such subjects can be improved by the use of advanced open‐source web applications. The present research proposes an approach based upon the combination of Jupyter Notebook and an industry‐standard package to teach an applied, computationally related course. We investigate the use of backward design and a novel tool called IPython (Jupyter) Notebook to redesign a postgraduate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) course. IPython Notebook is used to design a series of integrated lecture slides and tutorial tasks, and also one of the assignments for the blended‐learning‐based, semester‐run, CFD course. The tool allows the implementation of backward curriculum design and a learn‐by‐doing approach in redesigning the course. The materials produced were used on the first part of the course which contributed 40% towards the course's final mark and delivered the fundamental concepts of CFD over the first half of the semester. The remaining 60% of the mark was based on a final project from the materials taught on using an industry‐standard CFD package in solving complex CFD problems during the second half of the semester. It was shown that the Ipython environment is a very useful tool which provides learning‐by‐doing practices allowing students to have a coherent integrated lecture, tutorial, and assignment material in a highly interactive way. It improved (a) students' engagement in teaching complex theoretical concepts, (b) students satisfaction of the course and (c) students performance in working with the industry‐standard package over the second half of the semester

Tourism in Conflict Areas: Complex Entanglements in Jordan.

In this article the workings of tourism in areas of socio-political turmoil are critically examined. In so doing the aim is to scrutinize interconnections between tourism, safety and conflict as I contend that tourism, tourists and the danger generated by ongoing socio-political conflicts are intimately connected. The empirical focus is on tourism in Jordan, a country in a region troubled by ongoing conflicts. Fieldwork for this project was carried out in 2009 and 2010 and data was collected from local tourism industry representatives and international tourists in Jordan. Findings indicate that a safety/danger binary is destabilized by industry representatives who operate a ‘sanitization’ process in Jordan meant to erase danger and conflicts from tourism spaces. Tourists in the region also disrupt this binary as they travel to the region in spite of the conflict and downplay violent incidents

TDP-43 loss and ALS-risk SNPs drive mis-splicing and depletion of UNC13A

Variants of UNC13A, a critical gene for synapse function, increase the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia1-3, two related neurodegenerative diseases defined by mislocalization of the RNA-binding protein TDP-434,5. Here we show that TDP-43 depletion induces robust inclusion of a cryptic exon in UNC13A, resulting in nonsense-mediated decay and loss of UNC13A protein. Two common intronic UNC13A polymorphisms strongly associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia risk overlap with TDP-43 binding sites. These polymorphisms potentiate cryptic exon inclusion, both in cultured cells and in brains and spinal cords from patients with these conditions. Our findings, which demonstrate a genetic link between loss of nuclear TDP-43 function and disease, reveal the mechanism by which UNC13A variants exacerbate the effects of decreased TDP-43 function. They further provide a promising therapeutic target for TDP-43 proteinopathies

Celecoxib for the treatment of mild-to-moderate depression due to acute brucellosis: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial

What is known and objectiveDepression is a debilitating complication of brucellosis and how best to treat this is a matter of debate. Inflammatory processes are involved in the pathogenesis of both brucellosis and depression. Therefore, we hypothesized that celecoxib could be beneficial for the treatment of depression due to brucellosis. MethodsForty outpatients with depression due to brucellosis with a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score (HDRS) <19 participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial and underwent 8weeks of treatment with either celecoxib (200mg bid) or placebo as an adjunctive to antibiotic therapy. Patients were evaluated using HDRS at baseline and weeks 4 and 8. Result and discussionRepeated-measures analysis demonstrated significant effect for time x treatment interaction on the HDRS score F (143, 5741)=3722, P<0001. Significantly greater response to treatment occurred in the celecoxib group than in the placebo group at the study end 10 patients (50%) vs. no patient (0%), respectively, P<0001. No serious adverse event was observed. What is new and conclusionCelecoxib is a safe and effective treatment for depression due to brucellosis when compared with placebo