Assessment in senior secondary physical education. Questions of judgement

The ways in which various aspects of senior physical education courses should be assessed and whether some can, or indeed should be incorporated in external examinations, are matters of longstanding professional debate across Australia and internationally. Differences in current practice across Australasia reflect an ongoing lack of consensus about how assessment requirements and arrangements and particularly, examinations in senior physical education, can best address concerns to ensure validity, reliability, equity and feasibility. An issue never far from such debates is that of ‘professional judgement’ and more specifically, whether and how professional judgement does and/or should ‘come into play’ in assessment. This paper reports on research that has explored new approaches to examination assessment and marking in senior physical education, using digital technologies. It focuses specifically on the ways in which ‘professional judgement’ can be deemed to be inherent to two contrasting methods of assessment used in the project: ‘analytical standardsbased’ assessment and ‘comparative pairs’ assessment. Details of each method of assessment are presented. Data arising directly from assessors’ comments and from analysis which explored intermarker reliability for each method of assessment and compared results generated by internal teacher assessment, standards-based and comparative pairs assessment, is reported. Discussion explores whether the data arising can be seen as lending weight to arguments for (i) more faith to be placed in professional judgement and (ii) for the comparative pairs methods to be more widely employed in examination assessment in senior physical education

Jacqueline Spike Gillespie oral history interview by Andrew Huse, September 8, 2004

Jacqueline Spike Gillespie discusses her time on campus, during which she wrote a column for The Oracle called Bloody Monday that typically highlighted a controversial topic

Stochastic Simulation of Process Calculi for Biology

Biological systems typically involve large numbers of components with complex, highly parallel interactions and intrinsic stochasticity. To model this complexity, numerous programming languages based on process calculi have been developed, many of which are expressive enough to generate unbounded numbers of molecular species and reactions. As a result of this expressiveness, such calculi cannot rely on standard reaction-based simulation methods, which require fixed numbers of species and reactions. Rather than implementing custom stochastic simulation algorithms for each process calculus, we propose to use a generic abstract machine that can be instantiated to a range of process calculi and a range of reaction-based simulation algorithms. The abstract machine functions as a just-in-time compiler, which dynamically updates the set of possible reactions and chooses the next reaction in an iterative cycle. In this short paper we give a brief summary of the generic abstract machine, and show how it can be instantiated with the stochastic simulation algorithm known as Gillespie's Direct Method. We also discuss the wider implications of such an abstract machine, and outline how it can be used to simulate multiple calculi simultaneously within a common framework.Comment: In Proceedings MeCBIC 2010, arXiv:1011.005

Implementing system-wide risk stratification approaches: a review of critical success and failure factors

An Evidence Check rapid review brokered by the Sax Institute for the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovatio

A resilience approach to the design of future moon base power systems

This paper proposes a novel approach to the design of complex engineering systems which maximise performance, and global system resilience. The approach is applied to the system level design of the power system for future Moon bases. The power system is modelled as a network, where each node represents a specific power unit: energy storage, power distribution, power generation, power regulation. The performance and resilience of each power unit is defined by a mathematical model that depends on a set of design (control) and uncertain variables. The interrelationship among nodes is defined by functional links. The combination of multiple interconnected nodes defines the performance and resilience of the whole system. An optimisation procedure is then used to find the optimal values of the design parameters. The optimal solution maximises global system resilience where an optimal resilient solution is either robust, i.e. it is not subject to disruptive failures, or recovers from failures to achieve a functioning state, albeit different from the starting one, after a contingency occurs. The power system supports a Lunar base developed within the ESA-lab initiative, IGLUNA, led by the Swiss Space Centre. The power system, developed at the University of Strathclyde as part of the PowerHab project, is composed of nine interconnected elements: a hydrogen fuel cell energy storage system, a thermal mass storage system, a lithium-ion battery storage system, a constellation of solar power satellites (SPS) working in conjunction with a microwave wireless power transmission system, a reflecting satellite constellation and a ground-based solar power array. Distinct space and ground segments are identifiable, with orbit, AOCS and reflecting satellite nodes cooperating to provide optimal performance of the SPS constellation. The ground segment encompasses the ground-based solar array, energy storage systems, Lunar habitation module and the power transmission lines connecting these elements. Power generation is predominantly supplied by the ground-based array, with the SPS constellation and energy storage systems complementing this source; as well as providing redundancy and a reliable power supply during the Lunar night period

The Fission Fragment Rocket Engine for Mars Fast Transit

In this paper we discuss the advantages and challenges of utilizing Fission Fragment Rocket Engines (FFREs) to dramatically reduce transit time in space travel, for example, traveling to Mars. We discuss methods to decrease the size and weight of FFREs. These include utilizing metallic deuterides as moderators, driving the engines with electron beam bremsstrahlung, and operating the FFREs as subcritical assemblies, not as nuclear reactors. We discuss these and other new innovations based upon improved materials and technology that may be integrated into a revolutionary nuclear rocket technology.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, 2 table