The Study of Law at the University of the South Pacific

A number of developments of interest to the countries of the South Pacific took place at the University of the South Pacific in the 1990s. In this article, two lawyers who have had some involvement with those developments provide a brief report on what happened. The article first covers the background and history of the University, the development of law programmes in the University (including the introduction of the LLB degree in 1994), and future developments for the University's law programme on the horizon. This article also includes an appendix which includes the University of the South Pacific's LLB degree curriculum as at 1994

A quotient of the Lubin-Tate tower II

In this article we construct the quotient M_1/P(K) of the infinite-level Lubin-Tate space M_1 by the parabolic subgroup P(K) of GL(n,K) of block form (n-1,1) as a perfectoid space, generalizing results of one of the authors (JL) to arbitrary n and K/Q_p finite. For this we prove some perfectoidness results for certain Harris-Taylor Shimura varieties at infinite level. As an application of the quotient construction we show a vanishing theorem for Scholze's candidate for the mod p Jacquet-Langlands and the mod p local Langlands correspondence. An appendix by David Hansen gives a local proof of perfectoidness of M_1/P(K) when n = 2, and shows that M_1/Q(K) is not perfectoid for maximal parabolics Q not conjugate to P.Comment: with an appendix by David Hanse

'The confidence to do things that I know nothing about’ – skills development through extra-curricular inquiry activity

This article presents the findings of a survey given to students engaging in educational enhancement activities in inquiry/enquiry-based learning at two Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). The students involved were asked to comment on the skills they felt that they had developed as part of their roles as 'interns' and 'ambassadors'. These comments were analysed inductively and several strong themes emerged. Students valued the opportunity to engage in such activities, which developed a wide range of transferable skills and had a positive impact on their academic work and their prospects for future employment. While there is a considerable amount of literature on higher education and skills development, a growing body of work on how curricular inquiry-based learning impacts upon students' capabilities, and a plethora of studies on how paid and unpaid extra-curricular activities affect students' educational achievement, few studies have sought to relate these areas of research

Benchmark calculations for elastic fermion-dimer scattering

We present continuum and lattice calculations for elastic scattering between a fermion and a bound dimer in the shallow binding limit. For the continuum calculation we use the Skorniakov-Ter-Martirosian (STM) integral equation to determine the scattering length and effective range parameter to high precision. For the lattice calculation we use the finite-volume method of L\"uscher. We take into account topological finite-volume corrections to the dimer binding energy which depend on the momentum of the dimer. After subtracting these effects, we find from the lattice calculation kappa a_fd = 1.174(9) and kappa r_fd = -0.029(13). These results agree well with the continuum values kappa a_fd = 1.17907(1) and kappa r_fd = -0.0383(3) obtained from the STM equation. We discuss applications to cold atomic Fermi gases, deuteron-neutron scattering in the spin-quartet channel, and lattice calculations of scattering for nuclei and hadronic molecules at finite volume.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Changing Principals\u27 Leadership through Feedback and Coaching

Researchers Leonard Bickman, Ellen Goldring, Peter Goff, and J. Edward Guthrie conducted a randomized experiment of principals in a large urban school district to explore if coaching, when combined with feedback from teachers, changes principals’ leadership practices. This brief summarizes the research findings regarding the impact of the feedback and coaching intervention on principals’ leadership behaviors

Chondrocyte responses to neurovascular peptides, cytokines, and a 3D environment: focus on ADAMs

Chondrocyte exposure to inflammatory stimuli in several arthritic conditions, including osteoarthritis, results in the well-characterised induction of extracellular matrix (ECM) degrading proteinases, notably members of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin domains (ADAMTS) and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) families. Here we briefly review the less-studied a disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM) family of proteinases in chondrocyte and cartilage biology. Following damage, cartilage is exposed to neurovascular peptides, and in this study we hypothesised that substance P and bradykinin, alongside inflammatory cytokines, may modulate chondrocyte steady state messenger RNA levels for the proteolytic ADAM family members as well as for key cytokines and neuropeptides. We compared chondrocytes cultured in both 2-dimensional (2D) and 3D environments and found that 3D culture generally resulted in repression of expression of the genes under investigation, with the exception of anti-inflammatory interleukin 10 (IL10) which was markedly up-regulated in a 3D environment. Substance P and bradykinin had little effect on ADAM family expression but further investigation revealed that a combination of bradykinin and cytokines led to enhanced expression of ADAM28 and a synergistic up-regulation of IL6, also observed under hypoxic conditions. Overall this data reveals wider chondrocyte responses to neurovascular peptides which may have an impact in an osteoarthritis context

Confirmation of Parity Violation in the Gamma Decay of 180Hfm^{180}Hf^{m}

This paper reports measurements using the technique of On Line Nuclear Orientation (OLNO) which reexamine the gamma decay of isomeric $^{\rm 180}$Hf$^{\rm m}$ and specifically the 501 keV 8$^{\rm -}$ -- 6$^{\rm +}$ transition. The irregular admixture of E2 to M2/E3 multipolarity in this transition, deduced from the forward-backward asymmetry of its angular distribution, has for decades stood as the prime evidence for parity mixing in nuclear states. The experiment, based on ion implantation of the newly developed mass-separated $^{\rm 180}$Hf$^{\rm m}$ beam at ISOLDE, CERN into an iron foil maintained at millikelvin temperatures, produces higher degrees of polarization than were achieved in previous studies of this system. The value found for the E2/M2 mixing ratio, $\epsilon$ = -0.0324(16)(17), is in close agreement with the previous published average value $\epsilon$ = - 0.030(2), in full confirmation of the presence of the irregular E2 admixture in the 501 keV transition. The temperature dependence of the forward-backward asymmetry has been measured over a more extended range of nuclear polarization than previously possible, giving further evidence for parity mixing of the 8$^{\rm -}$ and 8$^{\rm +}$ levels and the deduced E2/M2 mixing ratio.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

‘I’m not a quants person’; key strategies in building competence and confidence in staff who teach quantitative research methods’

Initiatives, like the UK ESRC’s RDI/CI programmes and the Q-Step Centres, have a long-term aim of addressing the well-documented decline in the pool of academics able and willing to teach quantitative methods (QM). However, these initiatives will take time to make an impact; therefore, the upskilling of current staff is a vital strategy if we want to maintain QM in curricula. This paper draws on findings from the ESRC RDI project, ‘No More Pointy Clicky, numbers stuff; building staff quantitative skills’. This project focussed on upskilling staff in a large Sociology department. The project was committed to delivering training to develop staff competence in QM; however, it became clear that this alone would not be sufficient to build staff confidence. Therefore, the project rolled-out a more complex strategy that addressed a range of central issues, including, pedagogy, infrastructure, Departmental resourcing and strategy, and staff worldviews, which this article explores