Student engineers: lecturing, teaching and assessing

A traditional lecture tends to operate in only one or two quadrants of Kolb's learning circle and promotes strategic and, at worse, surface learning. Software engineering is an important subject for computing engineering students. It is imperative they establish a deep understanding of the subject to ensure best working practices. Supplemental instruction, teaching others a subject, often promotes a high level of learning. The paper demonstrates the results of such an exercise by groups of students lecturing on a component of the software engineering course. Both peer and self-assessment was used to measure individual performances, efforts and impact. The paper reports on student reactions to this assessment and offers a strategy for the informed practice and development of peer assessment and some guidelines on how to assist students to develop and present a lectur

Work stress and cancer researchers : an exploration of the challenges, experiences and training needs of UK cancer researchers.

Work stress is a significant issue for many UK healthcare professionals, in particular those working in the field of oncology. However, there have been very few attempts to explore the challenges, experiences or training needs of researchers working in cancer research. In doing so, we will be better positioned to support and develop these researchers. 18 UK oncology researchers from a variety of backgrounds took part in a semi-structured interview. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis identified two overarching themes: logistical research issues (workload, accessing/ recruiting participants, finances) and sensitive research issues (emotional demands, professional boundaries, sensitivity around recruitment). One cross-cutting theme, supportive strategies (support and training, coping mechanisms), was seen to influence both logistical and sensitive research issues. While further research is needed to fully understand the causes and impact of work stress on cancer researchers, three specific issues were highlighted: emotional demands are relevant to quantitative and mixed methods researchers as well as those engaged in qualitative research; the researchers’ background (experience; clinical/non-clinical) was influential and an exploration of effective coping strategies is required; and there is a clear need for adequate support systems and training to be available, particularly for early career researchers.</p

Origin and significance of 'dispersed facies' basal ice: Svínafellsjökull, Iceland

Dispersed facies basal ice - massive (i.e. structureless) ice with dispersed debris aggregates - is present at the margins of many glaciers and, as a product of internal glacial processes, has the potential to provide important information about the mechanisms of glacier flow and the nature of the subglacial environment. The origin of dispersed facies is poorly understood, with several hypotheses having been advanced for its formation, and there is disagreement as to whether it is largely a sedimentary or a tectonic feature. We test these established hypotheses at the temperate glacier Svfnafellsjokull, Iceland, and find that none fully account for dispersed facies characteristics at this location. Instead, dispersed facies physical, sedimentological and stable-isotope (5180, 8D) characteristics favour a predominantly tectonic origin that we suggest comprises the regelation and straininduced metamorphism of debris-rich basal ice that has been entrained into an englacial position by tectonic processes operating at the base of an icefall. Further thickening of the resultant dispersed facies may also occur tectonically as a result of ice flow against the reverse bed slope of a terminal overdeepening. Lack of efficient subglacial drainage in the region of the overdeepening may limit basal melting and thus favour basal ice preservation, including the preservation of dispersed facies. Despite the relatively low sediment content of dispersed facies (~1.6% by volume), its thickness (up to 25 m) and ubiquity at Svfnafellsjokull results in a significant contribution to annual sediment discharge (1635-3270 m3 a"1) that is ~6.5 times that contributed by debris-rich stratified facies basal ice

Renormalization Group Method and Reductive Perturbation Method

It is shown that the renormalization group method does not necessarily eliminate all secular terms in perturbation series to partial differential equations and a functional subspace of renormalizable secular solutions corresponds to a choice of scales of independent variables in the reductive perturbation method.Comment: 5 pages, late

Derivation of Amplitude Equations by Renormalization Group Method

A proper formulation in the perturbative renormalization group method is presented to deduce amplitude equations. The formulation makes it possible not only avoiding a serious difficulty in the previous reduction to amplitude equations by eliminating all of the secular terms but also consistent derivation of higher-order correction to amplitude equations.Comment: 6 page, revte

Pattern Selection in a Phase Field Model for Directional Solidification

A symmetric phase field model is used to study wavelength selection in two dimensions. We study the problem in a finite system using a two-pronged approach. First we construct an action and, minimizing this, we obtain the most probable configuration of the system, which we identify with the selected stationary state. The minimization is constrained by the stationary solutions of stochastic evolution equations and is done numerically. Secondly, additional support for this selected state is obtained from straightforward simulations of the dynamics from a variety of initial states.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physica

Systematic derivation of a rotationally covariant extension of the 2-dimensional Newell-Whitehead-Segel equation

An extension of the Newell-Whitehead-Segel amplitude equation covariant under abritrary rotations is derived systematically by the renormalization group method.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letters, March 18, 199

Nostalgia narratives? Pejorative attitudes to welfare in historical perspective : survey evidence from Beveridge to the British Social Attitudes Survey

Jensen and Tyler (2015) have powerfully argued that 'anti-welfare commonsense', fuelled by negative political and media discourse stressing welfare dependency and deception, has buttressed support for social security reform in recent years. Along with many other academics they point to the hardening of public attitudes towards welfare state provision and how notions of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving poor' have been reintroduced into popular debates. We identify four distinct threads within this scholarship. First, there is an argument that public attitudes have shifted from an earlier post-war welfare imaginary and settlement to an anti-welfare consensus. Second, this hardening includes a growing prevalence of 'othering'. The third thread is the broadening of this moral and disciplinary gaze to include groups, such as disabled people, who until recently were not subject to the same amount of stigma as other types of benefit recipients. Fourth, is the impact of pejorative welfare discourses on the self-identity and attitudes of disadvantaged groups. While a growing body of evidence makes it increasingly difficult to argue against suggestions that there is a hostile body of anti-welfare sentiment in the UK, what is often implicit in the analysis of pejorative contemporary attitudes to welfare is the view that there was once a 'golden age' of the welfare state when public support was more fully behind a strong set of social security benefits provided as a social right of citizenship. Whether this was the case is a moot point however. Few studies have tried to piece together the attitudes to welfare of the general public during the consensus era. We attempt to undertake such a task here, drawing on ad hoc attitudes surveys and polling data in particular. Specifically, we focus on how notions of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving poor' play out in this data, pointing to some key continuities found in contemporary and historical public attitudes to welfare