Teaching introductory undergraduate Physics using commercial video games

Commercial video games are increasingly using sophisticated physics simulations to create a more immersive experience for players. This also makes them a powerful tool for engaging students in learning physics. We provide some examples to show how commercial off-the-shelf games can be used to teach specific topics in introductory undergraduate physics. The examples are selected from a course taught predominantly through the medium of commercial video games.Comment: Accepted to Physics Education, Fig1 does not render properly in this versio

Patients' internet use in New Zealand for information about medicines: Implications for policy and practice

BACKGROUND: The ubiquitous use of the internet sees patients increasingly look online for information about their medicines. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand the use of internet to meet medicine information needs of a sample of New Zealand patients. METHOD: Using a descriptive exploratory approach 60 mental health and general medical adult patients at one large urban were interviewed. These semi-structured interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and coded for inductive thematic analysis. FINDINGS: This study found that the internet is frequently used to meet the medicines information needs of patients. Despite the ease of access to information on the internet patients need guidance to locate credible and trustworthy online resources. CONCLUSIONS: Implications from this study relate to both practice and policy, and include the need for health professionals to have enhanced communication skills as they become information brokers who provide supplementary, reliable sources of patient-centric medicines information. Having a New Zealand specific website that includes an extensive section on medicines is a policy recommendation of this study, as is identifying tools to readily identify patients’ needs and preferences for medicines information

Photometry and Spectroscopy of KS Ursae Majoris during Superoutburst

We report photometric and spectroscopic observations of the SU UMa-type dwarf novae, KS Ursae Majoris, during its 2003 February superoutburst. Modulations with a period of $0.07017\pm0.00021$ day, which is 3.3% larger than the orbital period, have been found during the superoutburst and may be positive superhumps. A maximum trough-to-peak amplitude of around 0.3 magnitude is determined for this superhump. The spectra show broad, absorption-line profiles. The lines display blue and red troughs which alternate in depth. The radial velocity curve of the absorption wings of H$\beta$ has an amplitude of $40\pm11$ km s$^{-1}$ and a phase offset of $0.12\pm0.03$. The $\gamma$ velocity of the binary is $3\pm9$ km s$^{-1}$ and varies on an order of 50 km s$^{-1}$ from day to day. From another clear evidence for a precessing eccentric disk, we obtain a solution to an eccentric outer disk consistent with theoretical works, which demonstrates the validity of the relation between superhumps and tidal effects. The inner part of the disk is also eccentric as evidenced by asymmetric and symmetric wings in the lines. Therefore, the whole disk is eccentric and the variation of $\gamma$ velocity and the evolutionary asymmetric line profiles could be criterions for an precessing eccentric accretion disk.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, accpeted for publication in A

A measure of individual role in collective dynamics

Identifying key players in collective dynamics remains a challenge in several research fields, from the efficient dissemination of ideas to drug target discovery in biomedical problems. The difficulty lies at several levels: how to single out the role of individual elements in such intermingled systems, or which is the best way to quantify their importance. Centrality measures describe a node's importance by its position in a network. The key issue obviated is that the contribution of a node to the collective behavior is not uniquely determined by the structure of the system but it is a result of the interplay between dynamics and network structure. We show that dynamical influence measures explicitly how strongly a node's dynamical state affects collective behavior. For critical spreading, dynamical influence targets nodes according to their spreading capabilities. For diffusive processes it quantifies how efficiently real systems may be controlled by manipulating a single node.Comment: accepted for publication in Scientific Report

Optical Spectral Monitoring of XTE J1118+480 in Outburst: Evidence for a Precessing Accretion Disk?

We present spectroscopic observations of the X-ray transient XTE J1118+480 acquired during different epochs following the 2000 March outburst. We find that the emission line profiles show variations in their double-peak structure on time scales longer than the 4.1 hr orbital period. We suggest that these changes are due to a tidally driven precessing disk. Doppler imaging of the more intense Balmer lines and the HeII 4686 line shows evidence of a persistent region of enhanced intensity superposed on the disk which is probably associated with the gas stream, the hotspot or both. We discuss the possible origins of the optical flux in the system and conclude that it may be due to a viscously heated disk.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Ap

Towards a gendered political economy of water and tourism

In many holiday destinations, the tourism industry exerts an enormous strain on water supplies. This generates a range of social problems, not least because local inhabitants often have to compete with the tourism sector over the access, allocation and use of water for their personal and domestic needs. Nevertheless, there has been very little academic research on the link between tourism and the impact of water scarcity on destination populations in developing countries. While there is a wealth of literature on gender and tourism development, such research has tended to focus on employment relations and tourism policy and planning, neglecting ecological issues such as water. Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, in 2013, this paper makes a preliminary attempt to address this gap in the literature by developing a gendered political economy approach to water in tourism development. Three key themes are identified from this research: the salience of intersectional inequalities of gender, class and nationality, in particular the different experiences of Nicaraguan women, Costa Rican women and women from the Global North; how the role of social reproduction is vital to understanding gender and water in Tamarindo due to enduring assumptions about women’s perceived responsibility for water; and the gendered dimensions of conflicts over water. Such conflicts are highly gendered and contribute to reshaping of power relations in this international tourism destination. In the conclusions, we argue that our findings demonstrate the need to pay attention to both intersectionality and social reproduction, as well as to identify a future research agenda for developing a gendered political economy approach to tourism and water

Substantia nigra/ventral tegmental reward prediction error disruption in psychosis.

While dopamine systems have been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and psychosis for many years, how dopamine dysfunction generates psychotic symptoms remains unknown. Recent theoretical interest has been directed at relating the known role of midbrain dopamine neurons in reinforcement learning, motivational salience and prediction error to explain the abnormal mental experience of psychosis. However, this theoretical model has yet to be explored empirically. To examine a link between psychotic experience, reward learning and dysfunction of the dopaminergic midbrain and associated target regions, we asked a group of first episode psychosis patients suffering from active positive symptoms and a group of healthy control participants to perform an instrumental reward conditioning experiment. We characterized neural responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We observed that patients with psychosis exhibit abnormal physiological responses associated with reward prediction error in the dopaminergic midbrain, striatum and limbic system, and we demonstrated subtle abnormalities in the ability of psychosis patients to discriminate between motivationally salient and neutral stimuli. This study provides the first evidence linking abnormal mesolimbic activity, reward learning and psychosis

Emergent complex neural dynamics

A large repertoire of spatiotemporal activity patterns in the brain is the basis for adaptive behaviour. Understanding the mechanism by which the brain's hundred billion neurons and hundred trillion synapses manage to produce such a range of cortical configurations in a flexible manner remains a fundamental problem in neuroscience. One plausible solution is the involvement of universal mechanisms of emergent complex phenomena evident in dynamical systems poised near a critical point of a second-order phase transition. We review recent theoretical and empirical results supporting the notion that the brain is naturally poised near criticality, as well as its implications for better understanding of the brain

Subanesthetic ketamine treatment promotes abnormal interactions between neural subsystems and alters the properties of functional brain networks

Acute treatment with subanesthetic ketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor antagonist, is widely utilized as a translational model for schizophrenia. However, how acute NMDA receptor blockade impacts on brain functioning at a systems level, to elicit translationally relevant symptomatology and behavioral deficits, has not yet been determined. Here, for the first time, we apply established and recently validated topological measures from network science to brain imaging data gained from ketamine-treated mice to elucidate how acute NMDA receptor blockade impacts on the properties of functional brain networks. We show that the effects of acute ketamine treatment on the global properties of these networks are divergent from those widely reported in schizophrenia. Where acute NMDA receptor blockade promotes hyperconnectivity in functional brain networks, pronounced dysconnectivity is found in schizophrenia. We also show that acute ketamine treatment increases the connectivity and importance of prefrontal and thalamic brain regions in brain networks, a finding also divergent to alterations seen in schizophrenia. In addition, we characterize how ketamine impacts on bipartite functional interactions between neural subsystems. A key feature includes the enhancement of prefrontal cortex (PFC)-neuromodulatory subsystem connectivity in ketamine-treated animals, a finding consistent with the known effects of ketamine on PFC neurotransmitter levels. Overall, our data suggest that, at a systems level, acute ketamine-induced alterations in brain network connectivity do not parallel those seen in chronic schizophrenia. Hence, the mechanisms through which acute ketamine treatment induces translationally relevant symptomatology may differ from those in chronic schizophrenia. Future effort should therefore be dedicated to resolve the conflicting observations between this putative translational model and schizophrenia

Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Conceptual Design Report Volume 2: The Physics Program for DUNE at LBNF

The Physics Program for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Fermilab Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) is described