Embodied reflection ‐ exploring creative routes to teaching reflective practice within dance training

This article draws from a collaboration between Rambert School of Dance, University of Kent, University College London Institute of Education and an anthropological filmmaker. Together we took a creative and embodied approach to teaching reflective practice within a conservatoire to second-year dance students. In this article, we explore where this somatically inspired pedagogy sits within dance training. We discuss the nature of reflection for dance training, and in particular consider embodied reflective practice. Finally we offer effective methodologies for drawing out and capturing embodied practice

Big Data and Analysis of Data Transfers for International Research Networks Using NetSage

Modern science is increasingly data-driven and collaborative in nature. Many scientific disciplines, including genomics, high-energy physics, astronomy, and atmospheric science, produce petabytes of data that must be shared with collaborators all over the world. The National Science Foundation-supported International Research Network Connection (IRNC) links have been essential to enabling this collaboration, but as data sharing has increased, so has the amount of information being collected to understand network performance. New capabilities to measure and analyze the performance of international wide-area networks are essential to ensure end-users are able to take full advantage of such infrastructure for their big data applications. NetSage is a project to develop a unified, open, privacy-aware network measurement, and visualization service to address the needs of monitoring today's high-speed international research networks. NetSage collects data on both backbone links and exchange points, which can be as much as 1Tb per month. This puts a significant strain on hardware, not only in terms storage needs to hold multi-year historical data, but also in terms of processor and memory needs to analyze the data to understand network behaviors. This paper addresses the basic NetSage architecture, its current data collection and archiving approach, and details the constraints of dealing with this big data problem of handling vast amounts of monitoring data, while providing useful, extensible visualization to end users

Embodied Reflection: Exploring somatic narratives within dance training

This article draws from a collaboration between Rambert School of Dance, University of Kent, University College London Institute of Education and an anthropological filmmaker. Together we took a creative and embodied approach to teaching reflective practice within a conservatoire to second-year dance students. In this article, we explore where this somatically inspired pedagogy sits within dance training. We discuss the nature of reflection for dance training, and in particular consider embodied reflective practice. Finally we offer effective methodologies for drawing out and capturing embodied practice

Dark matter to dark energy transition in k-essence cosmologies

We implement the transition from dark matter to dark energy in k-essence cosmologies for a very large set of kinetic functions $F$, in a way alternative to recent proposals which use generalized Chaplygin gas and transient models. Here we require that the pressure admits a power-law expansion around some value of the kinetic energy where the pressure vanishes. In addition, for suitable values of the parameters of the model, the speed of sound of the dark matter will be low. We first present the discussion in fairly general terms, and later consider for illustration two examples.Comment: 5 pages, revte

A Comment on Zero-brane Quantum Mechanics

We consider low energy, non-relativistic scattering of two Dirichlet zero-branes as an exercise in quantum mechanics. For weak string coupling and sufficiently small velocity, the dynamics is governed by an effective U(2) gauge theory in 0+1 dimensions. At low energies, D-brane scattering can reliably probe distances much shorter than the string scale. The only length scale in the quantum mechanics problem is the eleven dimensional Planck length. This provides evidence for the role of scales shorter than the string length in the weakly coupled dynamics of type IIA strings.Comment: 9 pages, harvmac, improved treatment of 2+1 proble

Resource use data by patient report or hospital records: Do they agree?

Background: Economic evaluations alongside clinical trials are becoming increasingly common. Cost data are often collected through the use of postal questionnaires; however, the accuracy of this method is uncertain. We compared postal questionnaires with hospital records for collecting data on physiotherapy service use. Methods: As part of a randomised trial of orthopaedic medicine compared with orthopaedic surgery we collected physiotherapy use data on a group of patients from retrospective postal questionnaires and from hospital records. Results: 315 patients were referred for physiotherapy. Hospital data on attendances was available for 30% (n = 96), compared with 48% (n = 150) of patients completing questionnaire data (95% Cl for difference = 10% to 24%); 19% (n = 59) had data available from both sources. The two methods produced an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.54 (95% Cl 0.31 to 0.70). However, the two methods produced significantly different estimates of resource use with patient self report recalling a mean of 1.3 extra visits (95% Cl 0.4 to 2.2) compared with hospital records. Conclusions: Using questionnaires in this study produced data on a greater number of patients compared with examination of hospital records. However, the two data sources did differ in the quantity of physiotherapy used and this should be taken into account in any analysi

A Note on Marginally Stable Bound States in Type II String Theory

Spectrum of elementary string states in type II string theory contains ultra-short multiplets that are marginally stable. $U$-duality transformation converts these states into bound states at threshold of $p$-branes carrying Ramond-Ramond charges, and wrapped around $p$-cycles of a torus. We propose a test for the existence of these marginally stable bound states. Using the recent results of Polchinski and of Witten, we argue that the spectrum of bound states of $p$-branes is in agreement with the prediction of $U$-duality.Comment: LaTeX file, 6 page

Transient, Non-Axisymmetric Modes in Instability of Unsteady Circular Couette Flow

Laboratory and numerical experiments were conducted to quantitatively determine the modal structure of transient, nonaxisymmetric modes observed during the instability of an impulsively initiated circular‐Couette flow. The instability develops initially as an axisymmetric, Görtler‐vortex state and persists ultimately as a steady, axisymmetric Taylor‐vortex state of different wavelength. The transition between these two states results from the instability of the Görtler mode combined with the underlying developing swirl flow and is dominated by nonaxisymmetric modes. The laboratory experiments employed flow visualization coupled with digital video and image‐processing techniques; numerical experiments were performed using the spectral‐element code

Radiation chemistry in solvent etxraction: FY2011 research

This report summarizes work accomplished under the Fuel Cycle Research and Development (FCR&D) program in the area of radiation chemistry during FY 2011. The tasks assigned during FY 2011 included: (1) Continue measurements free radical reaction kinetics in the organic phase; (2) Continue development of an alpha-radiolysis program and compare alpha and gamma radiolysis for CMPO; (3) Initiate an effort to understand dose rate effects in radiation chemistry; and (4) Continued work to characterize TALSPEAK radiation chemistry, including the examination of metal complexed ligand kinetics. Progress made on each of these tasks is reported here. Briefly, the method developed to measure the kinetics of the reactions of the NO3 radical with solvent extraction ligands in organic solution during FY10 was extended here to a number of compounds to better understand the differences between radical reactions in the organic versus aqueous phases. The alpha-radiolysis program in FY11 included irradiations of CMPO solutions with 244Cm, 211At and the He ion beam, for comparison to gamma irradiations, and a comparison of the gamma irradiation results for CMPO at three different gamma dose rates. Finally, recent results for TALSPEAK radiolysis are reported, summarizing the latest in an effort to understand how metal complexation to ligands affects their reaction kinetics with free radicals

On the Z_2 Monopole of Spin(10) Gauge Theories

An "expanded" description is introduced to examine the spinor-monopole identification proposed by Strassler for four-dimensional $\cal N$ = 1 supersymmetric Spin(10) gauge theories with matter in F vector and N spinor representations. It is shown that a Z_2 monopole in the "expanded" theory is associated with massive spinors of the Spin(10) theory. For N=2, two spinor case, we confirm this identification by matching the transformation properties of the two theories under SU(2) flavor symmetry. However, for N $\ge$ 3, the transformation properties are not matched between the spinors and the monopole. This disagreement might be due to the fact that the SU(N) flavor symmetry of the Spin(10) theory is partially realized as an SU(2) symmetry in the "expanded" theory.Comment: 16 pages, LaTex, no figur