Handbook for Learning-centred evaluation of Computer-facilitated learning projects in higher education

This handbook supports a project funded by the Australian Government Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development (CUTSD). The amended project title is “Staff Development in Evaluation of Technology-based Teaching Development Projects: An Action Inquiry Approach”. The project is hosted by Murdoch University on behalf of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE), as a consortium of 11 universities. The rationale of the project is to guide a group of university staff through the evaluation of a Computer-facilitated Learning (CFL1) project by a process of action inquiry and mentoring, supported by the practical and theoretical material contained in this handbook

Examining Visual Field Loss in Patients in Glaucoma Clinics During Their Predicted Remaining Lifetime

Purpose.: To evaluate the proportion of patients in glaucoma clinics progressing at rates that would result in visual disability within their expected lifetime. Methods.: This retrospective study used visual field (VF) series of at least 3 years’ duration from 3790 UK patients in glaucoma clinics calculating rates of loss for each eye using linear regression of mean deviation (MD) over time. Residual life expectancies derived from the UK Office of National Statistics actuarial tables for each patient were combined with these rates to estimate predicted MDs at end of expected lifetime. The proportion of patients projected to progress to visual impairment (MD: −14 dB or worse) or statutory blindness (MD: −22 dB or worse) in both eyes before end of expected lifetime was calculated. Results.: Only 3.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.7%–3.4%) of patient eyes progressed at faster than −1.5 dB/year (n = 7149 eyes). Of those patients with both eyes followed, 5.2% (CI 4.5%–6.0%) were predicted to progress to statutory blindness, with a further 10.4% (CI 9.4%–11.4%) reaching visual impairment in their lifetime. More than 90% (CI 85.7%–94.3%) of patients predicted to progress to statutory blindness, had an MD worse than −6 dB in at least one eye at presentation. Conclusions.: This modeling exercise indicates that most patients in glaucoma clinics are not at high risk of progressing to statutory blindness. The likelihood of patients suffering impairment in their lifetimes is linked to VF loss at presentation, which illuminates the importance of reliably detecting significant VF defects in primary care

The Radio Afterglow and Host Galaxy of the Dark GRB 020819

Of the fourteen gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) localized to better than 2' radius with the SXC on HETE-2, only two lack optical afterglow detections, and the high recovery rate among this sample has been used to argue that the fraction of truly dark bursts is ~10%. While a large fraction of earlier dark bursts can be explained by the failure of ground-based searches to reach appropriate limiting magnitudes, suppression of the optical light of these SXC dark bursts seems likely. Here we report the discovery and observation of the radio afterglow of GRB 020819, an SXC dark burst, which enables us to identify the likely host galaxy (probability of 99.2%) and hence the redshift (z=0.41) of the GRB. The radio light curve is qualitatively similar to that of several other radio afterglows, and may include an early-time contribution from the emission of the reverse shock. The proposed host is a bright R = 19.5 mag barred spiral galaxy, with a faint R ~ 24.0 mag "blob'' of emission, 3" from the galaxy core (16 kpc in projection), that is coincident with the radio afterglow. Optical photometry of the galaxy and blob, beginning 3 hours after the burst and extending over more than 100 days, establishes strong upper limits to the optical brightness of any afterglow or associated supernova. Combining the afterglow radio fluxes and our earliest R-band limit, we find that the most likely afterglow model invokes a spherical expansion into a constant-density (rather than stellar wind-like) external environment; within the context of this model, a modest local extinction of A_V ~ 1 mag is sufficient to suppress the optical flux below our limits.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. ApJ, in press. For more info on dark bursts, see http://www.astro.ku.dk/~pallja/dark.htm

Innovation and deadlock in governing disasters and climate change collaboratively - Lessons from the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia

Both scholars and global policy point to the need for, and effectiveness of, locally-led and collaborative disaster and climate change practices. However, there is a need for analysing how these collaborative approaches are developed and used in practice in different contexts. This paper outlines the use of collaborative approaches by a climate change and disaster community of practice across seven local government areas in the Northern Rivers region, New South Wales, Australia. The region has experienced multiple large-scale flood and bushfire disasters since 2017. This ethnographic study uses established collaborative governance and adaptive governance theoretical frameworks to draw findings from: lived experiences of researchers, 22 interviews with diverse stakeholder groups, in-person and online events and the first author's research diary. The findings indicate that collaborative practice in response to disasters and climate change has resulted in both effective outcomes and multi-dimensional challenges, which have lasting implications for communities across the Northern Rivers region. Three critical leverage points for enhanced collaboration and effectiveness were identified. First, improved use and flow of information such as climate projections and place- and needs-based information. Second, mindset shifts that value community knowledge and contributions, and improved practice through enhancing skills in community development and community-led recovery in disaster and climate change practitioners. Lastly, collectively moving from reactive to proactive responses to climate change and disasters. These insights provide an opportunity for improving the design of community-based risk reduction programs and multi-stakeholder governance arrangements into the future, in the state of New South Wales and beyond

Engineering maintenance decision-making with unsupported judgement under operational constraints

In operational engineering maintenance situations, limitations on time, resource or the information available often inhibit rigorous analysis on complex decision problems. Decision-makers who are compelled to act in such circumstances, may be informed by some level of analysis if available, or else may have to rely on their unsupported judgement. This paper presents three engineering risk decision-making case studies across a 20 year span from the rail, aerospace, and military aviation contexts, highlighting the fallibilities of using unsupported judgements in an unstructured manner. To help situate this type of decision situation, we provide a descriptive model of the decision space which extends an existing description from the discipline of decision analysis. Furthermore, to help make and describe the distinction between unsupported and supported thinking, we provide another descriptive model, this time drawing parallels with the distinction made between Type 1 and Type 2 reasoning. This model is an extension of the default-interventionist model from cognitive psychology. The paper concludes that there is a pressing need to provide some form of support to engineering decision-makers facing operational decisions under severe time pressure. While the ultimate aim must be to improve the quality of decision-making, improved transparency is an important additional benefit. Increased emphasis on decision justification and self-awareness are suggested as potential ways of improving this situation. A further contribution of this paper is to identify and strengthen linkages between safety science and two other relevant disciplines, decision analysis and psychology. Such linkages make it easier to communicate across traditional disciplinary boundaries and may provide opportunities for interdisciplinary learning or suggest future directions for collaborative research

The colonial ascidian \u3cem\u3eDidemnum\u3c/em\u3e sp. A: Current distribution, basic biology and potential threat to marine communities of the northeast and west coasts of North America

Didemnum sp. A is a colonial ascidian with rapidly expanding populations on the east and west coasts of North America. The origin of Didemum sp. A is unknown. Populations were first observed on the northeast coast of the U.S. in the late 1980s and on the west coast during the 1990s. It is currently undergoing a massive population explosion and is now a dominant member of many subtidal communities on both coasts. To determine Didemnum sp. A\u27s current distribution, we conducted surveys from Maine to Virginia on the east coast and from British Columbia to southern California on the west coast of the U.S. between 1998 and 2005. In nearshore locations Didemnum sp. A currently ranges from Eastport, Maine to Shinnecock Bay, New York on the east coast. On the west coast it has been recorded from Humboldt Bay to Port San Luis in California, several sites in Puget Sound, Washington, including a heavily fouled mussel culture facility, and several sites in southwestern British Columbia on and adjacent to oyster and mussel farms. The species also occurs at deeper subtidal sites (up to 81 m) off New England, including Georges, Stellwagen and Tillies Banks. On Georges Bank numerous sites within a 230 km2 area are 50–90% covered by Didemnum sp. A; large colonies cement the pebble gravel into nearly solid mats that may smother infaunal organisms. These observations suggest that Didemnum sp. A has the potential to alter marine communities and affect economically important activities such as fishing and aquaculture

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) : galaxy close pairs, mergers and the future fate of stellar mass

ASGR acknowledges STFC and SUPA funding that were used to do this work. GAMA is funded by the STFC (UK), the ARC (Australia), the AAO and the participating institutions.We use a highly complete subset of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly II (GAMA-II) redshift sample to fully describe the stellar mass dependence of close pairs and mergers between 10(8) and 10(12)M(circle dot). Using the analytic form of this fit we investigate the total stellar mass accreting on to more massive galaxies across all mass ratios. Depending on how conservatively we select our robust merging systems, the fraction of mass merging on to more massive companions is 2.0-5.6 per cent. Using the GAMA-II data we see no significant evidence for a change in the close pair fraction between redshift z = 0.05 and 0.2. However, we find a systematically higher fraction of galaxies in similar mass close pairs compared to published results over a similar redshift baseline. Using a compendium of data and the function gamma(M) = A(1 + z)(m) to predict the major close pair fraction, we find fitting parameters of A = 0.021 +/- 0.001 and m = 1.53 +/- 0.08, which represents a higher low-redshift normalization and shallower power-law slope than recent literature values. We find that the relative importance of in situ star formation versus galaxy merging is inversely correlated, with star formation dominating the addition of stellar material below M* and merger accretion events dominating beyond M*. We find mergers have a measurable impact on the whole extent of the galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF), manifest as a deepening of the 'dip' in the GSMF over the next similar to Gyr and an increase in M* by as much as 0.01-0.05 dex.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The colonial ascidian Didemnum sp. A: Current distribution, basic biology and potential threat to marine communities of the northeast and west coasts of North America

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 342 (2007): 99-108, doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2006.10.020.Didemnum sp. A is a colonial ascidian with rapidly expanding populations on the east and west coasts of North America. The origin of Didemum sp. A is unknown. Populations were first observed on the northeast coast of the U.S. in the late 1980s and on the west coast during the 1990s. It is currently undergoing a massive population explosion and is now a dominant member of many subtidal communities on both coasts. To determine Didemnum sp. A’s current distribution, we conducted surveys from Maine to Virginia on the east coast and from British Columbia to southern California on the west coast of the U.S. between 1998 and 2005. In nearshore locations Didemnum sp. A currently ranges from Eastport, Maine to Shinnecock Bay, New York on the east coast. On the west coast it has been recorded from Humboldt Bay to Port San Luis in California, several sites in Puget Sound, Washington, including a heavily fouled mussel culture facility, and several sites in southwestern British Columbia on and adjacent to oyster and mussel farms. The species also occurs at deeper subtidal sites (up to 81 m) off New England, including Georges, Stellwagen and Tillies Banks. On Georges Bank numerous sites within a 147 km2 area are 50-90% covered by Didemnum sp. A; large colonies cement the pebble gravel into nearly solid mats that may smother infaunal organisms. These observations suggest that Didemnum sp. A has the potential to alter marine communities and affect economically important activities such as fishing and aquaculture.Funding for this project was provided by EPA (STAR) grant GZ1910464 to R.B. Whitlatch, NSF-DGE 0114432 to J. Byrnes, NSF-OCE 0117839 to R. Etter and R.J. Miller, MIT Sea Grant NA86RG0074 and USEPA Grant GX83055701-0 to J. Pederson. RI Sea Grant NA07R90363 to J.S. Collie. Funding for A.N. Cohen and G. Lambert was provided by Mass. Sea Grant, U.S. EPA, Smithsonian Envl. Research Center Invasions Lab, Natl. Geographic Soc., San Francisco Bay-Delta Science Consortium and CALFED Science Program, Calif. Coastal Conservancy and the Rose Foundation. Additional funding and support was provided by the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary

Lower Neutrino Mass Bound from SN1987A Data and Quantum Geometry

A lower bound on the light neutrino mass $m_\nu$ is derived in the framework of a geometrical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Using this model and the time of flight delay data for neutrinos coming from SN1987A, we find that the neutrino masses are bounded from below by $m_\nu\gtrsim 10^{-4}-10^{-3}$eV, in agreement with the upper bound $m_\nu\lesssim$ $({\cal O}(0.1) - {\cal O} (1))$ eV currently available. When the model is applied to photons with effective mass, we obtain a lower limit on the electron density in intergalactic space that is compatible with recent baryon density measurements.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure