Setting the interdisciplinary scene

Interdisciplinarity, working across specialities, is something that has been shaping higher education increasingly since the 1990s. It is a mode of working that cuts across the usual habits of a single discipline, focusing on solving a particular problem or situation by drawing on a range of expertise. There are times when grand claims are made for interdisciplinary work, and times when it is seen as a buzzword that needs to be put somewhere because it sounds good in grant applications. Interdisciplinary research is difficult partly because it goes against the grain of specialization, and going into details deeply is inevitable when one is doing research. Interdisciplinary education is even harder because there is often less consensus about what understanding we are trying to impart: subject specialists are themselves often not sure how to agree on these and have to collaborate to find their way to an appropriate understanding in each new collaboration. In this overview, Davies argues that one consequence of this is to emphasize the open-endedness of collaborative research, and that students can be a part of it – indeed they make a vital contribution to judgements about what kinds of knowledge and collaborations are of value

Sources of shore sediment on the north coast of Tasmania

Following a conclusion that beach sands on the north coast of Tasmania have been subjected to little longshore translocation, an attempt is made to establish their immediate provenance by examining a range of sedimentological characters. It is concluded that most of the sand body was immediately derived from the shelf at and after the postglacial marine transgression. Almost all of the remainder was supplied in the last 6000 years by erosion of coastal bedrock or accession of biogenic carbonate, with little or no contribution from the rivers

The context of the Connected Curriculum

This opening chapter sets a broad perspective on some of the issues facing higher education in general: what kinds of pedagogical problems are we trying to solve, and why? After introducing the key UCL strategy of the Connected Curriculum and research-based education, it touches on a number of overarching themes about learning. These include the ways that educators construct environments for students to learn in, how their engagement is critical (and can be squandered) and the way that in recent years, higher education has rethought the curriculum in an attempt to move its focus from the teacher to the learner. As soon as we start to think along these lines, other questions emerge that might loosely be called ‘identity-related’ as we realize that one way or another, we are shaping our graduates’ whole perspectives in far more ways than might initially have been expected. The chapter gives an overview of some of the key approaches that characterize modern university education, and sets the scene for the chapters that follow. In particular, it seeks to show how we have reached a point where research-based education is not just plausible and achievable, but in fact desirable, as a way of bringing a set of strands together that have hitherto rarely been coherently woven

Experimental techniques for ductile damage characterisation

Ductile damage in metallic materials is caused by the nucleation, growth and coalesce of voids and micro-cracks in the metal matrix when it is subjected to plastic strain. A considerable number of models have been proposed to represent ductile failure focusing on the ultimate failure conditions; however, only some of them study in detail the whole damage accumulation process. The aim of this work is to review experimental techniques developed by various authors to measure the accumulation of ductile damage under tensile loads. The measurement methods reviewed include: stiffness degradation, indentation, microstructure analysis, ultrasonic waves propagation, X-ray tomography and electrical potential drop. Stiffness degradation and indentation techniques have been tested on stainless steel 304L hourglass-shaped samples. A special interest is placed in the Continuum Damage Mechanics approach (CDM) as its equations incorporate macroscopic parameters that can represent directly the damage accumulation measured in the experiments. The other main objective lies in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each technique for the assessment of materials subjected to different strain-rate and temperature conditions

Premature ovarian insufficiency: the need for evidence on the effectiveness of hormonal therapy

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) – the loss of ovarian function before the age of 40 years, a decade before natural menopause – is a life-changing diagnosis for women. POI causes significant short-term and long-term morbidity related to estrogen deficiency. The condition is managed by providing exogenous estrogen replacement, usually as the oral contraceptive pill or hormone therapy. These preparations have different estrogen formulations and may have differing benefits and risks. At present, there are no robust data to inform clinical recommendations and women’s decision-making about treatment that they may be taking for many years. The POISE study (Premature Ovarian Insufficiency Study of Effectiveness of hormonal therapy) has been designed to determine whether hormone therapy is superior to combined oral contraceptives on important clinical outcomes and patient-reported symptoms, based on the hypothesis that hormone therapy provides more physiological continuous hormone supplementation with natural estrogens. The study is an open and pragmatic, parallel, randomized controlled trial. The primary outcome is absolute bone mineral density assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry of the lumbar spine after 2 years of treatment. The study will also investigate cardiovascular markers, symptom relief and acceptability of treatment, and will continue to collect long-term data on fractures and cardiovascular events. Results will inform future guidance on management of POI

The nature, extent, and ecological implications of marine light pollution

This is the final version of the article. Available from Ecological Society of America via the DOI in this record.Despite centuries of use, artificial light at night has only recently been recognized as a cause for environmental concern. Its global extent and ongoing encroachment into naturally lit ecosystems has sparked scientific interest into the many ways in which it may negatively affect human health, societal attitudes, scientific endeavors, and biological processes. Yet, perhaps because sources of artificial light are largely land based, the potential for artificial light pollution to interfere with the biology of the ocean has not been explored in any detail. There is little information on how light pollution affects those species, behaviors, and interactions that are informed by the intensity, spectra, and periodicity of natural nighttime light in marine ecosystems. Here, we provide an overview of the extent of marine light pollution, discuss how it changes the physical environment, and explore its potential role in shaping marine ecosystems. © The Ecological Society of America.The research leading to this paper has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the EU's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013)/ ERC grant agreement No 268504 to KJG