Potential influence of selection criteria on the demographic composition of students in an Australian medical school

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prior to 1999 students entering our MBBS course were selected on academic performance alone. We have now evaluated the impact on the demographics of subsequent cohorts of our standard entry students (those entering directly from high school) of the addition to the selection process of an aptitude test (UMAT), a highly structured interview and a rural incentive program.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Students entering from 1985 to 1998, selected on academic performance alone (N = 1402), were compared to those from 1999 to 2011, selected on the basis of a combination of academic performance, interview score, and UMAT score together with the progressive introduction of a rural special entry pathway (N = 1437).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Males decreased from 57% to 45% of the cohort, students of NE or SE Asian origin decreased from 30% to 13%, students born in Oceania increased from 52% to 69%, students of rural origin from 5% to 21% and those from independent high schools from 56% to 66%. The proportion of students from high schools with relative socio-educational disadvantage remained unchanged at approximately 10%. The changes reflect in part increasing numbers of female and independent high school applicants and the increasing rural quota. However, they were also associated with higher interview scores in females vs males and lower interview scores in those of NE and SE Asian origin compared to those born in Oceania or the UK. Total UMAT scores were unrelated to gender or region of origin.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The revised selection processes had no impact on student representation from schools with relative socio-educational disadvantage. However, the introduction of special entry quotas for students of rural origin and a structured interview, but not an aptitude test, were associated with a change in gender balance and ethnicity of students in an Australian undergraduate MBBS course.</p

Single transit candidates from K2 : detection and period estimation

Photometric surveys such as Kepler have the precision to identify exoplanet and eclipsing binary candidates from only a single transit. K2, with its 75 d campaign duration, is ideally suited to detect significant numbers of single-eclipsing objects. Here we develop a Bayesian transit-fitting tool (‘Namaste: An Mcmc Analysis of Single Transit Exoplanets’) to extract orbital information from single transit events. We achieve favourable results testing this technique on known Kepler planets, and apply the technique to seven candidates identified from a targeted search of K2 campaigns 1, 2 and 3. We find EPIC203311200 to host an excellent exoplanet candidate with a period, assuming zero eccentricity, of 540+410 −230 d and a radius of 0.51 ± 0.05RJup. We also find six further transit candidates for which more follow-up is required to determine a planetary origin. Such a technique could be used in the future with TESS, PLATO and ground-based photometric surveys such as NGTS, potentially allowing the detection of planets in reach of confirmation by Gaia

Mapping Exoplanets

The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term technology. It is still possible, however, to deduce spatial inhomogeneities in exoplanets provided that different regions are visible at different times---this can be due to rotation, orbital motion, and occultations by a star, planet, or moon. Astronomers have so far constructed maps of thermal emission and albedo for short period giant planets. These maps constrain atmospheric dynamics and cloud patterns in exotic atmospheres. In the future, exo-cartography could yield surface maps of terrestrial planets, hinting at the geophysical and geochemical processes that shape them.Comment: Updated chapter for Handbook of Exoplanets, eds. Deeg & Belmonte. 17 pages, including 6 figures and 4 pages of reference

Future exoplanet research: XUV (EUV and X-ray) detection and characterization

This chapter gives an overview of the current status of XUV research in exoplanets and highlights the prospects of future observations. Fundamental questions about the formation and the physical and chemical evolution of exoplanets, particularly hot Jupiters, are addressed through the different lines of XUV research: these comprise XUV irradiation of planetary atmospheres by the host stars, and consequent mass loss and atmospheric evaporation; X-ray and UV transits in exoplanet systems; and Star-Planet Interactions, most often determined by magnetic and tidal forces. While no other UV instrumentation as powerful as that carried by the Hubble Space Telescope will be available for detailed studies in the foreseeable future, the discovery potential of future revolutionary X-ray observatories, such as ATHENA and Lynx, will provide accurate atmosphere characterization and will make strides towards establishing the physics of the interactions between exoplanets and their host stars

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in Exoplanet Research

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect occurs during a planet's transit. It provides the main means of measuring the sky-projected spin-orbit angle between a planet's orbital plane, and its host star's equatorial plane. Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is now a near routine procedure. It is an important element in the orbital characterisation of transiting exoplanets. Measurements of the spin-orbit angle have revealed a surprising diversity, far from the placid, Kantian and Laplacian ideals, whereby planets form, and remain, on orbital planes coincident with their star's equator. This chapter will review a short history of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, how it is modelled, and will summarise the current state of the field before describing other uses for a spectroscopic transit, and alternative methods of measuring the spin-orbit angle.Comment: Review to appear as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", ed. H. Deeg & J.A. Belmont

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS)

© 2017 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. We describe the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), which is a ground-based project searching for transiting exoplanets orbiting bright stars. NGTS builds on the legacy of previous surveys, most notably WASP, and is designed to achieve higher photometric precision and hence find smaller planets than have previously been detected from the ground. It also operates in red light,maximizing sensitivity to late K and earlyMdwarf stars. The survey specifications call for photometric precision of 0.1 per cent in red light over an instantaneous field of view of 100 deg 2 , enabling the detection of Neptune-sized exoplanets around Sun-like stars and super-Earths around M dwarfs. The survey is carried out with a purpose-built facility at Cerro Paranal, Chile, which is the premier site of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). An array of twelve 20 cm f/2.8 telescopes fitted with back-illuminated deep-depletion CCD cameras is used to survey fields intensively at intermediateGalactic latitudes. The instrument is also ideally suited to ground-based photometric follow-up of exoplanet candidates from space telescopes such as TESS, Gaia and PLATO. We present observations that combine precise autoguiding and the superb observing conditions at Paranal to provide routine photometric precision of 0.1 per cent in 1 h for stars with I-band magnitudes brighter than 13. We describe the instrument and data analysis methods as well as the status of the survey, which achieved first light in 2015 and began full-survey operations in 2016. NGTS data will be made publicly available through the ESO archive

K2-110 b: a massive mini-Neptune exoplanet

We report the discovery of the exoplanet K2-110 b (previously EPIC212521166b) from K2 photometry orbiting in a 13.8637d period around an old, metal-poor K3 dwarf star. With a V-band magnitude of 11.9,K2-110 is particularly amenable to RV follow-up. A joint analysis of K2 photometry and high-precision RVs from 28 HARPS and HARPS-N spectra reveal it to have a radius of 2.6 ± 0.1R⊕ and amass of 16.7 ± 3.2M⊕, hence a density of 5.2± 1.2 g cm-3, making it one of the most massive planets yet to be found with a sub-Neptune radius. When accounting for compression, the resulting Earth-like density is best fitted by a 0.2M⊕ hydrogen atmosphere over an 16.5M⊕ Earth-like interior, although the planet could also have significant water content. At 0.1 AU, even taking into account the old stellar age of 8 ± 3 Gyr, the planet is unlikely to have been significantly affected by EUV evaporation. However the planet likely disc-migrated to its current position making the lack of a thick H2 atmosphere puzzling. This analysis has made K2-110 b one of the best-characterised mini-Neptunes with density constrained to less than 30%.PostprintPeer reviewe

Happiness matters : exploring the linkages between personality, personal happiness, and work-related psychological health among priests and sisters in Italy

This study responds to the challenge posed by Rossetti’s work to explore the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in happiness among priests and religious sisters. The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire was completed together with measures of personality and work-related psychological health by 95 priests and 61 religious sisters. Overall the data demonstrated high levels of personal happiness among priests and religious sisters, but also significant signs of vulnerability. Personality provided significant prediction of individual differences in both personal happiness and work-related psychological health. However, personal happiness provided additional protection against work-related emotional exhaustion and additional enhancement of work-related satisfaction. These findings suggest that acknowledging and affirming personal happiness may enhance the work-related psychological health of Catholic priests and religious sisters