Continuing Professional Development in Higher Education: The Role of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: There have been two recent developments in the area of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: a recognition of the importance of the continuing development of academics in teaching and learning (CPD in HE) and the possible role in this development of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This essay aims to provide appropriate links between the two

\u3cb\u3eReader\u27s Response:\u3c/b\u3e Is there a Mastodon in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Room?

A response to Pat Hutchings’, “Theory: The Elephant in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Room,” International Journal on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Volume 1, Number 1 (January 2007)

Recognition and Acceptance of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: The acceptance of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) by the academic community has made considerable progress over the past few years, but it is still everywhere a minority interest in a climate that puts disciplinary research above all other academic activities. Furthermore, this situation is strengthened everywhere by features of marketisation which have increased the importance of management and finance in academia, to the detriment of the really important work of academics with which SoTL is concerned – teaching and research. In England – more than in Scotland, and it is important to appreciate that as an outcome of devolution, the two countries are increasingly diverging in their academic concerns – SoTL has had to cope with, on the one hand, management styles which have devalued academics from colleagues to employees, and on the other with the disastrous effects of the Research Selectivity Exercise (RAE), a primarily self-inflicted ‘own goal’ of academia, which has biased research towards short-termism, and has introduced terms such as ‘research inactive’ to label academic staff who, while engaged in both research and teaching could not satisfy the narrow research definitions of the RAE and came as a result to be labelled ‘research inactive’

Validation of Weak Form Thermal Analysis Algorithms Supporting Thermal Signature Generation

Extremization of a weak form for the continuum energy conservation principle differential equation naturally implements fluid convection and radiation as flux Robin boundary conditions associated with unsteady heat transfer. Combining a spatial semi-discretization via finite element trial space basis functions with time-accurate integration generates a totally node-based algebraic statement for computing. Closure for gray body radiation is a newly derived node-based radiosity formulation generating piecewise discontinuous solutions, while that for natural-forced-mixed convection heat transfer is extracted from the literature. Algorithm performance, mathematically predicted by asymptotic convergence theory, is subsequently validated with data obtained in 24 hour diurnal field experiments for distinct thickness flat plates and a cube-shaped three dimensional object

Fusion Reaction Cross-section Measurements near \u3csup\u3e100\u3c/sup\u3eSn

This thesis describes the measurement of production rates of A=109 isobars produced with beams of 54Fe ions accelerated to 207 MeV bombarding 58Ni target. The reaction products have been electromagnetically separated according to their mass over charge ratio and implanted into a semiconductor detector. The spontaneous decay radiation from the implanted radioactive isobars has been measured in a detection system with known detection efficiency, enabling to determine absolute intensities of observed isotopes. Known branching ratios of alpha decays of 109Xe, 109Te, proton decay of 109I and beta delayed gamma radiation of 109Te and 109Sb have been used to determine the production rates of these isotopes. The experimental data has been compared to predictions given by the fusion-evaporation code HIVAP. The experiment was performed at Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory using the 25 MV Tandem Accelerator and Recoil Mass Spectrometer. This work can be used in planning of future experiments on exotic isotopes near 100Sn. Results for the production of 109Sb were found to agree fairly well with HIVAP prediction, but should only be used as a guide for future experiments

Proceedings, International Taxus Symposium, October 1, 1975

History and development of Taxus in the U.S. / Ray A. Keen -- The best of the Taxus cultivars / L. C. Chadwick -- Poisonous properties of Taxus / Jack L. Beal -- Production of Taxus / Arie J. Radder -- Effective use of Taxus in the landscape / Clarence E. Lewis -- Taxus species and hybrids / Harold G. Hillier -- Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata) / Makoto Kawase -- Fertilizing Taxus for optimum growth / Elton M. Smith -- Taxus insects: problems and research in Ohio / David G. Nielsen -- Taxus locations in the Secrest Arboretu

Wittgenstein's Thought Experiments and Relativity Theory

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise

Species assembly in model ecosystems, I: Analysis of the population model and the invasion dynamics

Recently we have introduced a simplified model of ecosystem assembly (Capitan et al., 2009) for which we are able to map out all assembly pathways generated by external invasions in an exact manner. In this paper we provide a deeper analysis of the model, obtaining analytical results and introducing some approximations which allow us to reconstruct the results of our previous work. In particular, we show that the population dynamics equations of a very general class of trophic-level structured food-web have an unique interior equilibrium point which is globally stable. We show analytically that communities found as end states of the assembly process are pyramidal and we find that the equilibrium abundance of any species at any trophic level is approximately inversely proportional to the number of species in that level. We also find that the per capita growth rate of a top predator invading a resident community is key to understand the appearance of complex end states reported in our previous work. The sign of these rates allows us to separate regions in the space of parameters where the end state is either a single community or a complex set containing more than one community. We have also built up analytical approximations to the time evolution of species abundances that allow us to determine, with high accuracy, the sequence of extinctions that an invasion may cause. Finally we apply this analysis to obtain the communities in the end states. To test the accuracy of the transition probability matrix generated by this analytical procedure for the end states, we have compared averages over those sets with those obtained from the graph derived by numerical integration of the Lotka-Volterra equations. The agreement is excellent.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. Revised versio

Comparison of two modern vaccines and previous influenza infection against challenge with an equine influenza virus from the Australian 2007 outbreak

During 2007, large outbreaks of equine influenza (EI) caused by Florida sublineage Clade 1 viruses affected horse populations in Japan and Australia. The likely protection that would be provided by two modern vaccines commercially available in the European Union (an ISCOM-based and a canarypox-based vaccine) at the time of the outbreaks was determined. Vaccinated ponies were challenged with a representative outbreak isolate (A/eq/Sydney/2888-8/07) and levels of protection were compared. A group of ponies infected 18 months previously with a phylogenetically-related isolate from 2003 (A/eq/South Africa/4/03) was also challenged with the 2007 outbreak virus. After experimental infection with A/eq/Sydney/2888-8/07, unvaccinated control ponies all showed clinical signs of infection together with virus shedding. Protection achieved by both vaccination or long-term immunity induced by previous exposure to equine influenza virus (EIV) was characterised by minor signs of disease and reduced virus shedding when compared with unvaccinated control ponies. The three different methods of virus titration in embryonated hens’ eggs, EIV NP-ELISA and quantitative RT-PCR were used to monitor EIV shedding and results were compared. Though the majority of previously infected ponies had low antibody levels at the time of challenge, they demonstrated good clinical protection and limited virus shedding. In summary, we demonstrate that vaccination with current EIV vaccines would partially protect against infection with A/eq/Sydney/2888-8/07-like strains and would help to limit the spread of disease in our vaccinated horse population