Using STACK to support student learning at masters level: a case study

The development of six online quizzes to support students’ study of an introductory mathematics masters module at The Open University is described and their use evaluated. The quizzes were implemented using the STACK online e-assessment system which is powered by a computer-algebra engine. Evaluation of student feedback and an initial quantitative study of the effect of engaging with the quizzes on the final examinations marks suggest that further development of e-assessment at mathematics masters level is warranted

The prevalence of and knowledge about tobacco use among physicians in the Odessa region, Ukraine

We investigated prevalence of and knowledge about tobacco use among physicians, and their counselling of patients in the Odessa region (Ukraine). Paediatricians (40), family doctors (40) and interns (70) were selected from the physician population of the Odessa region. The proportion of smokers was unacceptably high for health care professionals: paediatricians, 32.5%; family doctors, 37.5%; and interns, 50%. Majority of smokers were men. Less than half of smokers had considered quitting or seriously attempted to quit. Interns least frequently asked their patients about smoking (52.5 vs. 80% paediatricians and 72.5% family doctors). Ukrainian universities need to better educate medical students on tobacco control measures

The Role of Genetic Polymorphism of IL-4 (C-589T) and TNfa (G-308A) and Regular Passive Smoking in Clinical Manifestations of Pneumonia in Infants

Objective: This study set out to investigate the relationship between molecular-genetic mechanisms that modulate cytokine in infants whose parents expose them to cigarette smoke and those that do not expose their infants to cigarette smoke with the possible effects on the severity of pneumonia at presentation to hospital. Exposure to cigarette smoke in infants changed the likelihood of the severity of pneumonia. The results suggest a possible link between the duration of clinical manifestation of pneumonia within infants that are exposed to cigarette smoke. Infants who are exposed to cigarette smoke had higher plasma concentrates in both IgE and CRP. Among infants with the mutant variant of the TNF-α (G-308A) gene, infants from households where both parents smoked or had a father who smoked had longer duration of clinical signs of pneumonia than did infants with no exposure to tobacco smoke. The plasma concentration of IgE in infants in families where one or both parents smoke was significantly higher than in infants with no smoke exposure. The study begins to develop evidence that if the newborn infant is exposed to tobacco smoke either directly from their mother or from others in the household including automobiles, the severity of pneumonia is increased. Both nurses and pediatricians should reinforce the consequences of smoke around the baby to all parents at every opportunity

Remote sensing in Michigan for land resource management

The utilization of NASA earth resource survey technology as an important aid in the solution of current problems in resource management and environmental protection in Michigan is discussed. Remote sensing techniques to aid Michigan government agencies were used to achieve the following results: (1) provide data on Great Lakes beach recession rates to establish shoreline zoning ordinances; (2) supply technical justification for public acquisition of land to establish the St. John's Marshland Recreation Area; (3) establish economical and effective methods for performing a statewide wetlands survey; (4) accomplish a variety of regional resource management actions in the Upper Peninsula; and (5) demonstrate improved soil survey methods. The project disseminated information on remote sensing technology and provided advice and assistance to a number of users in Michigan

An investigation into linearity with cumulative emissions of the climate and carbon cycle response in HadCM3LC

We investigate the extent to which global mean temperature, precipitation, and the carbon cycle are constrained by cumulative carbon emissions throughout four experiments with a fully coupled climate-carbon cycle model. The two paired experiments adopt contrasting, idealised approaches to climate change mitigation at different action points this century, with total emissions exceeding two trillion tonnes of carbon in the later pair. Their initially diverging cumulative emissions trajectories cross after several decades, before diverging again. We find that their global mean temperatures are, to first order, linear with cumulative emissions, though regional differences in temperature of up to 1.5K exist when cumulative emissions of each pair coincide. Interestingly, although the oceanic precipitation response scales with cumulative emissions, the global precipitation response does not, due to a decrease in precipitation over land above cumulative emissions of around one trillion tonnes of carbon (TtC). Most carbon fluxes and stores are less well constrained by cumulative emissions as they reach two trillion tonnes. The opposing mitigation approaches have different consequences for the Amazon rainforest, which affects the linearity with which the carbon cycle responds to cumulative emissions. Averaged over the two fixed-emissions experiments, the transient response to cumulative carbon emissions (TCRE) is 1.95 K TtC-1, at the upper end of the IPCC’s range of 0.8-2.5 K TtC-1

Climate change amplifies plant invasion hotspots in Nepal

Aim Climate change has increased the risk of biological invasions, particularly by increasing the climatically suitable regions for invasive alien species. The distribution of many native and invasive species has been predicted to change under future climate. We performed species distribution modelling of invasive alien plants (IAPs) to identify hotspots under current and future climate scenarios in Nepal, a country ranked among the most vulnerable countries to biological invasions and climate change in the world. Location Nepal. Methods We predicted climatically suitable niches of 24 out of the total 26 reported IAPs in Nepal under current and future climate (2050 for RCP 6.0) using an ensemble of species distribution models. We also conducted hotspot analysis to highlight the geographic hotspots for IAPs in different climatic zones, land cover, ecoregions, physiography and federal states. Results Under future climate, climatically suitable regions for 75% of IAPs will expand in contrast to a contraction of the climatically suitable regions for the remaining 25% of the IAPs. A high proportion of the modelled suitable niches of IAPs occurred on agricultural lands followed by forests. In aggregation, both extent and intensity (invasion hotspots) of the climatically suitable regions for IAPs will increase in Nepal under future climate scenarios. The invasion hotspots will expand towards the high‐elevation mountainous regions. In these regions, land use is rapidly transforming due to the development of infrastructure and expansion of tourism and trade. Main conclusions Negative impacts on livelihood, biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as economic loss caused by IAPs in the future, may be amplified if preventive and control measures are not immediately initiated. Therefore, the management of IAPs in Nepal should account for the vulnerability of climate change‐induced biological invasions into new areas, primarily in the mountains

Affine Subspace Representation for Feature Description

This paper proposes a novel Affine Subspace Representation (ASR) descriptor to deal with affine distortions induced by viewpoint changes. Unlike the traditional local descriptors such as SIFT, ASR inherently encodes local information of multi-view patches, making it robust to affine distortions while maintaining a high discriminative ability. To this end, PCA is used to represent affine-warped patches as PCA-patch vectors for its compactness and efficiency. Then according to the subspace assumption, which implies that the PCA-patch vectors of various affine-warped patches of the same keypoint can be represented by a low-dimensional linear subspace, the ASR descriptor is obtained by using a simple subspace-to-point mapping. Such a linear subspace representation could accurately capture the underlying information of a keypoint (local structure) under multiple views without sacrificing its distinctiveness. To accelerate the computation of ASR descriptor, a fast approximate algorithm is proposed by moving the most computational part (ie, warp patch under various affine transformations) to an offline training stage. Experimental results show that ASR is not only better than the state-of-the-art descriptors under various image transformations, but also performs well without a dedicated affine invariant detector when dealing with viewpoint changes.Comment: To Appear in the 2014 European Conference on Computer Visio

Modifying the Einstein Equations off the Constraint Hypersuface

A new technique is presented for modifying the Einstein evolution equations off the constraint hypersurface. With this approach the evolution equations for the constraints can be specified freely. The equations of motion for the gravitational field variables are modified by the addition of terms that are linear and nonlocal in the constraints. These terms are obtained from solutions of the linearized Einstein constraints.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, uses REVTe

Remote sensing in Michigan for land resource management

The application of NASA earth resource survey technology to resource management and environmental protection in Michigan was investigated. Remote sensing techniques to aid Michigan government agencies were applied in the following activities: (1) land use inventory and management, (2) great lakes shorelands protection and management, (3) wetlands protection and management, and (4) soil survey. In addition, information was disseminated on remote sensing technology, and advice and assistance was provided to a number of users