The clinical spectrum of amoebic colitis

SAMJ 45(6): 219-22

Science with a difference : organising planet walk in Malta

Even to this very day, many look at science as something that is done in a classroom. Perhaps, an experiment conducted in a laboratory may relate well to what one understands by ‘Science’. A group of twenty young people in Malta decided it is time to show that science can be done with a difference. These young people formed a club, which they called Astro-Club. They got to know about ‘Planet Walk’ from the author of this paper who is the advisor to the group. With their enthusiasm for science, directed especially towards Astronomy, they started on a venture aimed at setting up ’Planet Walk’ in Malta, thus aiming at promoting science to the general public. The project generated a lot of energy amongst the group members. They knew that nothing like this had ever been done in Malta. This presented more of a challenge. This paper looks at the process, the difficulties encountered and the satisfaction involved in creating ’Planet Walk’, offering an incentive and encouragement for others to follow and create more “Planet Walks” in their own countries. It is argued that the wonder and mystery that are related to astronomy may be used further towards promoting a better attitude towards science, laying the foundations for a long-term relationship between the world of science and the child. An explanation is offered as to how science can become more exciting and how it can be taken out of the classroom and used fruitfully, showing that science has all to do with the way we live.peer-reviewe

America's Health in Two Centuries

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73589/1/j.1746-1561.1977.tb01061.x.pd

Learning and digital inclusion: the ELAMP project

The Electronic Learning and Mobility Project (ELAMP) was a nationally funded project by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which ran from 2004 to 2010. The main aim of ELAMP was to improve the education of Traveller children, particularly highly mobile learners. ELAMP focussed upon the use of mobile technology and distance learning to support, enhance and extend young Travellers’ educational and vocational opportunities. This article will reflect upon the learning and technological experiences and opportunities that the ELAMP project provided for Traveller children, young people and their families. In doing so it will critically consider the value of information technology in working with Traveller communities and advancing their educational opportunities. Reviewing ELAMP work will also demonstrate how the use of mobile technology can improve educational outcomes and Traveller families’ digital inclusion. Now that the project has ended, this article will question why we are not using what we learnt from ELAMP to move forward

The Predict-Observe-Explain technique as a tool for students' understanding of electric circuits

This paper looks at the learning of the topic of electric circuits by 17-year-old students covering an advanced level course in physics, in Malta. Even if electric circuits are taught in schools both at primary and secondary level, many researchers have reported problems related to the understanding of circuits. The ideas presented during the teaching process are described as ‘abstract’ by students and the so-called ‘simple circuit’ is seen as anything but simple. This paper reports the results of a pilot study dealing with the learning of key concepts in electric circuits, focussing mainly on potential difference in simple parallel circuits. Students’ understanding was probed using a pre-test and a posttest. Interviews were then conducted using the Predict-Observe-Explain technique to further probe understanding of parallel circuits. The study indicated that all the interviewees made a visible effort to try to correctly explain how the circuit presented to them works. Moreover, about one third of these students managed to bridge the gap between their unscientific intuitions and the scientific view. The Predict-Observe-Explain technique helped students shift their thinking towards the scientific view regarding parallel circuits. The implication is that teachers must not ignore simple but effective teaching techniques which focus on putting the responsibility of learning on the student. Choosing a teaching strategy which helps to arouse students’ curiosity by creating cognitive conflicts to make students think, leads the way to a powerful and a qualitatively enriched teaching and learning experience.peer-reviewe

Development of an automated assessment technology for detecting damage in body armour

Hard ballistic body armour plates are designed to withstand the impact of a bullet and protect the wearer, if this happens the armour is clearly damaged and so is retired from service. Mishandling, however, such as dropping the armour, may cause minor and difficult to detect damage which compromises the effectiveness of the plate. Current methods of inspection involve shipping the plates to a central location, performing a thorough inspection and returning them to service if uncompromised; this is costly and requires redundancy of equipment for when not in service. AcoustoUltrasonics is a method of structural health monitoring in which ultrasonic waves are excited in a structure by a transducer and receivers record the response, any deviation from a baseline measurement give an indication of damage within the structure. Within this paper the development and testing of a novel handheld prototype device is presented, which gives a simple yes/no answer to if there is damage on the plate. This inspection is quick and easy to perform by unskilled personnel. Low profile sensors have been utilised combined with a novel flexible circuitry with built in memory, which does not compromise the effectiveness of the armour

The stellar and sub-stellar IMF of simple and composite populations

The current knowledge on the stellar IMF is documented. It appears to become top-heavy when the star-formation rate density surpasses about 0.1Msun/(yr pc^3) on a pc scale and it may become increasingly bottom-heavy with increasing metallicity and in increasingly massive early-type galaxies. It declines quite steeply below about 0.07Msun with brown dwarfs (BDs) and very low mass stars having their own IMF. The most massive star of mass mmax formed in an embedded cluster with stellar mass Mecl correlates strongly with Mecl being a result of gravitation-driven but resource-limited growth and fragmentation induced starvation. There is no convincing evidence whatsoever that massive stars do form in isolation. Various methods of discretising a stellar population are introduced: optimal sampling leads to a mass distribution that perfectly represents the exact form of the desired IMF and the mmax-to-Mecl relation, while random sampling results in statistical variations of the shape of the IMF. The observed mmax-to-Mecl correlation and the small spread of IMF power-law indices together suggest that optimally sampling the IMF may be the more realistic description of star formation than random sampling from a universal IMF with a constant upper mass limit. Composite populations on galaxy scales, which are formed from many pc scale star formation events, need to be described by the integrated galactic IMF. This IGIMF varies systematically from top-light to top-heavy in dependence of galaxy type and star formation rate, with dramatic implications for theories of galaxy formation and evolution.Comment: 167 pages, 37 figures, 3 tables, published in Stellar Systems and Galactic Structure, Vol.5, Springer. This revised version is consistent with the published version and includes additional references and minor additions to the text as well as a recomputed Table 1. ISBN 978-90-481-8817-