17,237 research outputs found
What makes a 'good group'? Exploring the characteristics and performance of undergraduate student groups
Group work forms the foundation for much of student learning within higher education, and has many educational, social and professional benefits. This study aimed to explore the determinants of success or failure for undergraduate student teams and to define a ‘good group’ through considering three aspects of group success: the task, the individuals, and the team. We employed a mixed methodology, combining demographic data with qualitative observations and task and peer evaluation scores. We determined associations between group dynamic and behaviour, demographic composition, member personalities and attitudes towards one another, and task success. We also employed a cluster analysis to create a model outlining the attributes of a good small group learning team in veterinary education. This model highlights that student groups differ in measures of their effectiveness as teams, independent of their task performance. On the basis of this, we suggest that groups who achieve high marks in tasks cannot be assumed to have acquired team working skills, and therefore if these are important as a learning outcome, they must be assessed directly alongside the task output
Rethinking the patient: using Burden of Treatment Theory to understand the changing dynamics of illness
<b>Background</b> In this article we outline Burden of Treatment Theory, a new model of the relationship between sick people, their social networks, and healthcare services. Health services face the challenge of growing populations with long-term and life-limiting conditions, they have responded to this by delegating to sick people and their networks routine work aimed at managing symptoms, and at retarding - and sometimes preventing - disease progression. This is the new proactive work of patient-hood for which patients are increasingly accountable: founded on ideas about self-care, self-empowerment, and self-actualization, and on new technologies and treatment modalities which can be shifted from the clinic into the community. These place new demands on sick people, which they may experience as burdens of treatment.<p></p>
<b>Discussion</b> As the burdens accumulate some patients are overwhelmed, and the consequences are likely to be poor healthcare outcomes for individual patients, increasing strain on caregivers, and rising demand and costs of healthcare services. In the face of these challenges we need to better understand the resources that patients draw upon as they respond to the demands of both burdens of illness and burdens of treatment, and the ways that resources interact with healthcare utilization.<p></p>
<b>Summary</b> Burden of Treatment Theory is oriented to understanding how capacity for action interacts with the work that stems from healthcare. Burden of Treatment Theory is a structural model that focuses on the work that patients and their networks do. It thus helps us understand variations in healthcare utilization and adherence in different healthcare settings and clinical contexts
WavePacket: A Matlab package for numerical quantum dynamics. III: Quantum-classical simulations and surface hopping trajectories
WavePacket is an open-source program package for numerical simulations in
quantum dynamics. Building on the previous Part I [Comp. Phys. Comm. 213,
223-234 (2017)] and Part II [Comp. Phys. Comm. 228, 229-244 (2018)] which dealt
with quantum dynamics of closed and open systems, respectively, the present
Part III adds fully classical and mixed quantum-classical propagations to
WavePacket. In those simulations classical phase-space densities are sampled by
trajectories which follow (diabatic or adiabatic) potential energy surfaces. In
the vicinity of (genuine or avoided) intersections of those surfaces
trajectories may switch between surfaces. To model these transitions, two
classes of stochastic algorithms have been implemented: (1) J. C. Tully's
fewest switches surface hopping and (2) Landau-Zener based single switch
surface hopping. The latter one offers the advantage of being based on
adiabatic energy gaps only, thus not requiring non-adiabatic coupling
information any more.
The present work describes the MATLAB version of WavePacket 6.0.2 which is
essentially an object-oriented rewrite of previous versions, allowing to
perform fully classical, quantum-classical and quantum-mechanical simulations
on an equal footing, i.e., for the same physical system described by the same
WavePacket input. The software package is hosted and further developed at the
Sourceforge platform, where also extensive Wiki-documentation as well as
numerous worked-out demonstration examples with animated graphics are
available
Subband Engineering Even-Denominator Quantum Hall States
Proposed even-denominator fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) states
suggest the possibility of excitations with non-Abelian braid statistics.
Recent experiments on wide square quantum wells observe even-denominator FQHE
even under electrostatic tilt. We theoretically analyze these structures and
develop a procedure to accurately test proposed quantum Hall wavefunctions. We
find that tilted wells favor partial subband polarization to yield Abelian
even-denominator states. Our results show that tilting quantum wells
effectively engineers different interaction potentials allowing exploration of
a wide variety of even-denominator states
Shear-driven size segregation of granular materials: modeling and experiment
Granular materials segregate by size under shear, and the ability to
quantitatively predict the time required to achieve complete segregation is a
key test of our understanding of the segregation process. In this paper, we
apply the Gray-Thornton model of segregation (developed for linear shear
profiles) to a granular flow with an exponential profile, and evaluate its
ability to describe the observed segregation dynamics. Our experiment is
conducted in an annular Couette cell with a moving lower boundary. The granular
material is initially prepared in an unstable configuration with a layer of
small particles above a layer of large particles. Under shear, the sample mixes
and then re-segregates so that the large particles are located in the top half
of the system in the final state. During this segregation process, we measure
the velocity profile and use the resulting exponential fit as input parameters
to the model. To make a direct comparison between the continuum model and the
observed segregation dynamics, we locally map the measured height of the
experimental sample (which indicates the degree of segregation) to the local
packing density. We observe that the model successfully captures the presence
of a fast mixing process and relatively slower re-segregation process, but the
model predicts a finite re-segregation time, while in the experiment
re-segregation occurs only exponentially in time
Chaos induced coherence in two independent food chains
Coherence evolution of two food web models can be obtained under the stirring
effect of chaotic advection. Each food web model sustains a three--level
trophic system composed of interacting predators, consumers and vegetation.
These populations compete for a common limiting resource in open flows with
chaotic advection dynamics. Here we show that two species (the top--predators)
of different colonies chaotically advected by a jet--like flow can synchronize
their evolution even without migration interaction. The evolution is
charaterized as a phase synchronization. The phase differences (determined
through the Hilbert transform) of the variables representing those species show
a coherent evolution.Comment: 5 pages, 5 eps figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
The impact of phosphorus inputs from small discharges on designated freshwater sites
Natural England, with a contribution from the Broads Authority, commissioned the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in 2009 to conduct a review of the potential risk posed by small domestic discharges, such as from septic tanks, to freshwater SSSIs. The particular focus of this work was the risk of phosphorus (P) pollution to sites that are vulnerable to hyper-eutrophication
Phonon self-energy and origin of anomalous neutron scattering spectra in SnTe and PbTe thermoelectrics
The anharmonic lattice dynamics of rock-salt thermoelectric compounds SnTe
and PbTe are investigated with inelastic neutron scattering (INS) and
first-principles calculations. The experiments show that, surprisingly,
although SnTe is closer to the ferroelectric instability, phonon spectra in
PbTe exhibit a more anharmonic character. This behavior is reproduced in
first-principles calculations of the temperature-dependent phonon self-energy.
Our simulations reveal how the nesting of phonon dispersions induces prominent
features in the self-energy, which account for the measured INS spectra and
their temperature dependence. We establish that the phase-space for
three-phonon scattering processes, rather than just the proximity to the
lattice instability, is the mechanism determining the complex spectrum of the
transverse-optical ferroelectric mode
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