Online blended learning using virtual microscopy for students: Seeing and naming patterns

Background: The role of blended learning has gained importance in the teaching of microscopy to undergraduate students however there is limited evidence to demonstrate whether virtual microscopy is more effective that glass slide in teaching histology. In this study, the role of virtual microscopy was compared to a glass slide/textbook approach as an effective alternative for tra ining Biomedical Science undergraduate students. This study explored processing style, working memory motivation, and stress as predictors of student success with the use of psychometric tasks Methods: The study was a convergent design mixed methods rese arch in which quantitative methods preceded qualitative methods. Twenty eight students with an average age of 27.9 and 79% were women, completed a series of psychometric tasks to assess their processing style, processing speed, working memory, stress, and motivation. The students were assigned to one of two groups based on their processing style and working memory: a) tutorial sessions and conventional microscopy sessions and b) tutorial sessions and Westminster Path XL. The teaching delivery took five week s, and students completed three online q uizzes on weeks 6, 10 and 17. All students were invited to complete a feedback questionnaire, and a representative selection completed an interview. Results: Initially, a pilot study was conducted and included a control group (tutorial sessions only group C), which demonstrated that any intervention, glass slide or virtual microscopy, was better than no intervention. The intervention study conducted in 2017 18 included students from three institutions and the control group was not included. The average results for the quizzes were 15.9, 16.5 and 15.5 respectively. There was no significant difference between the results of group A and B. The dropout rate of the study was 3.6%. There was no significant improvement in tissue recognition when using virtual microscopy to teach undergraduate students when compared to glass slide and microscope Fifteen students completed the questionnaire. Thirteen students agreed that the intervention was useful, and fifteen students would recommend the learning resource to their colleagues. Ten students were invited to complete an interview and nine students were available. The themes highlighted as good practice during the interviews were the us ability of Westminster Path XL, the training delivery, application of the intervention delivery, the use of technology and the use of microscope. Conclusion: Virtual microscopy is as good as glass slide for teaching students tissue recognition. The use of psychometric tasks cannot predict student outcome, so they should not be used to differentiate students teaching methodology for tissue recognition in histology. Students engaged positively with the technology, and it is recommended that both ap proaches should be used concurrently to allow students to gain microscopy skills and apply them in the use of technology

Conservation and persistence of spin currents and their relation to the Lieb-Schulz-Mattis twist operators

Systems with spin-orbit coupling do not conserve "bare" spin current $\bf{j}$. A recent proposal for a conserved spin current $\bf{J}$ [J. Shi {\it et.al} Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 96}, 076604 (2006)] does not flow persistently in equilibrium. We suggest another conserved spin current $\bar{\bf{J}}$ that may flow persistently in equilibrium. We give two arguments for the instability of persistent current of the form $\bf{J}$: one based on the equations of motions and another based on a variational construction using Lieb-Schulz-Mattis twist operators. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, the three forms of spin current coincide.Comment: 5 pages; added references, simplified notation, clearer introductio

The impact of the LHCb B±B^{\pm} production cross-section on parton distribution functions and determining the mass of heavy quarks

In this work, the impact of recent measurements of heavy-flavour production in $pp$ collisions on parton distribution functions (PDFs) and their uncertainties is studied. In this regard, the absolute and normalised cross sections of beauty hadron production measured by LHCb at center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 13 TeV are separately included in the next-to-leading order (NLO) global QCD analysis together with the measurements of the inclusive and heavy-flavour production cross sections at HERA. It is illustrated that the heavy-flavour data of the LHCb experiment impose additional constraints on the PDFs, especially on the gluon distribution at low partonic fractions $x$ of the proton momentum. One of the most important results of the present analysis is the significant reduction of the gluon uncertainties in the region less than $x=10^{-4}$ that can play a crucial rule in many areas of high energy physics investigations.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures, has been accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics