Development and evaluation of an intervention to improve further education students' understanding of higher education assessment criteria: three studies

Three studies about helping Further Education students prepare for study at universityThis paper reports three studies about preparing Further Education (FE) students for the transition to Higher Education (HE) by improving their understanding of HE assessment criteria. In study 1, students and tutors in both FE and HE were interviewed for a qualitative analysis of their understandings and expectations about assessment criteria. In study 2, students in FE and HE completed questionnaires measuring self-rated understanding and ability about assessment criteria, and beliefs about essay writing. Studies 1 and 2 both showed that FE students were more confident than HE students about their understanding and ability in relation to assessment criteria, but FE students’ understandings suggested more surface approaches to learning and more naïve epistemological beliefs. In study 3, a workshop intervention to improve FE students’ understandings of HE assessment criteria was evaluated in a comparative longitudinal trial. The intervention reduced FE students’ self-rated understanding and ability, and promoted more sophisticated beliefs about essay writing, by comparison with students who received standard tuition. We concluded that interventions to develop more realistic understandings of what is required in academic writing could be used to prepare FE students more effectively for the transition to HE

Exact Calculation of Ring Diagrams and the Off-shell Effect on the Equation of State

The partition function with ring diagrams at finite temperature is exactly caluclated by using contour integrals in the complex energy plane. It contains a pole part with temperature and momentum dependent mass and a phase shift part induced by off-shell effect in hot medium. The thermodynamic potentials for $\phi^4$ and $\phi^3$ interactions are calculated and compared with the quasi-particle (pole) approximation. It is found that the off-shell effect on the equation of state is remarkable.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, refereces added, final version to appear in PR

Results from the 4PI Effective Action in 2- and 3-dimensions

We consider a symmetric scalar theory with quartic coupling and solve the equations of motion from the 4PI effective action in 2- and 3-dimensions using an iterative numerical lattice method. For coupling less than 10 (in dimensionless units) good convergence is obtained in less than 10 iterations. We use lattice size up to 16 in 2-dimensions and 10 in 3-dimensions and demonstrate the convergence of the results with increasing lattice size. The self-consistent solutions for the 2-point and 4-point functions agree well with the perturbative ones when the coupling is small and deviate when the coupling is large.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures; v5: added numerical calculations in 3D; version accepted for publication in EPJ

Gauge-fixing dependence of Phi-derivable approximations

We examine the problem of gauge dependence of the 2PI effective action and its Phi-derivable approximations in gauge theories. The dependence on the gauge-fixing condition is obtained. The result shows that Phi-derivable approximations, defined as truncations of the 2PI effective action at a certain order, have a controlled gauge dependence, i.e. the gauge dependent terms appear at higher order than the truncation order. Furthermore, using the stationary point obtained for the approximation to evaluate the complete 2PI effective action boosts the order at which the gauge dependent terms appear to twice the order of truncation. We also comment on the significance of this controlled gauge dependence.Comment: 10 pages, revte

Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots

While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model. Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the development of physically realistic sunspot models are a priority for helioseismologists. This is because they are not only important indicators of the variety of physical effects that may influence helioseismic inferences in active regions, but they also enable detailed assessments of the validity of helioseismic interpretations through numerical forward modeling. In this paper, we provide a critical review of the existing sunspot models and an overview of numerical methods employed to model wave propagation through model sunspots. We then carry out an helioseismic analysis of the sunspot in Active Region 9787 and address the serious inconsistencies uncovered by \citeauthor{gizonetal2009}~(\citeyear{gizonetal2009,gizonetal2009a}). We find that this sunspot is most probably associated with a shallow, positive wave-speed perturbation (unlike the traditional two-layer model) and that travel-time measurements are consistent with a horizontal outflow in the surrounding moat.Comment: 73 pages, 19 figures, accepted by Solar Physic

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters