Supporting first year students at UQ: Addressing plagiarism and peer mentoring

The School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management at The University of Queensland has introduced two key initiatives that have improved the learning outcomes of first year students. The ‘Academic Integrity: referencing and avoiding plagiarism’ online tutorial is a sophisticated learning tool that has reduced plagiarism and improved understanding of referencing, collusion and the consequences of academic misconduct. Technically the tutorial has an interesting interface design and is easy to navigate. Pedagogically the design incorporates relevant contexts which help learners to construct new knowledge from existing knowledge. It demonstrates new information and students learn by applying the new knowledge. It is self-paced and incorporates equity and diversity issues. Our three year evaluation program has indicated a significant decline in the incidence of plagiarism and enhanced understanding of good academic practices among our first year students. The tutorial has gained international recognition as an innovative computer-based learning tool. Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) have been in place for six years and involve student leaders in hands-on peer mentoring of students in all of our large first year classes. PASS aims to build core academic skills and facilitate social learning and interaction and also to provide a network of support for students new to the university system. It has resulted in enhanced learning outcomes, with a strong correlation between PASS attendance and improved grades and retention rates. Student feedback indicated that the most effective facilitation approaches included worksheets, discussion, games and quizzes. Students also highlighted the important role that PASS played in easing their social transition into university life. PASS sessions provided a relaxed opportunity for students to meet and develop informal networks. External evaluation of PASS has led to the program gaining both institutional and national recognition

Age‐related trends in cardiometabolic disease among adults with cerebral palsy

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148228/1/dmcn13777_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148228/2/dmcn13777.pd

Neighbour transitivity on codes in Hamming graphs

We consider a \emph{code} to be a subset of the vertex set of a \emph{Hamming graph}. In this setting a \emph{neighbour} of the code is a vertex which differs in exactly one entry from some codeword. This paper examines codes with the property that some group of automorphisms acts transitively on the \emph{set of neighbours} of the code. We call these codes \emph{neighbour transitive}. We obtain sufficient conditions for a neighbour transitive group to fix the code setwise. Moreover, we construct an infinite family of neighbour transitive codes, with \emph{minimum distance} $\delta=4$, where this is not the case. That is to say, knowledge of even the complete set of code neighbours does not determine the code

Using PlanetLab for network research: Myths, realities, and best practices

PlanetLab is a research testbed that supports 428 experiments on 276 sites, with 583 nodes in 30 countries. It has lowered the barrier to distributed experimentation in network measurement, peer-to-peer networks, content distribution

The solution structure of the N-terminal domain of human vitronectin: Proximal sites that regulate fibrinolysis and cell migration

The three-dimensional structure of an N-terminal fragment comprising the first 51 amino acids from human plasma vitronectin, the somatomedin B (SMB) domain, has been determined by two-dimensional NMR approaches. An average structure was calculated, representing the overall fold from a set of 20 minimized structures. The core residues (18-41) overlay with a root mean square deviation of 2.29 ± 0.62 Å. The N- and C-terminal segments exhibit higher root mean square deviations, reflecting more flexibility in solution and/or fewer long-range NOEs for these regions. Residues 26-30 form a unique single-turn α-helix, the locus where plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1 (PAI-1) is bound. This structure of this helix is highly homologous with that of a recombinant SMB domain solved in a co-crystal with PAI-1 (Zhou, A., Huntington, J. A., Pannu, N. S., Carrell, R. W., and Read, R. J. (2003) Nat. Struct. Biol. 10, 541-544), although the remainder of the structure differs. Significantly, the pattern of disulfide cross-links observed in this material isolated from human plasma is altogether different from the disulfides proposed for recombinant forms. The NMR structure reveals the relative orientation of binding sites for cell surface receptors, including an integrin-binding site at residues 45-47, which was disordered and did not diffract in the co-crystal, and a site for the urokinase receptor, which overlaps with the PAI-1-binding site

Recent Developments

Context. Tracing nuclear inflows and outflows in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), determining the mass of gas involved in them, and their impact on the host galaxy and nuclear black hole requires 3D imaging studies of both the ionized and molecular gas. Aims. We map the distribution and kinematics of molecular and ionized gas in a sample of active galaxies to quantify the nuclear inflows and outflows. Here, we analyze the nuclear kinematics of NGC 1566 via ALMA observations of the CO J:2-1 emission at 24 pc spatial and ∼2.6 km s−1 spectral resolution, and Gemini-GMOS/IFU observations of ionized gas emission lines and stellar absorption lines at similar spatial resolution, and 123 km s−1 of intrinsic spectral resolution. Methods. The morphology and kinematics of stellar, molecular (CO), and ionized ([N II]) emission lines are compared to the expectations from rotation, outflows, and streaming inflows. Results. While both ionized and molecular gas show rotation signatures, there are significant non-circular motions in the innermost 200 pc and along spiral arms in the central kpc (CO). The nucleus shows a double-peaked CO profile (full width at zero intensity of 200 km s−1), and prominent (∼80 km s−1) blue- and redshifted lobes are found along the minor axis in the inner arcseconds. Perturbations by the large-scale bar can qualitatively explain all features in the observed velocity field. We thus favor the presence of a molecular outflow in the disk with true velocities of ∼180 km s−1 in the nucleus and decelerating to 0 by ∼72 pc. The implied molecular outflow rate is 5.6 M⊙ yr−1, with this gas accumulating in the nuclear 2″ arms. The ionized gas kinematics support an interpretation of a similar but more spherical outflow in the inner 100 pc, with no signs of deceleration. There is some evidence of streaming inflows of ∼50 km s−1 along specific spiral arms, and the estimated molecular mass inflow rate, ∼0.1 M⊙ yr−1, is significantly higher than the SMBH accretion rate (ṁ = 4.8 × 10−5 M⊙ yr−1)

Invited; ALD of robust amorphous oxide TFTS with turn on at the Boltzmann limit

The development of amorphous oxide semiconductors have driven great advances in display technology. These materials are poised to expand into new applications by heterointegration at the back-end-of-line (BEOL) of Si CMOS for diverse uses in power harvesting, conversion and management as well as in-memory computing and AI hardware. For acceptance in IC foundries, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an attractive technology with nanometer-scale precision. Recently, significant advances have been made in ALD processes for both n- and ptype oxide semiconductors [1], [2]. Here, we report robust thin film transistors (TFTs) made using n-type zinc-tinoxide deposited by ALD, with excellent robustness to aging and bias stress. The use of an in situ gate insulator formed by ALD enables a sub-threshold slope (SS) at the Boltzmann limit of 60 mV·dec-1 at room temperature. Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract