994 research outputs found
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Assessing final-year practical work through group projects; A further study
The use of a group-based approach to project
working has been shown to provide significant
advantage to students in terms of project
outcomes, motivation and engagement. The
Department of Chemistry at the University of
Reading has recently explored the use of group
projects for final year practical work. In this
model, students are presented with a research
problem that they investigate within a team of
three to five students. Students are expected
to divide the work and share results in a
manner that closely resembles project working
in industry. This paper will report the
experiences and attitudes of final-year BSc
students towards this group-based approach,
and outline the self-identified skills
development of these students
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Increasing food familiarity without the tears. A role for visual exposure?
Research has established the success of taste exposure paradigms as a means of increasing childrenâs
acceptance, and liking, of previously unfamiliar or disliked foods. Yet, parents report that they tend to
avoid the stress associated with repeatedly offering their children foods that are likely to be rejected.
Given that successful taste exposure programmes often enhance childrenâs familiarity with a foodâs
appearance, as well as its taste, this article reviews the potential for exposure interventions that do not
require repeated tastings to bring about positive attitude changes towards healthy foods. Recent
evidence from studies that expose toddlers to picture books about fruit and vegetables suggest that
familiarity with the origins and appearance of unfamiliar foods might increase childrenâs willingness to
accept these into their diets
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A hydrazine-free WolffâKishner reaction suitable for an undergraduate laboratory
A WolffâKishner reaction that does not require hydrazine has been developed. The reaction sequence has two steps; formation of a carbomethoxyhydrazone from methyl hydrazinocarboxylate and acetophenone, then decomposition of this intermediate by treatment with potassium hydroxide in triethylene glycol. Purification is by filtration through a plug of silica encased in the barrel of a plastic syringe. The reaction sequence can be completed within a day-long laboratory class (8 hours)
Vibration analysis of an Airlie Beach house: a case study in Australia
Airlie beach houses are quite common in the coastal areas of Australia. These houses, similar to other buildings, provide comfort for their residents. House comfort is not limited to temperature or sound pollution, vibration can be considered as another equally important factor. In this article, the vibration of an Airlie beach house was investigated. The base steel structure was modeled in SolidWorks and Space Gass for evaluating stress distribution and nodal displacement, respectively. To find the root cause of the distressing vibration of the house, which was felt with dwellings, the axial acceleration of the house's structure was determined. Some feasible solutions such as adding a fiber-reinforced polymer joist hanger, inserting additional rubber padding to the joist hanger, and attaching additional bracing, were discussed and a cost analysis was considered for the solutions. Eventually, the nature of the best solution, which was adding rubber, was tested experimentally
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Letâs look at leeks! Picture books increase toddlersâ willingness to look at, taste and consume unfamiliar vegetables
Repeatedly looking at picture books about fruits and vegetables with parents enhances young childrenâs visual preferences towards the foods in the book (Houston-Price et al, 2009) and influences their willingness to taste these foods (Houston-Price, Butler & Shiba, 2009). This article explores whether the effects of picture book exposure are affected by infants' initial familiarity with and liking for the foods presented. In two experiments parents of 19- to 26-month-old toddlers were asked to read a picture book about a liked, disliked or unfamiliar fruit or vegetable with their child every day for two weeks. The impact of the intervention on both infantsâ visual preferences and their eating behaviour was determined by the initial status of the target food, with the strongest effects for foods that were initially unfamiliar. Most strikingly, toddlers consumed more of the unfamiliar vegetable they had seen in their picture book than of a matched control vegetable. Results confirm the potential for picture books to play a positive role in encouraging healthy eating in your children
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Methyl hydrazinocarboxylate as a practical alternative to hydrazine in the WolffâKishner reaction
Herein we describe a facile protocol for the reduction of aromatic ketones and aldehydes to the corresponding methylene unit. The procedure involves isolation of a carbomethoxyhydrazone intermediate that is easily decomposed to the reduced product without the requirement
for large quantities of pernicious hydrazine
Stakeholder priorities for multi-functional coastal defence developments and steps to effective implementation
To fulfil international conservation commitments, governments have begun to recognise the need for more proactive marine planning policies, advocating sensitive engineering design that can deliver secondary benefits above and beyond the primary purpose of developments. In response, there is growing scientific interest in novel multi-functional coastal defence structures with built-in secondary ecological and/or socio-economic benefits. To ensure research efforts are invested effectively, it is first necessary to determine what secondary benefits can potentially be built-in to engineered coastal defence structures, and further, which of these benefits would be most desirable. It is unlikely that secondary benefits are perceived in the same way across different stakeholder groups. Further, their order of priority when evaluating different options is unlikely to be consistent, since each option will present a suite of compromises and trade-offs. The aim of this study was to investigate stakeholder attitudes towards multi-functional coastal defence developments across different sector groups. A preliminary questionnaire indicated unanimous support for implementing multi-functional structures in place of traditional single-purpose ones. This preliminary survey informed the design of a Delphi-like study, which revealed a more nuanced and caveated level of support from a panel of experts and practitioners. The study also elicited a degree of consensus that the most desirable secondary benefits that could be built-in to developments would be ecological ones â prioritised over social, economic and technical benefits. This paper synthesises these findings, discusses the perceived barriers that remain, and proposes a stepwise approach to effective implementation of multi-functional coastal defence developments
Growth and evolution of secondary volcanic atmospheres: I. Identifying the geological character of hot rocky planets
The geology of Earth and super-Earth sized planets will, in many cases, only
be observable via their atmospheres. Here, we investigate secondary volcanic
atmospheres as a key base case of how atmospheres may reflect planetary
geochemistry. We couple volcanic outgassing with atmospheric chemistry models
to simulate the growth of C-O-H-S-N atmospheres in thermochemical equilibrium,
focusing on what information about a planet's mantle fO and bulk silicate
H/C ratio could be determined by atmospheric observation. 800K volcanic
atmospheres develop distinct compositional groups as the mantle fO is
varied, which can be identified using sets of (often minor) indicator species:
Class O, representing an oxidised mantle and containing SO and sulfur
allotropes; Class I, formed by intermediate mantle fO's and containing
CO, CH, CO and COS; and Class R, produced by reduced mantles,
containing H, NH and CH. These atmospheric classes are robust to a
wide range of bulk silicate H/C ratios. However, the H/C ratio does affect the
dominant atmospheric constituent, which can vary between H, HO and
CO once the chemical composition has stabilised to a point where it no
longer changes substantially with time. This final atmospheric state is
dependent on the mantle fO, the H/C ratio, and time since the onset of
volcanism. The atmospheric classes we present are appropriate for the
closed-system growth of hot exoplanets, and may be used as a simple base for
future research exploring the effects of other open-system processes on
secondary volcanic atmospheres.Comment: Accepted for publication in JGR:Planet
Structural and functional conservation of key domains in InsP3 and ryanodine receptors.
Inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (InsP(3)Rs) and ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are tetrameric intracellular Ca(2+) channels. In each of these receptor families, the pore, which is formed by carboxy-terminal transmembrane domains, is regulated by signals that are detected by large cytosolic structures. InsP(3)R gating is initiated by InsP(3) binding to the InsP(3)-binding core (IBC, residues 224-604 of InsP(3)R1) and it requires the suppressor domain (SD, residues 1-223 of InsP(3)R1). Here we present structures of the amino-terminal region (NT, residues 1-604) of rat InsP(3)R1 with (3.6âĂ
) and without (3.0âĂ
) InsP(3) bound. The arrangement of the three NT domains, SD, IBC-ÎČ and IBC-α, identifies two discrete interfaces (α and ÎČ) between the IBC and SD. Similar interfaces occur between equivalent domains (A, B and C) in RyR1 (ref. 9). The orientations of the three domains when docked into a tetrameric structure of InsP(3)R and of the ABC domains docked into RyR are remarkably similar. The importance of the α-interface for activation of InsP(3)R and RyR is confirmed by mutagenesis and, for RyR, by disease-causing mutations. Binding of InsP(3) causes partial closure of the clam-like IBC, disrupting the ÎČ-interface and pulling the SD towards the IBC. This reorients an exposed SD loop ('hotspot' (HS) loop) that is essential for InsP(3)R activation. The loop is conserved in RyR and includes mutations that are associated with malignant hyperthermia and central core disease. The HS loop interacts with an adjacent NT, suggesting that activation re-arranges inter-subunit interactions. The A domain of RyR functionally replaced the SD in full-length InsP(3)R, and an InsP(3)R in which its C-terminal transmembrane region was replaced by that from RyR1 was gated by InsP(3) and blocked by ryanodine. Activation mechanisms are conserved between InsP(3)R and RyR. Allosteric modulation of two similar domain interfaces within an N-terminal subunit reorients the first domain (SD or A domain), allowing it, through interactions of the second domain of an adjacent subunit (IBC-ÎČ or B domain), to gate the pore
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