Patient and public involvement in a study of multimedia clinical trial information for children, young people and families

There is increasing recognition of the need to involve the public in health research, but accounts of how best to achieve this are scarce. This article describes public involvement in the TRials Engagement in Children and Adolescents (TRECA) study, which is developing and evaluating multimedia information resources to inform children, young people and their familes about clinical trials. A dedicated group of young people with long-term health conditions and their parents met regularly throughout the study; further involvement was sought when specific input was required. Review of formal impact records and informal discussions highlighted how public involvement can positively influence research practice and the people involved. By detailing the methods of involvement used, this work also provides guidance for successfully implementing public involvement in research, and highlights challenges that should be considered in future research projects

Representational decisions when learning population dynamics with an instructional simulation

DEMIST is a multi-representational simulation environment that supports understanding of the representations and concepts of population dynamics. We report on a study with 18 subjects with little prior knowledge that explored if DEMIST could support their learning and asked what decisions learners would make about how to use the many representations that DEMIST provides. Analysis revealed that using DEMIST for one hour significantly improved learners' understanding of population dynamics though their knowledge of the relation between representations remained weak. It showed that learners used many of DEMIST's features. For example, they investigated the majority of the representational space, used dynalinking to explore the relation between representations and had preferences for representations with different computational properties. It also revealed that decisions made by designers impacted upon what is intended to be a free discovery environment

Radiokemian relevanssi : Tulevien radiokemistien käsityksiä

Radiokemi står inför en väldokumenterad utbildning och rekryteringskris. Äldre radiokemister går i pension och färre unga studerar radiokemi. I sin tur leder detta till brist på nyutbildade radiokemister, såväl som förlust av historisk kunskap (eftersom kunskap ofta inte förmedlas). Här analyserade vi relevansen av studien av radiokemi i högre utbildning genom framtida radiokemists uppfattningar. Vårt mål var att ge inblick i framtida radiokemisternas tänkande och ge några tydliga exempel på hur man stöder relevans. En kvalitativ studie genomfördes genom en forskningsfråga: Vilka uppfattningar om relevans upplever framtida radiokemister om radiokemistudier och radiokemi som fält? Vi använde relevansmodellen av Stuckey et al. (2013) som ram för relevans. Detta valdes eftersom det erbjuder en omfattande definition av relevans inklusive individuella, samhälleliga och yrkesmässiga dimensioner. Uppgifterna samlades in från forskarstudenter i radiokemi (magister- och doktorsexamen) genom användning av ett kvalitativt frågeformulär som utformades med den valda relevansramen. Totalt deltog 15 framtida radiokemister i studien. Uppgifterna analyserades genom teoribaserad innehållsanalys med användning av det valda relevansramverket. Enligt våra uppgifter upplever framtida radiokemister att deras universitetsstudier och kemifältet är mycket relevanta. De upplevde att ämnen för radiokemi är intressanta (individuell relevans), fältet har stor samhällseffekt genom radiofarmaceutika, energilösningar och miljöproblemlösning (samhällsrelevans) och att deras professionella framtid var tydlig, till exempel ett jobb inom kärnkraftsområdet industri (yrkesrelevans). Dessa resultat kan användas för studentrekrytering och för att utveckla radiokemiundervisning mot en mer relevant inriktning.Radiokemialla on koulutus- ja rekrytointikriisi. Vanhemmat radiokemistit siirtyvät eläkkeelle, ja yhä vähemmän nuoria valitsee radiokemiaa opiskelualakseen. Asetelman vuoksi on pulaa pätevistä radiokemisteistä, ja hiljaista tietoa häviää. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitetään tulevien radiokemistien kokemuksia radiokemian relevanssista. Tavoitteena on selvittää, miksi radiokemiaa valinneet opiskelijat ovat alan valinneet. Tutkimus oli luonteeltaan laadullinen tutkimus. Aineisto kerättiin sähköpostikyselyillä sisältäen kaksi aineistonkeruusykliä. Ainesot analysoitiin teoriapohjaisella sisällnöanalyysillä tunnetun Stuckeyn et al. (2013) relevanssia hyödyntäen. Tutkimuksen mukaan tulevat radiokemistit kokivat alan erittäin relevanssiksi. He kokivat, että radiokemian olevan mielenkiintoista (henkilökohtainen relevanssi), radiokemian yhteiskunnallisen merkityksen olevan suuri esim. lääke- ja energiateollisuuden kautta (yhteiskunnallinen relevanssi) ja heillä oli selkeä kuva tulevaisuuden työllistymisestä (ammatillinen relevanssi). Tutkimuksen tuloksia voidaan käyttää opiskelijoiden rekrytointiin ja radiokemian opetuksen relevanssin vahvistamiseen.Radiochemistry faces a well-documented training and recruitment crisis. Older radiochemists are retiring, and fewer young people are studying radiochemistry. In turn, this is leading to a shortage in newly qualified radiochemists, as well as a loss of historical knowledge (as know-how is often not passed-on). Here, we analyzed the relevance of the study of radiochemistry in higher education through future radiochemists’ perceptions. Our objective was to provide insights into future radiochemists’ thinking and provide some clear examples on how to support relevance. A qualitative study was conducted through a research question: What perceptions of relevance do future radiochemists experience about radiochemistry studies and radiochemistry as a field? We used the relevance model of Stuckey et al. (2013) as the relevance framework. This was selected because it offers a comprehensive definition of relevance including individual, societal, and vocational dimensions. The data were gathered from postgraduate radiochemistry students (masters and Ph.D. level) through use of a qualitative questionnaire that was designed using the selected relevance framework. In total, 15 future radiochemists participated in the study. The data were analyzed through theory-based content analysis using the selected relevance framework. According to our data, future radiochemists experience their university study and the chemistry field as being highly relevant. They experienced that radiochemistry topics are interesting (individual relevance), the field has great societal impact through radiopharmaceuticals, energy solutions, and environmental problem-solving (societal relevance), and that their professional future was clear, for example, a job in the nuclear industry (vocational relevance). These results can be used in student recruitment and in developing radiochemistry teaching toward a more relevance-oriented direction.Peer reviewe

Convergence of simple adaptive Galerkin schemes based on h − h/2 error estimators

We discuss several adaptive mesh-refinement strategies based on (h − h/2)-error estimation. This class of adaptivemethods is particularly popular in practise since it is problem independent and requires virtually no implementational overhead. We prove that, under the saturation assumption, these adaptive algorithms are convergent. Our framework applies not only to finite element methods, but also yields a first convergence proof for adaptive boundary element schemes. For a finite element model problem, we extend the proposed adaptive scheme and prove convergence even if the saturation assumption fails to hold in general