A Table-Top Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) for Developing Higher Education Employability Skills

Employability provision in Higher Education is traditionally delivered in-curricula and adapted to the values and skills sets of programmes. In addition, extra-curricula & co-curricular employability activities are often available on demand to students. This paper presents the use of a table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) as the pedagogic delivery mechanism an extra-curricular employability skills session. The TTRPG involves players trying to navigate their way through a series of puzzles that are designed to develop specific employability skills. The game was delivered both physically and digitally to 42 players with unified positive feedback. TTRPG show potential as a tool for students, in an abstract way, to explore and realise their own employability skills

Quantum and classical surface acoustic wave induced magnetoresistance oscillations in a 2D electron gas

We study theoretically the geometrical and temporal commensurability oscillations induced in the resistivity of 2D electrons in a perpendicular magnetic field by surface acoustic waves (SAWs). We show that there is a positive anisotropic dynamical classical contribution and an isotropic non-equilibrium quantum contribution to the resistivity. We describe how the commensurability oscillations modulate the resonances in the SAW-induced resistivity at multiples of the cyclotron frequency. We study the effects of both short-range and long-range disorder on the resistivity corrections for both the classical and quantum non-equilibrium cases. We predict that the quantum correction will give rise to zero-resistance states with associated geometrical commensurability oscillations at large SAW amplitude for sufficiently large inelastic scattering times. These zero resistance states are qualitatively similar to those observed under microwave illumination, and their nature depends crucially on whether the disorder is short- or long-range. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for current and future experiments on two dimensional electron gases.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

The Structure Of The Accretion Disk In The ADC Source 4U 1822-371

The low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) 4U 1822-371 has an accretion disk corona (ADC) that scatters X-ray photons from the inner disk and neutron star out of the line of sight. It has a high orbital inclination and the secondary star eclipses the disk and ADC. We have obtained new time-resolved UV spectrograms and V- and I-band photometry of 4U 1822-371. The large quadratic term in our new optical eclipse ephemeris confirms that the system has an extremely high rate of mass transfer and mass accretion. The C IV lambda lambda = 1548 - 1550 angstrom emission line has a half width of similar to 4400 km/s, indicating a strong, high velocity wind is being driven off the accretion disk. Near the disk the wind is optically thick in UV, V, and J and the eclipse analysis shows that in V and J the optically thick wind extends nearly to the outer edge of the disk. The ADC must also extend vertically to a height equal to approximately half the disk radius.Astronom

Multiwavelength Observations of Swift J1753.5-0127

We present contemporaneous X-ray, ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared observations of the black hole binary system, Swift J1753.5-0127, acquired in 2012 October. The UV observations, obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope, are the first UV spectra of this system. The dereddened UV spectrum is characterized by a smooth, blue continuum and broad emission lines of CIV and HeII. The system was stable in the UV to <10% during our observations. We estimated the interstellar reddening by fitting the 2175 A absorption feature and fit the interstellar absorption profile of Ly$\alpha$ to directly measure the neutral hydrogen column density along the line of sight. By comparing the UV continuum flux to steady-state thin accretion disk models, we determined upper limits on the distance to the system as a function of black hole mass. The continuum is well fit with disk models dominated by viscous heating rather than irradiation. The broadband spectral energy distribution shows the system has declined at all wavelengths since previous broadband observations in 2005 and 2007. If we assume that the UV emission is dominated by the accretion disk the inner radius of the disk must be truncated at radii above the ISCO to be consistent with the X-ray flux, requiring significant mass loss from outflows and/or energy loss via advection into the black hole to maintain energy balance.Comment: To appear in the Ap

Crop Varieties Recommended for Iowa

Growing the crop varieties that are best suited to your local conditions usually means a few more bushels in the bin, a few more tons of hay in the mow at the end of the crop season, better quality. So choosing the right variety is an important production decision- an important part of your crop plans for the coming year

RNA-seq reveals post-transcriptional regulation of Drosophila insulin-like peptide dilp8 and the neuropeptide-like precursor Nplp2 by the exoribonuclease Pacman/XRN1

Ribonucleases are critically important in many cellular and developmental processes and defects in their expression are associated with human disease. Pacman/XRN1 is a highly conserved cytoplasmic exoribonuclease which degrades RNAs in a 5' - 3' direction. In Drosophila, null mutations in pacman result in small imaginal discs, a delay in onset of pupariation and lethality during the early pupal stage. In this paper, we have used RNA-seq in a genome-wide search for mRNAs misregulated in pacman null wing imaginal discs. Only 4.2% of genes are misregulated ±>2-fold in pacman null mutants compared to controls, in line with previous work showing that Pacman has specificity for particular mRNAs. Further analysis of the most upregulated mRNAs showed that Pacman post-transcriptionally regulates the expression of the secreted insulin-like peptide Dilp8. Dilp8 is related to human IGF-1, and has been shown to co-ordinate tissue growth with developmental timing in Drosophila. The increased expression of Dilp8 is consistent with the developmental delay seen in pacman null mutants. Our analysis, together with our previous results, show that the normal role of this exoribonuclease in imaginal discs is to suppress the expression of transcripts that are crucial in apoptosis and growth control during normal development

Resolving the Controversy Over the Core Radius of 47 Tucanae (NGC 104)

This paper investigates the discrepancy between recent measurements of the density profile of the globular cluster 47 Tuc that have used HST data sets. Guhathakurta et al. (1992) used pre-refurbishment WFPC1 V-band images to derive r_c = 23" +/- 2". Calzetti et al. (1993) suggested that the density profile is a superposition of two King profiles (r_c = 8" and r_c = 25") based on U-band FOC images. De Marchi et al. (1996) used deep WFPC1 U-band images to derive r_c = 12" +/- 2". Differences in the adopted cluster centers are not the cause of the discrepancy. Our independent analysis of the data used by De Marchi et al. reaches the following conclusions: (1) De Marchi et al.'s r_c ~ 12" value is spuriously low, a result of radially-varying bias in the star counts in a magnitude limited sample -- photometric errors and a steeply rising stellar luminosity function cause more stars to scatter across the limiting magnitude into the sample than out of it, especially near the cluster center where crowding effects are most severe. (2) Changing the limiting magnitude to the main sequence turnoff, away from the steep part of the luminosity function, partially alleviates the problem and results in r_c = 18". (3) Combining such a limiting magnitude with accurate photometry derived from PSF fitting, instead of the less accurate aperture photometry employed by De Marchi et al., results in a reliable measurement of the density profile which is well fit by r_c = 22" +/- 2". Archival WFPC2 data are used to derive a star list with a higher degree of completeness, greater photometric accuracy, and wider areal coverage than the WFPC1 and FOC data sets; the WFPC2-based density profile supports the above conclusions, yielding r_c = 24" +/- 1.9".Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in PASP; see http://www.ucolick.org/~raja/hgg.tar.gz for full-resolution figure

A systematic review and critical appraisal of quality indicators to assess optimal palliative care for older people with dementia

© The Author(s) 2019Background: A challenge for commissioners and providers of end-of-life care in dementia is to translate recommendations for good or effective care into quality indicators that inform service development and evaluation. Aim: To identify and critically evaluate quality indicators for end-of-life care in dementia. Results: We found 8657 references, after de-duplication. In all, 19 publications describing 10 new and 3 updated sets of indicators were included in this review. Ultimately, 246 individual indicators were identified as being relevant to dementia end-of-life care and mapped against EAPC guidelines. Conclusions: We systematically derived and assessed a set of quality indicators using a robust framework that provides clear definitions of aspects of palliative care, which are dementia specific, and strengthens the theoretical underpinning of new complex interventions in end-of-life care in dementia.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Public leisure facilities: Managing customer expectations

This paper examines the impact of customer expectations on the management of public leisure services, arguing that public leisure providers will need to shift their attention from the management of service quality, to focus on the management of customer expectations of their services