Implementing outward-bound academic entrepreneurship in the human sciences

Many universities today acknowledge that besides focusing on teaching, learning and research, they should also be involved in “service to the community”. Four questions arise in this regard: What exactly does this service to the community entail? How, within what framework, and under what conditions should this service be rendered? What criteria determine whether an activity qualifies as service to the community? In what type of structure should such outward-bound activities be embedded? Different universities — even different faculties within the same university — have answered these questions in different ways. The human sciences in particular struggleto see how they can use their research to contribute actively to a better world outside the university as well as how they can be rewarded for this both by their university and by the organisations they assist. Focusing on  outward-bound academic entrepreneurship, this paper will attempt to answer the first three questions raised above and to show that there are in fact many opportunities for the humanities to be involved in academic entrepreneurship are plentifold

Calculating the chiral condensate diagrammatically at strong coupling

We calculate the chiral condensate of QCD at infinite coupling as a function of the number of fundamental fermion flavours using a lattice diagrammatic approach inspired by recent work of Tomboulis, and other work from the 80's. We outline the approach where the diagrams are formed by combining a truncated number of sub-diagram types in all possible ways. Our results show evidence of convergence and agreement with simulation results at small Nf. However, contrary to recent simulation results, we do not observe a transition at a critical value of Nf. We further present preliminary results for the chiral condensate of QCD with symmetric or adjoint representation fermions at infinite coupling as a function of Nf for Nc = 3. In general, there are sources of error in this approach associated with miscounting of overlapping diagrams, and over-counting of diagrams due to symmetries. These are further elaborated upon in a longer paper.Comment: presented at the 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2014), 23-28 June 2014, New York, NY, US

How deconstruction can be constructive: inward- and outwardbound academic entrepreneurship as drivers for change

From text: A colleague of mine once warned me never to be tempted into a debate with a philosopher. They take time to reflect, analyse critically, comment sharply, and play wittily with language so that — in the end — you as the subject (or in most cases the “object”) of their clever, multilayered and complex discourse feel like a dog chasing its own tail. As may be seen from this response to Johann Visagie’s (2005) statement “Deconstructing the discourse of community service and academic entrepreneurship: the ideological colonization of the university”, I have chosen to ignore my friend’s advice. There are four reasons for this

Implementing outward-bound academic entrepreneurship in the human sciences

Many universities today acknowledge that besides focusing on teaching, learning and research, they should also be involved in “service to the community”. Four questions arise in this regard: What exactly does this service to the community entail? How, within what framework, and under what conditions should this service be rendered? What criteria determine whether an activity qualifies as service to the community? In what type of structure should such outward-bound activities be embedded? Different universities — even different faculties within the same university — have answered these questions in different ways. The human sciences in particular struggle to see how they can use their research to contribute actively to a better world outside the university as well as how they can be rewarded for this both by their university and by the organisations they assist. Focusing on  outward-bound academic entrepreneurship, this paper will attempt to answer the first three questions raised above and to show that there are in fact many opportunities for the humanities to be involved in academic entrepreneurship are plentifold

Calculating the chiral condensate of QCD at infinite coupling using a generalised lattice diagrammatic approach

We develop a lattice diagrammatic technique for calculating the chiral condensate of QCD at infinite coupling inspired by recent work of Tomboulis and earlier work from the 80's. The technique involves calculating the contribution of gauge link diagrams formed from all possible combinations of a number of sub-diagram types. This is achieved by performing a resummation, using a truncated number of sub-diagram types. We show how to calculate the relevant sub-diagrams, including a new technique for evaluating group integrals with arbitrary number of gauge link elements, using Young Projectors. Including up to four different diagram types we calculate the chiral condensate as a function of Nf, and show that two real solutions result, which are non-zero for all integer Nf. We analyse these solutions and find signs of convergence of the expansion at small Nf. We discuss sources of error associated with this approach in detail and implement a technique to reduce over-counting of diagrams.Comment: 47 pages, including 2 appendices, 10 plot

White-matter development is different in bilingual and monolingual children : a longitudinal DTI study

Although numerous people grow up speaking more than one language, the impact of bilingualism on brain developing neuroanatomy is still poorly understood. This study aimed to determine whether the changes in the mean fractional-anisotropy (MFA) of language pathways are different between bilingual and monolingual children. Simultaneous-bilinguals, sequential-bilinguals and monolingual, male and female 10-13 years old children participated in this longitudinal study over a period of two years. We used diffusion tensor tractography to obtain mean fractional-anisotropy values of four language related pathways and one control bundle: 1-left-inferior-occipitofrontal fasciculus/IIFOF, 2-left-arcuate fasciculus/IAF/ISLF, 3-bundle arising from the anterior part of corpus-callosum and projecting to orbital lobe/AC-OL, 4-fibres emerging from anterior-midbody of corpus-callosum (CC) to motor cortices/AMB-PMC, 5-right-inferior-occipitofrontal fasciculus rIFOF as the control pathway unrelated to language. These values and their rate of change were compared between 3 groups. FA-values did not change significantly over two years for IAF/ISLF and AC-OL. Sequential- bilinguals had the highest degree of change in the MFA value of IIFOF, and AMBPMC did not present significant group differences. The comparison of MFA of IIFOF yielded a significantly higher FA-value in simultaneous bilinguals compared to monolinguals. These findings acknowledge the existing difference of the development of the semantic processing specific pathway between children with different semantic processing procedure. These also support the hypothesis that age of second language acquisition affects the maturation and myelination of some language specific white-matter pathways

The effect of the “Follow in my Green Food Steps” programme on cooking behaviours for improved iron intake : a quasi-experimental randomized community study

Abstract Background Nutritional iron deficiency is one of the leading factors for disease, disability and death. A quasi-experimental randomized community study in South-West Nigeria explored whether a branded behaviour change programme increased the use of green leafy vegetables (greens) and iron-fortified bouillon cubes in stews for improved iron intake. Methods A coinflip assigned the intervention to Ile-Ife (Intervention town). Osogbo (Control town) received no information. At baseline 602 mother-daughter pairs (daughters aged 12–18) were enrolled (Intervention: 300; Control: 302). A Food Frequency Questionnaire assessed the addition of cubes and greens to stews, the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes were the addition of cubes and greens to soups and changes in behavioural determinants measured using the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) evaluated the impact of the intervention on behavioural determinants and behaviour. Results The data of 527 pairs was used (Intervention: 240; Control: 287). The increase in greens added to stews was larger in the Intervention town compared to the Control town (MIntervention = 0.3 [SE = 0.03]; MControl = 0.0 [SE = 0.04], p < 0.001, r = 0.36). Change in iron-fortified cubes added to stews did not differ between towns (p = 0.07). The increase in cubes added to soups was larger in the Intervention town compared to the Control Town (MIntervention = 0.9 [SE = 0.2] vs MControl = 0.4 [SE = 0.1], p < .0001, r = 0.20). Unexpectedly, change in greens added to soups was larger in the Control town compared to the Intervention town (MIntervention = − 0.1 [SE = 0.1]; MControl = 0.5 [SE = 0.1], p = 0.003, r = 0.15). The intervention positively influenced awareness of anaemia and the determinants of behaviour in the Intervention town, with hardly any change in the Control town. Baseline SEMs could not be established, so no mediation analyses were done. Post-intervention SEMs highlighted the role of habit in cooking stews. Conclusions The behaviour change programme increased the amount of green leafy vegetables added to stews and iron-fortified cubes added to soups. Future research should assess the long-term impact and the efficacy of the programme as it is scaled up and rolled out

Ventilator-associated pneumonia in patients undergoing major heart surgery: an incidence study in Europe

INTRODUCTION: Patients undergoing major heart surgery (MHS) represent a special subpopulation at risk for nosocomial infections. Postoperative infection is the main non-cardiac complication after MHS and has been clearly related to increased morbidity, use of hospital resources and mortality. Our aim was to determine the incidence, aetiology, risk factors and outcome of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in patients who have undergone MHS in Europe. METHODS: Our study was a prospective study of patients undergoing MHS in Europe who developed suspicion of VAP. During a one-month period, participating units submitted a protocol of all patients admitted to their units who had undergone MHS. RESULTS: Overall, 25 hospitals in eight different European countries participated in the study. The number of patients intervened for MHS was 986. Fifteen patients were excluded because of protocol violations. One or more nosocomial infections were detected in 43 (4.4%) patients. VAP was the most frequent nosocomial infection (2.1%; 13.9 episodes per 1000 days of mechanical ventilation). The microorganisms responsible for VAP in this study were: Enterobacteriaceae (45%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20%), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (10%) and a range of other microorganisms. We identified the following significant independent risk factors for VAP: ascending aorta surgery (odds ratio (OR) = 6.22; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.69 to 22.89), number of blood units transfused (OR = 1.08 per unit transfused; 95% CI = 1.04 to 1.13) and need for re-intervention (OR = 6.65; 95% CI = 2.10 to 21.01). The median length of stay in the intensive care unit was significantly longer (P < 0.001) in patients with VAP than in patients without VAP (23 days versus 2 days). Death was significantly more frequent (P < 0.001) in patients with VAP (35% versus 2.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Patients undergoing aortic surgery and those with complicated post-intervention courses, requiring multiple transfusions or re-intervention, constitute a high-risk group probably requiring more active preventive measures

Human factors and ergonomics to improve performance in intensive care units during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the very elements of human factors and ergonomics (HFE) to their maximum. HFE is an established scientific discipline that studies the interrelationship between humans, equipment, and the work environment. HFE includes situation awareness, decision making, communication, team working, leadership, managing stress, and coping with fatigue, empathy, and resilience. The main objective of HF is to optimise the interaction of humans with their work environment and technical equipment in order to maximise patient safety and efficiency of care. This paper reviews the importance of HFE in helping intensivists and all the multidisciplinary ICU teams to deliver high-quality care to patients in crisis situations