Using debates to develop and assess critical reasoning abilities

The ability to construct evidence based arguments is an important and necessary skill in biosciences, health and other areas and arguably helps to define the concept of graduateness – the acquisition of a set of advanced transferable skills that are useful in any employment area. However, developing critical reasoning abilities progressively throughout a three year degree course is often implicitly rather than explicitly addressed. We often assume that our students understand that this is what we expect them to do when we direct them to the evidence base and this is not really good enough in a student centred ethos. Students have to know what they are meant to be learning and need to be able to self evaluate the extent of their learning. Learning outcomes need to be both explicit and transparent. Deconstructing what is meant by critical reasoning is for me relatively straight forward; I want my students to observe the world around them, ask questions about what might be going on, consider possible answers and explanations and determine which ones, on the evidence available, seem most plausible. In other words, I want them to think things through before they express opinions. Critical reasoning is also central to reflective practice – it is about evaluating one’s own reasoning to see how it holds up to new experiences and it is also about ‘the ability to use language with clarity and discrimination’ (Thomson 2002 p2). Opportunities abound on science and health courses to confront radically opposite viewpoints as ethical dilemmas present themselves almost daily. Examples here include reproductive technologies, end of life decisions, ecological ethics and the nature of doctor/patient relationships. Many of these dilemmas are based on debating ‘should we because we can’ and provide a valuable learning opportunity for students to engage in critical examination of both sides of the argument; whilst raising their awareness of the social responsibility of scientists and the impact of scientific developments. In the Faculty of Health here at Leeds Met, on our Health Sciences and Public Health courses we have a first year, first semester module, Concepts of Science and Health. This was designed to explore definitions and views of both of those terms and discuss moral and ethical frameworks that may help to evaluate and construct reasoned arguments around contested issues. 60% of the module assessment is for the production of a group report that sets out the arguments that either support or refute an ethical standpoint followed by a debate with their opposing group based on the written reports

Demonstration of lightweight gamma spectrometry systems in urban environments

Urban areas present highly complex radiation environments; with small scale features resulting from different construction materials, topographic effects and potential anthropogenic inputs from past industrial activity or other sources. Mapping of the radiation fields in urban areas allows a detailed assessment of exposure pathways for the people who live and work there, as well as locating discrete sources of activity that may warrant removal to mitigate dose to the general public. These areas also present access difficulties for radiometric mapping using vehicles or aircraft. A lightweight portable gamma spectrometry system has been used to survey sites in the vicinity of Glasgow to demonstrate the possibilities of radiometric mapping of urban areas, and to investigate the complex radiometric features such areas present. Variations in natural activity due to construction materials have been described, the presence of 137Cs used to identify relatively undisturbed ground, and a previously unknown NORM feature identified. The effect of topographic enclosure on measurements of activity concentration has been quantified. The portable system is compared with the outputs that might be expected from larger vehicular or airborne systems. For large areas airborne surveys are the most cost effective approach, but provide limited spatial resolution, vehicular surveys can provide sparse exploratory data rapidly or detailed mapping of open areas where off-road access is possible. Backpack systems are ideally suited to detailed surveys of small areas, especially where vehicular access is difficult

Equivariant configuration spaces

The compression theorem is used to prove results for equivariant configuration spaces that are analogous to the well-known non-equivariant results of May, Milgram and Segal

A New Perspective on Population Ageing.

In Sanderson and Scherbov (2005) we introduced a new forwardlooking definition of age called “prospective age” and argued that its use, along with the traditional backward-looking concept of age, provides a more informative basis upon which to discuss population ageing. Age is a measure of how many years a person has already lived. Everyone of the same age has lived the same number of years. In contrast, prospective age is concerned about the future. Everyone with the same prospective age has the same expected remaining years of life. In this paper, we first explore the concept of prospective age in detail and show, using an analytic formulation, historical data, and forecasts, that prospective age is, in most cases, insensitive to whether it is measured using period or cohort life tables. We, then, use the two age concepts in concert and demonstrate how this enriches our understanding of population ageing in developed countries since 1960.

Task sequence planning in a robot workcell using AND/OR nets

An approach to task sequence planning for a generalized robotic manufacturing or material handling workcell is described. Given the descriptions of the objects in this system and all feasible geometric relationships among these objects, an AND/OR net which describes the relationships of all feasible geometric states and associated feasibility criteria for net transitions is generated. This AND/OR net is mapped into a Petri net which incorporates all feasible sequences of operations. The resulting Petri net is shown to be bounded and have guaranteed properties of liveness, safeness, and reversibility. Sequences are found from the reachability tree of the Petri net. Feasibility criteria for net transitions may be used to generate an extended Petri net representation of lower level command sequences. The resulting Petri net representation may be used for on-line scheduling and control of the system of feasible sequences. A simulation example of the sequences is described

The effect of flight line spacing on radioactivity inventory and spatial feature characteristics of airborne gamma-ray spectrometry data

Airborne Gamma Spectrometry (AGS) is well suited to the mapping of radioactivity in the environment. Flight parameters (e.g. speed and line spacing) directly affect the rate of area coverage, cost, and data quality of any survey. The influences of line spacing have been investigated for data from inter‐tidal, coastal and upland environments with a range of <sup>137</sup>Cs activity concentrations and depositional histories. Estimates of the integrated <sup>137</sup>Cs activity (‘inventory’) within specified areas and the shapes of depositional features were calculated for subsets of the data at different line spacings. Features with dimensions greater than the line spacing show variations in inventory and area of less than 3%, and features with dimensions less than the line spacing show larger variations and a decreased probability of detection. The choice of line spacing for a task is dependent on the dimensions of the features of interest and required edge definition. Options for line spacing for different tasks are suggested. It is noted that for regional mapping, even 5–10 km line spacing can produce useful data

OSL investigations at Hardisty, Alberta, Canada

This report is concerned with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating investigations of sediments associated with, and enclosing artefacts of First Nations historic significance in the Battle River Valley area, near Hardisty, east central Alberta. The OSL ages reported here provide chronological control to the archaeological investigations at this site, led by Rob Wondrasek, which have identified thousands of historical artefacts, including projectile points and lithic fragments indicative of occupation. The investigations were commissioned by Enbridge, ahead of the construction of the Edmonton-Hardisty Pipeline, and form one part of a historic resources impact assessment study, to characterise the archaeological site, and evaluate/mitigate the impact of the pipeline related excavations. This report describes the background to the investigation, sampling, and luminescence analysis undertaken to generate sediment chronologies for the Hardisty sediment stratigraphies. Ken Munyikwa visited the archaeological investigations at Hardisty in June 2014 to sample key stratigraphic units within the sediment stratigraphies for OSL dating. Samples were collected from two profiles: from strata encompassing the artefact-bearing horizon, and from strata immediately beneath and overlying this horizon, thus providing terminus post quem (TPQ) and terminus ante quem (TAQ) on the age of this unit. Samples were submitted to the luminescence laboratories at SUERC for dating in August 2014. All samples were subjected to laboratory preparation of sand-sized quartz, and purity checked by scanning electron microscopy. Dose rates for the bulk sediment were evaluated using analyses of the uranium, thorium and potassium concentrations obtained by high resolution gamma spectrometry coupled with beta dose rate measurement using thick source beta counting. Equivalent doses were determined by OSL from 64 aliquots of quartz per sample using the quartz single-aliquot-regenerative (SAR) procedure. The material exhibited good OSL sensitivity and produced acceptable SAR internal quality control performance. Dose distributions from the aliquots were examined using radial plotting methods. All samples revealed some heterogeneity in their equivalent dose distribution, reflecting variable bleaching at deposition and indicating that each sample enclosed mixed-age materials. Age estimates were based on the weighted mean estimate of the stored dose, which weights the stored dose estimate towards the lowest population of equivalent doses, potentially representing the better bleached (at deposition) component. The quartz OSL ages reported herein for the sand sequences at Hardisty-1 and Hardisty-2, have provided the first means to assess the temporal distribution of artefacts within the Hardisty profiles, and furthermore provide TPQ and TAQ for the inferred occupational phases. The sediment chronologies established for each profile are internally coherent, spanning at HD-01 from 7.8 ± 0.7 ka (SUTL2692) to 11.7 ± 0.5 ka (SUTL2694), and at HD-02 from 4.5 ± 0.2 ka (SUTL2695) to 8.7 ± 0.5 ka (SUTL2697; Table 4-1). TPQ for the occupation of the Hardisty site is provided by SUTL2697 at 8.7 ± 0.5 ka. TAQ for the occupation of the Hardisty site is provided by SUTL2695 at 4.5 ± 0.2 ka