Promoting deep learning through design - discussion, student activity and assessment

There is widespread evidence that Australia is currently facing falling student participation rates in science and mathematics subjects at secondary school and university undergraduate levels. The future implications of this science-deficit are widely acknowledged. Unfortunately, science teaching itself is also widely seen as being dull, too content-heavy, delivered to mass-audiences and assessed in ways promoting surface approaches to learning. To address these issues, and issues relating to the apparent lack of challenge for very able students in their first year at university, The University of Queensland developed the Advanced Study Program in Science (ASPinS). This initiative offers an enhanced learning experience to a select group of high-achieving students in addition to their existing undergraduate study in a Science-related degree program. ASPinS offers these students the opportunity to interact with leading research scientists, broaden their understanding of important scientific issues, experience new interactive learning opportunities, undertake research projects and obtain an authentic insight into science as a career. This presentation, however, will only focus on the unique first year course offered within the 3 year ASPinS experience – BIOL1017 “Perspectives in Science”. In this course students are encouraged to think about important current scientific issues from different perspectives – both scientific and non-scientific. Panels of expert scientists use their knowledge and experience to present real scientific issues for students to examine and discuss. These panel discussions cover a spectrum of medical, environmental and social issues, covering different viewpoints and possible solutions. Combining this effective panel model with an array of student-led activities provides an ideal environment for learning. Students are made to apply their new knowledge, discuss issues and construct thoughts, opinions and products – depending on the specifically designed activities. Relevant assessment tasks include group-writing activities and oral presentations which enable students to demonstrate their learning through authentic contexts that are carefully designed to influence the way students learn. Authentic assessment tasks enable students to see a purpose for the product (assessment) they are producing while at the same time enabling them to synthesise the various scientific ‘facts’ and issues they have been discussing. This level of assessment activity, by its nature, encourages higher-order learning. Student evaluations have consistently confirmed that the key to the success of each Module within the course lies in the breadth of speakers selected to represent the different angles associated with the topic under discussion and the related activities and assessment tasks. The findings indicate that students value the opportunity to explore the multi-disciplinary nature of science-related issues and to actually discuss the issues. The “Perspectives in Science” course is a model for the success of combining teaching and learning theory and scholarship, to a particular set of objectives, to create a highly effective learning environment and a meaningful student experience

Interactions of ingested food, beverage, and tobacco components involving human cytochrome P4501A2, 2A6, 2E1, and 3A4 enzymes.

Human cytochrome P450 (P450) enzymes are involved in the oxidation of natural products found in foods, beverages, and tobacco products and their catalytic activities can also be modulated by components of the materials. The microsomal activation of aflatoxin B1 to the exo-8,9-epoxide is stimulated by flavone and 7,8-benzoflavone, and attenuated by the flavonoid naringenin, a major component of grapefruit. P4502E1 has been demonstrated to play a potentially major role in the activation of a number of very low-molecular weight cancer suspects, including ethyl carbamate (urethan), which is present in alcoholic beverages and particularly stone brandies. The enzyme (P4502E1) is also known to be inducible by ethanol. Tobacco contains a large number of potential carcinogens. In human liver microsomes a significant role for P4501A2 can be demonstrated in the activation of cigarette smoke condensate. Some of the genotoxicity may be due to arylamines. P4501A2 is also inhibited by components of crude cigarette smoke condensate. The tobacco-specific nitrosamines are activated by a number of P450 enzymes. Of those known to be present in human liver, P4501A2, 2A6, and 2E1 can activate these nitrosamines to genotoxic products

Detection by NMR of a "local spin-gap" in quenched CsC60

We present a 13C and 133Cs NMR investigation of the CsC60 cubic quenched phase. Previous ESR measurements suggest that this phase is metallic, but NMR reveals contrasting electronic behavior on the local scale. The 13C spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) exhibits a typical metallic behavior down to 50 K, but indicates that a partial spin-gap opens for T<50 K. Unexpectedly, 133Cs NMR shows that there are two inequivalent Cs sites. For one of these sites, the NMR shift and (T1T)^{-1} follow an activated law, confirming the existence of a spin-gap. We ascribe this spin-gap to the occurrence of localized spin-singlets on a small fraction of the C60 molecules.Comment: 4 figure

Slepton pair production in the POWHEG BOX

We present an implementation for slepton pair production at hadron colliders in the POWHEG BOX, a framework for combining next-to-leading order QCD calculations with parton-shower Monte-Carlo programs. Our code provides a SUSY Les Houches Accord interface for setting the supersymmetric input parameters. Decays of the sleptons and parton-shower effects are simulated with PYTHIA. Focussing on a representative point in the supersymmetric parameter space we show results for kinematic distributions that can be observed experimentally. While next-to-leading order QCD corrections are sizable for all distributions, the parton shower affects the color-neutral particles only marginally. Pronounced parton-shower effects are found for jet distributions.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Holographic Entanglement Entropy and Fermi Surfaces

The entanglement entropy in theories with a Fermi surface is known to produce a logarithmic violation of the usual area law behavior. We explore the possibility of producing this logarithmic violation holographically by analyzing the IR regions of the bulk geometries dual to such theories. The geometry of Ogawa, Takayanagi, and Ugajin is explored and shown to have a null curvature singularity for all values of parameters, except for dynamical critical exponent 3/2 in four dimensions. The results are extended to general hyperscaling violation exponent. We explore strings propagating through the singularity and show that they become infinitely excited, suggesting the singularity is not resolved by stringy effects and may become a full-fledged "stringularity." An Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton embedding of the nonsingular geometry is exhibited where the dilaton asymptotes to a constant in the IR. The unique nonsingular geometry in any given number of dimensions is proposed as a model to study the T=0 limit of a theory with a Fermi surface.Comment: 20 pages plus appendices, 5 figures; v2 discussion clarified, results generalized, and acknowledgments update

LINGO1 Variants in the French-Canadian Population

Essential tremor (ET) is a complex genetic disorder for which no causative gene has been found. Recently, a genome-wide association study reported that two variants in the LINGO1 locus were associated to this disease. The aim of the present study was to test if this specific association could be replicated using a French-Canadian cohort of 259 ET patients and 479 ethnically matched controls. Our genotyping results lead us to conclude that no association exists between the key variant rs9652490 and ET (Pcorr = 1.00)

Neuronal activity in medial superior temporal area (MST) during memory-based smooth pursuit eye movements in monkeys

We examined recently neuronal substrates for predictive pursuit using a memory-based smooth pursuit task that distinguishes the discharge related to memory of visual motion-direction from that related to movement preparation. We found that the supplementary eye fields (SEF) contain separate signals coding memory and assessment of visual motion-direction, decision not-to-pursue, and preparation for pursuit. Since medial superior temporal area (MST) is essential for visual motion processing and projects to SEF, we examined whether MST carried similar signals. We analyzed the discharge of 108 MSTd neurons responding to visual motion stimuli. The majority (69/108 = 64%) were also modulated during smooth pursuit. However, in nearly all (104/108 = 96%) of the MSTd neurons tested, there was no significant discharge modulation during the delay periods that required memory of visual motion-direction or preparation for smooth pursuit or not-to-pursue. Only 4 neurons of the 108 (4%) exhibited significantly higher discharge rates during the delay periods; however, their responses were non-directional and not instruction specific. Representative signals in the MSTd clearly differed from those in the SEF during memory-based smooth pursuit. MSTd neurons are unlikely to provide signals for memory of visual motion-direction or preparation for smooth pursuit eye movements