9,071 research outputs found
Perspectives on the purposes, processes and products of doctorates: towards a rich picture of doctorates
The last decade has witnessed major changes in British doctoral education. The emergence of professional and practice-based doctorates in particular, are beginning to prompt broad questions concerning the purposes, processes and products of graduate study. A growing diversity of doctoral provision is coupled with a disparate student population. For doctorates to evolve in a responsive manner, the complexity of provision and need must be understood. This work provides new insights into these changes by specifically focusing on the perspectives of students and graduates; something relatively unexplored. The perceptions and experiences of 217 students and graduates from different types of doctorates at 4 institutions were examined through postal questionnaires and follow-up semi-structured interviews. Interviews were also conducted with 8 supervisors from each institution and 9 employers, to provide a snapshot of understanding in relation to students' views.
Results suggest that motivation varies with age. Younger students were more driven by the prospect of career enhancement and the development of research techniques, whereas older students gave more credence to personal development. Noticeable agreement was found over those resources that were regarded as both important and unimportant and all students considered both independence and collaboration important ways of working during a doctorate. Students' concepts of a doctorate and their understanding of doctoral capability did not seem to recognise the complexity and transferability of skills. The views of supervisors and employers varied in important respects from those of the students.
These findings are discussed and their political, institutional and methodological implications are explored. It is recommended that further work concentrates on exploring the perspectives of employers to continue enriching the understanding of doctoral education
Head-on infall of two compact objects: Third post-Newtonian Energy Flux
Head-on infall of two compact objects with arbitrary mass ratio is
investigated using the multipolar post-Minkowskian approximation method. At the
third post-Newtonian order the energy flux, in addition to the instantaneous
contributions, also includes hereditary contributions consisting of the
gravitational-wave tails, tails-of-tails and the tail-squared terms. The
results are given both for infall from infinity and also for infall from a
finite distance. These analytical expressions should be useful for the
comparison with the high accuracy numerical relativity results within the limit
in which post-Newtonian approximations are valid.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, This version includes the changes appearing in
the Erratum published in Phys. Rev.
Parton Distributions
I discuss our current understanding of parton distributions. I begin with the
underlying theoretical framework, and the way in which different data sets
constrain different partons, highlighting recent developments. The methods of
examining the uncertainties on the distributions and those physical quantities
dependent on them is analysed. Finally I look at the evidence that additional
theoretical corrections beyond NLO perturbative QCD may be necessary, what type
of corrections are indicated and the impact these may have on the
uncertainties.Comment: Invited talk at "XXI International Symposium on Lepton and Photon
Interactions at High Energies," (Fermilab, Chicago, August 2003). 12 pages,
21 figure
Empowering Children to Learn: An Exploratory Study Using a Philosophical Listening Tool (the Little Box of Big Questions 2)
A key function of educational psychologists is to promote empowering and cultivating learning environments that prepare children and young people for the twenty-first century. This study explores how children may be empowered to learn through the clarification of their daily lived experiences. Learning experiences are examined from the perspective of the children themselves, with a particular emphasis on metaphysical concepts. A listening tool was used to gather data: in-depth stories, experiences, motivations and beliefs about individual learning. Thematic analysis was applied to interviews, further promoting the ‘voice of the child’ and illuminating how children think about their own learning. Autonomy, experience and purpose are examined in the context of how children learn. This research aims to contribute towards the growing body of knowledge about how children learn. The findings may help to inform the work of educational psychologists and enhance the educational experiences of children and young people
Inclusion of new LHC data in MMHT PDFs
I consider the effects of including a variety of new LHC data sets into the
MMHT approach for PDF determination. I consider the impact of fitting new LHC
and Tevatron data, which leads to clear improvements in some PDF uncertainties.
There are specific issues with ATLAS 7 TeV jet data and I include a discussion
of the treatment of correlated uncertainties and briefly the effects of NNLO
corrections. I also present preliminary results with the inclusion of the high
precison final ATLAS 7 TeV rapidity-dependent data.Comment: 6 pages. To appear in proceedings of DIS2017 Worksho
Violation of the Holographic Viscosity Bound in a Strongly Coupled Anisotropic Plasma
We study the conductivity and shear viscosity tensors of a strongly coupled
N=4 super-Yang-Mills plasma which is kept anisotropic by a theta parameter that
depends linearly on one of the spatial dimensions. Its holographic dual is
given by an anisotropic axion-dilaton-gravity background and has recently been
proposed by Mateos and Trancanelli as a model for the pre-equilibrium stage of
quark-gluon plasma in heavy-ion collisions. By applying the membrane paradigm
which we also check by numerical evaluation of Kubo formula and lowest lying
quasinormal modes, we find that the shear viscosity purely transverse to the
direction of anisotropy saturates the holographic viscosity bound, whereas
longitudinal shear viscosities are smaller, providing the first such example
not involving higher-derivative theories of gravity and, more importantly, with
fully known gauge-gravity correspondence.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v3: references added, version to appear in Phys.
Rev. Let
Prospects for direct detection of circular polarization of gravitational-wave background
We discussed prospects for directly detecting circular polarization signal of
gravitational wave background. We found it is generally difficult to probe the
monopole mode of the signal due to broad directivity of gravitational wave
detectors. But the dipole (l=1) and octupole (l=3) modes of the signal can be
measured in a simple manner by combining outputs of two unaligned detectors,
and we can dig them deeply under confusion and detector noises. Around f~0.1mHz
LISA will provide ideal data streams to detect these anisotropic components
whose magnitudes are as small as ~1 percent of the detector noise level in
terms of the non-dimensional energy density \Omega_{GW}(f).Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, PRL in pres
Deconstructing double-barred galaxies in 2D and 3D. II. Two distinct groups of inner bars
The intrinsic photometric properties of inner and outer stellar bars within
17 double-barred galaxies are thoroughly studied through a photometric analysis
consisting of: i) two-dimensional multi-component photometric decompositions,
and ii) three-dimensional statistical deprojections for measuring the
thickening of bars, thus retrieving their 3D shape. The results are compared
with previous measurements obtained with the widely used analysis of integrated
light. Large-scale bars in single- and double-barred systems show similar
sizes, and inner bars may be longer than outer bars in different galaxies. We
find two distinct groups of inner bars attending to their in-plane length and
ellipticity, resulting in a bimodal behaviour for the inner/outer bar length
ratio. Such bimodality is related neither to the properties of the host galaxy
nor the dominant bulge, and it does not show a counterpart in the dimension off
the disc plane. The group of long inner bars lays at the lower end of the outer
bar length vs. ellipticity correlation, whereas the short inner bars are out of
that relation. We suggest that this behaviour could be due to either a
different nature of the inner discs from which the inner bars are dynamically
formed, or a different assembly stage for the inner bars. This last possibility
would imply that the dynamical assembly of inner bars is a slow process taking
several Gyr to happen. We have also explored whether all large-scale bars are
prone to develop an inner bar at some stage of their lives, possibility we
cannot fully confirm or discard.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Hollowgraphy Driven Holography: Black Hole with Vanishing Volume Interior
Hawking-Bekenstein entropy formula seems to tell us that no quantum degrees
of freedom can reside in the interior of a black hole. We suggest that this is
a consequence of the fact that the volume of any interior sphere of finite
surface area simply vanishes. Obviously, this is not the case in general
relativity. However, we show that such a phenomenon does occur in various
gravitational theories which admit a spontaneously induced general relativity.
In such theories, due to a phase transition (one parameter family degenerates)
which takes place precisely at the would have been horizon, the recovered
exterior Schwarzschild solution connects, by means of a self-similar transition
profile, with a novel 'hollow' interior exhibiting a vanishing spatial volume
and a locally varying Newton constant. This constitutes the so-called
'hollowgraphy' driven holography.Comment: Honorable Mention Essay - Gravity Research Foundation (2010
Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication
This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding how intercultural communication, mediated by cultural artifacts (i.e., Internet communication tools), creates compelling, problematic, and surprising conditions for additional language learning. Three case studies of computer-mediated intercultural engagement draw together correlations between discursive orientation, communicative modality, communicative activity, and emergent interpersonal dynamics. These factors contribute to varying qualities and quantities of participation in the intercultural partnerships. Case one, Clashing Frames of Expectation -- Differing Cultures-of-Use, suggests that the cultures-of-use of Internet communication tools, their perceived existence and on-going construction as distinctive cultural artifacts, differs interculturally just as communicative genre, pragmatics, and institutional context would be expected to differ interculturally. Case two, Intercultural Communication as Hyperpersonal Engagement, illustrates pragmatic and linguistic development as an outcome of intercultural relationship building. The final case study, The Wrong Tool for the Right Job?, describes a recent generational shift in communication tool preference wherein an ostensibly ubiquitous tool, e-mail, is shown to be unsuitable for mediating age peer relationships. Taken together, these case studies demonstrate that Internet communication tools are not neutral media. Rather, individual and collective experience is shown to influence the ways students engage in Internet-mediated communication with consequential outcomes for both the processes and products of language development
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