A critical analysis of Building Services Engineering as a learning environment

This paper addresses the issues of study support, programme alignment and feedback for directed learning within the Building Services Engineering Programmes delivered at Northumbria University. The author draws on experience both as a past student on the course and subsequent recent teaching experience in order to reflect critically upon the teaching methods used and also the student experience. Project work is a focal aspect of the programme and can, the author believes, be supported more effectively by the active encouragement of study support. Issues of programme alignment and the consequences of programme miss-alignment are discussed. The work of Biggs [2003] supports the author’s observations and belief that students must both expect to succeed and also see clear value in succeeding if they are to be well motivated. The issue of the correct sequencing of the delivery of the learning activities within different modules is discussed. The importance of providing effective feedback for directed learning material is also discussed as a key issue since without effective feedback students engagement with directed learning diminishes

A critical appraisal and development of assessment strategy

Factors effecting student motivation are important and must be considered if the performance of future student cohorts is to be improved. Theories regarding the interaction of ‘expectancy and value’ have been set out. Because the relationship is multiplicative it is necessary to ensure that both ‘expectancy and value’ are present within the psyche of each and every student for each and every task assigned. This work critically appraises the delivery of a level 5 module over two successive academic years and demonstrates the application of ‘expectancy-value’ theory in module improvement. A formative course work was modified to align the outcomes with the summative coursework which resulted in significantly improved student motivation due to the addition of previously lacking ‘value’. Ideas are presented for the final summative coursework which could also bring significant benefits. However, these have not yet been adopted due to the real difficulties associated with group working. Both ‘value’ and ‘expectancy’ were initially lacking from different course works and were resulting in reduced student motivation

Non-stationary coherent quantum many-body dynamics through dissipation

The assumption that quantum systems relax to a stationary state in the long-time limit underpins statistical physics and much of our intuitive understanding of scientific phenomena. For isolated systems this follows from the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. When an environment is present the expectation is that all of phase space is explored, eventually leading to stationarity. Notable exceptions are decoherence-free subspaces that have important implications for quantum technologies and have so far only been studied for systems with a few degrees of freedom. Here we identify simple and generic conditions for dissipation to prevent a quantum many-body system from ever reaching a stationary state. We go beyond dissipative quantum state engineering approaches towards controllable long-time non-stationarity typically associated with macroscopic complex systems. This coherent and oscillatory evolution constitutes a dissipative version of a quantum time-crystal. We discuss the possibility of engineering such complex dynamics with fermionic ultracold atoms in optical lattices.Comment: Main text in MS Word (10 pages, 4 figures) and Supplementary material in TeX (10 pages, 2 figures). Main text PDF embedded in TeX. Version as accepted by Nature Communication

Stable water isotopes in HadCM3: isotopic signature of El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the tropical amount effect

Stable water isotopes have been added to the full hydrological cycle of the Hadley Centre Climate model (HadCM3) coupled atmosphere-ocean GCM. Simulations of delta O-18 in precipitation and at the ocean surface compare well with observations for the present-day climate. The model has been used to investigate the isotopic anomalies associated with ENSO; it is found that the anomalous delta O-18 in precipitation is correlated with the anomalous precipitation amount in accordance with the "amount effect.'' The El Nino delta O-18 anomaly at the ocean surface is largest in coastal regions because of the mixing of ocean water and the more depleted runoff from the land surface. Coral delta O-18 anomalies were estimated, using an established empirical relationship, and generally reflect ocean surface delta O-18 anomalies in coastal regions and sea surface temperatures away from the coast. The spatial relationship between tropical precipitation and delta O-18 was investigated for the El Nino anomaly simulated by HadCM3. Weighting the El Nino precipitation anomaly by the precipitation amount at each grid box gave a large increase in the spatial correlation between tropical precipitation and delta O-18. This improvement was most apparent over land points and between 10 and 20 degrees of latitude

An integrated mathematical model of cellular cholesterol biosynthesis and lipoprotein metabolism

Cholesterol regulation is an important aspect of human health. In this work we bring together and extend two recent mathematical models describing cholesterol biosynthesis and lipoprotein endocytosis to create an integrated model of lipoprotein metabolism in the context of a single hepatocyte. The integrated model includes a description of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and cholesterol synthesis, delipidation of very low density lipoproteins (VLDLs) to LDLs and subsequent lipoprotein endocytosis. Model analysis shows that cholesterol biosynthesis produces the majority of intracellular cholesterol. The availability of free receptors does not greatly effect the concentration of intracellular cholesterol, but has a detrimental effect on extracellular VLDL and LDL levels. We test our model by considering its ability to reproduce the known biology of Familial Hypercholesterolaemia and statin therapy. In each case the model reproduces the known biological behaviour. Quantitative differences in response to statin therapy are discussed in the context of the need to extend the work to a more {\it in vivo} setting via the incorporation of more dietary lipoprotein related processes and the need for further testing and parameterisation of {\it in silico} models of lipoprotein metabolism

Creating Cultural Connections: A Renaissance in Midtown Between 1900 and 1983

This dissertation documents a time between 1960 and 1983 in Midtown when a complex set of social, political, and cultural forces merged to challenge the dominance of elite groups of businessmen and arts patrons who had dominated growth and development there since the early 1920s. I argue that interaction among these disparate groups affected the character of Midtown, making the community a more vibrant, inclusive, and interesting place to live and do business. After experiencing softer and less militant approaches to resistance, members of the Atlanta Arts Alliance adopted fresh approaches to the meaning of “Art,” and ways that creativity became more representative of the multicultural Atlanta community. Many members shifted away from positions of cultural exclusivity into a realm that appealed to a more diverse population