Digital community assets: Investigating the impact of online engagement with arts and peer support groups on mental health during COVID-19

The digitisation of mental health support has acceler- ated since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the impact of digital engagement with community assets on mental health during COVID- 19. Digital engagement is typically not location-bound, but the restricted movement enforced during ‘lock- downs’ meant that people were primarily accessing digital community assets from their home environ- ments. We report findings from a study utilising two creative workshops and semi-structured interviews to investigate how support operates in and through three digital community assets; an online peer support forum, a social enterprise running regular creative challenges nationally via social media and a local in-person crea- tive arts support group. The concept of ‘more or less digital’ captures the ways that people’s experiences of digital community assets extend beyond the platforms to incorporate settings of use. The analysis identifies how support is diluted through digital engagement, the value of minimal and muted forms of engagement and user-led designs for future hybrid forms of support. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of analysing digital community asset engagement in the settings of use and how such knowledge is vital for plan- ning support in a future under continual pressure to be increasingly digital

Library spaces designed with students in mind: an evaluation study of University of Queensland libraries at St Lucia campus

This paper identifies the design qualities of library spaces that matter the most foruniversity students. Drawing upon the data from an online survey made available to students from the University of Queensland, Australia, a number of design-related considerations are examined including: acoustics, furniture, interior architecture, lighting, and thermal comfort. 1505 students completed the survey, which aimed to assess how effective and responsive library spaces are in meeting students’ needs and supporting their learning experiences. The survey included ‘Likert scale questions’ requiring students to rate their levels of satisfaction with different aspects of library spaces and ‘open-ended questions’ asking students to elucidate their ratings. Findings revealed that the qualities of physical spaces were ranked as the third mostsignificant category of reasons accounting for students’ preference for certain library buildings over others, and for their frequency of visit (behind “location” of the library building and then “access to books and course-related materials or resources”). Design-related themes which emerged from qualitative analysis highlighted students’ awareness of the impacts that the design of spaces and furniture can have on their learning experiences. The study concludes with recommendations informed by students’ expectations, needs and preferences in relation to the qualities and features of library spaces

Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata using Buried Dopants

The use of buried dopants to construct quantum-dot cellular automata is investigated as an alternative to conventional electronic devices for information transport and elementary computation. This provides a limit in terms of miniaturisation for this type of system as each potential well is formed by a single dopant atom. As an example, phosphorous donors in silicon are found to have good energy level separation with incoherent switching times of the order of microseconds. However, we also illustrate the possibility of ultra-fast quantum coherent switching via adiabatic evolution. The switching speeds are numerically calculated and found to be 10's of picoseconds or less for a single cell. The effect of decoherence is also simulated in the form of a dephasing process and limits are estimated for operation with finite dephasing. The advantages and limitations of this scheme over the more conventional quantum-dot based scheme are discussed. The use of a buried donor cellular automata system is also discussed as an architecture for testing several aspects of buried donor based quantum computing schemes.Comment: Minor changes in response to referees comments. Improved section on scaling and added plot of incoherent switching time

Progression and assessment in foreign languages at Key Stage 2

The teaching of primary languages has been increasing steadily, in response to the future entitlement for all Key Stage 2 (KS2) pupils aged 7-11 to learn a foreign language by 2010. However, there remain concerns about progression both within KS2 and through to secondary school and about how learners' progress is assessed. This paper presents findings on the issues of progression and assessment taken from case studies which formed part of a project funded by the then Department for Education and Skills (DfES), now the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). This project set out to evaluate 19 local authority (LA) Pathfinders in England that were piloting the introduction of foreign language learning at KS2 between 2003 and 2005. Findings revealed that there was inconsistency between schools, even within each LA Pathfinder, in the use of schemes of work and that assessment was generally underdeveloped in the majority of the Pathfinders. In order to set these findings in context, this paper examines the issues of progression and assessment in foreign language learning in England. Finally, it investigates the challenges English primary schools face in terms of progression and assessment in the light of the new entitlement and discusses implications for the future. Managing progression, both within KS2 and through to secondary school at KS3 (ages 11-14), is one of the key factors in determining the overall success of starting languages in primary school

Study of filtration mechanics and sampling techniques technical summary report, 1 sep. 1963 - 30 nov. 1964

Filtration mechanics and sampling technique