The development of the reflective practitioner through digital storytelling

This paper presents a multiple case study on the use of digital storytelling to support the development of reflection and digital skills in professional education. Students from two universities, one group studying health and social care, the other training to be teachers, were asked to produce two artefacts, at the beginning and end of their respective modules, in which they reflected on the aspects of professional and personal learning. The artefacts, some of which were produced in groups, others by individual students, were analysed for recurring themes, levels of reflection and digital competence, particularly in the use of open educational resources. Findings from the analysis support the use of digital storytelling methods to develop a range of key skills pertinent to professional education in general but concluded that the deeper levels of reflection may be most evident in individual artefacts produced in the later stages of professional education. The study provides some important insights for teaching and learning in professional education as it suggests that digital storytelling provides a highly engaging way of introducing both reflective and open educational practices

Digital artefacts for reflection on identity in the first year of teacher education: the teacher I want to be

This paper presents an analysis of digital reflective narratives of identity constructed by student teachers in their first year in a Spanish University. The literature review demonstrates the multidimensional nature of teacher identity, showing that, during the transition of their first year at University, student teachers’ ideas of identity reflect a highly emotional and committed stance on childhood and social justice. The innovative approach taken in the current work includes a review of the possibilities of digital artefacts, as OER, for reflection. The conclusion discusses the importance of scaffolding approaches to the development of teacher identity through a reflective methodology

Evaluation of the ESBL-coding plasmids transmissibility in E. coli isolated from ambulatory patient's urina

Representatives of the Enterobacteriaceae family are the main causative agents of urinary tract infections. Escherichia coli can exhibit resistance to [beta] -lactam antibiotics by synthesizing ESBL (extended spectrum [beta]-lactamases). CTX-M [beta] -lactamases are the dominant group of ESBL. In this paper, we investigated the ability of E. coli urinary isolates to transmit resistance genes within the plasmid. An analysis of the effectiveness of conjugation has shown that E. coli strains producing ESBL are capable of transferring resistance genes to a recipient bacterium at a high frequency

Spectroscopy of 13B via the 13C(t,3He) reaction at 115 AMeV

Gamow-Teller and dipole transitions to final states in 13B were studied via the 13C(t,3He) reaction at Et = 115 AMeV. Besides the strong Gamow-Teller transition to the 13B ground state, a weaker Gamow-Teller transition to a state at 3.6 MeV was found. This state was assigned a spin-parity of 3/2- by comparison with shell-model calculations using the WBP and WBT interactions which were modified to allow for mixing between nhw and (n+2)hw configurations. This assignment agrees with a recent result from a lifetime measurement of excited states in 13B. The shell-model calculations also explained the relatively large spectroscopic strength measured for a low-lying 1/2+ state at 4.83 MeV in 13B. The cross sections for dipole transitions up to Ex(13B)= 20 MeV excited via the 13C(t,3He) reaction were also compared with the shell-model calculations. The theoretical cross sections exceeded the data by a factor of about 1.8, which might indicate that the dipole excitations are "quenched". Uncertainties in the reaction calculations complicate that interpretation.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Convective overshooting and production of s-nuclei in massive stars during their core He-burning phase

With the "post-processing" technique we explore the role of the convective overshooting on the production of s-nuclei in stellar models of different initial mass and metallicity ($15 \leq M_{ZAMS}/M_{\odot} \leq 25$; $10^{-4} \leq Z \leq 0.02$), considering a range of values for the parameter $f$, which determines the overall efficiency of convective overshooting.We find enhancements in the production of s-nuclei until a factor $\sim 6$ (measured as the average overproduction factor of the 6 s-only nuclear species with $60\lesssim A\lesssim90$) in all our models of different initial mass and metallicity with $f$ in the range $0.01{-}0.035$ (i.e. models with overshooting) compared to the production obtained with "no-overshooting" models (i.e. models with the same initial mass and metallicity, but $f=10^{-5}$). Moreover the results indicate that the link between the overshooting parameter $f$ and the s-process efficiency is essentially monotonic in all our models of different initial mass and metallicity. Also evident is the higher s-process efficiency when we progressively increase for a given f value both the mass of the models from 15 M$_\odot$ to 25 M$_\odot$ and the Z value from 10$^{-4}$ to 0.02. We also briefly discuss the possible consequences of these results for some open questions linked to the s-process weak component efficiency, as well as a "rule of thumb" to evaluate the impact of the convective overshooting on the yields of a generation of stars.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, A&A accepted (corrected typos plus minor changes in order to fulfill the guidelines for A&A manuscripts

A high efficiency, low background detector for measuring pair-decay branches in nuclear decay

We describe a high efficiency detector for measuring electron-positron pair transitions in nuclei. The device was built to be insensitive to gamma rays and to accommodate high overall event rates. The design was optimized for total pair kinetic energies up to about 7 MeV.Comment: Accepted for publication by Nucl. Inst. & Meth. in Phys. Res. A (NIM A

An Improved Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Experiment

A new measurement of the neutron EDM, using Ramsey's method of separated oscillatory fields, is in preparation at the new high intensity source of ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland (PSI). The existence of a non-zero nEDM would violate both parity and time reversal symmetry and, given the CPT theorem, might lead to a discovery of new CP violating mechanisms. Already the current upper limit for the nEDM (|d_n|<2.9E-26 e.cm) constrains some extensions of the Standard Model. The new experiment aims at a two orders of magnitude reduction of the experimental uncertainty, to be achieved mainly by (1) the higher UCN flux provided by the new PSI source, (2) better magnetic field control with improved magnetometry and (3) a double chamber configuration with opposite electric field directions. The first stage of the experiment will use an upgrade of the RAL/Sussex/ILL group's apparatus (which has produced the current best result) moved from Institut Laue-Langevin to PSI. The final accuracy will be achieved in a further step with a new spectrometer, presently in the design phase.Comment: Flavor Physics & CP Violation Conference, Taipei, 200

An improved geometric inequality via vanishing moments, with applications to singular Liouville equations

We consider a class of singular Liouville equations on compact surfaces motivated by the study of Electroweak and Self-Dual Chern-Simons theories, the Gaussian curvature prescription with conical singularities and Onsager's description of turbulence. We analyse the problem of existence variationally, and show how the angular distribution of the conformal volume near the singularities may lead to improvements in the Moser-Trudinger inequality, and in turn to lower bounds on the Euler-Lagrange functional. We then discuss existence and non-existence results.Comment: some references adde