An investigation of MSC Agric completion times at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

M. Ed. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2014.There is a pipeline of production of PhD graduates, and any blockages in the pipeline will result in delays in the country achieving the target of about a 5-fold increase in the number of PhD’s, suggested by the Department of Science in Technology in their ten year plan to drive South Africa’s transformation towards a knowledge-based economy. To increase the pool of students capable of PhD studies, the pipeline issues, such as time taken to graduate by master’s students, need to be addressed. Therefore this thesis sought to review literature associated with throughput, dropout and completion times, determine whether any of the available information from graduated MScAgric students could identify factors that promoted or impeded timeto- completion, and determine the views of supervisors of MScAgric students on their role in the supervisory process. While this thesis did not assess “quality” of MscAgric students in any way, it is acknowledged that this is sometimes in tension with time-tocompletion and that in order for students to acquire the necessary skills, especially if they are to continue with doctoral studies, time-to-completion may need to be extended. Results showed that between 2000 and 2012, 67% of full time and 56% of part time students took longer than the minimum to complete. The only variable that significantly affected time-to-completion was full time versus part time registration, where, on a full-time equivalent basis, full time students took longer. Cum Laude passes were obtained by those who had significantly higher matric score, undergraduate weighted average and final year of undergraduate weighted average, and significantly more White students passed cum laude, however they tended to take longer to complete. Supervisors views related well to the guidelines suggested by the University and supervisors appeared to acknowledge responsibility for roles allocated to them Irrespective of post level, experience in supervising MScAgric or PhD students, or whether they had attended seminars or workshops relating to supervision, supervisors viewed their roles in the process relating to the topic, the thesis and the supervisor-student relationship, in a similar way, with no differences in opinion on whether particular responsibilities within these categories were those of the student or supervisor. The exception to this was observed where lack of supervision experience resulted in differing perceptions on the role of terminating the candidature and initiation of frequent meetings, both of which could result in longer times to completion of MScAgric students

Test & Evaluation Best Practices for Machine Learning-Enabled Systems

Machine learning (ML) - based software systems are rapidly gaining adoption across various domains, making it increasingly essential to ensure they perform as intended. This report presents best practices for the Test and Evaluation (T&E) of ML-enabled software systems across its lifecycle. We categorize the lifecycle of ML-enabled software systems into three stages: component, integration and deployment, and post-deployment. At the component level, the primary objective is to test and evaluate the ML model as a standalone component. Next, in the integration and deployment stage, the goal is to evaluate an integrated ML-enabled system consisting of both ML and non-ML components. Finally, once the ML-enabled software system is deployed and operationalized, the T&E objective is to ensure the system performs as intended. Maintenance activities for ML-enabled software systems span the lifecycle and involve maintaining various assets of ML-enabled software systems. Given its unique characteristics, the T&E of ML-enabled software systems is challenging. While significant research has been reported on T&E at the component level, limited work is reported on T&E in the remaining two stages. Furthermore, in many cases, there is a lack of systematic T&E strategies throughout the ML-enabled system's lifecycle. This leads practitioners to resort to ad-hoc T&E practices, which can undermine user confidence in the reliability of ML-enabled software systems. New systematic testing approaches, adequacy measurements, and metrics are required to address the T&E challenges across all stages of the ML-enabled system lifecycle

Codesigning a Mental Health Discharge and Transitions of Care Intervention: A Modified Nominal Group Technique

Background: Discharge from acute mental health services has long been associated with mortality, risk, and related adverse outcomes for patients. Many of the interventions that currently aim to reduce adverse outcomes focus on a single group of healthcare professionals within a single healthcare setting. A recent systematic review highlights very few robust interventions that specifically aim to improve communication across services. However the importance of promoting interagency working and improving information flow between services is continually highlighted as a key priority.Methods: Using a novel codesign and experience based approach we worked with a multistakeholder group to develop possible solutions to reduce the adverse outcomes commonly associated with discharge from acute mental health services. This utilized a modified Nominal Group Technique and creative problem solving method to follow a four-stage process: Problem Identification, Solution Generation, Decision-Making, Prioritization and Implementation. Thirty-two healthcare professionals and an expert by lived experienced engaged with the process that took place over two stakeholder events.Results: Stakeholders at the first event identified and agreed upon 24 potential ideas to improve discharge from acute mental health services. These were refined at the second event to four elements of an interagency intervention: a multiagency ‘Discharge Team’ (with designated discharge coordinator), inclusive technology enabled team meetings, universal documentation and a patient generated discharge plan.Conclusion: This is the first study to codesign an interagency mental health discharge intervention based around a discharge team. We developed a model for working that places a greater focus on a patient generated discharge plan, interagency working, and information flow. A pilot of the proposed intervention is now needed to test the feasibility and effectiveness in reducing adverse outcomes

Temperature dependence of the Kerr nonlinearity and two-photon absorption in a silicon waveguide at 1.55{\mu}m

We measure the temperature dependence of the two-photon absorption and optical Kerr nonlinearity of a silicon waveguide over a range of temperatures from 5.5 to 300 K at a wavelength of 1.55 {\mu}m. The two-photon absorption coefficient is calculated from the power dependent transmission of a 4.9 ps pulse. We observed a nearly two-fold decrease in the two-photon absorption coefficient from 0.76 cm/GW at 300K to 0.42 cm/GW at 5.5 K. The Kerr nonlinearity is inferred from the self-phase modulation induced spectral broadening of the transmitted pulse. A smaller reduction in Kerr nonlinearity from 5.2E-18 m^2/W at 300 K to 3.9E-18 m^2/W at 5.5 K is found. The increased ratio of Kerr to absorptive nonlinearity at low temperatures indicates an improved operation of devices that make use of a nonlinear phase shift, such as optical switches or parametric photon-pair sources. We examine how the heralding efficiency of a photon-pair source will change at low temperature. In addition, the modelling and experimental techniques developed can readily be extended to other wavelengths or materials of interest.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Improving mental health care transitions through information capture during admission to inpatient mental health services: a quality improvement study

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2021-05-09, accepted 2021-10-05, registration 2021-10-07, pub-electronic 2021-10-21, online 2021-10-21, collection 2021-12Publication status: PublishedFunder: NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013235; Grant(s): PSTRC-2016-003, PSTRC-2016-003Abstract: Background: Many interventions aim to improve the transition from ward to community at the time of discharge, with varying success. Guidelines suggest that discharge planning should begin at admission, but in reality this is ideal rather than standard practice. We aimed to develop a novel information capture tool during admission that facilitates and accelerates discharge. Methods: A quality improvement study to develop, implement and evaluate a novel tool that improves information capture upon admission to acute mental health wards within a single English National Health Service (NHS) trust. We developed the tool by synthesising existing evidence and working with multi-agency and multi-disciplinary professionals in two co-design workshops. During implementation the tool was piloted on three wards. Ethnographic observations (145 h) and interviews (45) were used to evaluate the implementation of the tool across the three wards. Thematic synthesis was used to consolidate the findings. Results: The tool developed considerably as the process evolved. The finished product is a list of 10 information categories that should be captured from external agencies upon admission to hospital to facilitate discharge planning to community settings. Reported advantages of the tool were: (1) facilitating confidence in junior staff to legitimately question the suitability of a patient for an acute ward (2) collecting and storing essential information in a single accessible place that can be used throughout the care pathway and (3) collecting information from the services/agencies to which patients will eventually be discharged. Conclusions: Improving the quality of information at admission has the potential to facilitate and accelerate discharge. The novel tool provides a framework for capturing this information that can be incorporated into existing information systems. However, the introduction of the tool exacerbated complex, fragile distributed team dynamics, highlighting the importance of sociocultural context in information flow transitional interventions within distributed teams

Biocapacity and cost-effectiveness benefits of increased peatland restoration in Scotland

Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting is a widely-used ecological accounting framework which tracks human demand against the biosphere’s rate of regeneration. However, current national assessments do not yet include carbon-dense peatlands, hindering the evaluation of peatland biocapacity contributions. Also, the economic efficiency of peatland restoration is understudied and needed to inform land use decisions. We provide the first assessment of Scotland’s biocapacity and add peatlands as a novel land type. We then project the biocapacity impacts in 2050 of current peatland restoration targets and various alternative management scenarios. Finally, we estimate the cost per tonne of greenhouse gas abated of various peatland restoration scenarios, and compare this with estimates of afforestation mitigation costs from the literature. Our results show that Scotland’s per-person biocapacity exceeds the UK average by a factor of three. However, despite covering 25% of land area, peatland biocapacity increases Scotland’s biocapacity total by only 2%, while the Carbon Footprint of degraded peatlands increases Scotland’s ecological deficit by 40%. Current peatland restoration targets of the Scottish Government are estimated to reduce the national ecological deficit by only 9% in 2050. The cost-effectiveness of peatland restoration is context-dependent, and extremely cost-effective methods are applicable to peatland areas far exceeding current government restoration targets. Our findings provide land managers with evidence in favour of increased peatland restoration, both in terms of boosting biocapacity, and economic cost- effectiveness