Evaluation of the InDUCKtion project at UCL

Executive summary: There is evidence that a good induction to university life can help with student retention; however, there is also a danger of overwhelming students during the intense period of fresher’s week. Under the auspices of a small grant from the Higher Education Academy’s ‘Changing the Learning Landscape’ funding stream, staff at two universities (University College London and Southampton Solent University) collaborated to produce an innovative and engaging induction project entitled ‘InDUCKtion’, based on the idea of an induction duck being a fun character for students to interact with. At UCL, the InDUCKtion duck existed in the form of a physical plastic duck included in international postgraduate student induction packs, and they were encouraged to take photos of themselves in and around UCL and London as part of a photo challenge using social media. It was anticipated that this would enable students to familiarise themselves with the locale, make friends and have fun at the same time. The InDUCKtion duck was also evident on flyers and posters with QR codes advertising an online tour to enable students to gain an accelerated familiarisation with the campus and its facilities. Within UCL, the project was a collaborative, cross-departmental venture instigated by members of UCL’s E-Learning Environments (ELE) working in partnership with the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) and Student Support and Wellbeing (SSW). The logistics of the project meant that the team members also had to liaise with a number of other individuals and departments around UCL, to help promote and implement the project. Despite a rapid following on Twitter in a relatively short period, a reasonable hit rate on the QR code for the main page of the online tour resource, and some engagement with the photo challenges using social media, participation in the project was lower than anticipated. Lessons learned from an evaluation perspective revealed that adding another activity to an already overwhelming fresher’s week was problematic, despite its innovative and interactive nature. The use of QR codes was problematic for a number of reasons, and the project needed more buy-in from student representatives and academics to provide institutional endorsement. Recommendations for future instances of the project include securing student representation and academic endorsement, integrating the activity with parallel induction activities – particularly with academic departments, replacing QR codes with an alternative technology-enhanced learning approach and optimising the learning design to better motivate students and promote groupwork

Non-exponential relaxation and hierarchically constrained dynamics in a protein

A scaling analysis within a model of hierarchically constrained dynamics is shown to reproduce the main features of non-exponential relaxation observed in kinetic studies of carbonmonoxymyoglobin.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures in text. Reference errors have been correcte

Electromagnetic field quantization in a linear polarizable and magnetizable medium

By modeling a linear polarizable and magnetizable medium (magneto-dielectric) with two quantum fields, namely E and M, electromagnetic field is quantized in such a medium consistently and systematically. A Hamiltonian is proposed from which, using the Heisenberg equations, Maxwell and constitutive equations of the medium are obtained. For a homogeneous medium, the equation of motion of the quantum vector potential, $\vec{A}$, is derived and solved analytically. Two coupling functions which describe the electromagnetic properties of the medium are introduced. Four examples are considered showing the features and the applicability of the model to both absorptive and nonabsorptive magneto-dielectrics.Comment: 23 pages, Accepted for publication in Phy.Rev

Origin of non-exponential relaxation in a crystalline ionic conductor: a multi-dimensional 109Ag NMR study

The origin of the non-exponential relaxation of silver ions in the crystalline ion conductor Ag7P3S11 is analyzed by comparing appropriate two-time and three-time 109Ag NMR correlation functions. The non-exponentiality is due to a rate distribution, i.e., dynamic heterogeneities, rather than to an intrinsic non-exponentiality. Thus, the data give no evidence for the relevance of correlated back-and-forth jumps on the timescale of the silver relaxation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Illumination in symbiotic binary stars: Non-LTE photoionization models. II. Wind case

We describe a non-LTE photoionization code to calculate the wind structure and emergent spectrum of a red giant wind illuminated by the hot component of a symbiotic binary system. We consider spherically symmetric winds with several different velocity and temperature laws and derive predicted line fluxes as a function of the red giant mass loss rate, \mdot. Our models generally match observations of the symbiotic stars EG And and AG Peg for \mdot about 10^{-8} \msunyr to 10^{-7} \msunyr. The optically thick cross- section of the red giant wind as viewed from the hot component is a crucial parameter in these models. Winds with cross-sections of 2--3 red giant radii reproduce the observed fluxes, because the wind density is then high, about 10^9 cm^{-3}. Our models favor winds with acceleration regions that either lie far from the red giant photosphere or extend for 2--3 red giant radii.Comment: 51 pages, LaTeX including three tables, requires 15 Encapsulated Postscript figures, to appear in Ap

The last glacial-interglacial cycle in Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania): testing diatom response to climate

Lake Ohrid is a site of global importance for palaeoclimate research. This study presents results of diatom analysis of a ca. 136 ka sequence, Co1202, from the northeast of the lake basin. It offers the opportunity to test diatom response across two glacial-interglacial transitions and within the Last Glacial, while setting up taxonomic protocols for future research. The results are outstanding in demonstrating the sensitivity of diatoms to climate change, providing proxy evidence for temperature change marked by glacial-interglacial shifts between the dominant planktonic taxa, Cyclotella fottii and C. ocellata, and exact correlation with geochemical proxies to mark the start of the Last Interglacial at ca. 130 ka. Importantly, diatoms show much stronger evidence in this site for warming during MIS3 than recorded in other productivity-related proxies, peaking at ca. 39 ka, prior to the extreme conditions of the Last Glacial maximum. In the light of the observed patterns, and from the results of analysis of early Holocene sediments from a second core, Lz1120, the lack of a response to Late Glacial and early Holocene warming from ca. 15-7.4 ka suggests the Co1202 sequence may be compromised during this phase. After ca. 7.4 ka, there is evidence for enhanced nutrient enrichment compared to the Last Interglacial, following by a post-Medieval cooling trend. Taxonomically, morphological variability in C. fottii shows no clear trends linked to climate, but an intriguing change in central area morphology occurs after ca. 48.7 ka, coincident with a tephra layer. In contrast, C. ocellata shows morphological variation in the number of ocelli between interglacials, suggesting climatically-forced variation or evolutionary selection pressure. The application of a simple dissolution index does not track preservation quality very effectively, underlining the importance of diatom concentration data in future studies

Regional scale effects of the aerosol cloud interaction simulated with an online coupled comprehensive chemistry model

We have extended the coupled mesoscale atmosphere and chemistry model COSMO-ART to account for the transformation of aerosol particles into cloud condensation nuclei and to quantify their interaction with warm cloud microphysics on the regional scale. The new model system aims to fill the gap between cloud resolving models and global scale models. It represents the very complex microscale aerosol and cloud physics as detailed as possible, whereas the continental domain size and efficient codes will allow for both studying weather and regional climate. The model system is applied in a first extended case study for Europe for a cloudy five day period in August 2005. <br><br> The model results show that the mean cloud droplet number concentration of clouds is correlated with the structure of the terrain, and we present a terrain slope parameter TS to classify this dependency. We propose to use this relationship to parameterize the probability density function, PDF, of subgrid-scale cloud updraft velocity in the activation parameterizations of climate models. <br><br> The simulations show that the presence of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and clouds are closely related spatially. We find high aerosol and CCN number concentrations in the vicinity of clouds at high altitudes. The nucleation of secondary particles is enhanced above the clouds. This is caused by an efficient formation of gaseous aerosol precursors above the cloud due to more available radiation, transport of gases in clean air above the cloud, and humid conditions. Therefore the treatment of complex photochemistry is crucial in atmospheric models to simulate the distribution of CCN. <br><br> The mean cloud droplet number concentration and droplet diameter showed a close link to the change in the aerosol. To quantify the net impact of an aerosol change on the precipitation we calculated the precipitation susceptibility <i>β</i> for the whole model domain over a period of two days with an hourly resolution. The distribution function of <i>β</i> is slightly skewed to positive values and has a mean of 0.23. Clouds with a liquid water path LWP of approximately 0.85 kg m<sup>−2</sup> are on average most susceptible to aerosol changes in our simulations with an absolute value of <i>β</i> of 1. The average <i>β</i> for LWP between 0.5 kg m<sup>−2</sup> and 1 kg m<sup>−2</sup> is approximately 0.4

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay and Lepton Flavor Violation

We point out that extensions of the Standard Model with low scale (~TeV) lepton number violation (LNV) generally lead to a pattern of lepton flavor violation (LFV) experimentally distinguishable from the one implied by models with GUT scale LNV. As a consequence, muon LFV processes provide a powerful diagnostic tool to determine whether or not the effective neutrino mass can be deduced from the rate of neutrinoless double beta decay. We discuss the role of \mu -> e \gamma and \mu -> e conversion in nuclei, which will be studied with high sensitivity in forthcoming experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Cavity-assisted spontaneous emission as a single-photon source: Pulse shape and efficiency of one-photon Fock state preparation

Within the framework of exact quantum electrodynamics in dispersing and absorbing media, we have studied the quantum state of the radiation emitted from an initially in the upper state prepared two-level atom in a high-$Q$ cavity, including the regime where the emitted photon belongs to a wave packet that simultaneously covers the areas inside and outside the cavity. For both continuing atom--field interaction and short-term atom--field interaction, we have determined the spatio-temporal shape of the excited outgoing wave packet and calculated the efficiency of the wave packet to carry a one-photon Fock state. Furthermore, we have made contact with quantum noise theories where the intracavity field and the field outside the cavity are regarded as approximately representing independent degrees of freedom such that two separate Hilbert spaces can be introduced.Comment: 16 pages, 7 eps figures; improved version as submitted to Phys. Rev.

Caging dynamics in a granular fluid

We report an experimental investigation of the caging motion in a uniformly heated granular fluid, for a wide range of filling fractions, $\phi$. At low $\phi$ the classic diffusive behavior of a fluid is observed. However, as $\phi$ is increased, temporary cages develop and particles become increasingly trapped by their neighbors. We statistically analyze particle trajectories and observe a number of robust features typically associated with dense molecular liquids and colloids. Even though our monodisperse and quasi-2D system is known to not exhibit a glass transition, we still observe many of the precursors usually associated with glassy dynamics. We speculate that this is due to a process of structural arrest provided, in our case, by the presence of crystallization.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let