JointZone: users' view of an adaptive online learning resource for rheumatology

This paper describes an online learning resource for rheumatology that was designed for a wide constituency of users including primarily undergraduate medical students and health professionals. Although the online resources afford an informal learning environment, the site was pedagogically designed to comply with the general recommendations of the Standing Committee on Training and Education of EULAR (European League Against Rheumatism) for a rheumatology core curriculum. Any Internet user may freely browse the site content with optional registration providing access to adaptive features that personalize the user’s view, for example, providing a reading history and targeted support based on scores from completed case studies. The site has now been available since early 2003, and an online survey of site registrants indicates that well structured pedagogical materials that reflect a learners’ dominant ‘community of practice’ appear to be a successful aid to informal learning

Regular expressions as violin bowing patterns

String players spend a significant amount of practice time creating and learning bowings. These may be indicated in the music using up-bow and down-bow symbols, but those traditional notations do not capture the complex bowing patterns that are latent within the music. Regular expressions, a mathematical notation for a simple class of formal languages, can describe precisely the bowing patterns that commonly arise in string music. A software tool based on regular expressions enables performers to search for passages that can be handled with similar bowings, and to edit them consistently. A computer-based music editor incorporating bowing patterns has been implemented, using Lilypond to typeset the music. Our approach has been evaluated by using the editor to study ten movements from six violin sonatas by W. A. Mozart. Our experience shows that the editor is successful at finding passages and inserting bowings; that relatively complex patterns occur a number of times; and that the bowings can be inserted automatically and consistently

The influence of an upstream pylon on open rotor aerodynamics at angle of attack

The aerodynamic impact of installing a horizontal pylon in front of a contra-rotating open rotor engine, at take-off, was studied. The unsteady interactions of the pylon's wake and potential field with the rotor blades were predicted by full-annulus URANS CFD calculations at 0 deg and 12 deg angle of attack (AoA). Two pylon configurations were studied: one where the front rotor blades move down behind the pylon (DBP), and one where they move up behind the pylon (UBP). When operating at 12 deg AoA, the UBP orientation was shown to reduce the rear rotor tip vortex sizes and separated flow regions, whereas the front rotor wake and vortex sizes were increased. In contrast, the DBP orientation was found to reduce the incidence variations onto the front rotor, leading to smaller wakes and vortices. The engine flow was also time-averaged, and the variation in work done on average midspan streamlines was shown to depend strongly on variation in incidence, along with a smaller contribution related to change of radius.Rolls-Royce plc, SAGE ITD (part of the Clean Sky JTI), and EPSR

The Application and Evaluation of Adaptive Hypermedia Techniques in Web-based Medical Education

This article discusses the design issues involved in delivering web-based learning materials. An existing application in the medical domain – JointZone - is used to illustrate how personalization and an interactive environment can be incorporated into web-based learning. This work applies the combination of an adaptive hypermedia, situated learning approach, and hypermedia linking concepts to facilitate online learning. A usability study was carried out on the work described and an evaluation was undertaken to measure the effect of personalization on various learning factors. The evaluation outcome was analyzed subjectively and objectively. The results proved to be contradictory but nevertheless, the work gives new insights into the use of technology to support learning

Evaluating the predictive performance of empirical estimators of natural mortality rate using information on over 200 fish species

Many methods have been developed in the last 70 years to predict the natural mortality rate, M, of a stock based on empirical evidence from comparative life history studies. These indirect or empirical methods are used in most stock assessments to (i) obtain estimates of M in the absence of direct information, (ii) check on the reasonableness of a direct estimate of M, (iii) examine the range of plausible M estimates for the stock under consideration, and (iv) define prior distributions for Bayesian analyses. The two most cited empirical methods have appeared in the literature over 2500 times to date. Despite the importance of these methods, there is no consensus in the literature on how well these methods work in terms of prediction error or how their performance may be ranked. We evaluate estimators based on various combinations of maximum age (t(max)), growth parameters, and water temperature by seeing how well they reproduce \u3e200 independent, direct estimates of M. We use tenfold cross-validation to estimate the prediction error of the estimators and to rank their performance. With updated and carefully reviewed data, we conclude that a t(max)-based estimator performs the best among all estimators evaluated. The t(max)-based estimators in turn perform better than the Alverson-Carney method based on t(max) and the von Bertalanffy K coefficient, Pauly\u27s method based on growth parameters and water temperature and methods based just on K. It is possible to combine two independent methods by computing a weighted mean but the improvement over the t(max)-based methods is slight. Based on cross-validation prediction error, model residual patterns, model parsimony, and biological considerations, we recommend the use of a t(max)-based estimator (M = 4.899t(max)(-0.916), prediction error = 0.32) when possible and a growth-based method (M = 4.118K(0.73)L(infinity)(-0.33), prediction error = 0.6) otherwise

Supersymmetric b→sγb \rightarrow s \gamma with Large Chargino Contributions

Supersymmetric (SUSY) theories are often thought to give large branching ratios for $b \rightarrow s \gamma$ from charged Higgs loops. We show that in many cases chargino loop contributions can cancel those of the Higgs, and SUSY can give $B(b \rightarrow s \gamma)$ at or below the \SM\ prediction. We show this occurs because the large stop mass splittings usually found in SUSY break a GIM mechanism suppression. These effects are strongly enhanced by large $\tan\beta$, so that $B(b \rightarrow s \gamma)$ is very sensitive to the value of $\tan\beta$, contrary to what has been claimed. We also note that the supergravity relation $B_0 = A_0-1$ is somewhat disfavored over the general case.Comment: TRI-PP-93-66. 12pp (Plain LATEX)+4 fig not incl. PostScript file of figs available (~3MB), contact Corrie Kost [email protected]. Request hardcopy or FAX of figures through [email protected]

Structural Color 3D Printing By Shrinking Photonic Crystals

The rings, spots and stripes found on some butterflies, Pachyrhynchus weevils, and many chameleons are notable examples of natural organisms employing photonic crystals to produce colorful patterns. Despite advances in nanotechnology, we still lack the ability to print arbitrary colors and shapes in all three dimensions at this microscopic length scale. Commercial nanoscale 3D printers based on two-photon polymerization are incapable of patterning photonic crystal structures with the requisite ~300 nm lattice constant to achieve photonic stopbands/ bandgaps in the visible spectrum and generate colors. Here, we introduce a means to produce 3D-printed photonic crystals with a 5x reduction in lattice constants (periodicity as small as 280 nm), achieving sub-100-nm features with a full range of colors. The reliability of this process enables us to engineer the bandstructures of woodpile photonic crystals that match experiments, showing that observed colors can be attributed to either slow light modes or stopbands. With these lattice structures as 3D color volumetric elements (voxels), we printed 3D microscopic scale objects, including the first multi-color microscopic model of the Eiffel Tower measuring only 39-microns tall with a color pixel size of 1.45 microns. The technology to print 3D structures in color at the microscopic scale promises the direct patterning and integration of spectrally selective devices, such as photonic crystal-based color filters, onto free-form optical elements and curved surfaces