Experiences of using mobile technologies and virtual field tours in Physical Geography: implications for hydrology education

Education in hydrology is changing rapidly due to diversification of students, emergent major scientific and practical challenges that our discipline must engage with, shifting pedagogic ideas and higher education environments, the need for students to develop new discipline specific and transferrable skills, and the advent of innovative technologies for learning and teaching. This paper focuses on new technologies in the context of learning and teaching in Physical Geography and reflects on the implications of our experiences for education in hydrology. We evaluate the experience of designing and trialling novel mobile technology-based field exercises and a virtual field tour for a Year 1 undergraduate Physical Geography module at a UK university. The new exercises are based on using and obtaining spatial data, operation of meteorological equipment (explained using an interactive DVD), and include introductions to global positioning systems (GPS) and geographical information systems (GIS). The technology and exercises were well received in a pilot study and subsequent rolling-out to the full student cohort (∼150 students). A statistically significant improvement in marks was observed following the redesign. Although the students enjoyed using mobile technology, the increased interactivity and opportunity for peer learning were considered to be the primary benefits by students. This is reinforced further by student preference for the new interactive virtual field tour over the previous "show-and-tell" field exercise. Despite the new exercises having many advantages, exercise development was not trivial due to the high start-up costs, the need for provision of sufficient technical support and the relative difficulty of making year-to-year changes (to the virtual field tour in particular). Our experiences are highly relevant to the implementation of novel learning and teaching technologies in hydrology education

Clinical and cost-effectiveness of paramedic administered fascia iliaca compartment block for emergency hip fracture (RAPID 2)—protocol for an individually randomised parallel-group trial

Approximately 75,000 people fracture a hip each year in the UK. This painful injury can be devastating-with a high associated mortality rate-and survivors likely to be more dependent and less mobile. Pain relief at the scene of injury is known to be inadequate. Intravenous morphine is usually given by paramedics, but opioids are less effective for dynamic pain and can cause serious side effects, including nausea, constipation, delirium and respiratory depression. These may delay surgery, require further treatment and worsen patient outcomes. We completed a feasibility study of paramedic-provided fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB), testing the intervention, trial methods and data collection. The study (RAPID) demonstrated that a full trial was feasible. In this subsequent study, we aim to test safety, clinical and cost-effectiveness of paramedic-provided FICB as pain relief to patients with suspected hip fracture in the prehospital environment. We will conduct a pragmatic multi-centre individually randomised parallel-group trial, with a 1:1 allocation between usual care (control) and FICB (intervention). Hospital clinicians in five sites (paired ambulance services and receiving hospitals) in England and Wales will train 220 paramedics to administer FICB. The primary outcome is change in pain score from pre-randomisation to arrival at the emergency department. One thousand four hundred patients are required to find a clinically important difference between trial arms in the primary outcome (standardised statistical effect ~ 0.2; 90% power, 5% significance). We will use NHS Digital (England) and the SAIL (Secure Anonymised Information Linkage) databank (Wales) to follow up patient outcomes using routine anonymised linked data in an efficient study design, and questionnaires to capture patient-reported outcomes at 1 and 4 months. Secondary outcomes include mortality, length of hospital stay, job cycle time, prehospital medications including morphine, presence of hip fracture, satisfaction, mobility, and NHS costs. We will assess safety by monitoring serious adverse events (SAEs). The trial will help to determine whether paramedic administered FICB is a safe, clinically and cost-effective treatment for suspected hip fracture in the pre-hospital setting. Impact will be shown if and when clinical guidelines either recommend or reject the use of FICB in routine practice in this context. ISRCTN15831813 . Registered on 22 September 2021. [Abstract copyright: © 2022. The Author(s).

Don't cut to the chase: hunting experiences for zoo animals and visitors

This workshop explores different ways to use technology to facilitate hunting behaviour enrichment for zoo-housed animals and parallel gaming experiences for zoo visitors

Attentional focus and performance anxiety: Effects on simulated race-driving performance and heart rate variability

Previous studies have demonstrated that an external focus can enhance motor learning compared to an internal focus. The benefits of adopting an external focus are attributed to the use of less effortful automatic control processes, while an internal focus relies upon more effort-intensive consciously controlled processes.The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of a distal external focus with an internal focus in the acquisition of a simulated driving task and subsequent performance in a competitive condition designed to increase state anxiety.To provide further evidence for the automatic nature of externally controlled movements, the study included heart rate variability (HRV) as an index of mental effort. Sixteen participants completed eight blocks of four laps in either a distal external or internal focus condition, followed by two blocks of four laps in the competitive condition. During acquisition, the performance of both groups improved; however, the distal external focus group outperformed the internal focus group.The poorer performance of the internal focus group was accompanied by a larger reduction in HRV, indicating a greater investment of mental effort. In the competition condition, state anxiety increased, and for both groups, performance improved as a function of the increased anxiety. Increased heart rate and self-reported mental effort accompanied the performance improvement. The distal external focus group also outperformed the internal focus group across both neutral and competitive conditions and this more effective performance was again associated with lower levels of HRV. Overall, the results offer support for the suggestion that an external focus promotes a more automatic mode of functioning. In the competitive condition, both foci enhanced performance and while the improved performance may have been achieved at the expense of greater compensatory mental effort, this was not reflected in HRV scores. © 2012 Mullen, Faull, Jones and Kingston

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014: implications for sex workers and their clients

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced new powers to deal with behaviour deemed to be ‘anti-social’. In this paper we consider how the new law could be used against sex workers and their clients and the impact this may have. Although the new powers were not intentionally designed to respond to prostitution, we suggest that they will be utilised to tackle it. We argue that the law will be used inconsistently in a way which will go directly against policy which seeks to ‘tackle demand’ and take a less punitive approach to dealing with sex workers. Despite a policy shift to see sex workers more as victims and less as offenders, we draw on existing evidence to demonstrate that the new anti-social behaviour order law will be utilised to exclude street sex workers from public spaces. We claim that a degree of ‘policy re-fraction’ will occur when the new laws are implemented by practitioners

Diatoms and acid lakes. Proceedings of a workshop of the 8th International Diatom Symposium, Paris, September 1984

Diatom analysis of lake sedimentshasbecome one of the most important techniques used in the contemporary debate on lake acidification. In recent years the relationship between diatom assemblages and pH has been quantified allowing the pH history of individual lakes to be reconstructed. Much reliance is placed on these reconstructions yet we have little understanding of the causal mechanisms that underlie the impressive statistics. There has been little research on the ecology and physiology of diatom taxa in acid and acidifying waters and we have little information on the role of either planktonic or non-planktonic diatoms in acid lake ecosystems. This Workshop, hence, was not only devoted to the exchange of information on current research projects but also to a discussion of some of the ecological questions that require resolution to improve our understanding of the diatom:pH relationship

Heard but not seen: Comparing bat assemblages and study methods in a mosaic landscape in the Western Ghats of India.

We used capture (mist-netting) and acoustic methods to compare the species richness, abundance, and composition of a bat assemblage in different habitats in the Western Ghats of India. In the tropics, catching bats has been more commonly used as a survey method than acoustic recordings. In our study, acoustic methods based on recording echolocation calls detected greater bat activity and more species than mist-netting. However, some species were detected more frequently or exclusively by capture. Ideally, the two methods should be used together to compensate for the biases in each. Using combined capture and acoustic data, we found that protected forests, forest fragments, and shade coffee plantations hosted similar and diverse species assemblages, although some species were recorded more frequently in protected forests. Tea plantations contained very few species from the overall bat assemblage. In riparian habitats, a strip of forested habitat on the river bank improved the habitat for bats compared to rivers with tea planted up to each bank. Our results show that shade coffee plantations are better bat habitat than tea plantations in biodiversity hotspots. However, if tea is to be the dominant land use, forest fragments and riparian corridors can improve the landscape considerably for bats. We encourage coffee growers to retain traditional plantations with mature native trees, rather than reverting to sun grown coffee or coffee shaded by a few species of timber trees