7,023 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
OER Evidence Report 2013-2014
The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question ‘What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?’ and identify the particular influence of openness. We do this by working in collaboration with projects across four education sectors (K12, college, higher education and informal) extending a network of research with shared
methods and shared results.
The project combines:
– Targeted research collaboration with high profile OER projects
– A programme of international fellowship
– Global networking and expertise in OER implementation and evaluation
– A hub for research data and excellence in practice
This report is an interim review of evidence recorded against the key hypotheses that focus the research of the
OER Research Hub project
Enabling the Possibility of creating a New Smart Resilient City in the Post-Pandemic Period
Beginning in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe. Despite the full
lockdowns are being released deliberately and gradually in most parts of the world, social
distancing is still needed in short-term and medium-term to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
These disruptive changes of life and work landscape bring the needs to reset the way how we
use our cities and the opportunities to reshape the way how we manage our cities, which
directly impact on the wellbeing during the post-pandemic period. For previous developed
smart cities, it remains to be checked whether the historical data and the existing solutions
during pre-pandemic still works in the post-pandemic situations. Faced with the post-pandemic
situation that we have never seen before, the effectiveness of developed smart city solutions
along with the applicability of adopted historical data must be re-evaluated and re-verified
timely. This paper aims at providing a start point of enabling a future of resilient cities from
the pre-pandemic to post-pandemic. Firstly, behaviour changes will be discussed. Then, the
framework of the bidirectional interaction between human and cities will be established in this
paper, and the mitigation measures based on digital innovation will be further provided that
could guarantee the smart cities from the insufficient post-pandemic data. Future works and
challenges will also be discussed. With the pervasive digital transformation of cities, the
possibility of creating a more robust and smart resilient city is provided to maximally unleash
the value of data, historical or recent, under a people-focused view
Semi-automatic geometric digital twinning for existing buildings based on images and CAD drawings
Despite the emerging new data capturing technologies and advanced modelling systems, the process of geometric digital twin modelling for existing buildings still lacks a systematic and completed framework to streamline. As-is Building Information Model (BIM) is one of the commonly used geometric digital twin modelling approaches. However, the process of as-is BIM construction is time-consuming and needed to improve. To address this challenge, in this paper, a semi-automatic approach is developed to establish a systematic, accurate and convenient digital twinning system based on images and CAD drawings. With this ultimate goal, this paper summarises the state-of-the-art geometric digital twinning methods and elaborates on the methodological framework of this semi-automatic geometric digital twinning approach. The framework consists of three modules. The Building Framework Construction and Geometry Information Extraction (Module 1) defines the locations of each structural component through recognising special symbols in a floor plan and then extracting data from CAD drawings using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Meaningful text information is further filtered based on predefined rules. In order to integrate with completed building information, the Building Information Complementary (Module 2) is developed based on neuro-fuzzy system (NFS) and the image processing procedure to supplement additional building components. Finally, the Information Integration and IFC Creation (Module 3) integrates information from Module 1 and 2 and creates as-is Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) BIM based on IFC schema. A case study using part of an office building and the results of its analysis are provided and discussed from the perspectives of applicability and accuracy. Future works and limitations are also addressed
Streamlining pathways for minor injuries in emergency departments through radiographer-led discharge
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Diagnostic imaging services are essential to the diagnosis pathway for many patients arriving at hospital emergency departments with a suspected fracture. Commonly, these patients need to be seen again by a doctor or emergency nurse practitioner after an X-ray image has been taken in order to finalise the diagnosis and determine the next stage in the patients’ pathway. Here, significant waiting times can accrue for these follow-up consultations after radiographic imaging although the vast majority of patients are discharged. Research evidence from pilot studies suggests that patients with minor appendicular injuries could be safely discharged by a suitably qualified radiographer directly after imaging thereby avoiding queues for repeated consultation. In this study, we model patient pathways through an emergency department (ED) at a hospital in the South West of England using process mapping, interviews with ED staff and discrete event simulation (DES). The DES model allowed us to compare the current practice at the hospital with scenarios using radiographer-led discharge of patients directly after imaging and assess the reduction in patients’ length of stay in ED. We also quantified trade-offs between the provision of radiographer-led discharge and its effects, i.e. reduction in waiting times and ED workload. Finally, we discuss how this decision support tool can be used to support understanding for patients and members of staff.Part of this research, i.e. the work of Martin Pitt and Sebastian Rachuba, was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula (NIHR CLAHRC South West Peninsula)
Simulation of gain stability of THGEM gas-avalanche particle detectors
Charging-up processes affecting gain stability in Thick Gas Electron
Multipliers (THGEM) were studied with a dedicated simulation toolkit.
Integrated with Garfield++, it provides an effective platform for systematic
phenomenological studies of charging-up processes in MPGD detectors. We
describe the simulation tool and the fine-tuning of the step-size required for
the algorithm convergence, in relation to physical parameters. Simulation
results of gain stability over time in THGEM detectors are presented, exploring
the role of electrode-thickness and applied voltage on its evolution. The
results show that the total amount of irradiated charge through electrode's
hole needed for reaching gain stabilization is in the range of tens to hundreds
of pC, depending on the detector geometry and operational voltage. These
results are in agreement with experimental observations presented previously
Observation of enhanced rate coefficients in the H + H H + H reaction at low collision energies
The energy dependence of the rate coefficient of the H reaction has been measured in the range of
collision energies between K and
mK. A clear deviation of the rate coefficient from the value expected on the
basis of the classical Langevin-capture behavior has been observed at collision
energies below K, which is attributed to the joint
effects of the ion-quadrupole and Coriolis interactions in collisions involving
ortho-H molecules in the rotational level, which make up 75% of the
population of the neutral H molecules in the experiments. The experimental
results are compared to very recent predictions by Dashevskaya, Litvin, Nikitin
and Troe (J. Chem. Phys., in press), with which they are in agreement.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
- …