Understanding student satisfaction and dissatisfaction : an interpretive study in the UK higher education context

This article represents a cross-sectional study of undergraduate students across two north-west university business schools in the UK. A purposefully designed questionnaire was collected from 350 students. The student experience was described in the form of hand-written narratives by first and final year students and had been identified by the respondents themselves as being satisfying or dissatisfying with the areas of teaching and learning and the supporting service environment. The study also assessed whether their experiences were likely to influence their loyalty behaviours with respect to remaining on their chosen course of study; recommending the university; and continuing at a higher level of study. The data were captured and analysed using the qualitative critical incident technique to capture the voice of the student and identified the critical determinants of quality within higher education, i.e. those areas that would influence loyalty behaviour, as being Access; Attentiveness; Availability; and Communication. A number of new determinants of quality have been identified out of the research by three independent judges, namely motivation, reward, social inclusion, usefulness, value for money and fellow student behaviour

Association of Air Pollution with Increased Incidence of Ventricular Tachyarrhythmias Recorded by Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillators

Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated a consistent link between sudden cardiac deaths and particulate air pollution. We used implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) records of ventricular tachyarrhythmias to assess the role of air pollution as a trigger of these potentially life-threatening events. The study cohort consisted of 203 cardiac patients with ICD devices in the Boston metropolitan area who were followed for an average of 3.1 years between 1995 and 2002. Fine particle mass and gaseous air pollution plus temperature and relative humidity were measured on almost all days, and black carbon, sulfate, and particle number on a subset of days. Date, time, and intracardiac electrograms of ICD-detected arrhythmias were downloaded at the patients’ regular follow-up visits (about every 3 months). Ventricular tachyarrhythmias were identified by electrophysiologist review. Risk of ventricular arrhythmias associated with air pollution was estimated with logistic regression, adjusting for season, temperature, relative humidity, day of the week, patient, and a recent prior arrhythmia. We found increased risks of ventricular arrhythmias associated with 2-day mean exposure for all air pollutants considered, although these associations were not statistically significant. We found statistically significant associations between air pollution and ventricular arrhythmias for episodes within 3 days of a previous arrhythmia. The associations of ventricular tachyarrhythmias with fine particle mass, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and black carbon suggest a link with motor vehicle pollutants. The associations with sulfate suggest a link with stationary fossil fuel combustion sources

Fermions and noncommutative emergent gravity II: Curved branes in extra dimensions

We study fermions coupled to Yang-Mills matrix models from the point of view of emergent gravity. The matrix model Dirac operator provides an appropriate coupling for fermions to the effective gravitational metric for general branes with nontrivial embedding, albeit with a non-standard spin connection. This generalizes previous results for 4-dimensional matrix models. Integrating out the fermions in a nontrivial geometrical background induces indeed the Einstein-Hilbert action of the effective metric, as well as additional terms which couple the Poisson tensor to the Riemann tensor, and a dilaton-like term.Comment: 34 pages; minor change

Renormalization group approach to matrix models via noncommutative space

We develop a new renormalization group approach to the large-N limit of matrix models. It has been proposed that a procedure, in which a matrix model of size (N-1) \times (N-1) is obtained by integrating out one row and column of an N \times N matrix model, can be regarded as a renormalization group and that its fixed point reveals critical behavior in the large-N limit. We instead utilize the fuzzy sphere structure based on which we construct a new map (renormalization group) from N \times N matrix model to that of rank N-1. Our renormalization group has great advantage of being a nice analog of the standard renormalization group in field theory. It is naturally endowed with the concept of high/low energy, and consequently it is in a sense local and admits derivative expansions in the space of matrices. In construction we also find that our renormalization in general generates multi-trace operators, and that nonplanar diagrams yield a nonlocal operation on a matrix, whose action is to transport the matrix to the antipode on the sphere. Furthermore the noncommutativity of the fuzzy sphere is renormalized in our formalism. We then analyze our renormalization group equation, and Gaussian and nontrivial fixed points are found. We further clarify how to read off scaling dimensions from our renormalization group equation. Finally the critical exponent of the model of two-dimensional gravity based on our formalism is examined.Comment: 1+42 pages, 4 figure

A Stochastic Approach to Shortcut Bridging in Programmable Matter

In a self-organizing particle system, an abstraction of programmable matter, simple computational elements called particles with limited memory and communication self-organize to solve system-wide problems of movement, coordination, and configuration. In this paper, we consider a stochastic, distributed, local, asynchronous algorithm for "shortcut bridging", in which particles self-assemble bridges over gaps that simultaneously balance minimizing the length and cost of the bridge. Army ants of the genus Eciton have been observed exhibiting a similar behavior in their foraging trails, dynamically adjusting their bridges to satisfy an efficiency trade-off using local interactions. Using techniques from Markov chain analysis, we rigorously analyze our algorithm, show it achieves a near-optimal balance between the competing factors of path length and bridge cost, and prove that it exhibits a dependence on the angle of the gap being "shortcut" similar to that of the ant bridges. We also present simulation results that qualitatively compare our algorithm with the army ant bridging behavior. Our work gives a plausible explanation of how convergence to globally optimal configurations can be achieved via local interactions by simple organisms (e.g., ants) with some limited computational power and access to random bits. The proposed algorithm also demonstrates the robustness of the stochastic approach to algorithms for programmable matter, as it is a surprisingly simple extension of our previous stochastic algorithm for compression.Comment: Published in Proc. of DNA23: DNA Computing and Molecular Programming - 23rd International Conference, 2017. An updated journal version will appear in the DNA23 Special Issue of Natural Computin

Metabolic flexibility as a major predictor of spatial distribution in microbial communities

A better understand the ecology of microbes and their role in the global ecosystem could be achieved if traditional ecological theories can be applied to microbes. In ecology organisms are defined as specialists or generalists according to the breadth of their niche. Spatial distribution is often used as a proxy measure of niche breadth; generalists have broad niches and a wide spatial distribution and specialists a narrow niche and spatial distribution. Previous studies suggest that microbial distribution patterns are contrary to this idea; a microbial generalist genus (Desulfobulbus) has a limited spatial distribution while a specialist genus (Methanosaeta) has a cosmopolitan distribution. Therefore, we hypothesise that this counter-intuitive distribution within generalist and specialist microbial genera is a common microbial characteristic. Using molecular fingerprinting the distribution of four microbial genera, two generalists, Desulfobulbus and the methanogenic archaea Methanosarcina, and two specialists, Methanosaeta and the sulfate-reducing bacteria Desulfobacter were analysed in sediment samples from along a UK estuary. Detected genotypes of both generalist genera showed a distinct spatial distribution, significantly correlated with geographic distance between sites. Genotypes of both specialist genera showed no significant differential spatial distribution. These data support the hypothesis that the spatial distribution of specialist and generalist microbes does not match that seen with specialist and generalist large organisms. It may be that generalist microbes, while having a wider potential niche, are constrained, possibly by intrageneric competition, to exploit only a small part of that potential niche while specialists, with far fewer constraints to their niche, are more capable of filling their potential niche more effectively, perhaps by avoiding intrageneric competition. We suggest that these counter-intuitive distribution patterns may be a common feature of microbes in general and represent a distinct microbial principle in ecology, which is a real challenge if we are to develop a truly inclusive ecology

Parents’ experiences of health visiting for children with Down syndrome

© MA Healthcare Limited.Children with Down syndrome have an increased likelihoodof experiencing serious health conditions. Health visitors canhave an important role in monitoring and promoting healthand development for young children with Down syndrome.This study aimed to explore parents’ experiences of healthvisiting services for children with Down syndrome. Twentyfour parents of children with Down syndrome aged 0–5 yearscompleted a brief questionnaire about the number and natureof visits from health visitors in the previous 12 months andtheir support needs. Some parents commented that otherprofessionals met the needs of their child, whereas others saidthat they would like more advice and support from healthvisitors. A further exploration of broader health serviceprovision, including health visiting, for young children withDown syndrome is needed.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The effect of age on emotion processing in individuals with mood disorders and in healthy individuals

Copyright \ua9 2024 Gray, Moot, Frampton, Douglas, Gallagher, Jordan, Carter, Inder, Crowe, McIntosh and Porter. Introduction: Emotion processing is an essential part of interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Changes in emotion processing have been found in both mood disorders and in aging, however, the interaction between such factors has yet to be examined in detail. This is of interest due to the contrary nature of the changes observed in existing research - a negativity bias in mood disorders versus a positivity effect with aging. It is also unclear how changes in non-emotional cognitive function with aging and in mood disorders, interact with these biases. Methods and results: In individuals with mood disorders and in healthy control participants, we examined emotional processing and its relationship to age in detail. Data sets from two studies examining facial expression recognition were pooled. In one study, 98 currently depressed individuals (either unipolar or bipolar) were compared with 61 healthy control participants, and in the other, 100 people with bipolar disorder (in various mood states) were tested on the same facial expression recognition task. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine the effects of age and mood disorder diagnosis alongside interactions between individual emotion, age, and mood disorder diagnosis. A positivity effect was associated with increasing age which was evident irrespective of the presence of mood disorder or current mood episode. Discussion: Results suggest a positivity effect occurring at a relatively early age but with no evidence of a bias toward negative emotions in mood disorder or specifically, in depressed episodes. The positivity effect in emotional processing in aging appears to occur even within people with mood disorders. Further research is needed to understand how this fits with negative biases seen in previous studies in mood disorders

An inhibitory pull-push circuit in frontal cortex.

Push-pull is a canonical computation of excitatory cortical circuits. By contrast, we identify a pull-push inhibitory circuit in frontal cortex that originates in vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP)-expressing interneurons. During arousal, VIP cells rapidly and directly inhibit pyramidal neurons; VIP cells also indirectly excite these pyramidal neurons via parallel disinhibition. Thus, arousal exerts a feedback pull-push influence on excitatory neurons-an inversion of the canonical push-pull of feedforward input