Self-assessment of knowledge in Higher Education

An appreciation of the extent of one’s knowledge has been referred to as metaknowledge and if well developed, this can help students to develop effective learning strategies. Accurate self-assessment can highlight gaps in knowledge and prompt initiatives to address these deficiencies. However previous studies suggest that metaknowledge tends to be poorly developed and the most common finding is that individuals tend to display overconfidence in their knowledge, by overestimating how much they know. This research addresses learning in a higher education environment and focuses specifically on students studying at a large UK business school. It aims to determine their ability to appreciate the extent of their knowledge in the context of their learning programme and to explore the relationship between this ability and academic performance. The study takes a quantitative approach, employing a research instrument incorporating a multiple choice test related to the participants’ study programme and an accompanying questionnaire. Having completed data collection, the next stage in the research is to analyse this data to determine whether and the extent to which, respondents display overconfidence in their assessment of their own knowledge. Individual differences in respect of age, gender and nationality will also be explored as well as the association between the ability to accurately self assess knowledgeand academic performance

Thermolabile protecting groups in metal-organic frameworks : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Prior to the work carried out for this thesis, there were no publications in which bpy was used as a ligand backbone, or in which a carboxylate was incorporated into a MOF using a TPG. Also, to the best of our knowledge there are no examples in the literature of an ethyl carbamate TPG in MOFs. In this thesis the range of TPG protected ligands has been expanded to include 1,4-bdc (Chapter 2) and bpy (Chapters 4 and 5). The bpy-NHBoc and bpy-TBE materials are the first examples of N-donor type ligands protected by TPGs. Furthermore, the bpy-TBE ligand is the first example of a TPG protected carboxylate in a MOF. In Chapter 2, 1,4-bdc-NH2 was protected as both the ethyl carbamate and the tert-butylcarbamate, giving 1,4-bdc-NHCOOEt and 1,4-bdc-NHBoc, which there then incorporated into a MOF-5-type framework. It was envisaged that thermolysis of the carbamate esters could generate an isocyanate group, though this was not expected for 1,4-bdc-NHBoc due to the tendency of tert-butylcarbamates to decompose to the amine. Despite thermolysis on the TGA apparatus only generating the amine, it was found that thermolysis under vacuum enabled not only enabled ~ 60 % conversion of the ethylcarbamate to 1,4-bdc-NCO, but also a ~20 % conversion of the tert-butylcarbamate to 1,4-bdc-NCO. The MOF-5 analogues in this work also proved sufficiently stable to survive the thermolysis conditions with little discernible effect on the porosity of the material. In Chapter 3, 1,3-bdc-NH2 was protected as both the ethyl carbamate and the tert-butylcarbamate, giving 1,3-bdc-NHCOOEt and 1,3-bdc-NHBoc, which there then incorporated into a lon-e-type framework. It became apparent the lon-e was a poor choice in MOF for use with TPGs as the framework was prone to collapse from desolvation, and it was not possible to thermolyse the materials without complete collapse of the MOFs. In Chapter 4, bpy-NH2 and bpy-CO2H were protected with TPGs to give bpy-NHBoc and bpy-TBE respectively. The ligands were combined with bpdc and zinc to obtain the BMOF-1-bpdc analogues MUF20-Aβ and MUF20-Aγ. Whilst the thermolysed materials MUF20-Aβt and MUF20-Aγt demonstrated significant gas uptakes compared to their protected counterparts, comparison of MUF20-Aβt with the directly synthesised material MUF20-Aβ’ revealed significantly higher uptakes than the thermolysed materials. This discrepancy indicates that the BMOF-1-bpdc/MUF20 framework is partially degraded under thermolysis conditions. These results strongly imply that this framework is not compatible with TPGs. However, TPGs did allow for the installation of a carboxylate group into the BMOF-1-bpdc/MUF20 framework which was not obtainable through direct synthesis methods. In Chapter 5, bpy-TBE was combined with btb and Zn/Cu to obtain Zn-DUT-23-TBE and Cu-DUT-23-TBE. These materials were then thermolysed to produce Zn/Cu-DUT-23-CO2H, materials that were not able to be directly synthesised using bpy-CO2H. Unfortunately, the thermolysed materials demonstrated significant decreases in uptakes compared to their protected counterparts. However, the TPG containing materials also had markedly lower uptakes than the parent Zn-DUT-23 and Cu-DUT-23 materials, which has been attributed to pore collapse. This partial pore collapse may have sufficiently weakened the MOF framework to increase its sensitivity to the thermolysis conditions, resulting in a much larger decrease in uptake than would have been the case with a defect free material. The results of this thesis revealed that MOF stability is a key factor in the compatibility of a material. Specifically, the MOF must be resistant to solvent removal and subsequent heating at elevated temperatures for extended periods. This is most clearly observed in Chapter 3, where the lon-e materials were very susceptible to solvent removal, and later were completely collapsed by thermolysis. These findings have led to the recommendations outlined in section 6.2 for the screening of MOFs for their compatibility with TPGs

Sleep and Stress Management in Enlightenment Literature and Poetry

‘Sleep and Stress Management in Enlightenment Literature and Poetry’ argues that the stresses known to disrupt sleep were often associated with unhealthy lifestyles and pressures of fashionable people of the upper classes, with the lower orders thought to be less susceptible to broken sleep because of their healthier modes of living. Highly popular poems such as Dr Edward Baynard’s comical Health, A Poem (1719), and Dr John Armstrong’s The Art of Preserving Health: A Poem (1744) gave medical lifestyle advice in an entertaining literary form that sugared the pill of dull lifestyle recommendations and treatments

Assessing Indications of Riskiness in Adolescents

Adolescents are often likely to engage in perilous behaviors during their transitional years from youth to adulthood. Nearly 75% of the primary causes of death in the adolescent population are of preventable causes. In order to address the harmful issues facing this young population today, researchers at the University of Michigan developed the Rapid Assessment for Adolescent Preventive Services (RAAPS), a 21-question risk screening examination that identifies the behaviors contributing the most to adolescent morbidity, mortality, and social problems. Over the course of this study, beginning in 2015, researchers utilized the RAAPS to gather data from University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) health clinics around Southeast Michigan. Clinic patients between the ages of 11 and 21 were administered the questionnaire as part of their primary care visit. The simple yes/no structure of each question allowed for a straightforward entry of data that could be analyzed to compare different factors affecting adolescents. Data from the assessment was entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical software for an in-depth analysis by researchers through the use of the Chi-squared test for categorical variables. Results regarding the data obtained from the assessment are still pending at the time of abstract submission; however, it is predicted that significant indications of harmful behavior will be linked to factors such as sexual orientation and/or median household income-level. These findings may suggest a new direction in which physicians can address issues for adolescents who identify with certain characteristics

Increasing discrimination in multi-criteria analysis

Multi criteria methods for supporting decision-making procedures are widely used in sustainability assessment. One of the most important steps in decision-making procedures is the evaluation of policy options or alternatives in order to find a hierarchy of option choices. Utility function value distributions are often constructed for the range of indicators for the options to be assessed. This distribution can be presented as an impact matrix stacked with indicator weights to reflect the relative importance of different indicators for the decision-maker. Solving rules are then introduced to integrate all individual indicator evaluations into a single integral utility estimation. These are often based on the averaging procedures, one of the simplest being arithmetic averaging. Whilst averaging rules are very attractive to decision makers due to their simplicity and logical transparency, using averaging as the first step of the decision-making procedures can significantly reduce the discrimination of the options, especially if there are counteractive individual indicator estimations.This paper proposes a method to evaluate and overcome this loss of discrimination. The paper explains the basis of a discriminatory analysis approach to sustainability assessment demonstrates its application through the use of illustrative data and describes its application to an existing case study where researchers had applied a number of multi criteria analysis tools. It was concluded that the discriminatory analysis provided a useful addition to the decision-makers toolbox as it provided a means of assessment of the validity of the application of the simple arithmetic averaging technique

Session:management of drainage near source – disconnection/minimise surface water entering public drainage

Many combined sewer networks are currently constrained due to lack of capacity. Surface water entering the network may have an impact on the local environment by causing additional spills from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and flooding events. With the increasing number of developments taking place in Scotland, more and more demands are being placed upon the existing wastewater assets and infrastructure of the drainage utility, Scottish Water. The principal way of preventing these CSO spills/flooding event s is to reduce the number of surface water connections to the combined sewer network and promote more surface water discharges to nearby watercourses.The problem is being addressed by examining all development applications as they are considered by a drainage planning officer in the water authority. The research reported in this paper is investigating the conditions under which it is reasonable and practical for Scottish Water to accept surface water flows into its combined sewer network . This paper presents a summary of the initial findings of the research to date by examining a sample of the sites examined. The objective of the work is to develop a methodology to support a rigorous stance on the acceptance of surface water flows into the combined sewer network. The results have not as yet been obtained

Experimental evaluation of active-member control of precision structures

The results of closed loop experiments that use piezoelectric active-members to control the flexible motion of a precision truss structure are described. These experiments are directed toward the development of high-performance structural systems as part of the Control/Structure Interaction (CSI) program at JPL. The focus of CSI activity at JPL is to develop the technology necessary to accurately control both the shape and vibration levels in the precision structures from which proposed large space-based observatories will be built. Structural error budgets for these types of structures will likely be in the sub-micron regime; optical tolerances will be even tighter. In order to achieve system level stability and local positioning at this level, it is generally expected that some form of active control will be required