Comparing Professional and Academic Qualifications as a Route to Institutional Curriculum Change

There are many current initiatives concerned with achieving institutional changes to curricula. These include, inter alia, various versions of online learning, distance learning and work-based learning. This paper considers blending academic curricula and qualifications with professional body curricula and qualifications as a possible way of achieving cost-effective curricula change. The author’s home institution currently delivers Academic Qualifications in Facilities Management (FM); a BSc (Hons) and an MSc. The institution also delivers the Professional Qualifications for the relevant professional body, the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), at levels 4, 5 and 6.All qualifications and awards are delivered by web-based distance learning. This paper analyses the content and assessment of the Professional Qualification and compares the Professional Qualification with the equivalent Academic Qualification. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis the paper finds that the Professional Qualification is more challenging and more rigorous than the Academic Qualification. The expectations of the learners from the professional body are higher than the expectations of the students from the university. The implications of this finding are then considered. Given that the Professional Qualification is more challenging and rigorous, could the institutional curricula be changed so that the Professional Qualification could be integrated into an Academic Qualification, thus opening a vocational route for a degree? The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the financial costs and other implications of such an institutional curricula change

How dangerous is your life? Personalising Government open crime data

This paper discusses the use of Government Open Data and how public services based on this data can and should encourage data personalisation. We present our case study Fearsquare, an application that allows people to interact with public UK crime statistics in a way that is specific to their own, individual, everyday life by leveraging the popular social media service FourSquare. This service is used as an example of how Open Data can be tailored for used in the field of personal informatics. Results suggest that the ability to personalise Government Open Crime Data using Foursquare user location history data provides an added value to an already publically available dataset

Safeguarding development aid against climate change: evaluating progress and identifying best practice

Official development assistance currently totals around US$130 billion per year, an order of magnitude greater than international climate finance. To safeguard development progress and secure the long-term effectiveness of these investments, projects must be designed to be resilient to climate change. This article reviews 250 projects for three countries from two development organisations and finds that between 2% and 30% of these may require action now to "future-proof" investments and policies. Both organisations show improvements in the recognition of climate change in projects, but many projects are still not future-proof

Innovative system for delivery of low temperature district heating

An innovative low temperature district heating (LTDH) local network is developed in Nottingham, supported by the REMOURBAN project, part of the H2020 Smart City and Community Lighthouse scheme. It was proposed that a branch emanating from the return pipe of the existing district heating system in Nottingham would be created to use low temperature heating for the first time on such scale in the UK. The development is aimed to extract unused heat from existing district heating system and to make it more efficient and profitable. The 94 low-raised flats in four maisonette blocks in Nottingham demo site have been selected to be connected to this new LTDH system. The scheme will provide a primary supply of space heating and hot water at approximately 50°C to 60°C. Innovated solutions have been put forward to overcome certain barriers, such as legionella related risks and peak loads during extreme heating seasons and occasional maintenance

A longitudinal evaluation of a project-based learning initiative in an engineering undergraduate programme

Project-based learning (PBL) is a well-known student-centred methodology for engineering design education. The methodology claims to offer a number of educational benefits. This paper evaluates the student perceptions of the initial and second offering of a first-year design unit at Griffith University in Australia. It builds on an earlier evaluation conducted after the initial offering of the unit. It considers the implementation of the recommended changes. Evaluations of the two offerings reveal that students (in both the initial and second offering) generally enjoyed the experience, but that the second offering was found to be a significantly more enjoyable learning experience. Students in the second offering also reported a significantly better understanding of what they needed to do for the design projects and where to find the requisite information. The oral presentation aspect of the initial and second offerings received the lowest satisfaction rating. The inclusion (and delivery) of the computer-aided drawing component of the unit is seen as a positive aspect by some students, but many others comment on it negatively. The best aspects of the PBL unit and those aspects needing further improvement were similar to the findings of other investigations documented in the literature

Irradiation uniformity at the Laser MegaJoule facility in the context of the shock ignition scheme

The use of the Laser MegaJoule facility within the shock ignition scheme has been considered. In the first part of the study, one-dimensional hydrodynamic calculations were performed for an inertial confinement fusion capsule in the context of the shock ignition scheme providing the energy gain and an estimation of the increase of the peak power due to the reduction of the photon penetration expected during the high-intensity spike pulse. In the second part, we considered a Laser MegaJoule configuration consisting of 176 laser beams that have been grouped providing two different irradiation schemes. In this configuration the maximum available energy and power are 1.3 MJ and 440 TW. Optimization of the laser?capsule parameters that minimize the irradiation non-uniformity during the first few ns of the foot pulse has been performed. The calculations take into account the specific elliptical laser intensity profile provided at the Laser MegaJoule and the expected beam uncertainties. A significant improvement of the illumination uniformity provided by the polar direct drive technique has been demonstrated. Three-dimensional hydrodynamic calculations have been performed in order to analyse the magnitude of the azimuthal component of the irradiation that is neglected in twodimensional hydrodynamic simulations

Optimal laser intensity profiles for a uniform target illumination in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion

A numerical method providing the optimal laser intensity profiles for a direct-drive inertial confinement fusion scheme has been developed. The method provides an alternative approach to phase-space optimization studies, which can prove computationally expensive. The method applies to a generic irradiation configuration characterized by an arbitrary number NB of laser beams provided that they irradiate the whole target surface, and thus goes beyond previous analyses limited to symmetric configurations. The calculated laser intensity profiles optimize the illumination of a spherical target. This paper focuses on description of the method, which uses two steps: first, the target irradiation is calculated for initial trial laser intensities, and then in a second step the optimal laser intensities are obtained by correcting the trial intensities using the calculated illumination. A limited number of example applications to direct drive on the Laser MegaJoule (LMJ) are described

The Human Limpet Project: Where Humans and Limpets Meet

The story of limpets, those conical sea-snails frequently found on rocky shorelines may seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but that is not the case. If given careful, prolonged attention, room to express themselves and an engaged receptive audience they reveal a richly entangled human-nonhuman story which unfolds over thousands of years. A process of art-based research, underpinned by new materialist thinking and practice channels this attentiveness, provides physical room, makes space for creative inquiry, corresponds with humans and nonhumans, and generates a willing audience with enchanting, potentially life affirming consequences.