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In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in full or partial lockdowns of higher education institutions (HEIs) in most countries worldwide. On the other hand, HEIs around the world were faced with the difficult questions of how to continue to provide training, learning and research activities to students during outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. Online and blended learnings are relatively new modes of teaching and learning activities which enable HEIs to offer either online only or a combination of online and physical-based programs of study respectively. Adoption of such learning practices helped ensure continued HEIs operations during outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. However, there are HEIs which still have no or limited investment in online and blended learning. This chapter outlines the different models of online and blended learning that HEIs can adopt, demystify the benefits, values and challenges posed by these models, necessary infrastructure including information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as required staff and student support services to ensure effective and efficient uptake and usage. It further shows that with a deliberate initial investment in the necessary infrastructure, staff and student support services, the resources of and potential for online and blended programs can be enormous. It also outlines remote learning models that HEIs can adopt, how to support students’ readiness for online and blended learning, the benefits and challenges posed by employing online and blended learning in HEIs and the necessary infrastructure and support services.

The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of selecting and engaging in biological sciences laboratory rotations from the perspective of doctoral students.

Within the socialization framework, this study uses a qualitative approach whereby 42 biological sciences students enrolled at highly selective US universities were interviewed in the first and second year of doctoral training about laboratory rotation experiences.

The study revealed how doctoral students used formal and informal information networks, explored research topics, struggled with funding concerns and learned about the social aspect of the laboratories in which they rotated.

While rotations are considered a signature pedagogy in the laboratory sciences, students’ experiences within them are understudied. This study offers new knowledge about what doctoral students experience while rotating that can be used to inform and improve rotation processes for both students and universities.

Currently, the existing similar simulation is still limited in the following aspects: un-rotatable laboratory devices, the difficulty in the pavement on steep seams and great error of the experimental data.

To address above-mentioned problems, this study combined theoretical analysis and numerical simulation and developed a rotatable experimental system for similar simulation on steep coal seam mining on the premise of ensuring experimental safety.

The present experimental system mainly consists of the model support, the rotation system and the bearing system. By taking into account the experimental requirements and actual laboratory space, the sizes of the model support and the bearing system were determined. Considering the requirements in space limit and rotation stability, the rotation mode of vertical sliding on the left side and the horizontal sliding on the lower side was designed.

Using programmable logic controller automatic angle control technology, the rotation angle, velocity and displacement of the model can be automatically adjusted and controlled so as to achieve safe rotation and precise control. Finally, the calculation method of the mass of the required similar materials for paving the coal strata at different inclination angles and in different horizons was analyzed, and the related mass proportion calculation software was developed.

The purpose of this study was to explore students’ perceptions to changes to the learning environment of their undergraduate physics laboratories, in which their scientific inquiry processes were stimulated.

The activities students engaged in were redesigned to reflect a guided inquiry approach and to acknowledge modern-day advances in science and technology. Further, enhanced guidance was provided for laboratory instructors regarding the nature of scientific inquiry and how to structure students’ inquiry experiences during laboratory sessions. Students’ views were sought regarding their perceptions of the impact of the reforms on the laboratory learning environments, their thinking processes in those environments and their views regarding the reform’s value and appropriateness.

Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data suggested that students responded positively to the reforms implemented. Large effect sizes of between 0.70 and 1.20 suggested significant positive shifts in students’ perceptions of dimensions of their laboratory learning environments. In interviews, students expressed that they had engaged in the cognitive processes of scientific inquiry and suggested that the reforms had stimulated such “inquiry” thinking. However, their perceptions of the value and appropriateness of such inquiry-oriented laboratory learning environments were mixed.

Concerns persist in higher education in relation to the extent of students’ inquiry processes in undergraduate physics laboratories. Reforms to both the activities that students engage in and to instructional strategies are necessary. Raising awareness of the views expressed by students might help inform future reforms that accommodate those views to further enhance similar reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview concerning employer brand image in a Finnish hospital organization. What is done for recruitment marketing? This study offers some proposals for improving the recruitment process.

The research is a qualitative case study and the research method used is a group interview. The research questions are approached from an organizational perspective. Background information about the current labour shortage in health care is gathered from the focus hospital organization, from the public media and from the health care trade organizations.

Very few marketing actions concerning employer image have been done in the focus hospital. There also existed a lack of appropriate recruitment tools and competence. Data systems and the internet have not been fully exploited in the recruitment process. Vacancies are not announced in educational institutes. Career development possibilities are not presented in job advertisements and job‐rotation has not been used in recruitment.

This paper provides useful information for health care managers and researchers concerning the role of employer image in recruiting and the importance of a well‐organized recruitment process.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new formulation for taking into account the convective term due to an imposed velocity field in the induction equation in a code based on Whitney elements called DOLMEN. Different Whitney forms are used to approximate the dependent variables. The authors study the kinematic dynamo action in a von Kármán configuration and obtain results in good agreement with those provided by another well validated code called SFEMaNS. DOLMEN is developed to investigate the dynamo action in non-axisymmetric domains like the impeller driven flow of the von Kármán Sodium (VKS) experiment. The authors show that a 3D magnetic field dominated by an axisymmetric vertical dipole can grow in a kinematic dynamo configuration using an analytical velocity field.

Different Whitney forms are used to approximate the dependent variables. The vector potential is discretized using first-order edge elements of the first family. The velocity is approximated by using the first-order Raviart-Thomas elements. The time stepping is done by using the Crank-Nicolson scheme.

The authors study the kinematic dynamo action in a von Kármán configuration and obtain results in good agreement with those provided by another well validated code called SFEMaNS. The authors show that a 3D magnetic field dominated by an axisymmetric vertical dipole can grow in a kinematic dynamo configuration using an analytical velocity field.

The findings offer a basis to a scenario for the VKS dynamo.

The Wellcome Trust has reviewed the provision of PhD training from the viewpoint of the students and supervisors it funds; this paper presents evidence from these reviews. A number of factors affect the “success” of the PhD training experience; what is considered good (i.e. fit for purpose) PhD research training may be different for the student and the supervisor. Compares and contrasts the views of PhD students and PhD supervisors on a number of issues including reasons for doing a PhD, the purpose of PhD training and perceptions of the quality of PhD research training. Suggests that to support the different needs of students, supervisors and the science base, a flexible yet quality assured approach to PhD research training is required.

THE 1954 specialist conference of the Stress Analysis Group of the Institute of Physics was held at Reading University on December 16 and 17, the subject being Stresses due to Vibration. The majority of the papers were of aeronautical interest, and for completeness summaries of all the papers delivered are given below. The meetings were under the chairmanship of Mr E. K. Frankl, chairman of the Stress Analysis Group, and the conference secretary, who under‐took the organization, was Mr V. M. Hickson, of the R.A.E.

This study aims to examine how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics doctoral students interact with postdocs within the research laboratory, identifying the nature and potential impacts of student–postdoc mentoring relationships.

Using a sample of 53 doctoral students in the biological sciences, this study uses a sequential mixed-methods design. More specifically, a phenomenological approach enabled the authors to identify how doctoral students make meaning of their interactions with postdocs and other research staff. Descriptive statistics are used to examine how emergent themes might differ as a product of gender and race/ethnicity and the extent to which emergent themes may relate to key doctoral student socialization outcomes.

This study reveals six emergent themes, which primarily focus on how doctoral students receive instrumental and psychosocial support from postdocs in their labs. The most frequent emergent theme captures the unique ways in which postdocs provide ongoing, hands-on support and troubleshooting at the lab bench. When examining how this theme plays a role in socialization outcomes, the results suggest that doctoral students who described this type of support from postdocs had more positive mental health outcomes than those who did not describe this type of hands-on support.

Literature on graduate student mentorship has focused primarily on the impact of advisors, despite recent empirical evidence of a “cascading mentorship” model, in which senior students and staff also play a key mentoring role. This study provides new insights into the unique mentoring role of postdocs, focusing on the nature and potential impacts of student–postdoc interactions.