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Year: 2021

UA and headspace partner to deliver new mental health resources to universities

Posted on by Editorial Team

Prompting thoughtful and timely conversations and connecting university staff and students with the mental health support they need is at the centre of a new initiative launched today by Universities Australia in partnership with headspace.

The Real Talk framework will inform a series of two-hour workshops carefully tailored for Australian university staff to help them notice changes in a person’s mood or behaviours, start a conversation about mental health, and provide appropriate support.

Universities Australia Chief Executive Catriona Jackson said there can be a range of biological, social and environmental factors that affect someone’s mental health.

“As students and staff begin to return to campus after a period of much uncertainty, it’s incredibly important to consider the experiences they may be carrying as a result of lockdowns, separation from loved ones, physical health, financial burdens and transitioning to different ways of learning and working,” Ms Jackson said.

“Real Talk has been developed to help staff recognise when their students, peers and colleagues are struggling, and to have confidence finding the right words to use if they would like help.”

“It encourages caring conversations that bring hope and validation, while also connecting people to the appropriate support.”

The Real Talk framework builds on an initiative launched by Universities Australia and headspace last year to help universities respond to death by suicide in their communities. Further resources to support universities with suicide prevention will be released later this year.

headspace CEO, Jason Trethowan is proud to be launching the Real Talk framework in partnership with Universities Australia.

“We all have a crucial role to play when it comes to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of the community and that’s why the launch of this new framework is such a great step forward,” Mr Trethowan said.

“Noticing changes in someone’s behaviour, knowing how to safely check in and being able to provide help or connect them with services are critical skills and it’s great to see the commitment from Universities Australia to developing these skills within the university communities.”

“We look forward to working with Universities Australia to develop the skills to provide help for others both now and into the future.”

SMU maintains prestigious AAHRPP accreditation

Posted on by Teo Chang Ching

The Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc. (AAHRPP), which promotes high-quality research through an accreditation process that helps organisations worldwide strengthen their human research protection programmes, has announced that Singapore Management University (SMU) has been awarded Full Re-accreditation for five years. SMU was first accredited by AAHRPP in 2018.

SMU remains the only University in Singapore to become an AAHRPP accredited research organisation and the first to be re-accredited. Besides SMU, the only other university-level accredited organisation in Asia (not specific to a medical-related research unit), is Peking University.

Professor Archan Misra, SMU’s Vice Provost (Research) said “Attaining re-accreditation demonstrates AAHRPP’s strong vote of confidence in the high international standards of SMU’s research processes. It also reaffirms that SMU IRB continues to meet all the Accreditation Standards of AAHRPP and our commitment to continuously improve our Human Research Protection Programme to protect the safety, welfare and rights of the individuals who participate in our research, even as research projects evolve to increasingly embrace in-field experimentation and AI technologies.”

In its report on the re-accreditation, AAHRPP noted that SMU has a robust process between the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Research Office that allows all grants, contracts, and other proposals being submitted for funding to be sent to and reviewed by the IRB to determine whether human participant research is involved. IRB’s professional support for SMU community members’ human participant research is also addressed. During the past three years, SMU IRB has successfully reviewed and approved 1,389 studies.

The review committee was impressed by SMU’s processes and procedures in protecting the rights and welfare of research participants, and the attention that senior management devoted to balancing the enablement of avant-garde research with the need to protect participants’ rights and the university’s reputation.

To attain re-accreditation, an institution needs to continue to meet all the Accreditation Standards set out by AAHRPP. These include building extensive safeguards into every level of their research operation, and that they adhere to high standards for research.

Examples of the processes and culture that SMU has built into the research operations to protect the safety, welfare, privacy and rights of research participants include the establishment of additional safeguards to protect the vulnerable populations in research, the regular evaluation of SMU Institutional Review Board’s composition and performance to ensure high-quality reviews of human participant research, as well as the inclusion of compliance measures to ensure the proper conduct of transnational research by the SMU researchers.

New mathematical generator helps scientists at CERN predict behavior of dark matter particles

Posted on by Tomsk Polytechnic University

Scientists at the NA64 Collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have developed a program that simulates the birth and behaviour of several classes of hypothetical dark matter particles. Young scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University participated in the research. According to researchers, such predictions are necessary to design detectors that try to intercept new elementary particles. The principle of the generator configuration is described in an article published in the Computer Physics Communications journal (IF: 4,390; Q1).

The NA64 experiment is carried out at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), a circular particle accelerator at CERN. Since 2020, Tomsk Polytechnic University has officially become an associate member of the NA64 collaboration. TPU scientists participate in analyzing data from the detectors, modelling experimental setups, and general works.

The entire experiment aims at creating conditions under which dark matter particles could form. It is assumed that the dark matter, the existence of which a number of cosmological observations allow, consists of currently unknown massive particles.

The proof of the dark matter existence is necessary to explain astrophysical phenomena such as an abnormal rotation rate of the outer regions of galaxies, characteristics of relic radiation, motion of star clusters and their collisions, and to explain the origin of the universe itself.

“In order to create detectors that can register such theoretically predicted particles, we have to understand what we need to register. In this regard, it is important to model in advance, to predict the properties and behaviour of particles. We can do this by applying Monte Carlo methods and using statistical generators. Our collaboration has developed such a generator for four possible classes of light dark matter. They are similar to each other by birth conditions via electromagnetic mixing mechanisms. The development of this generator was oriented towards the well-known modelling tool previously developed at CERN, Geant4. Even though that it is generally available, working with it and creating new modules for it requires high qualification,” Renat Dusaev, one of the authors of the article, an engineer at the TPU Research School of High-Energy Physics, says.

The generator makes predictions based on particle data that are already known. More precisely – they are considered to be theoretically predicted. These are, for instance, their quantum numbers, mass, coupling constants, and so on.

“The efficiency of the generator, I mean, the speed of the program, depends on the majorizing function. Therefore, it is necessary to choose it correctly; it depends on pure mathematical intuition. In this case, we managed to find a good option, which allows the generator to work as efficiently as possible, as far as possible in principle. TPU’s task includes working with the majorizing function and integration of modules with Geant4,” the scientist says.

Following the raw data, the generator simulates the behaviour of particles: their movement, dispersion, frequency of occurrence.

“First of all, we are interested in parameters – how often particles can appear, and where they fly to. This is highly important to set up the experiment,” adds Renat Dusaev.

A computationally quick approach to predict molten droplet solidification on a solid surface

Posted on by Tokyo University of Science

In a study published in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, a group of scientists from Japan developed a model that can quickly and accurately simulate the solidification of a single molten droplet on a flat surface. Their model does not require any prior information to setup and can be used to develop models that can predict the deposition process in jet engines.

The research term consisted of Dr. Koji Fukudome and Prof. Makoto Yamamoto from the Tokyo University of Science, Dr. Ken Yamamoto from Osaka University, and Dr. Hiroya Mamori from The University of Electro-Communications.

Unlike previous models that assumed the surface to be at a constant temperature, the new approach simulates the solidification process by considering the droplet behavior and the heat transfer between the hotter droplet and the cooler surface. “We have been simulating droplet impact, but we could not ignore the difference from the experiment. In this study, we thought that taking into account the temperature change of the colliding wall surface would be consistent with the experiment”, explains Dr. Fukudome.

To have a less computationally intensive model, the researchers opted for a mesh-less moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method which did not require multiple calculations on each grid. The MPS method is based on fundamental equations of fluid flow (such as the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and mass balance conservation equations) and has been widely used to simulate complex flows. Meanwhile, the temperature change inside the substrate was computed using the grid-based method, so that we used the coupling method of both particle-based and grid-based methods.

Using this approach, the researchers simulated the solidification of molten tin droplet on a stainless steel substrate. The model performed relatively well and was able to replicate the solidification process observed in experiments. The simulations also provided an in-depth view into the solidification process, highlighting the spreading behavior and the temperature distribution of the droplet as it comes in contact with the solid surface.

Their simulations showed that the solidification is dependent on the thickness of the liquid film that was formed after the molten droplet had come in contact with the surface. Solidification initiates as the liquid film expands on the surface and was first observed at the edge of the liquid film near the surface. As the liquid film continues to spread and become thinner, solidification progresses until the entire film is turned into solid particles.

These findings are an improvement on current solidification models and the team is hopeful that their current approach can be used to build more complex deposition models. “There is no universal model for predicting depositions. Therefore, when considering the deposition of a certain droplet, a model is created by conducting experiments in advance, and numerical predictions are made. This study is expected to be a pioneer in the development of a universal deposition model,” Dr. Fukudome remarks.

Thanks to this study, engineers and scientists can get a better understanding of the complex deposition phenomena and jet engine designs can be redesigned to be safer and long-lasting.

TPU scientists find simple method to control photonic nanojet

Posted on by Tomsk Polytechnic University

Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with scientists from National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) proposed a simple method to control and move a photonic nanojet (PNJ) by a ray focusing in a very small local area.

The operation of powerful up-to-date microscopes is based on the PNJ effect. In the long run, the simple method of moving the PNJ in depth may help to accelerate and simplify work with microscopes, increase the depth of field without reducing the quality of scanning. The research findings are published in the Optics Letter academic journal (IF: 3,776; Q1).

“There are small glass spheres in the design of powerful up-to-date microscopes — nanoscopes with the resolution up to 200 nanometers. The sphere focuses on emission, however, at the same time, it remains in the focus point of the lens. Due to this, multiple zooming occurs. To see a new area of the object in its depth, nowadays, the stand is moved with the object. It reduces the research quality and takes a lot of time. We offered to move the PNJ using two metal screens — thin aluminium plates,” Oleg Minin, Professor of the Division for Electronic Engineering of the TPU School of Non-Destructive Testing, a supervisor of the project, says.

The experiments were conducted using a dielectric polymer cube and not the sphere. The size of the cube is only four micrometres. The authors of the article note that the obtained results are also applied to the sphere.

“The plates were located on the sides of the cube. The PNJ moved together with the movement of these metal screens. Moreover, we fixed that the length and width of generated PNJs decreased almost in two folds in case of screen presence, which in the long run will allow changing both its resolution and the focus position in the process of microscope operation. At the same time, the resolution of the PNJ increased by 1,2 folds. Furthermore, by changing the width of plates, it is possible to change the PNJ focal length, i.e. to scan the focus area in-depth, to view objects in the third dimension,” the scientist explains.

During the experiments conducted, the plates were moved manually. According to scientists, in the future, this process can be automated.

“It is an extremely simple solution. Due to the lower cost of these dielectric cubes, they can be used for obtaining the PNJ effect not only in microscopes but also in modern integrated optical circuits, optical switches, lithography systems and so on,” Oleg Minin says.

UiTM FCMS reimagines Communication and Media in the face of the digital age

Posted on by A. HAMID SAIFUDDIN

The Faculty of Communication and Media Studies (FCMS), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), recently hosted their second International Conference on Media and Social Sciences (iCOMS2021), bearing the theme of ‘Reimagining Communication and Media in the Face of the Digital Age’.

This three-day conference was held virtually, connecting academicians, policymakers, industry players, and media and communication practitioners from all corners of the globe.

Amidst the global pandemic, the faculty believes that making connections is essential to ensure that research literacy, envisioned sustainability, pedagogical engagement, and findings visibility takes centre stage for participants to assimilate and practice. The conference drew ten (10) international participants, namely from Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines.

The conference was anchored by strong strategic partners and collaborators, including Al Jazeera Media Network, the Malaysian Press Institute, Polytechnic University of Philippines, Universitas Andalas, University of Zululand and UiTM’s Centre of Strategic Communication and Analytical Laboratory (COSCAL), which contributed to its success.

FCMS believes the coming together of academics and the industry would lessen the gap caused by the pandemic that has significantly hindered potential growth in student’s empowerment, employability, and career mobility. As such, this digital conference was built in this very foundation for all to review potential solutions and remain united in delivering progress needed for collective growth.

The conference hosted seven of the sector’s esteemed speakers and offered 14 parallel sessions featuring policymakers, media executives and respected academicians of the field. Among those who present were Datuk Dr Chamil Wariya, Chairman of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI), Dr Yaser Bishr, Executive Director of Digital Al Jazeera Media Network (Qatar), John D. Chacko, Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies (UiTM) who is also President of New York-based International Advertising Association (IAA) Malaysian chapter, and Prof. Mohan J. Dutta, Director of the Centre for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at Massey University, New Zealand.

The conference was officiated by Professor Ts Dr Hajah Roziah Mohd Janor, the recently appointed Vice-Chancellor of UiTM.

“Digitally, we are open to more opportunities to reflect and improve the different approaches in communication and media. With technology altering societies to become resilient and sustainable, such extraordinary potential should be channelled into improving education, social and economic development that will infuse robustness into our livelihood.  Therefore, the theme for iCOMS2021, ‘Reimagining Communication and Media in the Face of the Digital Age’, is relevant to what we are facing today,” noted Professor Ts. Dr Hajah Roziah Mohd Janor.

The Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, who is also iCOMS2021’s General Chair, Associate Professor Dr Massila Hamzah, also added that “a range of rethinking and restructuring needs to be taken into consideration following the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted “business from the usual”, moving forward into approaches and point of views that picks up the pace from global rebound”.

Indeed, the conference was a much-needed avenue for participants as they shared their notable moments in research and best practices. Every presenter was an epitome of success in their own right; a soldier of sonnets, a warrior of words and pugilist of prose as they presented their findings, managing a laugh or two in between takes. The pandemic may have ravaged the world as we know it, but iCOMS2021 managed to bring out the best in everyone, advocating working on our similarities and shedding away our differences to make the world a better place for us to live in.

TPU joins University Consortium to train international students for further study at Russian Universities

Posted on by Tomsk Polytechnic University

Tomsk Polytechnic University has become a member of a new consortium entitled Network Pre-University Faculty for Foreign Citizens. The consortium unites five leading universities, which jointly create and will implement a unique program of training international attendees to study bachelor’s, master’s degree and PhD programs in Russian at Russian universities.

The members of the consortium became Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Voronezh State University, Moscow State University of Technology “STANKIN”, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.

“These are universities possessing long-term and successful experience of training international students, as well as possessing preparatory divisions and faculties in their structure. A few years ago, we cooperated with Pushkin State Russian Language Institute in the project of creating a LMS platform entitled Education in Russian. TPU designed online courses in Mathematics, Physics and Informatics. As the result, there was a decision to enlarge a project and create a united network preparatory course,” Evgenia Sherina, Head of the Division for Russian Language of the TPU School of Core Engineering Education, says.

The course duration is 10 months. It will include classes with professors in the distance-learning mode and access to online courses for learning Russian and major subjects in Russian. For instance, training programs to study a bachelor’s degree will be designed in five areas: Humanities (Russian, Literature, History, Social Studies), Economics (Russian, Mathematics, History, Social Studies), Biomedical (Russian, Chemistry, Biology, Physics), Natural Science (Russian, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry), Technical (Russian, Mathematics, Physics, Informatics).

“At the moment, the consortium members are finishing the design of the courses and reviewing them. The most important is that an international attendee enrolling on the Network Pre-University Faculty can choose a definite university, which will coordinate his training, however, at the same time, he can use the resources of all member universities, have classes with highly qualified professors using all the most up-to-date communication and information technologies. Attendees will also have an opportunity to take part in online events of the member universities of the consortium such as speaking clubs, conferences, academic competitions,” Evgenia Sherina adds.

After completing a training program of the Network Pre-University Faculty, international students will obtain a certificate giving an opportunity to start a bachelor’s or master’s degree at any Russian university where there is a preparatory division. The attendees can choose any member university of the consortium to continue their education as well.

“For TPU, joining a consortium allows extending cooperation with Russian universities, which strength is educational programs for international students. We also will be able to attract more motivated students from different countries, therefore, students will be able to choose our programs.

Furthermore, the consortium members will work with the Russian universities to share the experience of teaching international students. We are willing to give assistance to professors in professional development,” Marina Nebera, Head of the TPU Pre-University Department.

All the information about the areas of work of the consortium, enrollment requirements and university data will be released on the special website. It is planned that the website will be launched in September.

Scientists synthesize porous glass for new ultrahigh-frequency devices

Posted on by Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University

A team of chemists from Russia and Germany synthesized a composite material based on barium-strontium titanate incorporated into the pores of a glass-ceramic matrix. The new material is promising for the development of new microwave devices. The study was published in the Materials journal.

Dielectrics are substances with weak conductivity (that is, they have the properties of insulators). They have this feature since all their positive and negative particles are held together inside a neutral atom. However, they can be polarized under the influence of an electric field due to a shift of charges in the material. Ferroelectrics (FE) have the same properties as dielectrics but are also capable of spontaneous self-induced polarization without the application of an electric field.

A quantity measuring the ability of a substance to store electrical energy in an electric field is called a dielectric constant. Due to their nonlinear response to an electric field, ferroelectric materials are of great interest for microwave electronics. On their basis, new ultrahigh-frequency devices are being developed, such as tunable capacitors, controlled filters, phase shifters for a new generation of antennas, phased antenna arrays used in radars, and so on. One way to improve the functionality of ferroelectric materials is to develop composite materials that combine ferroelectrics and linear dielectrics.

A team of scientists from Grebenshchikov Institute of Silicate Chemistry and ETU “LETI” developed such a composite in the form of porous glass-ceramic structure based on iron-containing glasses with a ferroelectric barium-strontium titanate solid solution incorporated into them. To do so, the team conducted an ion exchange between the KFeSi ferriferous silicate glass and LiNO3 and NaNO3 melts. This method provided for a wide range of pore sizes, which affected the efficiency of barium-strontium titanate incorporation into the matrix and therefore determined the electrical properties of the structures. The researchers formed glass structures with the necessary pore size and managed to achieve even filling of the matrix with the ferroelectric material to a required depth.

“We managed to obtain for the first time glass-ceramic structures with high dielectric permittivity based on barium-strontium titanate incorporated into the pores of a glass matrix and confirm that annealing glass-ceramic structures in an oxygen environment has a positive effect on their properties: their dielectric permittivity increases twice, and losses decrease 2.5 times,” says Andrey Tumarkin, Professor of the Department of Physical Electronics and Technology of ETU “LETI.”

The research team also included scientists from the Otto von Guericke University (Magdeburg, Germany) and Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences (Brandenburg, Germany).

Chulalongkorn University and Tohoku University sign MOU on academic cooperation

Posted on by Chulalongkorn University

The Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, and the Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the academic corporation.

The bilateral cooperation aims to create an exchange of students and staff and the organizing of an international symposium.

Assistant Professor Dr Panrapee Suttiwan, Dean of Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, and Professor Yanagihara Toshiaki, Dean of Graduate School of Arts and Letters, the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University, presided over the online MoU signing ceremony.

Guests of honor witnessing the online signing ceremony were Professor Sakai Nobuyuki, Ph.D., Professor Tsujimoto Masahiro, Ph.D., Professor Abe Tsuneyuki, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. Kawachi Yousuke, Ph.D., and Professor Kimura Toshiaki, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. Kullaya Pisitsungkagarn, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat, Ph.D., and Lecturer Juthatip Wiwattanapantuwong, Ph.D.

TPU Petroleum Learning Center celebrates 20th Anniversary

Posted on by Tomsk Polytechnic University

A joint project of Tomsk Polytechnic University and Heriot-Watt University combines high-quality petroleum education, geosciences and real-world oil and gas projects.

The Petroleum Learning Center was established at Tomsk Polytechnic University in 2001. It was one of the first endeavours for Heriot-Watt University in global expansion and became the first institution in Russia to train petroleum-engineering specialists according to international standards.

The first students of the Petroleum Engineering Master’s Degree course commenced studies on October 1, 2001. Since 2003, the Petroleum Learning Center has been providing another Masters’ Degree course in Reservoir Evaluation and Management. In 2006, the paired degrees course of TPU and Heriot-Watt gained traction.

“At the time of opening and up until now, all the aspects of teaching: course content, study materials, qualification requirements for tutors have been the same in Tomsk and Edinburgh, the home city of Heriot-Watt. Over 1,100 graduates completed their studies at the Petroleum Learning Center and obtained degrees from Heriot-Watt University. Among them are top managers and executives of leading Russian energy companies, many of the graduates work abroad,”  said Valery Rukavishnikov, Head of the Petroleum Learning Center.

Annually, the Petroleum Learning Center holds about 20 open events related to petroleum engineering and geosciences. One of the flagship projects is the OilCase championship, where more than 3,000 students and young professionals tackled various case study problems related to hydrocarbon exploration and oil field development. The championship has been held annually since 2018, and currently is the largest event of such kind in Russia.

The PLC experts also designed a free online course on the fundamentals of petroleum engineering, with over 6,000 participants from across 35 countries. At the moment, the MOOC is available in English on Coursera. The Petroleum Learning Center is home to the local Society of Petroleum Engineers and European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers chapters.

The experts and academics of the Petroleum Learning Center maintain close ties with the petroleum industry in Russia. They not only provide training and further development courses to employees of more than 50 companies but also conduct various research and development projects. These include oil field development and hydrocarbon prospects estimation, geochemical and core analysis, big data processing and predictive analytics related to petroleum engineering. Since 2003, over 200 projects of various complexity have been completed.

“The most important is that the cooperation between Tomsk Polytechnic University and Heriot-Watt University resulted in the creation of a unique place where students, academic staff and industry experts share the same values and work in a team. The ongoing efforts of two world-renowned institutions make a significant contribution to shaping the next generation of the professional community in Russia ready for rapid change and evolvement,” said Valery Rukavishnikov, Head of the Petroleum Learning Center.