Pathways to Unsegregated Sharing of Airspace: Views of the Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Industry

The uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) industry is expanding, offering services such as video/photography, inspection, monitoring, surveying, and logistics. This is leading to competing demands for airspace with existing crewed aircraft activities, especially in uncontrolled airspace. As a result, there is an increasingly urgent need for a shared airspace solution that enables drones to be integrated with the wider aviation community in unsegregated operations. The purpose of this research was to engage with the drone industry to understand their issues regarding shared airspace as an important first step in the co-development of operating procedures that can provide equitable airspace access for all. An online, interactive workshop format was employed, with participants (n~80) drawn from the UK drone industry and other attendant organisations. Verbal and written data were recorded, and then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings summarise the issues on a range of topics, grouped into three over-arching themes: (1) operational environment; (2) technical and regulatory environment; and (3) equity and wider society. Results suggested that important issues included the necessity for a dependable detect-and-avoid (DAA) system for in-flight de-confliction, based on onboard electronic conspicuity (EC) devices, and the need for support for shared airspace from the wider aviation community. This study contributes to the stakeholder engagement that will be essential if the co-development of a shared airspace solution is to be widely acceptable to all.

Reflections from Transitioning Carpentries Workshops Online

Objectives: As certified Carpentries instructors, the authors organized and co-taught the University of Montana’s first in-person Carpentries workshop focused on the R programming language during early 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a repeated workshop was postponed to the fall of 2020 and was adapted for a fully online setting. The authors share their Carpentries journey from in-person to online instruction, hoping to inspire those interested in organizing Carpentries at their institution for the first time and those interested in improving their existing Carpentries presence. Methods: The authors reflected on their experience facilitating the same Carpentries workshop in-person and online. They used this unique opportunity to compare the effectiveness of a face-to-face environment versus a virtual modality for delivering an interactive workshop. Results: When teaching in the online setting, the authors learned to emphasize the basics, create many opportunities for feedback using formative assessments, reduce the amount of material presented, and include helpers who are familiar with technology and troubleshooting. Conclusions: Although the online environment came with challenges (i.e., Zoom logistics and challenges, the need to further condense curricula, etc.), the instructors were surprised at the many advantages of hosting an online workshop. With some adaptations, Carpentries workshops work well in online delivery.

Preface

Thirty three years ago, because of the dramatic increase in the power and utility of computer simulations, The University of Georgia formed the first institutional unit devoted to the application of simulations in research and teaching: The Center for Simulational Physics. Then, as the international simulations community expanded further, we sensed the need for a meeting place for both experienced simulators and newcomers to discuss inventive algorithms and recent results in an environment that promoted lively discussion. As a consequence, the Center for Simulational Physics established an annual workshop series on Recent Developments in Computer Simulation Studies in Condensed Matter Physics. This year’s highly interactive workshop was the 32nd in the series marking our efforts to promote high quality research in simulational physics. The continued interest shown by the scientific community amply demonstrates the useful purpose that these meetings have served. The latest workshop was held at The University of Georgia from February 18-22, 2019. These Proceedings provide a “status report” on a number of important topics. This on-line “volume” is published with the goal of timely dissemination of the material to a wider audience. These Proceedings contain both invited papers and contributed presentations on problems in both classical and quantum condensed matter physics. The Workshop was prefaced by a special tutorial presented by colleagues from Oak Ridgr National Laboratory on a powerful software suite: OWL (Oak Ridge Wang-Landau). The first manuscript in this Proceedings is devoted to this tutorial material. The Workshop topics, as usual, ranged from hard and soft condensed matter to biologically inspired problems and purely methodological advances. We hope that readers will benefit from specialized results as well as profit from exposure to new algorithms, methods of analysis, and conceptual developments. D. P. Landau M. Bachmann S. P. Lewis H.-B. Schüttler

Enhancing primary care capacity in chronic kidney disease management: a quality improvement educational initiative

BackgroundGaps in identification, medical management and appropriate referral for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are evident.ObjectiveWe designed and implemented an interactive educational intervention (accredited workshop) to improve primary care providers’ awareness of tools to support guideline-concordant CKD management.DesignWe used the Kern method to design the educational intervention and targeted the accredited workshops to primary care team members (physicians, nurses and allied health) in Alberta, Canada. We conducted anonymous pre-workshop and post-workshop surveys to identify practice-specific barriers to care, identify potential solutions, and evaluate provider confidence pre-intervention and post-intervention. We used non-parametric statistics to analyse Likert-type survey data and descriptive content analysis to categorise responses to open-ended survey questions.ResultsWe delivered 12 workshops to 114 providers from September 2017 through March 2019. Significant improvements (p<0.001) in confidence to appropriately identify, manage and refer patients with CKD were observed. Participants identified several patient-level, provider-level, and system-level barriers and potential solutions to care for patients with CKD; the majority of these barriers were addressed in the interactive workshop.ConclusionsThe Kern model was an effective methodology to design and implement an educational intervention to improve providers’ confidence in managing patients with CKD in primary care. Future research is needed to determine if these perceived knowledge and confidence improvements affect patient outcomes and whether improvements are sustained long term.

Improving consultations for persistent musculoskeletal low back pain in orthopaedic spine settings: an intervention development

Background There is a need to improve consultations between patients with persistent musculoskeletal low back pain and orthopaedic spine clinicians when surgery is not indicated. Poor communication and lack of education about self- management in these consultations have been shown to be associated with increased distress and higher subsequent health care seeking. Aim To develop a standardised intervention to improve spine care consultations for patients for whom surgery is not beneficial. Method The intervention was developed in six stages. The first three stages included: interviews with patients, an interactive workshop with clinicians from a mix of disciplines, and interviews with spine clinicians about their perspective of the recommendations, their perceived difficulties and potential improvements. Information from these stages was synthesised by an expert panel, creating a draft intervention structure and content. The main features of the intervention and the materials developed were then reviewed by patients and spine clinicians. Finally, the research team incorporated the recommended amendments to produce the intervention. Results In total, 36 patients and 79 clinicians contributed to the development of the intervention. The final intervention includes three components: a pre-consultation letter with information suggesting that surgery is one possible intervention amongst many, introducing the staff, and alerting patients to bring with them a potted history of interventions tried previously. The intervention includes short online training sessions to improve clinicians’ communication skills, during the consultation, in reference to listening skills, validation of patients’ pain, and use of appropriate language. Clinicians are also supplied with a list of evidence-based sources for advice and further information to share with patients. Finally, post consultation, a follow up letter includes a short summary of the patients’ clinical journey, the results of their examination and tests, and a reminder of recommendations for self-management. Conclusion The intervention includes aspects around patient education and enhanced clinician skills. It was developed with input from a multitude of stakeholders and is based on patients’ perceptions of what they would find reassuring and empowering when surgery is excluded. The intervention has the potential to improve the patients care journey and might lead to changes in practice in spine clinicians.

A card game for designing activities for technology-enhanced learning in higher education

The importance of providing mechanisms and tools that effectively support the transition from implicit to explicit representations of Learning Design has been emphasised by previous research in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL). In addition, the benefits of Game-based learning approaches have been long documented in the educational research literature. The paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a card game that aims to support the design process of TEL activities in higher education. The game was tested by a group of 36 students and tutors (n = 36) in higher education during an interactive workshop. Feedback was asked by the participants using an anonymous survey. The results reveal that the participants a) are satisfied with the game process, b) appreciate the groupwork and interaction taking place, and c) believe that they used their communication and collaboration skills. The paper includes the description of the outputs of a group (i.e., the cards selected for their TEL scenario and their actual TEL scenario) to exemplify that it is possible to use the game in order to elicit or diagnose existing LD knowledge from the game participants. The paper concludes on the usefulness of the approach suggested, limitations, and plans for future work.

The climate emergency in higher education: working together to meet the challenge of student activism

This conference reflection explores the themes raised by participants in the authors’ interactive workshop at the SHIFT 2021 conference. The workshop focused on how universities are responding to the climate emergency through innovative teaching practices.

Understanding an Importance of Interculturalism in the Learning Process

Authors of this article aimed to research an understanding importance of interculturalism within learning process and beliefs related to intercultural education together with the level of intercultural education implementation in the learning process. Research has been conducted on the pattern of 163 teachers and librarians who participated in the interactive workshop “Enhancing capacities of teachers/trainers for promotion of cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and tolerance through media and information literacy”. This article represents concrete organized effort and an attempt for promoting importance related to development of an adequate intercultural competencies of teachers and librarians that are directly involved in the learning and educational process.