Industrial-strength award for Massey mathematician

A Massey University professor who uses mathematics to model the drift of ash from volcanic eruptions as well as solving industrial problems has just been awarded the highest Australasian accolade for maths in industry.

Robert McKibbin, a Professor of Applied Mathematics based at the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences at Albany, received the 2012 ANZIAM (Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics group) Medal for his lifelong work in applied and industrial mathematics.

He is known as one of the pre-eminent applied mathematicians in New Zealand, with a particular focus on geophysical and industrial applications, from modelling hydrothermal eruptions in areas such as Rotorua and the distribution of volcanic dust from eruptions, to fluid motion and pollution transport in groundwater aquifers, ground subsidence and aluminium and iron smelting.

Professor McKibbin says he had always been good at maths at school, but never realised until he reached university how diverse its applications and uses could be in a wide range of industrial, agricultural and other scientific areas.

“In mathematical modelling, we take an interdisciplinary approach. You need to understand the physics, chemistry or biology of a phenomenon as well as having the mathematical tools to address whatever the problem is,” he says.

Creating conceptual models for invisible or unpredictable phenomena – like volcanic dust particles and underground hydrothermal activity – is both challenging and fascinating, he says. “You are dealing with ‘what if’ scenarios, like 'what if Mount Taranaki blew its top?' What might the impact be, and how would the surrounding population and landscape be affected?”

Professor McKibbin, who was recognised at the awards ceremony for his contribution to research and enhancing the profile of applied and industrial maths through teaching and mentoring, including supervising more than 20 PhD and masters students, says budding high school mathematicians need to be made aware of the exciting job prospects available. "Mathematicians are a fairly rare breed, and are highly sought-after by a range of industries for their logical thinking and conceptual skills that are needed in problem solving.”

Professor McKibbin received the medal on February 1 at a presentation at the group’s conference in Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia. It has been awarded biennially since 1995, making him the ninth person, and only the second New Zealand-based mathematician to receive it. The other was Professor Graeme Wake, also from the Albany-based institute, who received it in 2006.

NEWS BY:http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1202/S00027/industrial-strength-award-for-massey-mathematician.htm

Analysis: Which university has the fattest wallet?

How has the fall in the value of the stock market since The THES' first analysis of university wealth in 2001 affected the financial health of UK institutions? Claire Sanders and Alison Goddard report.

Cambridge University is still the richest institution in the UK, despite a fall of 26 per cent in the value of its endowments since 2000.

In the second analysis of university wealth by The THES - the first was carried out in 2001 based on 2000 figures - the fall in the value of the stock market can be clearly seen. Bristol University has seen the value of its endowments fall by more than a third.

Others have fared extraordinarily well. Surrey University, which The THES identified in 2000 as one of the up-and-coming wealthy universities, has seen its endowments fall by just 0.1 per cent. Since the publication of the last set of league tables, Surrey has announced that it is looking at plans to go private.

Other institutions that have performed strongly include Reading, Coventry and Wolverhampton universities.

The balance sheets used by The THES were supplied by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and are for the year to July 31 2002. They have been compared with those for July 31 2000.

Net assets

Net assets, or total funds, show the value of an institution's fixed assets such as buildings, its endowment assets and its current assets minus its liabilities. A university's net assets also include whatever it owns in spin-off companies. They reflect the size of a university as well as its wealth.

Cambridge has net assets of just over £1.2 billion, a 0.6 per cent increase on 2000. Oxford University's net assets are smaller at £809 million, a 0.2 per cent increase on 2000. Unlike Cambridge, Oxford does not include buildings more than 50 years old in its fixed assets.

Two years ago, Cambridge estimated that its colleges' net assets amounted to £1.5 billion. Oxford put the figure at somewhere between £1.2 billion and £1.5 billion. Neither university could provide updated estimates.

The ten universities with the biggest assets account for more than 35 per cent of the sector's assets.

The highest ranked new university is Manchester Metropolitan at 16. Leeds Metropolitan, Coventry, Wolverhampton and Brighton universities all come in the top 30.

These all tend to be universities with large student numbers. A spokesperson for Wolverhampton said: "We are in the process of a major building programme, called New Horizons. This has significantly increased our net assets. We are also the tenth largest university in the UK in terms of head count."

The past two years have seen serious swings in the net assets of some universities. The University of East London has seen a fall of 28 per cent, Greenwich University a fall of 19.6 per cent and Heriot-Watt University a fall of 17.4 per cent.

A UEL spokesperson said: "This fall is due to the sale of properties, including Maryland House in Stratford." The university has also changed the basis of the valuation of its Longbridge Road campus.

At the other end of the scale, Exeter University has seen an increase in net assets of 64.4 per cent, York University an increase of 52.8 per cent, Sussex University an increase of 46.6 per cent and London Guildhall University an increase of 40 per cent.

A spokesperson for Exeter said: "The £65 million increase is due to investment in new facilities, particularly the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. We have also carried out a revaluation of the university's estate and seen its value go up due to big increases in property and land values in this area." 

NEWS BY:http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=178107&sectioncode=26

UK university reviews funding from Libya

"We have also received scholarship funding in respect of advice given to the Libyan Investment Authority in London," it continued.

"No further receipts are anticipated."

In 2009, the university was pledged £1.5m from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation for its North Africa Programme.

The university said it has accepted £300,000 of that grant and the funds so far had been used to develop a research programme on North Africa, focused on politics, economics and society.

"In current difficult circumstances across the region, the School has decided to stop new activities under that programme.

"The Council of the School will keep the position under review.

"The School intends to continue its work on democratisation in North Africa funded from other sources unrelated to the Libyan authorities."
'Opportunity for reform'

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 38, enrolled at the LSE in 2003 for an MSc which he completed. He continued his studies there, and was awarded a PhD in 2008.

Professor David Held, who supervised his PhD studies, said he watched his former student's speech and was "deeply disturbed by its failure to grasp the changing circumstances of the Middle East in general, and of Libya in particular".

"Rather than seeing the opportunity for reform based on liberal democratic values and human rights, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi stressed the threat of civil war and foreign intervention.

"I have known Saif al-Islam Gaddafi for several years since he did a PhD at the LSE. During this time I came to know a young man who was caught between loyalties to his family and a desire to reform his country.

"My support for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction.

"The speech last night makes it abundantly clear that his commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in. He tragically, but fatefully, made the wrong judgement."

The LSE Students' Union said it was "totally unjustifiable and contradictory of LSE to operate on funds which contravene its guiding principles".

"We welcome the School's decision to take no further funding from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation; however, we believe that this does not go far enough.

"The school should take action to ensure that the money that was stolen from the Libyan people for our benefit, is now used for the benefit of Libyan people."
The London School of Economics has said it is reconsidering its links with Libya "as a matter of urgency".

The LSE has run courses for Libyan officials and has received a £1.5m donation from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

Colonel Gaddafi's second son, Saif al-Islam, studied at the LSE, gaining both a Master of Science and a doctorate.

The LSE statement follows a speech made by Saif on Sunday, in which he said the regime in Libya would stand firm.

He warned of civil war and rejected foreign intervention.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi wrote his doctoral dissertation on the role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions.
Courses

The LSE has offered executive education programmes to Libyan officials. "No further courses are in preparation," the university's statement said.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12537155

Tuition fees: 27 universities seek last-minute changes

More than a fifth of England's universities have applied to change their fee packages, just weeks before the application deadline.

The Office for Fair Access said 27 of England's universities had sought to lower fees to make use of new measures that could allow them to expand.

Universities blame the late announcement of these measures by the government.

Ministers say changes should not disadvantage any student.

But the National Unions of Students said tens of thousands of students now faced weeks of uncertainty because of the changes.

Maximum tuition fees will rise to as much as £9,000 a year next autumn.

Universities were required to submit their plans for higher charges, bursaries and fee-waivers for certain groups of students back in April. These were then assessed by the fair access regulator, Offa.

This was before the government published its proposals in the Higher Education White Paper, which was delayed by several months.

The plans included allowing universities charging less than £7,500 a year in fees to expand by bidding for 20,000 degree places.

This was widely seen as a last-minute measure to bring the overall cost of higher fees down for the government after it became clear that more universities than expected were planning to charge maximum fees.

Offa said it had received applications from 27 institutions wishing to reduce their average fees to £7,500 or below in order to bid for the 20,000 places set aside for this purpose.

It also said it had received new access agreements from seven publicly funded further education institutions wishing to bid for some of these places.

The watchdog says it will assess the revised agreements and inform universities and colleges of its decisions by November 30.

In the meantime, institutions must contact applicants affected by the changes and let them know. Would-be students will then have the chance to reconsider their options.

Offa also said it would consider any further changes from universities still wishing to change their access agreements.

Nicola Dandridge, head of umbrella group Universities UK, said: "This has come about because universities were asked to set their 2012-13 fee levels and financial support by April this year, before the details of student number controls had been decided.

"The delayed publication in June of the government's White Paper then shifted the goal posts [of student number controls]."

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15596986

FDA's mobile medical app guidelines get everybody talking

cWASHINGTON – The questions and comments are pouring in over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s draft guidance on mobile medical apps, making it obvious that the government’s first attempt to clarify its regulatory authority over this fast-growing field won’t be the last.

While the 30-page draft establishes three categories of devices that would fall under FDA perusal, it leaves out – either specifically or by omission – several other uses. Among them: App sellers (like Apple), telecommunications providers and handset manufacturers, to name a few.

“What we have done is we have taken that approach and formulated policies that were narrowly focused on a very small subset while allowing apps that are out there to foster and continue developing that space,” said Bakul Patel, an FDA policy advisor who helped draft the guidelines, in news reports. “We wanted to make sure that we are consistent in regulating medical devices so nothing has changed. … (If) somebody makes a stethoscope on an iPhone, it doesn’t change the level of oversight we have of a stethoscope.”

Chuck Parker, executive director of the Continua Health Alliance, a 230-member global alliance of healthcare and technology companies working to improve the quality of personal healthcare, said the draft “opens up the market” by giving the industry rules to work with.

“It sort of clears the thoughts out a little bit, and that does help us out,” he said.

“It’s pretty consistent with what I expected them to do,” said Yarmela Pavlovic, an associate with the global law firm of Hogan Lovells. “What’s been happening (in the mobile medical app space) is very, very fast development, and there needed to be an interpretation of existing regulations.”

Zachary Bujnoch, a senior industry analyst for telehealth and healthcare with Frost & Sullivan, called the draft document a much-needed entry into a “market full of hype.” He said the regulations will help “vet out the market” and target the thousands of healthcare apps on the market.

“This is going to hinder innovation in the market – there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “But that’s good. It’s a very confused market right now … that needs clarification.”

Pavlovic said she was “surprised by the way they narrowed” the classifications of apps to come under FDA guidance. “There’s definitely things that fall outside the categories that will be discussed,” she said. For example, she said, should accessories apps be treated the same as their connected devices?

Both Parker and Bujnoch questioned whether electronic health records should fall under FDA review (electronic and personal health records currently fall outside the FDA’s scope, according to the draft). An issue expected to generate a lot of comment, both said, is the definition of clinical decision support. If a device takes healthcare data and translates that into a clinical decision that can affect one’s healthcare, should it fall under the FDA’s guidelines?

“It depends on where the decision factor comes in,” said Parker. “Who defines the intelligence that gets sent back to the individual?”

The FDA draft will be a topic of discussion at two upcoming conferences. On Wednesday, it’s on the agenda for the American Telemedicine Association’s Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. (co-hosted by the Continua Health Alliance); and it will be the subject of a keynote panel discussion during the World Congress 3rd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth, scheduled for Friday, July 29.

The mHealth Regulatory Coalition is also expected to weigh in, taking part in the ATA/Continua conference on Wednesday and issuing its own version of mHealth guidelines within a few weeks.

In addition, the Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center, based in Billings, Mont., will co-host an August 15 “”Brown Bag Webinar” with the Center for Telehealth & e-Health Law on the topic. The webinar, titled “Are You a Medical Device Manufacturer: The FDA’s Final Rule on Medical Devices,” will feature Anthony Pavel, an attorney with the law firm of K&L Gates and a CTeL board member.

NEWS BY: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fdas-mobile-medical-app-guidelines-get-everybody-talking

Silverstone to house new technical college

Silverstone motor racing circuit is to house one of the first in a new wave of specialist university technical colleges (UTCs).

Set up with Northampton University and a local college, it will be one of 13 UTCs to offer highly technical subjects to teenagers from next year.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the UTCs "have the potential to change the lives of thousands for the better."

Others argue they risk setting children on a rigid career path too early.

The government also announced on Monday that it had approved 55 new free schools.

This includes one being set up by the prestigious independent school Brighton College in a deprived part of east London but targeting poor, bright teenagers across the city.

And plans for the first bilingual primary school, which aims to teach in English 50% of the time and Spanish the rest, have also been approved.

Like free schools, university technical colleges are a flagship Conservative policy. They are being pioneered by former Education Secretary Kenneth Baker.

They are similar to German technical schools, where students can elect to follow skills-based education from their mid-teens.

The other 12 new UTCs will be established in Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Burnley, Bedfordshire, Daventry, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield, Southwark and Wigan.

There are already two UTCs open in England, one sponsored by heavy plant manufacturers JCB in Staffordshire and the other, The Black Country UTC, in Walsall in the West Midlands. And three more are already in the pipeline.

They offer 14- to 19-year-olds the opportunity to take a full time, technically oriented course of study and are supposed to be very well equipped with modern technical facilities.

They are sponsored by a university and aim to offer clear routes into higher education or further learning in work.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15216987

UK University Foundation Courses

Russian high school programs finish a year earlier than those in the UK, which means Russian students looking to do a UK degree course almost always need a need to do a foundation year first.

There are two types of foundation programs. One has its course content validated by a UK university, and successful students are guaranteed a university place. These offer courses in specialist subjects together with academic English. They employ highly qualified teachers - the English language staff, for example will have at least a diploma. The other kind does not have validated courses and does not guarantee a university place. At best they offer a good top-up in a specialist subject and/or a solid academic English course.

From 2009, Russian students who wish to study at private institutions will need to enroll in a college accredited by the British Accreditation Council (BAC) or a language school covered by Accreditation UK to obtain a visa.

Unfortunately, the BAC inspects only specialist subjects while Accreditation UK inspects only English-language teaching. Foundation programs should offer both. In addition both schemes accredit courses that don't guarantee university places as well as those that do.

So how do you choose a good foundation year? By asking some very tough questions.

If you already know which university you want, simply ask the admissions office. The university may run its own foundation program or outsource it to a state college, private college or a language school while guaranteeing degree places to successful students.

In either case, it is important to check what assistance is available if the student fails. "If a student [barely] fails the foundation year, we help them find a place somewhere else," says Claire Ballard of Reading University's International Office.

An increasing number of universities have private-sector partners who run foundation programs on the university campus. Students can enrol direct with these partners and get help choosing a university subsequently. Most of these organizations have formal arrangements with other universities for students who don't quite make the grade.

Study Group, for example, runs international study centers in nine British universities but many more universities accept people on their foundation program.

INTO is involved in joint ventures, currently with three British universities, which means the university remains responsible for academic quality. Again other universities will accept their course. INTO are building on-campus centers for their courses which include pre-foundation courses for those whose English is weak through to English-language support for students during their degrees.

Students who haven't decided on the university to which they wish to apply, could consider a foundation year at an accredited college whose programs are formally accepted by a number of university partners. For example, those at Bellerby's Colleges, part of Study Group, is accepted by forty British universities. There are language schools, too, which have validated courses. The program run by the Bell School in Cambridge, for example, is formally accepted by twelve universities and students are guaranteed a place at a university on successful completion of the course.

Some language schools are building a reputation in specialist subjects as well as English. IH London has a business track and another for science and engineering. These are accepted as entry qualifications for specific degree courses in universities such as King's College, London; Queen Mary, London; and Nottingham University.

Proper validated foundation years do not come cheap. University-run courses cost in the £7,500 to £13,000 ($14,900 to $25,820) range for non-EU students and the private-sector fees are much the same.

Courses without validation can be much cheaper. But if no university will accept them, what is the point?


NEWS BY:http://www.themoscowtimes.com/careercenter/JC/article/381487.html