Newsletter Volume 5 Issue 1, Spring 2009
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...enhancing the student experience ISSN 1745-8447 (Print) in chemistry, physics, ISSN 1745-8455 (Online) astronomy and forensic science within the university sector Volume 5, Issue 1 Wavelength is the newsletter of the Higher Education Academy Physical Sciences Centre. It is issued twice yearly in Spring and Autumn. WavelengthWavelength This issue... In this issue we have a number of articles activities, specialist topics such as covering: java applets for physics and a database of inorganic compounds and The National Grid Service, or NGS as other resources such as experimental it is more commonly known, which simulations. provides ‘free at point of use’ access to an extensive distributed computing Development project reports from 3 of resource for UK researchers. the projects which recently completed their work; two covering computer An update on the progress with the based assessment and one looking at reviews of the Student Learning ways to support students with Experience undertaken by the Centre Asperger’s Syndrome. last year. The reports will provide a comprehensive snapshot of the Finally we include some news from learning experiences of full-time the Higher Education Academy; one chemistry and physics undergraduates detailing a seminar series which aims in UK universities in 2008. to support access and success for all students; the other looking at a recent Information about the new Science survey of academic staff with regard to Diploma. The Diploma aims to provide the rewards within institutions for learning in an applied and work- teaching. focused context. In the context of the Science Diploma this means the students will learn about what scientists do as well as about science. Spring 2009 Spring 2009 Resources from development projects. The Centre has now built up a considerable bank of resources arising from nearly 70 projects. These projects cover a wide range of topics from assessment resources, outreach The newsletter is free of Inside this issue... charge to academics in UK higher education institutions. Using the National Grid Service 2 Computer based assessment 10 The material is also published electronically on The Student Learning Experience 4 Students with Asperger’s Syndrome 12 our web site. Subscriptions are available for those Access and Success for All 14 outside the UKHE sector who The new Science Diploma 5 wish to receive the paper version. Contact the Centre Resources from development projects 6 Rewards for Teaching 15 for details. DUMP 2.0 8 Wavelength Page 2 Using the National Grid Service Gillian Sinclair Would you like to give your students enquiries through email. Training is Liaison Officer access to resources for ‘blue sky’ available in conjunction with the Training, National Grid Service research? Do you need more compute Outreach and Education team (TOE) at the University of Manchester resource for your research? Would you like National e-Science Centre (NeSC). Research Computing your research group to take advantage of “Introduction to Grid Computing” courses Services recent advances in grid computing? are run regularly as well as courses for Rm 73 Devonshire House more advanced users. Training events can Precinct Centre If so have you thought about using the be organised at your institution on demand Oxford Road National Grid Service? for a specific group of users (ie research Manchester area) or by level of knowledge. All courses M13 9PL The National Grid Service, or NGS as it is are free of charge to attend. As well as the Email: gillian.sinclair@ more commonly known, provides ‘free at support services the NGS also provides a manchester.ac.uk point of use’ access to an extensive database service with a dedicated If you would like to use NGS resources or have any queries about how your research could benefit from the NGS, then please contact the helpdesk (support@ grid-support.ac.uk). Figure 1: The evolution of the one-body density matrix given by the non-Markovian Boltzmann equation, giving the distribution of atomic kinetic energy as the system evolves distributed computing resource for UK database team on hand to help you make researchers. This allows access to the most of your data. Supporting both resources perhaps not available at your Oracle and MySQL, the database team own institution such as Condor pools, and can help with tuning to improve your can considerably speed up your research database and complete administration of in many cases. your database. There is a secure back up system as well as data encryption so Funded by the EPSRC and JISC, the NGS security of your data is a priority. is a distributed service and has 4 core sites at the universities of Leeds, Manchester Ultracold Gases and Oxford and the STFC Rutherford Researchers at the University of Oxford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). Many other have used NGS resources to study the universities are also partner or affiliate dynamics of ultracold gases, in particular sites of the NGS and a full list of the the problem of molecule formation at such current sites can be found on the NGS low temperatures. Programs have been website <www.ngs.ac.uk>. written to solve a non-Markovian Boltzmann-like equation (NMBE) for the The NGS offers access to large dynamics of ultracold gases and this has computational resources on which to run been applied to the formation of molecules jobs but it also offers many support from cold gases using the variation of a services. Grid computing is new to many magnetic field. The approach includes the people and so the NGS has a robust exact time-variation of the interactions, and support network on hand to guide all users realistically models the evolution of the – both novices and advanced. A support atomic gas. helpdesk is based at RAL and is staffed by experienced grid technicians who deal with Volume 5, Issue 1 Page 3 Using the National Grid Service Large computations are required to model The provenance of a piece of data is of this process for a realistic set of extreme importance to the end user as parameters and it has only been made they need to be able to trace back from practical through the use of the NGS. The publication to the original data. The need kernel of the NMBE is parallelisable with for this information to be stored and easily calculation of the kernel previously taking available to researchers increases the up to 2 months on a single computer. difficulty of maintaining chemical Accessing resources through the NGS with databases. With the areas of up to 100 processors at a time has computational and combinatorial chemistry reduced the time taken to less than two pushing the rate at which chemical data is days. Using the kernel for dynamics produced, a ‘semantic web’ approach is requires 40 hours of processor time but being taken by researchers at using OpenMP can speed up this Southampton. computation to a single afternoon. They have created a Resource Description Ton Hanna, one of the researchers using Framework (RDF) triplestore for chemical the NGS at Oxford explained “The NGS data. With the help of expertise from the has made a huge difference to my NGS, they are now looking into whether research. I’ve been able to calculate the the use of the Oracle databases can kernel for a realistic ramp, and do 15 improve the speed of querying. They are dynamical simulations. It’s shown the also working together to demonstrate the method works and so I am working on possibility of querying multiple, distributed extending it. It’s one of those problems you RDF triplestores. The Oracle RDF couldn’t think about doing without access triplestore hosted on the NGS is being to a cluster!” used along with the RDF triplestore already developed at Southampton. The aim is to Chemistry Databases be able to dynamically combine data from … the NGS is a The explosion of data produced by both triplestores without needing to copy chemists since the invention of the periodic the entire databases over. distributed service and table in 1869 requires new methods of has 4 core sites at the dealing with it. The NGS has been working The RDF triplestore allows for more universities of Leeds, with researchers at the University of complex queries to be run on the data. Its Manchester and Southampton to develop methods of power is in its ability to use triples to Oxford and the STFC handling this large amount of data. represent a relationship between a subject and an object. Relationships between Rutherford Appleton Chemical data now needs multiple objects and subjects can be explicitly Laboratory. annotations and metadata associated with defined or implied by other relationships. it to make any real sense to the user. It’s Using the RDF triplestore avoids the need not enough anymore to just indicate the for a traditional relational database. These boiling point of a liquid as researchers often require long-term design and wanting to use that information also require maintenance that is not an option in the other details such as: academic world. the pressure the measurement was The Oracle RDF data management taken at capabilities of high query performance and who did the experiment triple loading capabilities means storing when was the experiment performed databases with 100 million triples is not a where was the experiment performed. problem. Tools such as Oracle Jena are used for triple loading and storage. Training events can be organised at your institution on demand for a specific group of users... or by level of knowledge. All courses are free of charge to attend. Wavelength Page 4 The Student Learning Experience Tina Overton In 2007 the Higher Education Academy students. Students are overwhelmingly Physical Sciences Centre commissioned three Subject Centres to satisfied with their experience and perhaps Chemistry Dept produce National Subject Profiles in most surprisingly, the nature of the student University of Hull Materials, Microbiology, Biochemistry and experience differs very little across Hull Art, Design and Media.