What purpose does the MPharm research project serve?

In 2004, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) funded research on teaching, learning and assessment within the UK undergraduate pharmacy degree (MPharm), including the compulsory final year project. Documentary analysis showed that all schools met the project requirement, although there were wide variations in the relative contribution of the project to the final year mark and the degree classification. Interviews with staff revealed that organisation of research projects was complex and time consuming and exacerbated by increasing student numbers and the impact of research ethics. 61% of students, surveyed via a self-completion questionnaire (response rate 50.6%) perceived the research project to be very or fairly important. Whilst 47% considered that they had enough choice of topic and 37% said that their training in research methods provided a good foundation for their project, this suggests scope for improvement. In the UK, there are legislative changes impending which may provide an opportunity to review the future purpose and feasibility of a "significant" final year project within the MPharm.

FP6-ist INFRAWEBS European Research Project

Project Focus: The main INFRAWEBS project focus and objective is the development of an application-oriented software toolset for creating, maintaining and executing WSMO-based Semantic Web Services (SWS) within their whole life cycle. This next generation of tools and systems will enable software and service providers to build open and extensible development platforms for web service applications. These services will run on open standards and specifications, such as BPEL4WS, WSMO, WSMX, WSML, SPARQL, RDF, etc. In particular, they will be compliant with WSMO (Web Services Modelling Ontology), a W3C initiative in Semantic Web services.

Critical Reflection on a Faculty Development Research Project

Critical reflection is imperative for the practitioner who seeks to grow and improve in the important work of teaching. This paper is a critical reflection of one author’s experience in creating a faculty development initiative.

Chicken Run: A Chicken-Centred Design Research Project

Chicken Run, an experimental project still in development, sees designers and scientists working together to explore ideas to improve poultry welfare in commercial facilities, applying user-centred design to all key stakeholders: farmer, consumer and chicken. Exploring various aspects of the chicken’s journey from egg to plate, the process has allowed researchers to better understand their needs and to maximise joined-up positive impact. The paper describes the ongoing process where Initial proposals including perches, bales and an app to enable consumers to make the right chicken purchase choices have been developed and tested. Co-authored by leaders of the design and scientific communities involved in the project, the paper describes the issues, design methods used, as well as some of the learning from the cross-disciplinary process. It also provides an update on progress of selected design ideas that are currently being developed with a commercial poultry farm, drawing out the challenges and successes encountered.

Evaluation of control devices for asphalt pavement recycling operations : summary report for research project HR-188, 1982

The objective of the research project was to seek acceptable solutions to the air pollution problem created in the asphalt recycling process using modified conventional equipment.

Sicily in Transition Research Project. Investigations at Castronovo di Sicilia. Results and Prospects, 2015

Il progetto Sicily in Transition è nato dalla collaborazione delle Università di York e di Roma Tor Vergata, con il pieno ap-poggio della Soprintendenza ai BB. CC. AA di Palermo. La finalità della nostra ricerca è quella di analizzare, attraverso il registro archeologico, in quale modo i mutamenti di regime politico hanno influenzato organizzazione, composizione e stili di vita delle popolazioni soggette. L’arco di tempo considerato va dal VI al XIII secolo, periodo nel quale la Sicilia ha visto diverse dominazioni: quella bizantina, islamica, normanna e sveva. Sicily in Transition prevede di analizzare con metodi in parte nuovi, in parte più tradizionali, sia insiemi di reperti (ecofatti e manufatti) prodotti da precedenti scavi, sia di acquisire dati attraverso nuove indagini. In particolare gli scriventi hanno scelto di indagare un’area molto promettente della Sicilia centrale: il territorio di Castronovo di Sicilia. Qui, in due campagne di ricerca durate ciascuna quattro settimane, sono state realizzate indagini magnetometriche, ricognizioni di superficie, di archeologia dell’architettura e sondaggi stratigrafici. La finalità era quella di valutare il potenziale archeologico dei principali siti storici del territorio. I primi risultati sono promettenti in relazione alla varietà tipologica e cronologica dei diversi insediamenti identificati: una fortezza dei secoli VII-IX sul Monte Kassar; un fortilizio con fasi del pieno medioevo e dell’età moderna sul Colle San Vitale; un ampio villaggio non difeso con fasi dall’età tardoantica al medioevo, incluse importanti testimonianze di età islamica, nell’area del Casale San Pietro. Le indagini preliminari hanno quindi confermato le ampie potenzialità informative dell’intero territorio di Castronovo rispetto ai temi della nostra ricerca e stanno quindi consentendo di programmare gli interventi futuri.

Promoting reflective assessing practices through narratives: An action research project in early childhood

This project aims at describing the use of Action Research in the development of more structured assessment practices in Early Childhood Portuguese contexts. The teacher had always observed young learners’ activities and progress, and registered them in the form of “critical incidents”. This reflective process structured through this type of narratives helps “tune” the Class Curriculum firstly designed without much knowledge about the kids and so, difficultly responding to their specific needs and interests. The results achieved suggest kids become better prepared to face further education and life. Being early childhood assessment felt by most Portuguese kindergarten teachers as an innovative procedure, the project was seen as the launching of roots for “new” practices.