Measuring the Speed of Light with Chocolate!

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How to make a Cloud Chamber (Cosmic Ray Detector)

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Phys. Rev. X 5, 021001 (2015) - Quantum Coherence, Time-Translation Symmetry, and Thermodynamics

Phys. Rev. X 5, 021001 (2015) - Quantum Coherence, Time-Translation Symmetry, and Thermodynamics:



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EUA - DEFINE - a research project and a stock-taking exercise which will provide recommendations to policy-makers and universities in order to improve the design of funding efficiency measures in higher education.

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What is DEFINE?

Higher education institutions across Europe face today a demanding and complex financial context in which traditional modes of funding have been transformed and continue to evolve. Moreover, public sources are not as generous as they often were in the past and frequently become more demanding and competitive. The changes are particularly significant in Europe due to the traditional reliance on public funding. The current economic and financial crisis has exacerbated even further these problems, with growing pressures upon the sustainability of funding regimes of public higher education and the pressure mounting to explore new sources of income.

Research & Innovation - Horizon Prizes - Home

Research & Innovation - Horizon Prizes - Home:



and many many more:

The Prizes

• Better use of antibiotics
• Breaking the optical transmission barriers
• Materials for clean air
• Collaborative spectrum sharing
• Food scanner

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Bolsas de Estágio Santander

Bolsas de Estágio Santander: "PROGRAMA DE BOLSAS DE ESTÁGIO SANTANDER UNIVERSIDADES"

Através de uma parceria única com as Instituições de Ensino Superior, o Santander Universidades criou um programa que une finalistas, empresas e instituições de ensino superior de Portugal. Desta forma alunos finalistas e recém-diplomados usufruem de uma bolsa de estágio de três meses, inteiramente suportada com fundos disponibilizados pelo Banco, em várias áreas de atividade e pontos do País.

• http://bolsasdeestagiosantander.pt/#
• http://empregopt.santanderadvance.com/procurar-trabalho-emprego/canal/4369/canal_destacado/0
• http://www.becas-santander.com/

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Wearable Teaching? College to Experiment With Apple Watch as Learning Tool – Wired Campus - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Wearable Teaching? College to Experiment With Apple Watch as Learning Tool – Wired Campus - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education: "Wearable Teaching? College to Experiment With Apple Watch as Learning Tool"



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"A new start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation."

EUSurvey - Survey: "A new start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation."

1. Strengthening the knowledge base and reducing fragmentation

This priority aims to deliver the European Research Area, promote excellence in education and skills development, and boosting talent and new business creation.

Main achievements and next steps:

The knowledge base in Europe is being strengthened, notably through progress towards the completion of the European Research Area, the launch of Horizon 2020, the new research and innovation framework programme, as well as of measures supporting skills development.

The 2012 ERA Communication identified key measures to optimise the effectiveness of investment in R&D and consolidate the ERA partnership. The 2014 ERA Progress Report assessed progress in key policy areas and set the bases to measure the potential economic impact of ERA reforms have been set.

Fragmentation is being reduced through better linkages between academia and business, between public and the private sectors and between sectors. Joint Programming is succeeding in pooling national research efforts in order to make better use of Europe's public R&D resources and to tackle common European challenges more effectively in a few key areas, such as neurodegenerative diseases, metrology and rare diseases. Measures favouring researchers' mobility make it easier for European and third country researchers to work anywhere in Europe.

Also, the European Strategic Forum on Research and Infrastructures is facilitating multilateral initiatives leading to the better use and development of research infrastructures at the EU and international level. Currently 27 research infrastructure projects are under implementation, 14 of them are already providing services to their uses.

With Horizon 2020, red tape was sensibly reduced to allow for wider, more competitive participation. All phases of the innovation cycle are now funded under a single programme, making sure that the knowledge produced can be better exploited for the realisation of new products and services.

Public-private and public-public partnerships are key elements of Horizon 2020. The private sector committed to invest nearly €10 billion in Joint Technology Initiatives, stimulating innovation in areas such as aeronautics, medicines, electronic components and systems, transport and bio-based industries, while contributing to reverse the declining role of industry in Europe. In addition, eight contractual Public Private Partnerships have been launched in areas such as green cars, energy efficient buildings and cleaner manufacturing processes, photonics and next generation internet. These partnerships are expected to leverage more than €6 billion of investments with substantial impact on the competitiveness of the EU industry and essential to address societal challenges.

Other measures that strengthen Europe's knowledge base and reduce fragmentation include activities by the EIT KICs, theKnowledge Alliances, the development of the Innovative Doctoral Training Principles and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actionsunder Horizon 2020.

In the coming years, more Member States are expected to align to ERA principles, put in place strategies to train enough researchers, and launch new Knowledge Alliances. By the end of 2015, at least 60% of the European Strategic Research Infrastructures will be under implementation (compared to 56% in 2014).

2. Getting good ideas to market

This priority aims to remove obstacles to financing innovation, shape demand for innovative products and services and capitalise on intellectual property and creativity, creating a single market for innovation.

Main achievements and next steps:

New instruments to ease access to finance are in place and are about to start delivering, including reinforced debt and equity facilities and the venture capital passport. Such newly launched mechanisms and initiatives provide substantial support for innovation by leveraging the engagement of industry and business. Measures to overcome the insufficient availability of finance in Europe, a major obstacle to getting innovations to the market, have been put in place. The Risk-Sharing Finance Facility, jointly set up by the European Commission with the European Investment Bank Group, has ensured that for every billion euro of EU budget money the EIB has mobilised €12 billion in loans and over €30 billion in final R&I investment. This has led to additional resources of up to €40 billion since 2007 for research and innovation activities that would otherwise have been left unfunded. Moreover, a specific SME Instrument was created to support SMEs in realising their best ideas.

Within the Investment Plan for Europe, the European Commission has proposed a European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)to help shoulder risk inherent in projects to encourage private investment.

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB and EIF) also launched a new generation of EU financial instruments and advisory services to help innovative firms access finance more easily."InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators" consist of a range of tailored products – from guarantees for intermediaries that lend to SMEs to direct loans to enterprises - helping support the smallest to the largest research and innovation projects in the EU and countries associated to Horizon 2020.

In recent years, public intervention has increasingly been used to stimulate the demand for innovation with instruments such as pre-commercial public procurement, innovation-friendly regulation and standards setting. For instance, procurement of innovation was facilitated by modernised procurement directives, a methodology for the screening of regulation in terms of its impact on innovation was developed and tested by the Commission, the eco-innovation action plan was launched, and standard-setting was modernised and made faster by a third.

In the coming years, the European Patent with Unitary Effect is expected to enter into force, after ratification of the Unitary Patent Court agreement by 13 Member States (so far, six Member States have ratified it) and the EU Public Procurement directives will be transposed by Member States.

3. Maximising social and territorial cohesion

This priority aims to close the innovation divide, support social innovation and mobilise public sector innovation.

Main achievements and next steps:

Smart specialisation strategies with a sound and evidence-based focus on regional assets and strengths are expected to bring convergence in innovation performance across regions and countries. The obligation to develop Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3) as a precondition for European Regional Development Funds' innovation-related investments triggered a massive number of regions and Member States to reconsider their research and innovation policies and strategies. Such strategies are a stepping-stone towards place-specific, knowledge-based economic transformation.

Horizon 2020 also includes a set of measures aimed at ‘Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation’: Teaming, Twinning and ERA Chairs.

Social and public-sector innovation have gained significant political attention. The Commission now supports social innovation in a number of ways, including though support for the up-scaling of successful projects. On public sector innovation, dedicated research actions were complemented by the creation of related prizes and exploratory work was conducted towards possible future actions. New actors have been informed, consulted and involved in these actions, spreading the innovation culture to radically new areas and raising awareness about the potential for innovation-based growth across European regions, social groups and the public and private sector, paving the way for a more inclusive economy.

In the coming years, the Commission will support the implementation of action plans to develop the outstanding RIS3, support the regions and Member States in their efforts to strengthen the inter-regional and trans-national cooperation on smart specialisation fields, monitor the implementation of the RIS3 of the Member States and regions and support cooperation across borders. The Commission will continue supporting the diffusion of innovation to new sectors, for instance by monitoring the innovativeness of the public sector through the European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard and the launch a new edition of the European Capital of Innovation

4. Pooling forces to achieve breakthroughs: European Innovation Partnerships

To overcome fragmentation of efforts and slow pace of change, Innovation Union put in place the European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs).

Main achievements and next steps:

The European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) have presented a new approach to EU research and innovation. Five EIPs have been launched in key areas of active and healthy ageing, water, agriculture, raw materials and smart cities. They are now all in the implementation stage, having identified priorities, engaging a wide range of partners across the demand and supply sides of innovation, and starting to deliver first results. An independent evaluation of the overall performance of the EIPs concluded that there are sound reasons for the EU to continue promoting the EIP approach if the EIPs target systemic innovation with a strong focus on diffusion of innovation.

5. Leveraging our policies externally

This priority aims to maximise the excellence of Europe's science base and spur the growth of innovative companies through active international cooperation and by creating the right conditions to attract top talent.

Main achievements and next steps:

A strategic planning of priorities for future cooperation has been developed through roadmaps for international cooperation to allow early identification of cooperation initiatives with appropriate scale and scope and for their inclusion in the Horizon2020 work programmes. Partnerships between the EU and its Member States have also been strengthened with regards to the definition of common long term visions identifying priorities for cooperation with third countries, including the identification ofcommon research infrastructures priorities. In parallel, Europe is becoming more attractive by improving access and work conditions for foreign researchers interested in carrying out their projects in the EU. Further steps remain to be taken to make Europe even more attractive, for instance through the full roll out of the European Research Area actions at Member States level.

The dialogue with third countries and world regions to favour not only scientific cooperation but also adequate framework conditions for innovation is on-going. The new Scientific Visa is expected to take effect in 2016, after transposition by Member States.

6. Making it happen

This priority aims to monitor progress in the innovation performance of Europe.

Main achievements and next steps:

The Commission continuously monitors and analyses progress in Europe and Member State’s research and innovation performance and the results of this work are presented in several regular publications: 'Research and performance in the EU – Innovation Union progress at country level' ( 5.3MB), the Innovation Union Competitiveness Report ( 16MB), and the Innovation Union Scoreboard ( 13MB) In 2013, the Commission adopted a new Innovation Output indicator ( 69KB).

In addition, under Horizon 2020 a Policy Support Facility (PSF) is being set up to support Member States in designing, implementing and evaluating their R&I policies drawing on high-level expert advice. Through the PSF, the Commission supports peer reviews of national research and innovation systems, in-depth mutual learning activities and tailored support to specific reforms.

All these analyses feed into the European Semester, the yearly cycle of economic policy coordination. Within the Semester, country-specific recommendations related to research and innovation have been addressed to the Member States focussing on the challenges identified in the Annual Growth Surveys ( 486KB), and their implementation is closely monitored by the Commission.

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The force awakens ---> will it be SUSY @ the LHC, soon this year or next?!

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will it be SUSY @ the LHC, soon this year or next?!

Que a força esteja com o origami - Artes - DN

Que a força esteja com o origami - Artes - DN:



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EUA worthy reading on Doctoral Education, Schools, so forth and so on...

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http://www.eua.be/fileadmin/user_upload/files/Publications/Doctoral_Programmes_in_Europe_s_Universities.pdf

EUA-CDE publications -> inc on\about Doctoral Schools

Publications:

EUA-CDE publications

Below you will find a selection of key EUA publications concerning doctoral education. They are the result of projects and events organised by EUA since 2003 when doctoral education was defined, in the Bologna Process, as the third cycle of higher education. A large number of universities from different European countries actively took part in the projects and contributed to the contents of the reports and to the recommendations. 

EUA-CDE publications

 The objective of the Council for Doctoral Education is to continue preparing publications on current developments of doctoral education that could help its member institutions to develop and implement good practices.

Quality Assurance in Doctoral Education – results of the ARDE projectin English 
2013 

CODOC – Cooperation on doctoral education between Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe in English 
2012

Salzburg II Recommendations:
European universities' achievements since 2005 in implementing the Salzburg Principlesin English 
2010

EUA DOC-CAREERS Report: Collaborative Doctoral Education
in English2009

Doctoral Programmes in Europe’s Universities: Achievements and Challenges
in English2007

Doctoral Programmes for the European Knowledge Society
in English
2005

Salzburg Conclusionsin English
2005

Indeed, a valuable reading. There are many 'templates', different approaches, quite a few within a Doctoral School trend, within different variants. A bit like a chess opening (e.g., the Queen's gambit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit] or  an Indian defense [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence] , all with many variations within a common strategy)

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Doctoral Education Current Projects - EUA - FRINDOC

Doctoral Education Current Projects: "DOCTORAL EDUCATION CURRENT PROJECTS Print EUA-CDE is currently involved in one project on doctoral education: 1) Framework for the Internationalisation of Doctoral Education (FRINDOC): aims at providing a comprehensive overview of good practices and valuable experiences for universities. The project will develop a framework containing a statement of good practice on internationalisation and an online tool for universities to aid planning and implementation of internationalisation strategies for doctoral education. The project consortium consists of EUA, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Stellenbosch University (SU), Imperial College London (ICL), the University of Bergen (UiB) and the University of Camerino (UNICAM)."



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EUA - Doctoral

EUA: "EUA'S WORK ON DOCTORAL EDUCATION"



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PS quer pôr ex-alunos a financiar universidades | Económico

PS quer pôr ex-alunos a financiar universidades | Económico:



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Bringing the Liberal Arts to Engineering Education - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Bringing the Liberal Arts to Engineering Education - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education:



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GIREP 2015 | Girep 2015

GIREP 2015 | Girep 2015:

A Workshop on Teacher Shortages and the Preparation of School Leavers for Further Study 

The European Physical Society is pleased to announce sponsorship of a workshop at the forthcoming GIREP-EPEC conference (http://girep2015.ifd.uni.wroc.pl/), 6-10 July 2015, Wroclaw, Poland to address the issue of teacher shortages and preparation of school leavers for further study in physics. There is growing evidence that these are problems across most, if not all, of Europe and the aim of the workshop is to try to gather that evidence together and stimulate further discussion and collaboration. Ten travel bursaries of up to 200 Euros are available to participants who would like to provide evidence within Europe generally or within individual countries of one or more of the following:

1.                        Concerns about standards in physics and maths education supported by data (perhaps studies on PISA or TIMSS);

2.                        Data on the state of physics teaching and the supply of physics teachers

3.                        If there are shortages of physics teachers, what is happening to fill the gaps.

 The workshop will be run in conjunction with Horizons of Physics Education (HOPE: http://www.eps.org/default.asp?page=edu_hope) and will aim to further our understanding of teacher shortages and their effects on pupils across Europe.

 Applications for a travel bursary should be made to the Chair of the Physics Education Division of the EPS, David Sands (d.sands@hull.ac.uk) by Monday 1^st June 2105 and should include your name, affiliation, the country in which you now work and the title with an abstract of 200-300 words describing your contribution. Awards will be made competitively in time for the last registration (15^thJune) for GIREP-EPEC.

--- 

The European Physical Society
6 rue des Frères Lumière
F-68200 MulhouseTel/Fax: +33 (0)389 329 440 /-449

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Urban-Art - da rua para a tua casa

Urban-Art - da rua para a tua casa:



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Welcome to U-Map - U-Map

Welcome to U-Map - U-Map:


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Einstein Conference 2015, November 30 – December 2, Berlin | A Century of General Relativity

Einstein Conference 2015, November 30 – December 2, Berlin | A Century of General Relativity:

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Centro 2020: O foco nos resultados

Centro 2020: O foco nos resultados:



http://www.centro.portugal2020.pt/index.php/item/74-centro-2020-o-foco-nos-resultados


''Our road map'', plenty of bridge-crossing...



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APOD: 2015 April 26 - Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula

APOD: 2015 April 26 - Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula:



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And, now for that big surprise at number 10....

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It is just a set of curious elements. It is in n.10 and the fight for the next elections in the UK is to see who gets into n.10 (the D street, obviously)

Then you have ''red'' army exercices by the south coast near Cornwall...

Then you have strange interventions on Sky (satélite...) by UKip and SNP claiming ´´power'' in the near future (I am reading it wrongly?)

A sort of ''conspiracy theory'' ( but not so?!) coming soon to a theater near you...

Or

who actually did it?

Read about the ...

...

America’s $40m bone to pick with the ‘Hound of Hounslow’ | The Sunday Times:


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America’s $40m bone to pick with the ‘Hound of Hounslow’ | The Sunday Times

America’s $40m bone to pick with the ‘Hound of Hounslow’ | The Sunday Times:

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Zoicks!!!!!

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Not that I am very keen on ...

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... namely because I have no driving experience. Really. But a friend former high school friend is a devoted admirer of this...

I am open to get feedback on this...

The Honourable Schoolboy

How relevant or worthy is the above wrt following:




and or




I mean no criticism on the ''Game of ...'' as I actually never seen a single episode, but has anyone seen a bit of (at least) all the above? Game of ... seems fantasy driven, at least in terms of the graphic line. As far as I have heard some students commenting it.

Anyway, open to get different views on the viewing of either of the above...

New Recipe for Conquering Everest: Rethinking Methods, Route

New Recipe for Conquering Everest: Rethinking Methods, Route:






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Walking to Find the Way | PROOF

Walking to Find the Way | PROOF:



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Cloud (computing) and Health services...

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À Suivre...

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