Search

ABSTRACTCapstone projects are common in undergraduate programmes, providing students with a culminating educational experience designed to draw on the knowledge and skills accumulated over the course of their studies. While there are many benefits to capstone projects, they are not without challenges. In particular, when these projects are conducted in groups, forming groups to optimise the learning outcomes and managing group dynamics can be challenging. In this article, we report on the analysis of data collected from 346 undergraduate business students who completed capstone projects at a Hong Kong university. Measures included students’ learning goal (mastery and performance), satisfaction with their supervisor and group diversity in relation to gender, prior academic achievement, self-report nationality and programme of study. Analysis of this data in conjunction with student grades for the project was conducted to inform improvements in design and delivery of the capstone subject to improve students’ learning outcomes. The results showed that for groups consisting of three students, group diversity in respect to prior academic achievement as measured by grade point average (GPA) is positively related to the grade achieved in the capstone project. However, diversity in respect to the nationalities in the group was related to poorer performance. Furthermore, the more teacher-focused the group supervisor’s approach was, the worse the grade achieved for the project. The results suggest that groups made up of students of different nationalities tend to have lower grades compared to homogeneous groups. In contrast, having a group with a mix of GPAs can result in higher grades on the project. While these findings have informed our understanding of group performance on capstone projects, work is needed to fully understand what underlies the diversity effects identified which will be explored with future cohorts.

A case of spinal epidural cavernous haemangioma associated with gastrointestinal haemangiomas is discussed. The patient was a young Chinese female presenting with chronic lower back pain. She had a history of extensive gastric and small bowel haemangiomas. Lumbar spine MRI showed a heterogeneously enhancing epidural mass infiltrating the paravertebral muscles. Open biopsy confirmed an epidural cavernous haemangioma. To our knowledge, an association between spinal epidural cavernous haemangiomas and gastrointestinal haemangiomas has not been reported.

The temperature and wave vector dependence of the soft shear acoustic mode and the soft polarization mode of KD2PO4 are examined in the high-temperature phase through impulsive stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering. With different scattering wave vectors the regimes ωτ < 1, ωτ ≈ 1 and ωτ > 1 are probed where ω is the acoustic frequency and τ is the polarization relaxation time. The results illustrate how the coupled acoustic and polarization response may be observed in the time domain, and indicate advantages for the time-domain approach in the ωτ τ 1 regime. In this regime the softening of the acoustic mode is followed by hardening (increasing of the frequency) as the transition temperature is approached from above. On femtosecond time scales, it is possible to test critically for any inertial component to the polarization response, which would indicate an overdamped oscillator rather than relaxational description of the polar optic phonon mode.

The nonresonant quadratic molecular hyperpolarizabilities of several classes of Organometallic aromatic compounds were studied with DC electric-field-induced second-harmonic generation (EFISH) experiments using fundamental radiation at 1.91 μm. Our goal is to survey and assess various strategies by which electron densities from metal centers can be exploited for quadratic nonlinear optics. Relying on optimized experimental techniques, systematic studies on structure-property relations concerning metal centers, bonding patterns, conjugations, and effects of ligands were conducted. Results on some arene metal carbonyl π-complexes, metal carbonyl pyridine derivatives, square-planar metal aromatics, and metallocene derivatives are included.

A series of mixed-ligand transition-metal diimine dithiolate complexes have been prepared, and their nonlinear optical properties have been investigated. Molecular hyperpolarizabilities have been obtained from electric field induced second harmonic generation experiments at 1.9 μm and range in magnitude from 0 to −39 × 10^-30 esu. Variation in molecular design of the complexes, through changes in the metal ion and diimine and dithiolate ligands, can be used to affect changes in the charge-transfer-to-diimine absorption band frequency and oscillator strength. Correlation between the optical charge-transfer transition and the nonlinear optical properties appears to agree with the two-state model.

Guided-wave second-harmonic generation using a passive planar waveguide covered with an organic nonlinear optical film as thin as a single molecular layer is demonstrated. The phase-matching condition of this process is revealed both with a high degree of waveguide-mode selectivity and a maximum in the frequency response.