We want you!

We are looking for a student that wants to do a short research stay in The University of Sheffield, UK

The student should be highly motivated to do research and experimental, lab work.

This is a multidisciplinary project, that fits students from last years of bachelors to PhD degree, from degrees on environmental sciences, geotechnical engineering, chemistry, hydrology or geology .

Research Areas: Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Geotechnical engineering, Chemistry.

….

Project Description

Title: Evaluation of recycled landfill barriers against pollution: from centrifuge scale to reality
Research topic of the short-stay period:
The dumping of waste produces a toxic liquid (namely leachate) that percolates downwards, polluting the surrounding areas and groundwater. To stop the migration of the leachate pollutants, barriers are required. The objective is to predict the performance of recycled and reactive barriers in the long term to build sustainable landfills. For this, we will use one of the biggest (2-m diameter) and most advanced geotechnical centrifuge (www.sheffield.ac.uk/ceigr/about). There are only 30 centrifuge of this type in the world and no one in Spain. To mimic the landfill barriers, clays blended with recycled materials will be compacted until 3-10 cm height at their optimum moisture in a cylinder of 10 cm diameter. The compacted cylinders will be permeated with Manchester landfill leachate and gas (50% CO2) while spinning in the centrifuge, to ensure conditions similar to reality. The speed (gravities) and time of spinning (days) set in the centrifuge will provide equivalences to barriers of 2.5 m thickness max. and time of 30-100 years. After centrifugation, each cylinder will be sliced into 6-10 samples, representing different depths of the barrier. The porewater (obtained in aqueous extracts 1/2 -1/2.5 solid-to-liquid ratio after bench centrifugation and 0.45µm-filtration) will be analysed for pH and electrical conductivity (electrodes), major anions and ammonium (IC), metals and rest of major cations (ICP-MS) and carbon (TIC/TOC analyser). The barriers tested will then be ranked from the least to the most effective one. The effect of rainwater on the reversibility of the attenuation will be considered, too.
Knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the student at the end of the short-stay (expected Learning Outcomes):
S/he will:
– acquire scientific knowledge covering from fundamental research (namely experimental analysis of multi-component solute transport in compacted porous media) to applied research (namely geotechnical and geochemical engineering design of barrier systems from first principles)
– develop theoretical, practical and modelling skills in the evaluation and design of sustainable barrier systems to mitigate contaminant emissions from wastes disposal facilities
– access the noteworthy training offered by the host institution, such as:
—> research project, team-building and effective communication
—> academic and research writing in English, good publication practice guidelines and bibliometric analyses
—> effective presentations to different audiences using different media…
Monitoring plan: Available under request
Evaluation plan: Available under request
Benefits of the research short-stay to the host
In turn the student will provide relevant support in lab-scale experiments for studying the attenuation processes through landfill barriers. The supervisor will give continuous training to the student and transfer her/him unique analytical and technical skills, from the very first moment. This will ensure a rapid productive start of the student in the host institution, under appropriate knowledge and direct supervision. Specifically, student will help in the:
– preparation of barriers (homogenizing, sieving, blending, moistening, curing, compacting)
– geotechnical engineering tests (soil consistency and permeability)
– sampling of barriers after geotechnical centrifugation
– preparation of aqueous extracts and determination of moisture contents 
– sample preparation for chemical analyses

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Mental illness and even suicides affect the general research community, not just academics, but also senior and early career researchers. Could we do better to prevent this? For instance, by trying to reduce the pressures that can cause emotional and mental issues (Fig. 1). As a better practice than penalties a posterior like this measure.

Some examples of suicides are this lecturer who was hugely overworked or this post-doctoral fellow who felt isolated, unsupported, and profoundly unhappy (Fig. 2); or this talented scientist who was bullied.

Figure 1.
Figure 2.

Scientific consensus on climate for years, but have things changed at all?

The image below belongs to the presentation of Lewandowsky during the EU4facts (Brussels, 2017):

Still the last warning by scientists was made on the 5th of November 2019 in an article from William J Ripple and colleagues, published by BioSciencehttps://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz088/5610806

Why have not things changed despite the warnings in the last 20 years? What can we do to get politicians into action? What can be done? go on strike? even if it is only for one day?

In case you would like to start helping the conservation of nature and improving our quality of life, see some simple advice (David Suzuki Foundation):

1.Reduce home energy use by 10%·         

2.Choose energy-efficient homes & appliances·         

3.Don’t use pesticides·         

4.Eat meat-free meals one day a week·         

5.Buy locally grown and produced food·        

6.Choose a fuel-efficient vehicle·         

7.Walk, bike, carpool or take transit·        

8.Choose a home close to work or school·         

9.Support alternative transportation

Looking after your self-ie: A guide to finding your balance on and offline

It was launched a free online e-learning resource Looking after your self-ie. The e-learning resource aims to help all social media users build a meaningful, more balanced relationship with platforms where use is conscious and mindful, and the user is in control.

The programme explores a range of different issues including social media’s impact on loneliness, relationships, self-image, self-esteem, sleep, online trolling and bullying.
They are also encouraging all users to share photos of themselves participating in acts of self-care with the hashtag #LookingAfterYourSelfie
Access the e-learning

Turning ‘failure’ into success, and ‘boredom’ into innovation

Failed and Bored” is the upcoming conference organized by the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA). The conference provides a positive perspective on failure and boredom in science and business. This conference draws on MCAA fellows success stories and literary anecdotes to explain the importance of failure & ordinary subjects in research, the advantages of embracing it and the power of leveraging your mistakes to stimulate personal growth. It targets researchers, entrepreneurs, and startups and is free of charge for all MCAA members.

Date: 28 September 2019
Time: 9.00h – 21.00h CET
Venue: University of Innsbruck, Austria

Find more info and register here.

International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation: 11, 12 and 13 Nov

One of the largest international education conferences for lecturers, researchers, technologists and professionals from the educational sector is ICERI2019. This year, the 12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation will be held in Seville (Spain) on the 11, 12 and 13 of November 2019.

After 12 years, ICERI has become a reference event where more than 700 experts from 80 countries will get together to present their projects and share their knowledge on teaching and learning methodologies and educational innovations. The 2019 edition of ICERI is sure to be among the most successful education conferences in Europe.

If you wish to share your experiences and projects in the area of education, research and innovation, you can submit your abstract proposal for ICERI2019 here: https://iated.org/iceri/call_for_papers

KUDOS: A Researcher Tools

An online platform that helps any kind of reader find your work: whether colleagues, researchers inside and outside of your field, the scientific news media, or the general public.

After thousands of hours of hard work, you carefully wrote up the results, polished your manuscript through rounds of revisions, and received the good news that your article was accepted and published. You can turn the page and start the following task. Or you could act, instead of waiting for the world to discover your groundbreaking work.

Kudos aims to help authors increase readership. Rather than waiting for people to find your article or hoping that your journal will effectively promote it, you can use a tool like Kudos to increase your article’s reach. It is currently free for authors and paid for by participating publishers.

Kudos co-founder Melinda Kenneway at the 2014 Society for Scholarly Publishers (SSP) conference in Boston, said that she wants to give authors more “control” over the post-publication reach of their work:

In the past, authors were almost entirely dependent on their publishers to make sure their work gets found, read and cited. But with almost 2 million new articles being published every year, it’s becoming ever more critical for authors to use their own networks and expertise to ensure their publications get noticed.

Kenneway

In an extensive article published in AJE  by Amy Beisel, four Kudos’ features are highlighted:

  1. An editable plain-text field to summarize your work and its importance to the general audience.
  2. Space for adding links to data sets, photos, graphs, media coverage… or to point readers to coverage or blog mentions of your work
  3. Integrated social media (incl. Facebook, Twitter) to easily share a link either your enriched Kudos article profile or the version on the publisher’s website.
  4. Impact evaluation from publisher data and activity on your Kudos article page (similar than in researchgate, Kudos shows the n# times your publication is viewed and downloaded, and the article citations). It has also integrated with Altmetric, a service that quantifies interest in your article beyond citation metrics. For each publication you’ve claimed on your Kudos dashboard, you can view its Altmetric score and the various inputs into that score, including blog posts, tweets, and comments on publisher sites that mention your article.

From the home page, you can search for any of your publications that has a registered DOI  in CrossRef, using the built-in search feature. By creating an user account, you can then manage your publications: first click the “claim” button next to each of your articles, then the article appears in your dashboard.

Kudos account dashboard

Your account dashboard displays a summary view of your claimed publications; the actions you have taken to enrich and share each publication; and various measures of your publication’s reach, including article views, article downloads, and Altmetric score (see below). By clicking on an article from your dashboard, you will open your article’s profile page hosted by Kudos.

Your article profile page includes several components: title, authors, and journal; a link back to the article’s version of record on the publisher’s website; and editable fields where you can place additional context to help readers understand the importance of your article.

Winter School on Sustainable Waste Management

Deadline of Competition Submission: 30 September 2019 (Texas local time)

Participate in the Essay Competition for winning a full or a partial scholarship to attend the ISWA-SWIS Winter School Jan 2020. This is the only international, 2-week course about sustainable waste management, including modern landfills and landfill mining. It offers a good mix of theoretical lectures and practical site visits (have a look to the programme here!).

Spread the word around!

DANGER! Predatory publishers

When looking for a conference or for a journal to submit your research, be aware of these predatory conferences and journals. Publishing with them is both economic and scientific fraud.

Junior academic faculty are particularly focused on opportunities to publish, given the importance tied to their promotion. They may, therefore, be most susceptible to academic spam emails (ASEs) from predatory publishers, which contain unsolicited requests for publishing manuscripts, presentations at organisation meetings and memberships on editorial boards. There have been documented instances of accepting flawed manuscripts or fake editorial board members” (Wilkinson et al, 2019)

List of predatory publishers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Academies

List of predatory journals: https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/

You can contribute the name of a predatory journal or publisher, either by
either email themsend them a tweet, or create an issue or pull request for the data files on GitHub. Be sure to include evidence of predatory behavior. They will investigate submissions to verify them, but more information helps them to verify more quickly.

Article for public recognition and Acknowledgements to the reviewers of the journal

Now journals seems to start also publishing a document with the list of reviewers for public recognition and Acknowledgements.

Related to the past post about “Get credit for reviewing manuscripts”

Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Materials in 2018

Materials Editorial Office, 2019 Editorial Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Materials in 2018. Materials. MDPI, St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland. Published: 8 January 2019, 12, 194; doi:10.3390/ma12010194.

And:

Dear Reader, As we reach the final issue of European Journal of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics for 2019, we wish to reflect on another successful year’s … We would like to thank the following individuals who acted as reviewers for European Journal of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics in the past 12 months… (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13318-019-00586-4.pdf)