Tag Archives: teaching
Presenting for Scientists – video
If you give bad presentations, you can kill people. If you want to find out why, and get some tips on presentation techniques (the ones I use, anyway), you can watch this video I recorded recently. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtL9NCXyEs ) Comments are always welcome!
Does it matter part 2: polarization factor and spherical corrections
In this series of posts, we take a quick look at some uncommon corrections you can do to your scattering patterns and we evaluate whether they are worththe trouble or not. The goal is to arrive at intensities which are within 1% of their correct values. In the previous post, we looked at the sample [...]
Does it matter? part 1: sample direction-dependent absorption
This series is part of a set to determine which corrections matter when. We all heard -or read- about corrections Small-angle Scatterers do not need to do, because they are supposedly negligible. Let’s look at some of them and determine if this is really true or not. The first looks at the sample direction-dependent [...]
Live FT video
A demonstration of the live Fourier Transform showing scattering patterns can be seen here:
Live Fourier transform
During some recent presentations, I have used a small matlab program giving me a live Fourier transform of the laptop camera input. It can be used in combination with some printed “structures” to show what we would see on a SAXS or WAXS detector. The idea is not mine, I heard that it was used [...]
Errors and improvements in the perfectpattern code
Hi all, Just a quick heads-up, there are some minor errors in the perfectpattern code with respect to the convergence criteria. Also I have made some improvements and added a “counting statistics”-like Poisson error to more closely approach real data. These updates have now been posted on the software page.
Notes on Guinier
…well, his famous SAXS analysis method. This documentGuinier_short, copyright Brian Pauw gives a short description and review of the applicability of the Guinier method to polydisperse systems. It also shows, through analysis of simulated data, what q-range should be measured for the Guinier method to be valid. In short, the rule of qmax=1.3/Rg still holds, [...]
More Youtube videos
So, I could not do what I promised last time, the Monte-Carlo fitting works on perfect simulated scattering patterns but is as of yet unable to deal with the addition of a flat background. So I will have to take a raincheck. In the mean time, I have made two videos (part 1 and part [...]
Teaching and how it applies to us.
We teach. Every one of us. If we have a classroom of students, it is obvious, but also when we talk to colleagues, we sometimes try to teach them something (even if it is only our point of view). I spoke last time about the teaching horrors that modern textbooks have. Well, this video by [...]
Dresden codak – detailed visual narration lessons from comics
There is a scathing review coming out on the topic of academia (particularly the US one). While the general tone of the dissertation is negative, they do indicate a strong need, or rather duty, of scientists to communicate our findings as clear and understandibly as possible. Personally, I completely agree with this. Clear communication sometimes hinges [...]