Open University

The Open University partners with Deposco to streamline warehouse management and drive growth

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 26, 2024

The collaboration aims to modernise and enhance the university's warehouse management system (WMS) to better serve over 200,000 students worldwide.

Key Points: 
  • The collaboration aims to modernise and enhance the university's warehouse management system (WMS) to better serve over 200,000 students worldwide.
  • After undertaking a framework agreement process involving requests for proposals (RFPs), The Open University selected Deposco as the best fit to a rigorous set of functional, technical and value-for-money metrics.
  • Through the implementation of Deposco's warehouse management software , The Open University aims to improve operations and gain real-time visibility into performance metrics that can be driven through an enhanced reporting capability.
  • Will Lovatt, General Manager of Deposco Europe, said: "We are proud to partner with The Open University in their journey to modernise and expand their educational reach.

Universal Display Corporation Announces the Appointment of New Board Members

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, March 7, 2024

Universal Display Corporation (Nasdaq: OLED) (UDC), enabling energy-efficient displays and lighting with its UniversalPHOLED® technology and materials, today announced that Dr. Nigel Brown and Dr. Joan Lau have joined the Company’s Board of Directors, effective March 4, 2024.

Key Points: 
  • Universal Display Corporation (Nasdaq: OLED) (UDC), enabling energy-efficient displays and lighting with its UniversalPHOLED® technology and materials, today announced that Dr. Nigel Brown and Dr. Joan Lau have joined the Company’s Board of Directors, effective March 4, 2024.
  • The addition of these new directors expands UDC’s Board to ten members.
  • “I am pleased to welcome Nigel and Joan to the Board,” said Steven V. Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display Corporation and a member of the Board.
  • “Nigel adds a wealth of business innovation, technical knowledge and corporate strategic planning expertise to our Board.

 Emplifi Appoints Ohad Hecht To CEO Role As Company Moves Into Accelerated Growth Mode

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Emplifi , a leading customer engagement platform, today announced Ohad Hecht as its new CEO.

Key Points: 
  • Emplifi , a leading customer engagement platform, today announced Ohad Hecht as its new CEO.
  • Hecht takes over the top leadership position during a pivotal time for Emplifi as the company transitions from “build-mode” into an accelerated growth phase.
  • With Hecht’s laser-focus on culture, product, customer retention and pipeline growth, Emplifi is strategically positioned to move swiftly into its next phase of growth.
  • Prior to taking over the top leadership role at Emplifi, Hecht was the co-founder and CEO for Prodport, a personalization solution for eCommerce brands that automates the development of personalized product pages.

Six space missions to look forward to in 2024

Retrieved on: 
Saturday, December 30, 2023

It’s going to be a bumper time for space missions in 2024 – especially to the Moon, our nearest neighbour.

Key Points: 
  • It’s going to be a bumper time for space missions in 2024 – especially to the Moon, our nearest neighbour.
  • Rather than peering through telescopes to look at the stars, I prefer to see them in a vial in my lab.
  • So it was a great delight to see the safe return of Nasa’s Osiris-Rex mission from asteroid (101955) Bennu in September 2023.

CLPS missions

  • Nasa’s series of Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) missions, many of which will launch in 2024, are set to bring a variety of instruments to the Moon.
  • The CLPS programme is part of Nasa’s Artemis initiative to continue human exploration of the Moon.
  • CLPS-2 is timetabled to launch in early January 2024, and there are four other CLPS missions planned for launch throughout the year.

Trailblazer


Continuing the lunar theme, Nasa’s Trailblazer mission travels to the Moon to understand where any water is situated. Is it locked inside rock as part of the mineral structure, or is it deposited as ice on the rocky surface? Trailblazer is currently scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2024. However, no precise date has been confirmed. It’s a small mission, part of the Artemis human lunar exploration programme.

Chang'e 6

  • This is particularly significant because the spacecraft will collect material from the lunar farside – the South Pole Aitkin Basin.
  • This is a region where it is believed there is abundant frozen water.

Hera


In September 2022, Nasa’s Dart mission encountered a system consisting of two asteroids called Didymos and Dimorphos, and crashed into Dimorphos (the junior partner). The impact had a purpose: to see if such a collision could divert the asteroid in its path – a necessary goal if ever Earth were to be the target of a direct hit by an incoming asteroid.

  • But what we don’t know (and won’t until Hera arrives in 2026) is how effective the impact was.
  • Hera will investigate in detail – and its results will help to define Earth’s planetary defence protocol.

Europa Clipper

  • Launching almost at the same time as Hera is a Nasa flagship mission: the Europa Clipper to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
  • Excitingly, Europa may host life in the form of a substantial fauna analogous to the animals that live on the deep ocean floor around hydrothermal vents.
  • Europa Clipper will fly past Europa between 40 and 50 times, taking detailed images of the surface, monitoring the satellite for icy plumes – and, most importantly, looking to see whether this moon has the conditions suitable to support life.
  • The investigation will be complemented by observations from Esa’s Juice mission, which is currently on its way to Jupiter.

MMX

  • I will finish it with my anticipation of further delights to come.
  • The launch of the Japanese Space Agency’s Martian Moon Exploration (MMX) mission to Phobos is currently scheduled for September 2024, and designed to return material to Earth in 2029.


Monica Grady works for The Open University. She receives funding from The UKRI-Science and Technology Facilities Council. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London and Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University. She tweets (X's?) as @MonicaGrady

EQS-News: ‘From out of this world, to first in the world’: Element Lab Solutions helps the Open University to purchase the first Syft Tracer™, furthering the study of space science in the UK

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, December 14, 2023

The purchase supports the university's expansion plans for its Wolfson Analytical Centre, aimed at advancing pioneering research endeavors.

Key Points: 
  • The purchase supports the university's expansion plans for its Wolfson Analytical Centre, aimed at advancing pioneering research endeavors.
  • The Syft Tracer™ is the latest innovation in Selected Ion Flow Tube Mass Spectrometry (SIFT-MS), developed by Syft Technologies.
  • With its trace gas detection capabilities, the Syft Tracer™ is equipped to address the most challenging analytical tasks across various industries and applications.
  • The new Syft Tracer™ introduces a novel automated sampler that Element played a pivotal role in developing.

EDUtech Asia: Uniting Education Leaders for a Digital Future

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, October 31, 2023

This prestigious event will feature 400 education leaders from schools and higher education establishments across Asia, taking the stage to share insights and best practices on shaping the digital future of education.

Key Points: 
  • This prestigious event will feature 400 education leaders from schools and higher education establishments across Asia, taking the stage to share insights and best practices on shaping the digital future of education.
  • She will discuss the impact of AI on the education system and the need for changing assessment practices.
  • Join us at EDUtech Asia to explore the digital future of education.
  • EDUtech Asia 2023 will take place at B2 Halls D, E, F, Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore on the 8-9 November 2023.

1EdTech TrustEd Microcredential Coalition Aims to Maximize the Value of Digital Credentials

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, October 25, 2023

LAKE MARY, Fla. , Oct. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- 1EdTech® Consortium is working to increase the levels of quality and trust in digital credentials with the TrustEd Microcredential Coalition.

Key Points: 
  • The coalition of higher ed, suppliers and K-12 districts to release a framework for issuers
    LAKE MARY, Fla. , Oct. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- 1EdTech® Consortium is working to increase the levels of quality and trust in digital credentials with the TrustEd Microcredential Coalition.
  • It takes the guesswork out of knowing what a credential or degree means, making each achievement transparent to the receiver.
  • In addition, a TrustEd Microcredential can move across platforms and networks in support of the crucial requirement for learner mobility.
  • The framework is expected to be released at 1EdTech's Digital Credentials Summit, March 4-6, 2024, in New Orleans.

Mercury: shrinking planet is still getting smaller – new research

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 2, 2023

Despite being the closest planet to the Sun, its interior has been cooling down as internal heat leaks away.

Key Points: 
  • Despite being the closest planet to the Sun, its interior has been cooling down as internal heat leaks away.
  • This means that the rock (and, within that, the metal) of which it is composed must have contracted slightly in volume.
  • It is unknown, however, to what extent the planet is still shrinking today – and, if so, for how long that is likely to continue.
  • Because Mercury’s interior is shrinking, its surface (crust) has progressively less area to cover.

When did that scarp last move?

    • But are all of them that old?
    • And did the older ones cease moving long ago or are they still active today?
    • We should not expect that the thrust fault below each scarp has moved only once.

Cracking up

    • But our team found unambiguous signs that many scarps have continued to move in geologically recent times, even if they were initiated billions of years ago.
    • He interpreted these as “grabens”, the geological word to describe a strip of ground dropped down between two parallel faults.
    • Working with the most detailed images provided by MESSENGER, Man found 48 large lobate scarps that definitely have small grabens.
    • A further 244 were topped by “probable” grabens – which aren’t seen quite clearly enough on the best MESSENGER images.

Lessons from the Moon

    • The Moon has also cooled and contracted.
    • Its lobate scarps are considerably smaller and less spectacular than those on Mercury, but on the Moon we know for sure that as well as being geologically recent, some are active today.
    • BepiColombo won’t be landing and so we have no prospect of collecting any seismic data on Mercury.

Have we really found the first samples from beyond the Solar System? The evidence is not convincing

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 6, 2023

He has even hypothesised that the spherules are actually debris from an alien spacecraft.

Key Points: 
  • He has even hypothesised that the spherules are actually debris from an alien spacecraft.
  • I commented at the time that I’d need firm analytical evidence to accept such interpretations.
  • Loeb has now provided a very detailed set of analytical data of 57 spherules in an article submitted to a journal.
  • But it has not yet been subject to the peer review that academics require before they accept research as legitimate.
  • Such particles are referred to as “cosmic spherules” and normally come from asteroids within our Solar System.

Other explanations

    • This is unlikely – iron meteorites from within the Solar System are the most affected by melting and this would explain the results.
    • Other possibilities that Loeb considers are supernovas (infinitely hot exploding stars) and cool, luminous stars (known as “asymptotic giant branch” stars, where cool is still incredibly hot).
    • A supernova results from the catastrophic implosion of a stellar source, producing bursts of neutrons to form new elements.
    • The isotopic composition of those elements has been measured in many grains found in meteorites.
    • But they differ from the spherules described by Loeb because they are very small – only a few microns at most.

Moehrendorf professional development consultant named Toastmasters International President

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 29, 2023

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Aug. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Morag Mathieson, of Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany, is the new International President of Toastmasters International, the world's leading organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development. Mathieson assumed the one-year term at the organization's 2023 International Convention, Nassau, Bahamas, Aug. 16-19.

Key Points: 
  • ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Aug. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Morag Mathieson, of Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany, is the new International President of Toastmasters International , the world's leading organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development.
  • Mathieson is a self-employed professional development consultant and chair of the Board of the child sponsorship charity Living Water Germany e.V.
  • At Alliance Pharmacy, she created new business concepts including continuing professional development for pharmacy professionals.
  • As International President, Mathieson is the highest ranked officer on the Toastmasters Board of Directors.