Fredag 1. mars 2013
From the head of department The two rectoral candidate teams, Team Olsen and Team Atakan are now formally approved and in action toward the elections scheduled for 17.- 24. April 2013. I would like to encourage all the employees and students of our department to download and read the electoral programmes of both teams. If you are in doubt, still have some questions or have any comments – the two presentation meetings might be a good arena for learning more and addressing your questions (read more information below). I encourage you all to take the elections seriously, gather the necessary information to make your own decision as to which team should win the mandate to lead UoB over the next four years, and most importantly – use your right to vote! Have a great weekend, Geir Anton News and general information IFT open seminar All are welcome to attend the open seminar where Dr. Margaret W. Chen , Space Sciences Department , The Aerospace Corporation, USA, will hold a lecture entitled: · Dynamics of the Earth Ring Current: Recent Understanding through Self-Consistent Simulations  Friday March 8 at 14:15, Auditorium B. Coffee, tea and cake from 14:00. The ring current consists of oppositely drifting ions and electrons with energies of ~ 10 to 200 keV in the same region of the Earth’s magnetosphere that the radiation belts occupy. During geomagnetic storms, these particle populations at ring current energies are significantly increased. Associated with the storm-time ring current is a perturbation magnetic field that distorts the inner magnetospheric magnetic field, thereby affecting radiation-belt dynamics. In this seminar I will first briefly discuss early idealizations of ring current formation and then focus on recent advances in understanding ring current dynamics using more realistic self-consistent guiding-center drift and loss simulations. A magnetically and electrically self-consistent treatment of particle transport tends to limit the formation of the ring current as compared to simpler treatments. The ring current intensity and spatial distribution are also significantly affected by variations in the plasma sheet, the major source to the ring current. I will show comparisons of in-situ magnetic field and plasma data and energetic neutral atom (ENA) intensity with corresponding quantities from our self-consistent ring current simulation model during storm events. Such comparisons test the ability of our model to characterize the ring current plasma environment and magnetic field and challenge further our understanding of ring current dynamics. Meet the rector candidates Department leaders of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences invite all the students and employees to the open presentation meeting with Team Olsen and Kuvvet Atakan and their rectoral teams. This will be an excellent opportunity for both rectoral teams to present themselves and their programmes (30 min), as well as to answer the questions from the audience. Team Olsen: Monday, March 4, at 12:15 in Auditorium 1, Realfagsbygget Read more on Team Olsen at their webpage and Facebookpage Team Atakan: Thursday, March 14, at 12:15 in Auditorium 1, Realfagsbygget Read more on Team Atakan at their webpage and Facebookpage Open meeting at the Norwegian Technical Science Academy NTVA invites to a meeing in Bergen with professor Helge Drange, Bjerknessenteret, UoB Climate Modelling and Climate Projections Tuesday, 12. March 2013 at 19:00 in Nansen Centre at Marineholmen, Thormøhlens gate 47. The meeting will be followed by a simple meal of fish soup and good conversation. The price is 100 NOK per meal. Registration latest by 15:00 o’clock on Thursday, March 7, but it is required only of those who intend to stay for the meal. Academia anno 2020 – young researchers look forward Tomorrow’s university shall be formed by today’s young and talented researchers. The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has encouraged five of those, from a broad spectrum of subject areas and with promising research careers ahead of them, to look ahead and point at what they think are the main challenges and the desired directions for Norwegian universities. Debatants are: · Sigrunn Eliassen, biologist, UoB · Terje Lohndal, linguist, NTNU · Jørn Jacobsen, law, UoB · Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, social scientist, UoB · Jan Martin Nordbotten, mathematician, UoB The debatants will be tackling questions such as: · Does the social engagement look any different in 2020 than it does today? · How to recruit the best people and how do we know who those are? · How will the globalization influence university research and education? · What should the university do to best adjust for the groundbreaking and creative research? · How do the educational forms of 2020 look? · How can we achieve better gender balance in permanent scholarly positions until and afteer 2020? Friday, 8. March 2013, from 10:00-12:00 in Auditorium 2 at Dragefjellet (Law Faculty). All of you interested in development of the academia are welcome to join this debate chaired by the dean Dag Rune Olsen. This event is also announced on Facebook. Ethics for breakfast The Ethics Committee of the University of Bergen invites to a breakfast meeting on forging of data. Professor emeritus in general psychology at the University of Oslo, Karl Halvor Teigen will introduce the following topic: What can we learn from the Stapel case? Thursday, March 7, from 08:00-10:00 in the Egg at the Student Centre. Registration latest 2 days before the event. A Dutch scientist had been forging his data for 15 years before he was discovered. His interesting findings in social psychology turned out to be impossible to repeat. There is no correllation between those conditions, but social psychology has none the less come under a big question and the smoke is seen from a far distance. We take a short glance into the battlefield on March 7. Our speaker, Karl Halvor Teigen is a professor emeritus in general psychology at the University of Oslo, with past experience at the universities of Bergen and Tromsø. He has written about history of psychology and researches, among other thins, data evaluation. PhD Disputation before the summer? The final deadline for delivering your doctoral thesis to the department if you want your disputation to take place this semester, is Tuesday, April 23. Your supervisor should by that date also come with suggestions for opponents. The latest possible disputation date befor0 summer break is Friday, June 28. Trial lecture MSc Yi-Chun Chen will hold his PhD trial lecture by the following title: Giant magnetoresistance effect Wednesday, March 6, at 09:15 in room 292, IFT STUDENTs h-bar H-bar is open on Fridays from 19:00-01:00. This Tuesday, March 5, Associate Professor Geir Ersland will hold a pub lecture at H-bar. More info at H-bar s facebook page. H-bar is run by the department’s Fagutvalget, and is primarily aimed at department’s students – but the employees are also welcome! IFT in the media Bodil Holst: Studien av dei små tinga, Forskning.no 21. februar.
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