Lectures and workshops on scientific publishing

Posted on 01/05/201509/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Most of the section members or students of Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University in general are in the earliest stages of their scientific careers, thus, only a few of us are familiar with scientific publishing, taking into account both the concepts (f.e. scientific paper composition and process of peer reviewing) and the technical part (manuscript preparation, reference managemen). During the activity, lectures of invited speakers (“How to publish your manuscript” by Peter E. Andersen and “How to publish your manuscript: Editorial point of view” by Rachel Won) and chapter members (“Introduction to scientific publishing using LaTeX” by Vytautas Butkus) were held.

The lectures of the invited speakers took place during the “Open readings 2015” conference and attracted around 200 participants, including members of the section and faculty staff. The lecture by Vytautas Butkus was attended by ~20 people, excluding the chapter members. There also were several workshops, where the chapter members and the faculty students were introduced to LaTeX/LyX scientific text preparation tools. Some of the attendees were involved into development of lecture notes of the “Mathematical Physics” subject. The lecture notes were printed and distributed and the selected books about scientific publishing were bought. Workshops were continuously attended by 3-to-5 chapter members and ~5 students. The participants were introduced to many different tips and tricks in scientific publishing. In the lecture and workshops, led by the chapter members, participants were introduced to the history and specificity of the scientific publishing (journals, use of language, publishing and peer review process, etc.) as well as to LaTeX/LyX tools for scientific documents preparation.

This event provided a great understanding of the publishing process, essential skills and practical applications. OSA and SPIE Student Chapters of Vilnius University also played a huge role in the funding of this activity. The funding was used to reimburse the travel expenses (flight tickets, airport transfer and local transport cost and the accommodation cost) of our main lecturer – the editor of Nature Photonics, Rachel Won. We have also bought several books on scientific writing: “Trees, maps and theorems” by Jean-luc Doumont, “The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing” by Richard Dawkins and “The Craft of Scientific Writing” by Michael Alley. They are held in our special Students Scientific Association library and are open for every young mind.

Look here the video of Rachel Won talk “How to Publish Your Manuscript”!

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Physics Got Talent

Posted on 23/04/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

On April the 23th took place the Award Cerimony for the contest “Physics Got Talent”. The contest was adressed to young students attending high school in Naples. They had to send a video (max 7 minutes) in which they describe an experiment performed by themselves explaining what they do, what they use and what are the conclusions of their work. The video were download on the facebook page and youtube channel created to increase interest for the event.
We assigned three prizes: two of them chosen by the jury, called the first and second “technical winner”; and another prize for the top rated video on the web (like for Facebook and YouTube) called “popular prize”. The online vote received more 1000 like on the page .
Prizes consisted of didactic sets for the schools. The sets are composed by compasses, electrical circuits, lasers, optical lenses, pendulum, slinky, stopwatches etc.
About 100 students, belonging to the schools who joined the contest, took part to the event.
During the ceremony the videos made by the participants were shown and the students themselves explained better how they performed the experiment, how they built the setup and the reasons who motivated them to join the contest.
These latter short interviews underlined the importance to stimulate curiosity and passion about physics among the younger generation of students. In addition it was an opportunity for students to visit the physics department and know more about young minds project.
The winner was invited to perform their experiment to the event “Passione Fisica” .

Here we report the winners :
Technical prizes:

Liceo Cuoco , “Costruzione di un motore elettrico”(“How to made an eletric motor”)
Liceo Calamandrei , “Termogiocando” (“Playing with termodinamic”)

Popular prize:
Liceo Suor Orsola Benincasa, “Legge di Stevin” (“Stevin’s Law”)

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Physics for everyone project at ELTE

Posted on 18/04/201508/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The main goal of the project was to raise public awareness to the everyday influence of physics in our life. Physics themed presentations were held in the whole country organised by the Hungarian EPS member ELFT, and we took our part in the project by organising the main flagship event at the Eötvös University. This was an open and free event for any curious persons, but our main focus was on families, teenagers and younger children. There were four 30 minute long easily understandable and entertaining scientific lectures. The lectures were presented by renewed scientists and students alike, with topics from the most novel and interesting research areas. During the whole afternoon and evening (for seven hours) there were five thematic demonstration stands with over a 100 different experiments (the five themes were: thermodynamics, electromagnetism, modern physics, mechanics and a darkroom for optical experiments). The participants were also able to try out most of the nondangerous experiments themselves. There were at least four presenters at each table, who were mostly physics students, and there will were additional organisers who have taken small sized groups to the digital planetary at the campus.There were also interesting astronomical lectures every hour in the afternoon, and there was also an hourly rocket and explosion experiment in the open. We and the ELFT aim to grow this national event to an international celebration for physics in the following years.

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Developments in Optics and Communications

Posted on 10/04/201509/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The 11th international student and young scientist conference Developments in Optics and Communications 2015 was held during April 8-10 in Riga, the capital of Latvia, and it gathered around 70 brilliant young scientists from 8 different countries – Latvia, Poland, Denmark, Russia, Armenia, Germany, Italy and Georgia – to share their scientific works, insights and experiences in various fields related to optics: vision science, biophotonics, laser physics and spectroscopy, optics in communiacions and optical materials.
The organizers were happy to welcome two international guest speakers: Dr. Pablo Artal from Spain and Prof. Dr. Lise Lyngsnes Randeberg from Norway. Prof. Dr. Pablo Artal explained the novelties of vision science (“The human eye as a robust optical system”) while Prof. Dr. Lise Lyngsnes Randeberg explained the current progress with non-invasive diagnostics of human skin (“How do optical properties affect light transport in tissue, and which parameters do you need to care about in the lab”). Guest speakers from Latvia gave very interesting talks as well: Dr. Aivars Vembris of Institute of Solid State Physics talked about the main principles and advances in organic solid state lasers, Dr. Dainis Jakovels of Institute for Environmental Solutions introduced the audience about “Applications of airborne optical remote sensing techniques for environmental assessment and monitoring”, Dr. Florian Gahbauer of Faculty of Physics and Mathematics gave a talk on “Nitrogen vacancy centers in diamonds for sensing and quantum information”, and Evija Gulbinska of Latvian American Eye Center talked about “Visian ICL: intraocular collamer lens for refractive correction”. During the conference, also a workshop was organized by Jurita Kruma of Digital tribe WWWOLF on self-motivation and time management “So, I woke up today, and what now?”
The scientific work and presentation of every participant was evaluated by our jury. The best speech and poster holder received a monetary reward for their work. This year the best poster award was given to Andris Bērziņš of University of Latvia for his poster “Magnetic field imaging using nitrogen vacancy (NV) centres in a diamond lattice”. The best oral presentation award was given to Tatevik Chalyan on “Performance optimisation of biosensors based on SiON microring resonators”.
As well as attending the many talks and poster sessions, participants had the opportunity to spend time with fellow scientists in an informal atmosphere – during the Welcome Party, orienteering in the Old Town of Riga and during the conference afterparty. This year International Year of Light was a theme throughout the whole conference – the conference logo was also adjusted for this special celebration year.
This conference was organized by SPIE and OSA chapters and Young Minds student section of University of Latvia.

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ILY @ Developments in Optics and Communications 2015

Posted on 08/04/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

During the international student and young scientist conference “Developments in Optics and Communications 2015”, the Riga YM Section organized a special welcome party to celebrate the International Year of Light, although it was a theme throughout the whole conference. The conference logo was adapted this year to include the logo of the International Year of Light. It was mentioned during all three conference days that this year it is a special year for our conference, organizers and also participants and that this year even more than before we are celebrating Light.
Each participant got a present in their conference bag – a pin with the International Year of Light logo.

This social activity included different activities: introduction game in which all the participants could get to know each other better and other games. A KHET Laser Game tournament was held that allowed participants to challenge each other intellectually as well – this game needs knowledge on how light rays reflect, and also some strategic thinking to predict the opponent’s next moves. A Quiz about Physics and Light was held during the Welcome party to see who can get the right answers the fastest.
During the International Year of Light Welcome party, which was held in the evening of the first day of the conference, participants got to know each other better, got a chance to network with each other not just regarding their scientific work, but also to discuss and share ideas about different outreach activities that can be organized. The organizers believe that this event was very useful for everyone, and participants enjoyed it very much.

ACCASTAMPATO writing courses

Posted on 28/03/201520/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

On 26th and 27th March 2015 the Rome YM Section organized the 2nd edition of the writing course.
We invited the same teachers of the previous edition, Manuela Cirilli and Massimiliano Razzano, because we really appreciated their communication skills and teaching approach. Further more, we believe their experience as physicist is very valuable for teaching science communication to physics students because both of them are physicist themselves. Manuela worked for years as a researcher in the ATLAS experiment before moving to CERN Knowledge Transfer Office, where she actually works. Massimiliano is an INFN researcher and a journalist for “la Repubblica”, one of the most important Italian newspapers. Besides their experience as researchers, they are very experienced in teaching communication, for instance Manuela is a teacher of the Science Journalism Master of the Ferrara University.

The course was held in the Informatics Laboratory of the Physics Department of “La Sapienza”, in order to give to all the students the possibility to use a computer connected to the internet. As already happened for the past edition, the course has been integrated in the experimental school on science communication co-organised with the “Assaggi” bookstore and “MadMaths” association.

The school lasted two days, with more than 14 hours, of lesson and practical sessions. Manuela and Massimiliano presented the general rules of writing during the first part of the course. The second part consisted of two practical writing sessions where we had the opportunity to simulate an editorial meeting, proposing and selecting titles for different kinds of magazines and writing some of them. The articles were then corrected and the most common errors analysed and discussed.
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International Students Conference

Posted on 27/03/201509/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

International scientific conference for students of physics & natural sciences “Open Readings 2015” took place in Lithuania, Vilnius on 24-27th of March, 2015. This year we had almost 300 participants from all over the Europe (Belarus, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Spain, etc.) and a program rich of invited lecturers and social events, which gathered more than half of thousand visitors from local research institutions, companies and society in general.

The newly established EPS YM Section of Vilnius University took a big role in this conference. The goal of this conference is to create an ecosystem for learning and spreading the knowledge with a great atmosphere for everyone while improving and delivering young minds to the scientific path of life. The pursuit of this goal was deeply strengthened from the social side. In other words professional development was at high level during oral and poster sessions and is true that sessions create the base for the conference, but social activities including coffee-breaks make the atmosphere, so this grant was directed towards the conference coffee breaks.

All members of EPS YM Section of Vilnius University had their impact in the preparation and were present during the four days of the conference. The growth of the submissions from last year number of 200 to 300 including some submissions from fellow EPS members was quite surprising and of course it would not have been the same without the support from EPS. The expected outcomes were reached as students successfully presented, shared and explored the beauty of the science.

The granted amount was properly used together with the additional support from Center for Physical Sciences and Technology for six coffee breaks during the span of this international conference. The EPS YM Section of Vilnius University is hopeful of continuing the work next year and making the EPS impact visible once again!
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Introduction to Student Scientific Association

Posted on 14/03/201511/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

EPS Young Minds Section of Vilnius University invited all of the members of the community which connects also the OSA and SPIE Student Chapters to celebrate the international day of π on 14th of March, 2015.

The handouts shown in the first figure were handed out to more than 300 students, the trick to make them more useful was an added list of most common math equations in physics on the other side of the handout. These handout were in Lithuanian and they invited to do outreach activities, participate in seminars, construct some objects and of course come to the celebration of the international π-day. The celebration involved SPIE Student Chapter of Vilnius University, OSA Student Chapter of Vilnius University and Vilnius University Students’ Representation. It consisted of the fallowing events: discussion on possible future plans, Pi memorizing contest and an actual pie contest. Participants competed against each other and the award ceremony took place at the end with a social party, including board games and more. Two books “The Number Pi” written by Pierre Eymard were purchased: one was dedicated to our library while the other was given to the winner of the contest. The left amount of the grant was used to reimburse the cost of snacks and beverages.

Most of the members of different communities are tightly connected but these connections do not always have proper transfer to the results. Sharing the information on upcoming events, meetings, conferences, etc. is a great start. We may have similar aims, but we need to understand each other in order to point them in the same direction. Meetings in informal environment are the best way to do so. All of the event goals are related to reinforcing of the communication between the scientific communities of Vilnius University!

The Game of Physics – YM BAA 2015

Posted on 14/03/201513/05/2016 by YM Webmaster

Within the framework of the “Open–door day” in the Science Faculty of University of Valladolid, three workshops of 30 minutes were carried out in parallel, with three physics areas: Thermodynamics, Optics and Electromagnetism. The main objective of this project was to approach physics knowledge to high school students in an attractive way taking advantage of the popular TV-series “Game of Thrones”.

In the Thermodynamics workshop (set in House Targaryen), the students discovered the following experiments/topics:

Two ping-pong balls get closer blowing in the space between them (Bernouilli effect).
Water boiling with a temperature below 100°C, due to low pressure.
A bottle filled with hot air is deformed by atmospheric pressure.
A cloud of alcohol is created by depressurization.
Dry ice is used to illustrate the different densities of CO2 and air.
The Leidenfrost effect is shown burning hands with a mixture of water, hairspray and soap.

In the Optics workshop (set in House Baratheon), the following concepts are explained:

Basic concepts of reflection, refraction, limit angle and optical fibre.
Invisibility by the same refraction index of Pyrex and sunflower oil.
A homemade vapour-display creates a screen of water vapour (laminar flow), the interaction light-matter is introduced.
A PC-monitor without its polarizing film cannot display any image. Linear polarizers are used to recover the image and to show the total extinction.
A set of four mirrors is adequately placed in order to banish a person (cloaking effect). A 3D image is achieved with an acetate pyramid and a video (holograms).

In the Electromagnetism workshop (located Beyond the Wall), the students discover the following phenomena:

The electromagnetic force is shown on aluminium strips and soap bubbles. This concept is also illustrated with a Van der Graaf generator.
A ferromagnetic fluid, iron filings, magnets and a magnetic field visualizer are used to show the magnetic field.
A magnetic levitation kit is used to illustrate the power of the magnetic force.
A plasma sphere and a Tesla coil with a light bulb become two ways to reproduce an aurora borealis.

The students filled a questionnaire (accessible by a QR code) and the results were very impressive: the activity got a score of 4.8 of 5, and most of them want to repeat an experience like this. 26 out 200 (13% of the participants) express their intention to study Physics after seeing our activity.

This show has been performed four times through June 2015 with a total audience close to 1,000 viewers. In May 2015, this activity was awarded the EPL Best YM Activity Award 2015 during the 4th EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting.

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Play with optic

Posted on 27/02/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

On February 27th,at Roma Tre Mathematics and Physics Department, was performed the event “Occhi su Giove: l’autovelox per la luce”. About 600 persons took part at the evening.
During the event it was possible to observe with telescopes of the Department and to took part at the ‘Play with optics’ experiments.
Our experiments concerned arguments studied during the degree course and expanded for personal curiosity. Experiments concepts were:

OPTICS LAWS: The purpose of the activity was to provide an opportunity to discover the optics (geometrical and physical) by means of hands-on labs. To explain these phenomena we used:
• laser pointers and mirrors , to show refraction and reflection laws of light in water and in other materials;
• different torches to show diffusion in a medium and to answer questions like ‘Why is the sky blue?’;
• bottles filled with water to produce waveguides;
• 3D cinema glasses and a LCD monitor, whose screen was used as a polarizing filter, in order to explain the polarization of light;
• Slits, laser and participants’ hair were used to talk about the diffraction of light.
THE EYE AND THE 3D VISION: The experiment was focused on eye’s functionality and was divided into three steps: the anatomical components of a healthy eye, how these components works together, and why, if one eye works perfectly alone, we have two of them?
In this regard, a demonstration on how our brains are able to make us understand the three-dimensions, using a stereoscope, was given.
Moreover was explained the concept of the cinema 3D vision, with practical demonstration of the three-dimensional view of a siderite through anaglyph glasses.
GRAVITATIONAL LENSES, MASS THAT DEFLECTS LIGHT: The idea at the base of the experiments was to show that the general relativity’s topics aren’t so far from reality. In fact, many theory’s arguments have a practical application like the gravitational lenses, which are used for astrophysics’ investigations. To do that, minor experiments have been used. Some of that were: a sheet bended by a ball to simulate the warped space-time and a mirror that shows how candle’s light could be reflected or distorted, as the gravitational lenses do.
AUTO-GRAVITING WATER: The goal of the experiment is to obtain an optical effect that gives various perception of water drops: flowing downward in slow motion, suspended in the air, flowing upward. To achieve this goal, two tools have been used: a subwoofer and a strobe light. The water flowed in a little tube attached to the subwoofer that made it oscillate, and when the water was spilled out, it was enlightened by the strobe light at different frequencies. The demonstration of these three optical effects have been made possible by using specific frequencies of the strobe light.

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