Exchange of experience and cooperation
In addition to project work, the three-week practice included several events aimed at introducing students to each other, the Russian capital and the Institute.
In the first week, a creative meeting was organized - "International Day" at the D. I. Blokhintsev Universal Library, where students, united in teams, told other participants about their country. Many prepared national treats, dances and songs.
On a weekend, there was a trip to Moscow and sightseeing.
JINR hosted tours of Laboratories and basic facilities. Students saw the Govorun supercomputer, the DC‑140 cyclotron, the EG‑5 accelerator, as well as the experimental hall of the TANGRA project of FLNP.
An important stage of the programme was the day of defense of papers on 8 October. Presentations of all 23 projects were on the same day. Upon completion, the participants were awarded Diplomas of internship at JINR and souvenirs.
Our newspaper has more than once talked about international student practices. And this time, we have decided to focus on project leaders, about why they agree to participate, how research groups gather, responsibilities are distributed, joint work is born.
Head of Sector of FLNP Inga Zinicovscaia spoke about the popularity of her environmental area.
What time do you take part in an international student practice?
- It so happened that the environmental research area is in great demand today. There are always more people that wish to get to us in the Sector than the number of places that we offer. This year, we decided to take three people but in the end, we agreed to four. A student practice has already become a historical component of the Sector, I participated in it both before I became a head and when I already became Head of Sector. In total, more than 10 years.
What do you value in working with students?
- A practice is a way to meet students from different countries. And a way to establish cooperation, since not only primary students come, but also children that are graduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers. Sometimes, the process is limited only to practice. The students come, do the work and that's all. But it happens differently. We have a colleague Sang from the university in Dalat that after the practice, comes to our Sector every year for three months. We are engaged in scientific work with her on an ongoing basis. There is also Islam from the British University in Egypt that came to us as a graduate student and who, after practice, we continue to cooperate with on the topic of wastewater treatment.
Tell us about your project and students this year, please.
- We had four students that represented all four countries: South Africa, Vietnam, Serbia, Egypt. Initially, a project was aimed at applying analytical methods to the analysis of medical plants. But when the students came to the Sector, it turned out that everyone has a very different level of education: someone is a materials scientist, someone is engaged in pharmaceuticals. And as the practice of recent years shows, everyone needs to select an individual task. Therefore, despite the fact that we announced one project, the students actually worked in three areas.
A student from Egypt Rami worked with medical plants with a student from South Africa that came to us for another programme. A student from Vietnam Nyat worked on low-background gamma spectrometry. He had samples of inter-laboratory tests that we pass for the IAEA. And South African student Amo and Serbian student Nadia worked on wastewater treatment. Cyanobacteria were used to extract metals from multicomponent systems.
The students participated in the experiments, in addition, we discussed how the results can be presented.
We approached the matter very practically. The entire project will be part of the candidate thesis of a student from South Africa. Based on the results of the investigation performed, articles will be prepared and the rest will become co‑authors of it, since they made a significant contribution to it and it would be wrong not to co‑author them.
If the environmental area is popular, then why did the project involve the recruitment of only three students? Sometimes, the number of interns reaches eight.
- Because it is difficult, primarily, from the point of view of the selection of tasks. Students come in very different. I would like them to do something that is already close to them and not to learn completely new things in a short time. Therefore, you need to select topics. The second reason is everyday - it is not easy to accommodate people when there are many of them. Everyone needs to be allocated a workplace, usually a table and a chair. This task lies entirely with the project leader. In addition, several more people come to our Sector in parallel on a regular basis, whom we also have to arrange. We just sensibly evaluate our capabilities by these parameters.
Can we say that you have a task to conduct practice more efficiently than en masse?
- It doesn't make sense to take more if you can't pay due attention. I understand from the reports when the students are given ready-made data and they process it, trying to present it in some new form. We moved away from that. We believe that trainees should be involved in experimental work. It is more interesting and develops useful skills.
Bulat Bakirov, a junior researcher at FLNP, spoke about his many years of pedagogical experience,
"This is my fifth time participating in international student practice, starting in 2019. Participation is voluntary, so when I have the opportunity, I offer my project. Usually this is a scientific task that I have already completed that students need to solve anew. Often, despite the fact that I already have a solution, I note that students manage to offer really new and original ideas. I appreciate participation in practice just for the opportunity to work with young people. I also generally enjoy teaching.
This year, six people signed up for me. Four students from Vietnam and one each from South Africa and Serbia.
At JINR, I am responsible for the neutron tomography station at the reactor and I am engaged in the development of the neutron tomography, including the use of computer vision and neural networks. Since I have a large group of students, I prepared two options for work so that they could engage in different tasks and everyone was interested. Half develop computer vision to speed up experiments. So, that in tomography it was possible to shoot fewer frames and to spend less time on one experiment. The second half deals with the processing of three-dimensional models.
Recently, all tasks related to neural networks have been popular with students. But those who work for me this year are somehow united to imaging tasks: they are engaged either in X-ray tomography or something similar, therefore, in general, this topic is close and understandable to them and they quickly joined it.
This time, I have a good passionate team, they completed the project in two weeks and prepared for its defense for another week."
Polina Kobchikova, a researcher at FLNP, spoke about her debut participation,
"This is the first time I have been involved in this student practice. A year ago, I submitted a project, but no one chose it. This year, even more students chose my project than were announced in the recruitment and I agreed to increase the group.
Previously, I have already combined work with teaching. I supervised students in the START programme. I like the process of knowledge transfer itself. Often, students who I worked with express gratitude and ask me to be their supervisor in the future. It is very pleasant for me and I want to try even more.
My topic is computer simulation. In our group, we study pharmaceuticals, but above all in terms of their physical properties. For example, a molecule is more flexible or more rigid, and it can affect its behavior and the effect of the drug in the body. Therefore, it is important to understand molecular dynamics: how atoms move, what vibrations and changes in structure are possible. We study these processes using inelastic neutron scattering and computer simulations. The obtained experimental spectra are quite complex and it is not always possible to immediately estimate which atomic motions correspond to individual signals. Therefore, simulation is necessary to interpret experimental results. I offer students to master not only traditional calculation techniques, but also approaches using machine learning that can significantly speed up some calculations. It is not easy to apply them to large and complex molecular systems, so, for the project I chose a small molecular crystal - urea. Using its example, students study the vibrational properties of matter and compare computational approaches.
I have four students: three from South Africa - two graduate students in chemistry, a young man in nanophysics and a girl studying geology from Egypt. During the meeting, I asked them what their goals and expectations were and everyone unanimously answered - machine learning. I think this interest is due to the fact that machine learning techniques currently develop and find more and more applications in scientific calculations. They allow you to speed up calculations that by traditional methods, require significant resources, although they have their own limitations. In addition, students will be able to further apply the acquired skills in their own research. Of course, different tasks will require different models, data and settings but the general principles of working with such methods are similar."
Kirill Tarasov, a junior researcher, told about his students and what this practice is important,
"This is the second time, I supervised a group of students but for the first time - a group of foreign students.
The objective of my project was to identify freshwater sponges from Lake Sevan by reading the conservative ITS sequence in their genome. The students did all the DNA work up to sequencing the resulting fragment. This final part will be held in a third-party organization. At the entrance, they had solutions of isolated DNA from sponge samples and at the exit, they gained solutions with the ITS fragment of interest to us, embedded in plasmid DNA. The resulting fragment can already be sequenced from the plasmid.
In this practice, we used molecular biology techniques that I myself had not previously used. Therefore, I was interested no less than students whether we will get the result. I appreciate my curatorial activities because it is nice to see that students have mastered the skills that they can apply in their future scientific activities. Proof of this is the result.
I had two pharmacy students and a physicist. Everyone worked well and with understanding. The enthusiasm of students increased markedly when they began to receive results. In molecular biology, you often redo the same thing many times, slightly changing the conditions of the experiment. If there is no result for a long time, then this is very demotivating. And this experiment was no exception: at first, students had to rearrange PCR, then re-isolate DNA from agarose gel twice and of course, they were discouraged from this, but they redid everything. And when they finally succeeded, it was clear that they were inspired. And then, things went smoother."
Yury Severyukhin, Head of Sector of LRB, compared student practices and highlighted what he appreciates in communicating with students,
"My colleagues in the Sector and I have been involved in international student practice before. Students have come from European countries, South Africa, the CIS. For me, any student practice is, firstly, a way to see promising personnel and secondly, through students to learn about their experiments and projects in order to expand partnership. It often turns out that many young students offer original solutions and this is a win-win situation: we give knowledge and practical skills, they suggest new areas or interesting alternatives. As part of our current practice, we are engaged with students in mastering the skills of histology, immunohistochemical research. In simple words, students prepare and stain histological preparations. In most universities or research centres, this is a method that is closely related to experimental and practical medicine and is not part of the programme for a physics student. Therefore, for students from life science areas, this is a unique opportunity to master a valuable technique. This year, we have a wonderful team from Serbia and South Africa but the students from Egypt are also actively interested. Among the students, there are radiochemists, biologists and medical physicists."
Maria KARPOVA, photos by Lyubov KRYLOVA