astronomy

Kit Vaughan

Kit Vaughan is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kit Vaughan rather than just read about it. In short: Christopher L. 'Kit' Vaughan (born 21 April 1953), is Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town in South Africa. Early life and education Born in 1953 to Peter Leslie Vaughan, a mining engineer, and Margaret Baillie Vaughan at Blyvooruitzicht in the Western Transvaal, South Africa, Christopher Leonard 'Kit' Vaughan was educated at Michaelhouse, and then…

Key takeaways

Kit Vaughan belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kit Vaughan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kit Vaughan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Christopher L. 'Kit' Vaughan (born 21 April 1953), is Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Early life and education Born in 1953 to Peter Leslie Vaughan, a mining engineer, and Margaret Baillie Vaughan at Blyvooruitzicht in the Western Transvaal, South Africa, Christopher Leonard 'Kit' Vaughan was educated at Michaelhouse, and then attended Rhodes University where he graduated in 1975, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics and physics. While a student at the University of Iowa, where he received a PhD in musculoskeletal biomechanics in 1980. In 1983 he was a post-doctoral fellow in orthopaedic engineering at Oxford University when he first began to establish himself as a scholar in the field of human locomotion.

Career Vaughan spent the years 1986 to 1989 as an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Clemson University, where he published Dynamics of Human Gait that, with the software package Gait Laboratory, was recognised as a seminal contribution to the field. Between 1989 and 1995 he was Professor of Orthopaedics and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia where he directed the motion analysis laboratory and published significant findings on the treatment of children with cerebral palsy. In 1996 Vaughan returned to South Africa to accept appointment as the Hyman Goldberg Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, a position he held until his retirement in 2009. Vaughan is considered an authority on the biomechanics of human locomotion for which he was recognised with the award of a Doctor of Science in Medicine degree in 2009. He served as President of the International Society of Biomechanics from 1999 to 2001. Vaughan was the founding director in 2000 of the Medical Imaging Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of the award-winning book, Imagining the Elephant, a biography of Allan MacLeod Cormack who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979 for his contributions to the development of computer assisted tomography. In 2006 Vaughan was elected a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field, and in 2009 he was awarded an A rating by the National Research Foundation of South Africa as a leading international scholar. In 2010 he took early retirement from the University of Cape Town to serve as chief executive officer of CapeRay Medical (Pty) Ltd, a spin out company that is developing innovative systems to detect breast cancer.

Awards and honours Vaughan was nominated for the Innovation Prize for Africa 2016.

Publications Vaughan CL, "The biomechanics of running gait", CRC Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, 12(1):1–48, 1984 Vaughan CL, Davis BL, O'Connor JC, Dynamics of Human Gait, ISBN 0-87322-368-3, Human Kinetics Publishers, Illinois, 152 pages, 1992 Sepulveda F, Wells D, Vaughan CL, "A neural network representation of electromyography and joint dynamics in human gait", Journal of Biomechanics, 26: 101–109, 1993 Vaughan CL, Subramanian N, Busse ME, "Rhizotomy as a treatment option for children with cerebral palsy", Gait & Posture, 8(1): 43–59, 1998 Vaughan CL, GaitCD, a CD-ROM containing four separate packages: Animate; GaitBib; GaitBook; and GaitLab, ISBN 0-620-23561-6, Kiboho Publishers, Cape Town, 1999 Vaughan CL, "Theories of bipedal gait: an odyssey", Journal of Biomechanics, 36(4): 513–523, 2003 Vaughan CL, Langerak N, O’Malley MJ “Neuromaturation of human locomotion revealed by non-dimensional scaling”, Experimental Brain Research, 153: 123–127, 2003 Vaughan CL, O’Malley MJ “A gait nomogram used with fuzzy clustering to monitor functional status of children with cerebral palsy", Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 47(6): 377–383, 2005 Vaughan CL, Blaszczyk MB “Dynamic similarity predicts gait parameters for Homo floresiensis and the Laetoli hominins”, American Journal of Human Biology, 20(3): 312–316, 2008 Vaughan CL, Imagining the Elephant: A Biography of Allan MacLeod Cormack, ISBN 978-1-86094-988-3, Imperial College Press, London, 304 pages, 2008

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kit Vaughan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kit Vaughan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kit Vaughan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kit Vaughan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kit Vaughan

In research: Kit Vaughan appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kit Vaughan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kit Vaughan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1953 births, Academic staff of the University of Cape Town, Alumni of Michaelhouse, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kit Vaughan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kit Vaughan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kit Vaughan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kit Vaughan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kit Vaughan in simple terms?

Christopher L. 'Kit' Vaughan (born 21 April 1953), is Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town in South Africa. Early life and education Born in 1953 to Peter Leslie Vaughan, a mining engineer, and Margaret Baillie Vaughan at Blyvoorui…

Why does Kit Vaughan matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kit Vaughan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kit Vaughan.