An auto/biographical, cooperative study of ourrelationships to knowing

In this thesis, I explore the relationship between knowing and self-construction among education professionals. The work addresses questions about our relationship with different ways of knowing; and within what I term a psychosocial framework, how the road to selfhood may lie in integrating different ways of knowing, including the rational, emotional, imaginal, embodied, creative, and spiritual. It also questions the tendency to idealize ‘experts’ and disembodied forms of knowledge that are widespread in (higher) education, and even in social and therapeutic work. Auto/biographically oriented co-operative inquiry was my chosen methodology. The research involved two groups of co-researchers based in two different countries, and included interviews with members of my own family. Exploration of my own reflexive relationship with my object of study shaped it into a quest for meaning and voice. I composed a multi-layered, multimedia, performative and circular textual understanding via processes of ‘spiralling’ and unfolding that were solidly rooted in a constructivist epistemology. I analysed both individual and group processes in the co-operative inquiry, looking at metaphors and engaging with crises of knowing and self to produce a fresh perspective on transformative research and professional becoming. I also drew on the ‘writing as inquiry’ approach to intertwine myself as knower with my interpretation, thus constantly interrogating the role of prose and poetic writing in pursuing authenticity and selfhood in relation to knowledge. In addition, I explored the evocative use of ‘cultural objects’ as a strategy for integrating subjective and objective sources of knowing. I conclude my dissertation by offering what has provisionally become – for me as author – a satisfying theory. Taking a view of the self as contingent, developmental and potentially agentic, I claim that by engaging more holistically with feeling, emotion, intuition, imagination and intellect, we may come to experience ourselves as more ‘real’ and integrated knowers

Observations and modelling of soil slip-debris flow initiation processes in pyroclastic deposits: the Sarno 1998 event

International audiencePyroclastic soils mantling a wide area of the Campanian Apennines are subjected to recurrent instability phenomena. This study analyses the 5 and 6 May 1998 event which affected the Pizzo d'Alvano (Campania, southern Italy). More than 400 slides affecting shallow pyroclastic deposits were triggered by intense and prolonged but not extreme rainfall. Landslides affected the pyroclastic deposits that cover the steep calcareous ridges and are soil slip-debris flows and rapid mudflows. About 30 main channels were deeply scoured by flows which reached the alluvial fans depositing up to 400 000 m3 of material in the piedmont areas. About 75% of the landslides are associated with morphological discontinuities such as limestone cliffs and roads. The sliding surface is located within the pyroclastic cover, generally at the base of a pumice layer. Geotechnical characterisation of pyroclastic deposits has been accomplished by laboratory and in situ tests. Numerical modelling of seepage processes and stability analyses have been run on four simplified models representing different settings observed at the source areas. Seepage modelling showed the formation of pore pressure pulses in pumice layers and the localised increase of pore pressure in correspondence of stratigraphic discontinuities as response to the rainfall event registered between 28 April and 5 May. Numerical modelling provided pore pressure values for stability analyses and pointed out critical conditions where stratigraphic or morphological discontinuities occur. This study excludes the need of a groundwater flow from the underlying bedrock toward the pyroclastic cover for instabilities to occur

Towards a Virtuosity of School Leadership: clinical support and supervision as professional learning

This paper introduces an innovative clinical support and supervision project that has its origins in the concern for how senior school leaders are increasingly being expected to manage the escalating demand to care for pupils, families and often the wider community. In response to these pressures we offer a three-stage professional learning model of supervision which encompasses collaboration, reflection and dialogue, while facilitating the development of professional skills within a non-judgmental space for personal and professional reflexivity. Alongside providing the service, the authors undertook two phases of qualitative research over a five-year period. Our findings indicate that support and supervision has been wholly beneficial identifying a positive impact across three broad themes: Professional learning, health and well-being, and wider school culture. The process facilitates headteachers making professionally situated decisions grounded in an understanding of educational purpose. We call for a virtuosity of school leadership – a practice of educational leadership where decision-making is informed by good educational judgments and not by standardisation and punitive accountability measures. Distinctively, clinical support and supervision promotes a virtuosity of school leadership while also meeting the moral obligation to care for school leaders and in doing so those in their care

L^p estimates for Baouendi-Gru

We prove L^p estimates for the Baouendi-Grushin operator L=Delta_x+|x|^\alpha Delta_y in L^p(R^N+M), 1 < p < 1, where x belongs to R^N; y belongs to R^M. When p = 2 more general weights belonging to Reverse Holder classes are allowed

The use of combination therapy in pulmonary arterial hypertension: new developments

There is a strong clinical rationale for combination therapy in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), as several pathological pathways have been implicated in its pathogenesis and no single agent has yet been shown to deliver completely satisfactory results. Registry data indicate that use of combination therapy is in fact common in existing clinical practice, even though support has been largely empirical or derived from small-scale observational studies. Data from large, adequately powered, randomised controlled trials of combination therapy in PAH are now emerging and suggest that combination therapy may be clinically beneficial. Studies of bosentan in combination with prostanoids and phosphodiesterase (PDE)-5 inhibitors show consistent evidence of improvements in exercise capacity compared with placebo. Similar improvements have been observed with PDE-5 inhibitors in combination with prostanoids. The appropriate timing of combination therapy requires further evaluation but goal-oriented therapy using combinations of oral and inhaled drugs has been shown to provide acceptable long-term results in patients with advanced PAH. Monitoring should be performed regularly and be based on repeatable, noninvasive, measurable parameters that have prognostic value

Category signaling and reputation

We propose that category membership can operate as a collective market signal for quality when low-quality producers face higher costs of gaining membership. The strength of membership as a collective signal increases with the sharpness of the category boundary, that is, contrast. Our empirical study focuses on biodynamic and organic viticulture in Alsace

Soil slips and debris flows on terraced slopes

International audienceTerraces cover large areas along the flanks of many alpine and prealpine valleys. Soil slips and soil slips-debris flows are recurrent phenomena along terraced slopes. These landslides cause damages to people, settlements and cultivations. This study investigates the processes related to the triggering of soil slip-debris flows in these settings, analysing those occurred in Valtellina (Central Alps, Italy) on November 2000 after heavy prolonged rainfalls. 260 landslides have been recognised, mostly along the northern valley flank. About 200 soil slips and slumps occurred in terraced areas and a third of them evolved into debris flows. Field work allowed to recognise the settings at soil slip-debris flow source areas. Landslides affected up to 2.5 m of glacial, fluvioglacial and anthropically reworked deposits overlying metamorphic basement. Laboratory and in situ tests allowed to characterise the geotechnical and hydraulic properties of the terrains involved in the initial failure. Several stratigraphic and hydrogeologic factors have been individuated as significant in determining instabilities on terraced slopes. They are the vertical changes of physical soil properties, the presence of buried hollows where groundwater convergence occurs, the rising up of perched groundwater tables, the overflow and lateral infiltration from superficial drainage network, the runoff concentration by means of pathways and the insufficient drainage of retaining walls