The use of scenarios in legal education to develop future thinking and sustainability competencies

Achieving sustainability requires a populace equipped to deal with complex, interacting and ever-changing realities as well as uncertain futures. There is however a significant lack of focus on developing sustainability competencies within legal and governance education. Legal education plays a key role in shaping sustainable futures. Long-term sustainability relies on lawyers, judges and policy-makers being able to make optimal decisions in the present when faced with significant uncertainty about the future. This paper discusses how the combination of problem-based learning (PBL) and scenario-based pedagogical approaches can provide an authentic contextualised learning environment to empower law students to deal with the challenges of global change. The paper highlights the potential of the approach to equip students with the skills to work through plausible future challenges; to consider a range of options; and to manage interacting environmental, social and economic issues in an adaptive fashion. The paper describes how the approach was applied in the context of the Water Law Master’s (LLM) course at the University of Dundee. The paper concludes with recommendations of how scenario-based approaches could be used in other contexts and further highlights the importance of such approaches in developing sustainability competencies through the legal curriculum.Michelle Lim and Andrew Alla

Robust video/ultrasonic fusion based estimation for automotive applications

We describe how object estimation by a stationary or a non-stationary camera can be improved using recently-developed robust estimation ideas. The robustness of vision-based systems can be improved significantly by employing a Robust Extended Kalman Filter (REKF). The system performance is also enhanced by increasing the spatial diveristy in measurements via employing additional cameras for video capture. We describe a normal-flow based image segmentation technique to identify the object for the application of our proposed state estimation technique. Our simulations demonstrate that dynamic system modelling coupled with the application of a REKF significantly improves the estimation system performance, especially when large uncertainties are present.<br /

Regional variation of organic functional groups in aerosol particles on four U.S. east coast platforms during the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation 2004 campaign

Submicron atmospheric aerosol samples were collected during the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT) 2004 campaign on four platforms: Chebogue Point (Nova Scotia, Canada), Appledore Island (Maine), the CIRPAS Twin Otter over Ohio, and the NOAA R/V Ronald H. Brown in the Gulf of Maine. Saturated aliphatic C-C-H, unsaturated aliphatic C=C−H, aromatic C=C−H, organosulfur C-O-S, carbonyl C=O, and organic hydroxyl C-OH functional groups were measured by calibrated Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy at all four sampling platforms. The ratio of molar concentrations of carbonyl C=O to saturated aliphatic C-C-H groups was nearly constant at each sampling platform, with the Twin Otter samples having the lowest ratio at 0.1 and the three more coastal platforms having ratios of 0.4 and 0.5. Organic mass (OM) to organic carbon (OC) ratios follow similar trends for the four platforms, with the Twin Otter having the lowest ratio of 1.4 and the coastal platforms having slightly higher values typically between 1.5 and 1.6. Organosulfur compounds were occasionally observed. Collocated organic aerosol sampling with two Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometers for OM, a Sunset Laboratory thermo-optical analysis instrument for OC, and an ion chromatography-particle into liquid sampler (IC-PILS) for speciated carboxylic acids provided comparable results for most of the project, tracking the time series of FTIR OM, OC, and carbonyl groups, respectively, and showing simultaneous peaks of similar magnitude during most of the project. The FTIR/IC-PILS comparison suggests that about 9% of the carbonyl groups found in submicron organic particles on the Twin Otter are typically associated with low molecular weight carboxylic acids

Exploring the potential of using undergraduates’ knowledge, skills and experience in research methods as a proxy for capturing learning gain

Learning gain is a politicised concept within contemporary HE, and as such has been aligned with agendas of teaching excellence and learning outcomes but the extent to which it captures actual learning has yet to be clarified. Here, we report the outcomes of a learning gain study which examines how students’ knowledge, skills and experiences as researchers develops throughout their studies. We examine data from a self-reporting survey administered across a university and college-based HE providers during students’ second year of undergraduate study. The data highlight disciplinary differences in student engagement with research methods and the significance of perceived relevance of research methods to students’ learning. These findings do have a bearing on the development of measures of learning gain as they are demonstrating the complexity of capturing student learning across disciplines. Our findings can be employed to develop a method of capturing learning gain that can be integrated into undergraduates’ research methods education

Situating interventions to bridge the intention-behaviour gap: A framework for recruiting nonconscious processes for behaviour change

This paper presents a situated cognition framework for creating social psychological interventions to bridge the intention–behaviour gap and illustrates this framework by reviewing examples from the domains of health behaviour, environmental behaviour, stereotyping, and aggression. A recurrent problem in behaviour change is the fact that often, intentions are not translated into behaviour, causing the so-called intention–behaviour gap. Here, it is argued that this happens when situational cues trigger situated conceptualizations, such as habits, impulses, hedonic goals, or stereotypical associations, which can then guide behaviour automatically. To be effective in changing such automatic effects, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change situational cues through cueing interventions such as priming, nudging, upstream policy interventions, or reminders of social norms. Alternatively, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change the underlying situated conceptualizations through training interventions, such as behavioural inhibition training, mindfulness training, or implementation intentions. Examples of situated behaviour change interventions of both types will be discussed across domains, along with recommendations to situate interventions more strongly and thus enhance their effectiveness to change automatic behaviour. Finally, the discussion addresses the difference between tailoring and situating interventions, issues of generalization and long-term effectiveness, and avenues for further research

Common genetic variation in cellular transport genes and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk

Background Defective cellular transport processes can lead to aberrant accumulation of trace elements, iron, small molecules and hormones in the cell, which in turn may promote the formation of reactive oxygen species, promoting DNA damage and aberrant expression of key regulatory cancer genes. As DNA damage and uncontrolled proliferation are hallmarks of cancer, including epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we hypothesized that inherited variation in the cellular transport genes contributes to EOC risk. Methods In total, DNA samples were obtained from 14,525 case subjects with invasive EOC and from 23,447 controls from 43 sites in the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC). Two hundred seventy nine SNPs, representing 131 genes, were genotyped using an Illumina Infinium iSelect BeadChip as part of the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study (COGS). SNP analyses were conducted using unconditional logistic regression under a log-additive model, and the FDR q&#60;0.2 was applied to adjust for multiple comparisons. Results The most significant evidence of an association for all invasive cancers combined and for the serous subtype was observed for SNP rs17216603 in the iron transporter gene HEPH (invasive: OR = 0.85, P = 0.00026; serous: OR = 0.81, P = 0.00020); this SNP was also associated with the borderline/low malignant potential (LMP) tumors (P = 0.021). Other genes significantly associated with EOC histological subtypes (p&#60;0.05) included the UGT1A (endometrioid), SLC25A45 (mucinous), SLC39A11 (low malignant potential), and SERPINA7 (clear cell carcinoma). In addition, 1785 SNPs in six genes (HEPH, MGST1, SERPINA, SLC25A45, SLC39A11 and UGT1A) were imputed from the 1000 Genomes Project and examined for association with INV EOC in white-European subjects. The most significant imputed SNP was rs117729793 in SLC39A11 (per allele, OR = 2.55, 95% CI = 1.5-4.35, p = 5.66x10-4). Conclusion These results, generated on a large cohort of women, revealed associations between inherited cellular transport gene variants and risk of EOC histologic subtypes

The pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus - A functional hypothesis from the comparative literature

We present data from animal studies showing that the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus-conserved through evolution, compartmentalized, and with a complex pattern of inputs and outputs-has functions that involve formation and updates of action-outcome associations, attention, and rapid decision making. This is in contrast to previous hypotheses about pedunculopontine function, which has served as a basis for clinical interest in the pedunculopontine in movement disorders. Current animal literature points to it being neither a specifically motor structure nor a master switch for sleep regulation. The pedunculopontine is connected to basal ganglia circuitry but also has primary sensory input across modalities and descending connections to pontomedullary, cerebellar, and spinal motor and autonomic control systems. Functional and anatomical studies in animals suggest strongly that, in addition to the pedunculopontine being an input and output station for the basal ganglia and key regulator of thalamic (and consequently cortical) activity, an additional major function is participation in the generation of actions on the basis of a first-pass analysis of incoming sensory data. Such a function-rapid decision making-has very high adaptive value for any vertebrate. We argue that in developing clinical strategies for treating basal ganglia disorders, it is necessary to take an account of the normal functions of the pedunculopontine. We believe that it is possible to use our hypothesis to explain why pedunculopontine deep brain stimulation used clinically has had variable outcomes in the treatment of parkinsonism motor symptoms and effects on cognitive processing. © 2016 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society

A community-based validation study of the short-form 36 version 2 philippines (tagalog) in two cities in the philippines

10.1371/journal.pone.0083794PLoS ONE812-POLN