Explaining Change and Rethinking Dirty Words: FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.

This report presents the results from a comparative study of the qualification of adult educators in the Nordic-Baltic region. The study involved Denmark, Estonia and Sweden. The rationale behind the study is a growing interest in adult education resulting from a focus on lifelong learning in the public and political agendas, internationally and nationally. According to the authors of the report, an increased interest in adult education generates an increased interest in the professionalisation of the adult education sector, and thereby in the qualification of those teaching adults: adult educators. Based on this belief, the study and hence the report looks into the role that the qualification of adult educators plays in policy, learning opportunities for those interested in qualifying as adult educators as well as adult educators’ status as professionals. Besides the formation of personal teaching, which is grounded in learning theory, theoretical principles and experiences from practice, the development of a professional identity plays a role in adult educators becoming professionals. Similarly, so does the recognition of adult educators as professionals by society at large. Methodologically, the study is based on document analysis. The documents selected for analysis have been: national and international research reports and articles; official descriptions of national education systems; and policy papers, laws and other legal documents dealing with adult education and/or the qualification of adult educators. The study shows that in all three countries, there has been an increase in the political interest in adult education and training. In 1993, an act on adult education and training was accepted in Estonia and updated in 2001 (Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, 1993). Four years later, in 1997, a huge reform of the adult education and training system was carried out in Sweden, and in 2000, a reform of adult and continuing education was launched in Denmark. The main drivers for the increased focus on adult education and training in all three countries seem to be the needs of the labour market, in light of globalisation and international competition as well as the Lisbon strategy. The study also shows that in spite of the increased focus on adult education and training and its importance, through out policy papers, there seems to be a lack of interest in the quality of the provision, in terms of education and learning processes, including the qualification of adult educators in Denmark and Sweden. In Estonia, a professional qualification standard for adult educators was accepted in 2004. Except for Estonia, thus, the question of qualification of adult educators is practically absent in ongoing national, political debates with respect to adult education and training. In relation to the options for those interested in qualifying as adult educators, it is difficult to find courses or education programmes offering initial education and training. Instead, most courses and education programmes either offer in-service or a combination of initial and in-service education and training. Thus, there are few opportunities for adult educators to acquire the professional knowledge and identity as adult educators, before entering the field. In addition, adult educators, to a high degree, develop their competencies as adult educators through their work. Further, qualification requirements for teaching within adult education and training vary a lot, and are linked to the specific field of adult education. Within general adult education, in all three countries, the requirements are similar to those for teachers in primary and secondary schools with no demands on specific competences in teaching adults. Within vocationally oriented adult education and training, the situation is very similar to that within general adult education, as demands for pedagogical qualifications do not include specific competences in teaching adults. Liberal adult education in all three countries stands out as the least regulated sector in relation to required pedagogical qualifications for educators. Requirements within this sector are set by each employer. Being that an individual’s professional development is tantamount to a society’s recognition of his/her occupation as a professional one, it can be discussed whether adult educators today are considered as being part of a real profession in the three countries. Based on the study, it can be concluded, that: Adult educators are absent within the policy discourse of adult education and training. Adult educators stand on the edge of a profession. Adult educators are self-taught professionals. These issues are worth further attention within both policy and research circles

Comment

A chloride-based chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) process has been successfully used to grow very high quality 3C-SiC epitaxial layers on on-axis α-SiC substrates. An accurate process parameters study was performed testing the effect of temperature, surface preparation, precursor ratios, nitrogen addition, and substrate polytype and polarity. The 3C layers deposited showed to be largely single-domain material of very high purity and of excellent electrical characteristics. A growth rate of up to 10 μm/h and a low background doping enable deposition of epitaxial layers suitable for MOSFET devices

Governing the future: science, policy and public participation in the construction of the long term in the Netherlands and Sweden

This paper is a historical study of two institutions devoted to the problem of the future – the Dutch WRR (the Scientific Council for Government) and the Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies – both created in 1972. While there is a growing interest in the social sciences for prediction, future imaginaries and the governance of risk, few studies have examined historically the integration of the category of the ‘future’ or the ‘long term’ in political systems in the postwar years, a period in which this category took on specific meaning and importance. We suggest that governing the long-term posed fundamental problems to particular societal models of expertise, decision-making and public participation. We argue that the scientific and political claim to govern the future was fundamentally contested, and that social struggle around the role and content of predictive expertise determined how the long term was incorporated into different systems of knowledge production and policy-making

Cat and house dust mite allergen content is stable in frozen dust over time

Background: Dust from indoor environments consists of animal allergens, pollen, endotoxins and other substances which may exacerbate symptoms in sensitive individuals. In prospective cohort studies, dust is often collected from indoor environments in order to assess allergen exposure and possible relationships to health outcomes. Typically, large numbers of samples are collected and kept frozen until further analysis, sometimes several years later. To date, there is insufficient knowledge about what happens to the dust and its contents during storage. Objectives: In the present study, our aim was to analyse allergen content over a 30 month period frozen dust collected from beds in homes in order to simulate a study design of exposure assessment commonly used in epidemiological studies. Methods: Thirty-seven dust samples from mattresses in homes were collected using a Duststream dust collector. Each dust sample was subdivided into six aliquots. One tube (baseline) was extracted and analysed for cat and HDM allergen content using ELISA, all other tubes were stored at -80°C until further handling. Approximately every six months (6, 12, 18 and 30 months), dust from one tube was thawed, extracted and analysed the same way. Data was log-transformed and analysed using linear regression. Results: No trend for decreasing or increasing cat (p=0.606) or house dust mite (p=0.928)allergen levels could be observed over time. Levels of cat allergen were considerably higher in mattresses from homes with cats compared to homes without cats (p<0.001). Conclusion: It is important to assess the allergen stability in dust before designing costly and labour-intensive studies of allergen exposure and health outcomes, commonly used in environmental epidemiology. Although the present study showed that cat and HDM allergens 3 remained stable in dust stored at -80°C during a 2.5 year period, analyses of other allergens or substances in frozen dust is desirable as well as evaluating the effect of longer storage times.VetenskapsrådetAFAManuscrip

Is it possible to think physical education forward and dismantle ourselves - in a quantum space?

This paper invites readers to an encounter of novel learning in the school subject physical education, and specifically swimming training. In collaboration with Deleuze’s immanent philosophy and creative observations in a case-assemblage, I speculate about productive experiences and educational events as movements toward physical activation, higher education, and the dissolution of health inequalities. Troubling situations of a standardized model of swimming training is combined with a quantum space where multiple divergent ideas, forces, and feelings interact and produce unforeseen learnings, values, and qualities. Frictions between segmented spaces and quantum spaces orient/reorient the student’s/swimming instructor’s/my/your? learning, values, and qualities. Finally, I emphasize quantum spaces as the heart of educational movement and the importance of creating open educational systems to perhaps think physical education forward.publishedVersio

Increased T cell breadth and antibody response elicited in prime-boost regimen by viral vector encoded homologous SIV Gag/Env in outbred CD1 mice

BACKGROUND: A major obstacle for the development of HIV vaccines is the virus’ worldwide sequence diversity. Nevertheless, the presence of T cell epitopes within conserved regions of the virus’ structural Gag protein and conserved structures in the envelope (env) sequence raises the possibility that cross-reactive responses may be induced by vaccination. In this study, the aim was to investigate the importance of antigenic match on immunodominance and breadth of obtainable T cell responses. METHODS: Outbred CD1 mice were immunized with either heterologous (SIVmac239 and HIV-1 clade B consensus) or homologous (SIVmac239) gag sequences using adenovirus (Ad5) and MVA vectors. Env (SIVmac239) was co-encoded in the vectors to study the induction of antibodies, which is a primary target of current HIV vaccine designs. All three vaccines were designed as virus-encoded virus-like particle vaccines. Antibody responses were analysed by ELISA, avidity ELISA, and neutralization assay. T cell responses were determined by intracellular cytokine staining of splenocytes. RESULTS: The homologous Env/Gag prime-boost regimen induced higher Env binding antibodies, and induced stronger and broader Gag specific CD8+ T cell responses than the homologous Env/heterologous Gag prime-boost regimen. Homologous Env/heterologous Gag immunization resulted in selective boosting of Env specific CD8+ T cell responses and consequently a paradoxical decreased recognition of variant sequences including conserved elements of p24 Gag. CONCLUSIONS: These results contrast with related studies using Env or Gag as the sole antigen and suggest that prime-boost immunizations based on homologous SIVmac239 Gag inserts is an efficient component of genetic VLP vaccines—both for induction of potent antibody responses and cross-reactive CD8+ T cell responses

Re-thinking official educational organization towards friction-zones between divergent knowledges

In this article, I re-think official educational organization toward friction-zones. Thinking with a swimming event in physical education, and Deleuze’s notion of pure difference and its accompanying characteristics, non-linearity, decentralization, pluralistic knowledge, virtual and actual multiplicities, nomadic waiting, and open ends, I outline conditions for official educational organization in the encounter between divergent knowledges. The aim is to bring teachers and students closer to each other and paradoxically let up-coming concepts, meanings, and ideas act instead of silence everything that is not in line with predefined educational goals. It is to create common histories of learning and knowledge productions, and hence to produce common grounds in/by motion. Ultimately, it is about inclusive processes in/by motion. And, it is also a call for us all to pay attention and resist unintentional productions of exclusion, and thus all colonizing processes that includes superior knowledge.publishedVersio

The Error is the Feature: how to Forecast Lightning using a Model Prediction Error

Despite the progress within the last decades, weather forecasting is still a challenging and computationally expensive task. Current satellite-based approaches to predict thunderstorms are usually based on the analysis of the observed brightness temperatures in different spectral channels and emit a warning if a critical threshold is reached. Recent progress in data science however demonstrates that machine learning can be successfully applied to many research fields in science, especially in areas dealing with large datasets. We therefore present a new approach to the problem of predicting thunderstorms based on machine learning. The core idea of our work is to use the error of two-dimensional optical flow algorithms applied to images of meteorological satellites as a feature for machine learning models. We interpret that optical flow error as an indication of convection potentially leading to thunderstorms and lightning. To factor in spatial proximity we use various manual convolution steps. We also consider effects such as the time of day or the geographic location. We train different tree classifier models as well as a neural network to predict lightning within the next few hours (called nowcasting in meteorology) based on these features. In our evaluation section we compare the predictive power of the different models and the impact of different features on the classification result. Our results show a high accuracy of 96% for predictions over the next 15 minutes which slightly decreases with increasing forecast period but still remains above 83% for forecasts of up to five hours. The high false positive rate of nearly 6% however needs further investigation to allow for an operational use of our approach.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure