Children’s rights and early years provision in India

The term ‘participation’ is vague, and it’s meaning has been increasingly contested in early years education. This chapter analyses children’s everyday experiences in a formal preschool setting in India, and offers a series of reflections on what such experiences mean for the concept of children’s rights. Considering pedagogy as a contested terrain where different world-views, perspectives and power positions intersect, this chapter examines the power inherent in everyday interactions between children and teachers, and suggests that participation is an ongoing negotiated process. Whether children’s rights to participate in early years provision are realised, depends on how they are positioned in everyday contexts. My research demonstrates the active agency of young children, suggests that young children have the ability to contribute to everyday pedagogy and practice, and that their participation is meaningful if it is rooted in their everyday lives. Children should be recognised as active players who can learn things in many ways and acquire knowledge through their embodied experiences

Enabling creativity in learning environments: lessons from the CREANOVA project

The paper employs data from a European Union funded project to outline the dif- ferent contexts and factors that enable creativity and innovation. It suggests that creativity and innovation are supported by flexible work settings, adaptable learning environments, collaborative design processes, determined effort, and liberating in- novative relationships. It concludes that learning environments that seek to enable creativity and innovation should encourage collaborative working, offer flexibility for both learners and educators, enable learner-led innovative processes, and recognize that creativity occurs in curriculum areas beyond the creative arts

Photography, Politics and Childhood: Exploring children’s multimodal relations with the public sphere

In qualitative research with children visually oriented and multimodal approaches are identified in the literature as more appropriate for approaching children’s meanings and feelings often deemed to lie beyond the realm of language. In our own research, a comparative ethnography which enquired into the relationships between childhood and public life, with six-to-eight year olds in three cities (Athens, Hyderabad and London), we have reflexively experimented with the employment and remixing of methodologies which would allow us to explore such relationships. In the process of our research, incorporating different visual and ethnographic methods, we have developed a data collection and production process, an adaptation of the photo-story, which allows for a multimodal, processual and reflective enquiry into children’s relationships of concern and politics of care. We review the central visual methods in research with children, we then proceed to provide a documentation of the method, its development and its rationale. Consequently, we provide some examples of the photostory method’s implementation in the Connectors Study together with a discussion of the production processes of the photo-stories themselves and our readings of them. We conclude with a section with reflections on the method, which, we argue provides a departure point from which we may rethink the political in childhood, as well as the ways in which photography is employed as a research method in the social sciences

Effects of fluoxetine on functional outcomes after acute stroke (FOCUS): a pragmatic, double-blind, randomised, controlled trial

Background Results of small trials indicate that fluoxetine might improve functional outcomes after stroke. The FOCUS trial aimed to provide a precise estimate of these effects. Methods FOCUS was a pragmatic, multicentre, parallel group, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial done at 103 hospitals in the UK. Patients were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, had a clinical stroke diagnosis, were enrolled and randomly assigned between 2 days and 15 days after onset, and had focal neurological deficits. Patients were randomly allocated fluoxetine 20 mg or matching placebo orally once daily for 6 months via a web-based system by use of a minimisation algorithm. The primary outcome was functional status, measured with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS), at 6 months. Patients, carers, health-care staff, and the trial team were masked to treatment allocation. Functional status was assessed at 6 months and 12 months after randomisation. Patients were analysed according to their treatment allocation. This trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN83290762. Findings Between Sept 10, 2012, and March 31, 2017, 3127 patients were recruited. 1564 patients were allocated fluoxetine and 1563 allocated placebo. mRS data at 6 months were available for 1553 (99·3%) patients in each treatment group. The distribution across mRS categories at 6 months was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (common odds ratio adjusted for minimisation variables 0·951 [95% CI 0·839–1·079]; p=0·439). Patients allocated fluoxetine were less likely than those allocated placebo to develop new depression by 6 months (210 [13·43%] patients vs 269 [17·21%]; difference 3·78% [95% CI 1·26–6·30]; p=0·0033), but they had more bone fractures (45 [2·88%] vs 23 [1·47%]; difference 1·41% [95% CI 0·38–2·43]; p=0·0070). There were no significant differences in any other event at 6 or 12 months. Interpretation Fluoxetine 20 mg given daily for 6 months after acute stroke does not seem to improve functional outcomes. Although the treatment reduced the occurrence of depression, it increased the frequency of bone fractures. These results do not support the routine use of fluoxetine either for the prevention of post-stroke depression or to promote recovery of function. Funding UK Stroke Association and NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Antibacterial Potential of Protein Solution Separated from Bovine Serum by SDS Treatment

This study explores the separation of antibacterial proteins from bovine serum using a simple and novel method developed. The salt out protein precipitate was prepared from the acid extract of the bovine serum using 30% ammonium sulphate solution. One volume of the precipitate is treated with two volumes of each concentration of SDS solution (1 – 10%) separately in refrigerator temperature. After a week of treatment, two layers are formed. The lower layer is frozen SDS where the upper one is unfrozen protein solution. The upper layer formed by each percentage of SDS was carefully collected and its protein content is also measured. The maximum protein content (90%) has been recovered in the liquid layer formed by 3 % SDS. The λ-max of pooled test protein solution is 276 nm. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of this protein was checked against seven human pathogenic bacteria and it is ranged from 4 to 1μg. In contrast, there is no heamolysis even at the higher concentration (33 μg) of the test solution. A single mild and faint band with approximate Molecular Weight of 45 kDa is observed in SDS-PAGE. This method of antibacterial protein preparation from cattle serum could lead a new insight in pharmaceutical industries for the development of protein based natural antibiotics