Teachers as leaders in a knowledge society: encouraging signs of a new professionalism

[Abstract]: Challenges confronting schools worldwide are greater than ever,and, likewise, many teachers possess capabilities, talents, and formal credentials more sophisticated than ever. However, the responsibility and authority accorded to teachers have not grown significantly, nor has the image of teaching as a profession advanced significantly. The question becomes, what are the implications for the image and status of the teaching profession as the concept of knowledge society takes a firm hold in the industrialized world? This article addresses the philosophical underpinnings of teacher leadership manifested in case studies where schools sought to achieve the generation of new knowledge as part of a process of whole-school revitalization. Specifically, this article reports on Australian research that has illuminated the work of teacher leaders engaged in the IDEAS project, a joint school revitalization initiative of the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland Department of Education and the Arts

Developing an indicator of productive potential to assess land use suitability in New Zealand

The Land Use Suitability (LUS) concept informs decision-making by stakeholders with information about the economic and environmental consequences of land use choices. LUS is composed of three indicators describing the inherent productive and economic potential of land parcels (productive potential), the contribution of a land parcel to lose contaminants relative to other land parcels (relative contribution), and the load of contaminants lost compared to the load that ensures that environmental objectives are met (pressure). This paper outlines an improved indicator of productive potential (PP). We outline the four layers of information that comprise PP for a land parcel: (1) Feasibility, which defines whether the productivity and quality of a crop is enough to allow the land use to be undertaken; (2) Yield, which is the amount of a product or crop that can be grown; (3) Economic returns, given the yield and other requirements for the land parcel; and (4) Economic Importance, which combines information about the economic returns and the probability of a land use being undertaken. These layers can be combined into a single PP indicator of the value of the land for economic use. The PP indicator can be expressed continuously or categorically and mapped at a national scale. When combined with the Relative Contribution and Pressure indicators in the LUS system, it allows for identification of areas which are most suitable for intensification by providing for a direct comparison of the economic and environmental outcomes

Neonatal brain tissue classification with morphological adaptation and unified segmentation

Measuring the distribution of brain tissue types (tissue classification) in neonates is necessary for studying typical and atypical brain development, such as that associated with preterm birth, and may provide biomarkers for neurodevelopmental outcomes. Compared with magnetic resonance images of adults, neonatal images present specific challenges that require the development of specialized, population-specific methods. This paper introduces MANTiS (Morphologically Adaptive Neonatal Tissue Segmentation), which extends the unified segmentation approach to tissue classification implemented in Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) software to neonates. MANTiS utilizes a combination of unified segmentation, template adaptation via morphological segmentation tools and topological filtering, to segment the neonatal brain into eight tissue classes: cortical gray matter, white matter, deep nuclear gray matter, cerebellum, brainstem, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), hippocampus and amygdala. We evaluated the performance of MANTiS using two independent datasets. The first dataset, provided by the NeoBrainS12 challenge, consisted of coronal T2-weighted images of preterm infants (born ≤30 weeks’ gestation) acquired at 30 weeks’ corrected gestational age (n= 5), coronal T2-weighted images of preterm infants acquired at 40 weeks’ corrected gestational age (n= 5) and axial T2-weighted images of preterm infants acquired at 40 weeks’ corrected gestational age (n= 5). The second dataset, provided by the Washington University NeuroDevelopmental Research (WUNDeR) group, consisted of T2-weighted images of preterm infants (born <30 weeks’ gestation) acquired shortly after birth (n= 12), preterm infants acquired at term-equivalent age (n= 12), and healthy term-born infants (born ≥38 weeks’ gestation) acquired within the first nine days of life (n= 12). For the NeoBrainS12 dataset, mean Dice scores comparing MANTiS with manual segmentations were all above 0.7, except for the cortical gray matter for coronal images acquired at 30 weeks. This demonstrates that MANTiS’ performance is competitive with existing techniques. For the WUNDeR dataset, mean Dice scores comparing MANTiS with manually edited segmentations demonstrated good agreement, where all scores were above 0.75, except for the hippocampus and amygdala. The results show that MANTiS is able to segment neonatal brain tissues well, even in images that have brain abnormalities common in preterm infants. MANTiS is available for download as an SPM toolbox from http://developmentalimagingmcri.github.io/mantis

A genome annotation-driven approach to cloning the human ORFeome.

We have developed a systematic approach to generating cDNA clones containing full-length open reading frames (ORFs), exploiting knowledge of gene structure from genomic sequence. Each ORF was amplified by PCR from a pool of primary cDNAs, cloned and confirmed by sequencing. We obtained clones representing 70% of genes on human chromosome 22, whereas searching available cDNA clone collections found at best 48% from a single collection and 60% for all collections combined.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Revisiting the Local Scaling Hypothesis in Stably Stratified Atmospheric Boundary Layer Turbulence: an Integration of Field and Laboratory Measurements with Large-eddy Simulations

The `local scaling' hypothesis, first introduced by Nieuwstadt two decades ago, describes the turbulence structure of stable boundary layers in a very succinct way and is an integral part of numerous local closure-based numerical weather prediction models. However, the validity of this hypothesis under very stable conditions is a subject of on-going debate. In this work, we attempt to address this controversial issue by performing extensive analyses of turbulence data from several field campaigns, wind-tunnel experiments and large-eddy simulations. Wide range of stabilities, diverse field conditions and a comprehensive set of turbulence statistics make this study distinct

Response of nitrate leaching to no-tillage is dependent on soil, climate, and management factors: A global meta-analysis

No tillage (NT) has been proposed as a practice to reduce the adverse effects of tillage on contaminant (e.g., sediment and nutrient) losses to waterways. Nonetheless, previous reports on impacts of NT on nitrate (NO¯₃) leaching are inconsistent. A global meta-analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that the response of (NO¯₃) leaching under NT, relative to tillage, is associated with tillage type (inversion vs non-inversion tillage), soil properties (e.g., soil organic carbon [SOC]), climate factors (i.e., water input), and management practices (e.g., NT duration and nitrogen fertilizer inputs). Overall, compared with all forms of tillage combined, NT had 4% and 14% greater area-scaled and yield-scaled NO¯₃ leaching losses, respectively. The NO¯₃ leaching under NT tended to be 7% greater than that of inversion tillage but comparable to non-inversion tillage. Greater NO¯₃ leaching under NT, compared with inversion tillage, was most evident under short-duration NT (200 kg ha¯¹) and lower (0–100 kg ha¯¹) rates of nitrogen addition. Of these, SOC was the most important factor affecting the risk of NO₃‾ leaching under NT compared with inversion tillage. Globally, on average, the greater amount of NO₃‾ leached under NT, compared with inversion tillage, was mainly attributed to corresponding increases in drainage. The percentage of global cropping land with lower risk of NO₃‾ leaching under NT, relative to inversion tillage, increased with NT duration from 3 years (31%) to 15 years (54%). This study highlighted that the benefits of NT adoption for mitigating NO¯₃ leaching are most likely in long-term NT cropping systems on high-SOC soils

Field-induced quantum critical point in the new itinerant antiferromagnet Ti3_3Cu4_4

New phases of matter emerge at the edge of magnetic instabilities. In local moment systems, such as heavy fermions, the magnetism can be destabilized by pressure, chemical doping, and, rarely, by magnetic field, towards a zero-temperature transition at a quantum critical point (QCP). Even more rare are instances of QCPs induced by pressure or doping in itinerant moment systems, with no known examples of analogous field-induced \textit{T} = 0 transitions. Here we report the discovery of a new itinerant antiferromagnet with no magnetic constituents, in single crystals of Ti$_3$Cu$_4$ with $T_N$ = 11.3 K. Band structure calculations point to an orbital-selective, spin density wave ground state, a consequence of the square net structural motif in Ti$_3$Cu$_4$. A small magnetic field, $H_C$ = 4.87 T, suppresses the long-range order via a continuous second-order transition, resulting in a field-induced QCP. The magnetic Gr\"uneisen ratio diverges as $H \rightarrow H_C$ and $T\rightarrow0$, with a sign change at $H_C$ and $T^{-1}$ scaling at $H~=~H_C$, providing evidence from thermodynamic measurements for quantum criticality for $H \parallel c$. Non-Fermi liquid (NFL) to Fermi liquid (FL) crossover is observed close to the QCP, as revealed by the power law behavior of the electrical resistivity

Measurement of the production cross section for W-bosons in association with jets in pp collisions at s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This Letter reports on a first measurement of the inclusive W + jets cross section in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV at the LHC, with the ATLAS detector. Cross sections, in both the electron and muon decay modes of the W-boson, are presented as a function of jet multiplicity and of the transverse momentum of the leading and next-to-leading jets in the event. Measurements are also presented of the ratio of cross sections sigma (W + >= n)/sigma(W + >= n - 1) for inclusive jet multiplicities n = 1-4. The results, based on an integrated luminosity of 1.3 pb(-1), have been corrected for all known detector effects and are quoted in a limited and well-defined range of jet and lepton kinematics. The measured cross sections are compared to particle-level predictions based on perturbative QCD. Next-to-leading order calculations, studied here for n <= 2, are found in good agreement with the data. Leading-order multiparton event generators, normalized to the NNLO total cross section, describe the data well for all measured jet multiplicitie