Getting away with slavery: capitalist farmers, foreigners and forced labour in the Transvaal, c. 1920 - 1950

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 1990

Class contradictions and class alliances: the social nature of ICU leadership, 1924-1929

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented June, 198

"You call that democracy?" Struggles over abortion in South Africa since the 1960s

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice and Culture, 13-15 July, 1994

The role of big trees and abundant species in driving spatial patterns of species richness in an Australian tropical rainforest

Big trees and abundant species dominate forest structure and composition. As a result, their spatial distribution and interactions with other species and individuals may contribute disproportionately to the emergence of spatial heterogeneity in richness patterns. We tested scale-dependent spatial patterning and species richness structures to understand the role of individual trees (big trees) and species (abundant species) in driving spatial richness patterns on a 25 ha plot in a diverse tropical forest of Australia. The individual species area relationship (ISAR) was used to assess species richness in neighborhoods ranging from 1 to 50 m radii around all big trees (≥70 cm dbh, n = 296) and all species with more than 100 individuals in the plot (n = 53). A crossed ISAR function was also used to compute species richness around big trees for trees of different size classes. Big individuals exert some spatial structuring on other big and mid-sized trees in local neighborhoods (up to 30 m and 16 m respectively), but not on small trees. While most abundant species were neutral with respect to richness patterns, we identified consistent species-specific signatures on spatial patterns of richness for 14 of the 53 species. Seven species consistently had higher than expected species richness in their neighborhood (species “accumulators”), and seven had lower than expected (species “repellers”) across all spatial scales. Common traits of accumulators and repeller species suggest that niche partitioning along disturbance gradients is a primary mechanism driving spatial richness patterns, which is then manifested in large-scale spatial heterogeneity in species distributions across the plot

Co-constructing Writing Pedagogy with Two-and-Three-Year-Old Children

Research over the past four decades confirms that by the age of three years old children already understand some of the functions and purpose of writing. Evidence also suggests that some children are capable of articulating this understanding. From a developmental perspective it therefore makes sense that the literate performances of three-year-old children have their roots in much earlier writing experiences. Building on this premise, and further evidence to suggest that children as young as two years old are beginning to understand the symbolic nature of print, the research reported in this dissertation focused on discourse of writing, through recording children’s and adults’ conceptualisations, the pedagogical approaches of the children’s pre-school setting, and approaches to writing in the home environment. Foucaultian theory of truth and shifting power relations provided a framework for understanding and interpreting the discourse of writing that emerged. The study investigated the writing practices of nine families and their two-year-old and-three-year old children in an early years pre-school setting in the east of England. The first aim of the research was to develop a clear understanding of what children of this age already know about the functions and purpose of writing. To this end the children themselves contributed to the process of discovery, through revealing what they knew about writing and how they communicated through this medium. Second, the research sought to develop joint understanding amongst parents and the early years setting of how two-year-old and-three-year-old children express themselves through writing. The research found that most adults did not perceive that the children could write, a perception that was rooted in the conceptualisation of writing as necessarily formed of conventional text, and a skill to be developed and taught at a later age. In direct contrast to this the research found that children were not only writing, but that they were writing despite adult conceptualisations. The participant children were engaging in their own discourse of writing, driven by self-belief in what they were able to achieve through using writing as a medium for recording and sharing information. It is argued that if children as young as two years old perceive themselves to be writing, a responsive writing pedagogy can only be effective following a reframing of how writing is understood in relation to children in early years’ settings and homes

Infrared and millimetre-wave scintillometry in the suburban environment – Part 1: Structure parameters

Scintillometry, a form of ground-based remote sensing, provides the capability to estimate surface heat fluxes over scales of a few hundred metres to kilometres. Measurements are spatial averages, making this technique particularly valuable over areas with moderate heterogeneity such as mixed agricultural or urban environments. In this study, we present the structure parameters of temperature and humidity, which can be related to the sensible and latent heat fluxes through similarity theory, for a suburban area in the UK. The fluxes are provided in the second paper of this two-part series. A millimetre-wave scintillometer was combined with an infrared scintillometer along a 5.5 km path over northern Swindon. The pairing of these two wavelengths offers sensitivity to both temperature and humidity fluctuations, and the correlation between wavelengths is also used to retrieve the path-averaged temperature–humidity correlation. Comparison is made with structure parameters calculated from an eddy covariance station located close to the centre of the scintillometer path. The performance of the measurement techniques under different conditions is discussed. Similar behaviour is seen between the two data sets at sub-daily timescales. For the two summer-to-winter periods presented here, similar evolution is displayed across the seasons. A higher vegetation fraction within the scintillometer source area is consistent with the lower Bowen ratio observed (midday Bowen ratio < 1) compared with more built-up areas around the eddy covariance station. The energy partitioning is further explored in the companion paper

Neogenin and RGMa control neural tube closure and neuroepithelial morphology by regulating cell polarity

In humans, neural tube closure defects occur in 1: 1000 pregnancies. The design of new strategies for the prevention of such common defects would benefit from an improved understanding of the molecular events underlying neurulation. Neural fold elevation is a key morphological process that acts during neurulation to drive neural tube closure. However, to date, the molecular pathways underpinning neural fold elevation have not been elucidated. Here, we use morpholino knock-down technology to demonstrate that Repulsive Guidance Molecule (RGMa)-Neogenin interactions are essential for effective neural fold elevation during Xenopus neurulation and that loss of these molecules results in disrupted neural tube closure. We demonstrate that Neogenin and RGMa are required for establishing the morphology of deep layer cells in the neural plate throughout neurulation. We also show that loss of Neogenin severely disrupts the microtubule network within the deep layer cells suggesting that Neogenin-dependent microtubule organization within the deep cells is essential for radial intercalation with the overlying superficial cell layer, thereby driving neural fold elevation. In addition, we show that sustained Neogenin activity is also necessary for the establishment of the apicobasally polarized pseudostratified neuroepithelium of the neural tube. Therefore, our study identifies a novel signaling pathway essential for radial intercalation and epithelialization during neural fold elevation and neural tube morphogenesis. Copyright ©2008 Society for Neuroscienc

‘Channel Shift’:technologically-mediated policing and procedural justice

In recent years, police forces in the United Kingdom have introduced various technologies that alter the methods by which they interact with the public. In a parallel development, many forces have also begun to embrace the concept of procedural justice as a method through which to secure legitimacy and (in turn) public compliance and cooperation. What has not received sufficient attention, within policing or academia, is the extent to which these two trends are compatible, with the procedural justice literature still predicated on an assumption that police–public ‘contacts’ or ‘encounters’ are in-person. The effect of technologically mediating police–public contacts on ‘policing by consent’, is therefore unknown. In this article, we focus specifically on the possible implications of the Single Online Home (SOH) (a portal through which the public can report crime, get updates on cases, give feedback and pay fines, among other things, which is currently being rolled out across forces), considering ‘interactions’ between police and public where there is no physical co-presence. Noting the unique context that is policing, we draw on the limited existing research on procedural justice encounters in technologically mediated contexts to explore whether procedural justice theory is ‘future-proof’ for a policing context increasingly reliant on such encounters. We conclude that, through empirical research, we must update our conceptual understanding of what ‘contact’ can mean, and accept that current developments may in fact be transforming relationships rather than simply facilitating existing ones

Clinical Faculty in the Legal Academy: Hiring, Promotion, and Retention

The Chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education appointed us in 2005 to the Task Force on the Status of Clinicians and the Legal Academy (Task Force) to examine who is teaching in clinical programs and using clinical methodologies in American law schools and to identify the most appropriate models for clinical appointments within the legal academy. Our charges reflected two ongoing concerns: 1) the need to collect valid, reliable, and helpful data that would inform discussions on the breadth of clinical education in the legal academy and the status of clinical educators within the academy; and 2) the need to have a foundation for complex conversations on how American law schools should view and value their clinical teachers. The first primarily describes the present, while the second carries implications for the future