Developing creative learning through possibility thinking with children aged 3-7

Abstract not available

Optimal object grasp using Tactile sensors and fuzzy logic

Robotica, Volume 17, Issue 06, Nov 1999, pp 685-693 doi

Explorations in knowing: thinking psychosocially about legitimacy

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.In this paper, we look at what engaging with psychoanalysis, through psychosocial accounts of subjectivity, has contributed to our struggles for legitimacy and security within our ways of knowing. The psychosocial, with its insistence on the unconscious and the irrational, features as both a source of security and of insecurity. We use three examples drawn from our own empirical research to explore the entanglement of the researcher with the researched and how this can offer a re-imagined sense of legitimacy for our work. In elaborating our argument, we discuss our experiences of 'being captured' by data and participants, and of negotiating the ethics of analysing participants' accounts. © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Pedagogy, Culture & Society

A microcontroller system for investigating the catch effect: Functional electrical stimulation of the common peroneal nerve

Correction of drop foot in hemiplegic gait is achieved by electrical stimulation of the common peroneal nerve with a series of pulses at a fixed frequency. However, during normal gait, the electromyographic signals from the tibialis anterior muscle indicate that muscle force is not constant but varies during the swing phase. The application of double pulses for the correction of drop foot may enhance the gait by generating greater torque at the ankle and thereby increase the efficiency of the stimulation with reduced fatigue. A flexible controller has been designed around the Odstock Drop Foot Stimulator to deliver different profiles of pulses implementing doublets and optimum series. A peripheral interface controller (PIC) microcontroller with some external circuits has been designed and tested to accommodate six profiles. Preliminary results of the measurements from a normal subject seated in a multi-moment chair (an isometric torque measurement device) indicate that profiles containing doublets and optimum spaced pulses look favourable for clinical use

Oral contraception and eye disease: findings in two large cohort studies

AIM : To investigate the relation between oral contraceptive use and certain eye diseases. \ud \ud METHODS : Abstraction of the relevant data from the two large British cohort studies of the effects of oral contraception, the Royal College of General Practitioners' (RCGP) Oral Contraception Study and the Oxford-Family Planning Association (Oxford-FPA) Contraceptive Study. Both cohort studies commenced in 1968 and were organised on a national basis. Between them they have accumulated over 850 000 person years of observation involving 63 000 women. \ud \ud RESULTS : The conditions considered in the analysis were conjunctivitis, keratitis, iritis, lacrimal disease, strabismus, cataract, glaucoma, retinal detachment, and retinal vascular lesions. With the exception of retinal vascular lesions, there was no consistent evidence of important increases in risk of eye diseases in users of oral contraception. There was about a twofold increase in the risk of retinal vascular lesions in recent pill users in both studies (statistically significant only in the RCGP study). The increase was not limited to any specific type of lesion and may well reflect diagnostic bias. \ud \ud CONCLUSION : Oral contraceptive use does not appear to increase the risk of eye disease, with the possible exception of retinal vascular lesions. \ud \ud Keywords: oral contraception; eye disease; cohort studie

A boundary integral formalism for stochastic ray tracing in billiards

Determining the flow of rays or non-interacting particles driven by a force or velocity field is fundamental to modelling many physical processes. These include particle flows arising in fluid mechanics and ray flows arising in the geometrical optics limit of linear wave equations. In many practical applications, the driving field is not known exactly and the dynamics are determined only up to a degree of uncertainty. This paper presents a boundary integral framework for propagating flows including uncertainties, which is shown to systematically interpolate between a deterministic and a completely random description of the trajectory propagation. A simple but efficient discretisation approach is applied to model uncertain billiard dynamics in an integrable rectangular domain

Problem-Based Learning and Competency Development.

Problem-based learning is an approach to professional education which has been used by a number of educational institutions involved in professional education both here and overseas. The most famous example in Australia is probably the medical course at the University of Newcastle. This paper argues that this initiative in professional education has within it characteristics which are sympathetic to many of the current moves in Australia to describe, and in some cases redefine, professional work. This process is part of a wider move in Australia to upgrade and improve the skills and abilities of the Australian workforce in the context of economic refor