Multicase study of nature-kindergarten practices: exploring three examples in Denmark, Finland and Scotland.

Nature kindergartens are a type of early-childhood education that, relative to other settings, are based outdoors, season-round. They are founded on the belief that direct and immediate experiences with ‘quotidian nature’ (Kahn & Kellert, 2002, xvii) are beneficial in early childhood. More commonplace in Nordic nations and Germany, nature kindergartens are more recently evident worldwide and, hence, timely to research them. By evidencing a descriptive account of ‘nature kindergartens’, this study sought distinctions and commonalities between examples to inform why practice may look the way it does. Existing knowledge presented an opportunity to explore why sharing a label does not infer similar practice arrangements. With its social constructionist lens, this inquiry considered how patterned behaviours and socialised practices (embedded in adults and emergent or developing in children) might guide variations in nature-kindergarten practices. Theoretical tools, namely Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus and Heft’s (1988) version of affordance theory, are used to endorse the position that the use of nature environments for early-childhood education are subject to wider considerations. Using these concepts, nature-kindergartens practices, including that which was seen, heard, smelt, tasted and touched by participants were interpreted for the ways different groups construct season-round relations with nature. The research design and questions were established using preliminary investigations or ‘scoping’ of 15 nature kindergartens in six countries ahead of the selection of three case settings: one Danish case, one Finnish and one Scottish. By ‘looking between’ in preference to comparison, the inquiry extends our understanding of nature kindergarten as sites of social and cultural construction, where educational practices cannot be disjoined from their wider societal, cultural and natural influences. The multicase study (Stake, 2006) framed the collection of data through time-sampled observations, interviews and conversations with adult and child participants. Other peripheral data, including photographs and field journals, were collected. The author shared 53 days with participants at the three case locations and coded the observed practices using thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998). Children’s own words, metaphor, poem extracts and colloquial phrases have been used to further contextualise the writing. The study findings describe nature kindergartens as a distinctive form of early-childhood education through evidencing locally relevant relationships with nature. For those under study, spending a preschool year variously shivering and sweating, exhausted and exhilarated, eating berries and eating snow evidenced differences and similarities in season-round relations with nature. This study, by deepening our understanding of nature-kindergarten practice, evidences how socialised practices can play a constitutive, rather than causal, role in practice looking the ways it does. Together, the findings contribute a foundation for the early-childhood education and outdoor-learning fields to place increased emphasis on the role of nature kindergartens in lifelong relations with the outdoors. Longitudinal and multicase research in this area is of great interest, yet currently sparse

Teaching in nature

SNH has a remit for people’s enjoyment and understanding of the natural heritage as well as the care of it. The potential for the educational use of National Nature Reserves (NNRs) (and similar ‘wild’ places for nature) is not well understood. This research was designed to enable practicing teachers from primary and secondary schools to collaboratively explore how National Nature Reserves could be used to provide for learning across a range of subject areas. This work was conducted within the context of the new national curriculum initiative in Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) (LTS, 2010). For further information (including videos of outdoor excursions, lesson plans, and supporting commentaries), visit the project website: http://teachinginnature.stir.ac.u

Teaching in Nature: A Research Briefing: Summary Findings

SNH has a remit for people's enjoyment and understanding of the natural heritage as well as the care of it. The potential for the educational use of National Nature Reserves (NNRs) (and similar 'wild' places for nature) is not well understood. This research, funded by SNH, was designed to enable practicing teachers from primary and secondary schools to collaboratively explore how National Nature Reserves could be used as sites for outdoor educational provision across a range of subject areas. This work was conducted within the context of the new national curriculum initiative in Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) (LTS, 2010). For further information (including video of outdoor excursions, lesson plans, and supporting commentaries), visit the project website: http://teachinginnature.stir.ac.u

Exploring the spectral diversity of low-redshift Type Ia supernovae using the Palomar Transient Factory

We present an investigation of the optical spectra of 264 low-redshift (z < 0.2) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory, an untargeted transient survey. We focus on velocity and pseudo-equivalent width measurements of the Si II 4130, 5972, and 6355 A lines, as well those of the Ca II near-infrared (NIR) triplet, up to +5 days relative to the SN B-band maximum light. We find that a high-velocity component of the Ca II NIR triplet is needed to explain the spectrum in ~95 per cent of SNe Ia observed before -5 days, decreasing to ~80 per cent at maximum. The average velocity of the Ca II high-velocity component is ~8500 km/s higher than the photospheric component. We confirm previous results that SNe Ia around maximum light with a larger contribution from the high-velocity component relative to the photospheric component in their Ca II NIR feature have, on average, broader light curves and lower Ca II NIR photospheric velocities. We find that these relations are driven by both a stronger high-velocity component and a weaker contribution from the photospheric Ca II NIR component in broader light curve SNe Ia. We identify the presence of C II in very-early-time SN Ia spectra (before -10 days), finding that >40 per cent of SNe Ia observed at these phases show signs of unburnt material in their spectra, and that C II features are more likely to be found in SNe Ia having narrower light curves.Comment: 18 page, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Inflammasome activation causes dual recruitment of NLRC4 and NLRP3 to the same macromolecular complex.

Pathogen recognition by nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor (NLR) results in the formation of a macromolecular protein complex (inflammasome) that drives protective inflammatory responses in the host. It is thought that the number of inflammasome complexes forming in a cell is determined by the number of NLRs being activated, with each NLR initiating its own inflammasome assembly independent of one another; however, we show here that the important foodborne pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) simultaneously activates at least two NLRs, whereas only a single inflammasome complex is formed in a macrophage. Both nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat caspase recruitment domain 4 and nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat pyrin domain 3 are simultaneously present in the same inflammasome, where both NLRs are required to drive IL-1β processing within the Salmonella-infected cell and to regulate the bacterial burden in mice. Superresolution imaging of Salmonella-infected macrophages revealed a macromolecular complex with an outer ring of apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase activation and recruitment domain and an inner ring of NLRs, with active caspase effectors containing the pro-IL-1β substrate localized internal to the ring structure. Our data reveal the spatial localization of different components of the inflammasome and how different members of the NLR family cooperate to drive robust IL-1β processing during Salmonella infection.S.M.M was supported by a Cambridge International Scholarship. T.P.M was supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship (WT085090MA). This study was supported by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grants (BB/H003916/1 and BB/K006436/1) and a BBSRC Research Development Fellowship (BB/H021930/1) awarded to C.E.B.http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/05/05/1402911111.abstrac

RESISTIRE D3.2 - Summary report on mapping quantitative indicators, Cycle 2

This report provides an overview of the second cycle mapping of quantitative indicators, at both national and European levels, that allow us to measure and monitor the economic, social and environmental impacts of COVID-19. National insights are derived from the mapping of Rapid Assessment Surveys (RAS), which are studies undertaken at fast pace to understand the impact of the pandemic. European-level insights come from reviews of the literature and analysis of relevant large-scale European datasets, such as European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and Eurofound “Living working and COVID-19" e-survey. The report also demonstrates how we are addressing research gaps identified in the first cycle of RESISTIRÉ through ongoing quantitative analysis in collaboration with the authors of 'promising’ mapped RAS and through the development of a mobile application (app)

Nutrition policy: developing scientific recommendations for food-based dietary guidelines for older adults living independently in Ireland

Older adults (≥65 years) are the fastest growing population group. Thus, ensuring nutritional well-being of the ‘over-65s’ to optimise health is critically important. Older adults represent a diverse population – some are fit and healthy, others are frail and many live with chronic conditions. Up to 78% of older Irish adults living independently are overweight or obese. The present paper describes how these issues were accommodated into the development of food-based dietary guidelines for older adults living independently in Ireland. Food-based dietary guidelines previously established for the general adult population served as the basis for developing more specific recommendations appropriate for older adults. Published international reports were used to update nutrient intake goals for older adults, and available Irish data on dietary intakes and nutritional status biomarkers were explored from a population-based study (the National Adult Nutrition Survey; NANS) and two longitudinal cohorts: the Trinity-Ulster and Department of Agriculture (TUDA) and the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) studies. Nutrients of public health concern were identified for further examination. While most nutrient intake goals were similar to those for the general adult population, other aspects were identified where nutritional concerns of ageing require more specific food-based dietary guidelines. These include, a more protein-dense diet using high-quality protein foods to preserve muscle mass; weight maintenance in overweight or obese older adults with no health issues and, where weight-loss is required, that lean tissue is preserved; the promotion of fortified foods, particularly as a bioavailable source of B vitamins and the need for vitamin D supplementation

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one