114 research outputs found

    Good Morning, Grade One. Language ideologies and multilingualism within primary education in rural Zambia.

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    This practice based PhD project investigates the language ideologies which surround the specific multilingual context of rural primary education in Zambia. The project comprises of a creative documentary film and a complementary written submission. The fieldwork and filming of the project took place over 12 months between September 2011 and August 2012 in the community of Lwimba, in Chongwe District, Zambia. The project focuses on the experiences of a single grade one class, their teacher, and the surrounding community of Lwimba. The majority of the school children speak the community language of Soli. The regional lingua franca, and language of the teacher, however, is Nyanja, and the students must also learn Zambia’s only official language, English. At the centre of the project is a research inquiry focusing on the language ideologies which surround each of these languages, both within the classroom and the wider rural community. The project also simultaneously aims to investigate and reflect on the capacity of creative documentary film to engage with linguistic anthropological research. The film at the centre of the project presents a portrait of Annie, a young, urban teacher of the community’s grade one class, as well as three students and their families. Through the narrativised experiences of the teacher and children, it aims to highlight the linguistic ideologies present within the language events and practices in and around the classroom, as well as calling attention to their intersection with themes of linguistic modernity, multilingualism, and language capital. The project’s written submission is separated into three major chapters separated into the themes of narrative, value and text respectively. Each chapter will focus on subjects related to both the research inquiry and the project’s documentary film methodology. Chapter one outlines the intersection of political-historical narratives of nationhood and language that surround the project, and reflects on the practice of internal narrative construction within documentary film. Chapter two firstly focuses on the language valuations within the institutional setting of the classroom and the wider community, and secondly proposes a two-phase perspective of evaluation and value creation as a means to examine the practice of editing within documentary film making. Chapter three addresses the theme of text through discussing the role of literacy acquisition and use in the classroom and community, as well as analysing and reflecting on the practice of translation and subtitle creation within the project

    Independently controlling permittivity and diamagnetism in broadband, low-loss, isotropic metamaterials at microwave frequencies

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    Copyright © 2015 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters, Volume 106 (10), article 101908, and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4915097A metamaterial based on the design of Shin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 093903 (2009)] that allows independent control of its permeability and permittivity has been fabricated and experimentally characterised. It is comprised of an array of metallic cubic-shaped elements with faces that are connected only through six orthogonal spokes emanating from the centre. The permeability is tailored through appropriate patterning of the faces, thereby controlling the propagation of eddy currents around the cubic elements while permittivity may be controlled by the thickness and dielectric constant of the inter-cube spacers.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)DST

    Work-related stress:The impact of COVID-19 on critical care and redeployed nurses: A mixed-methods study

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    Lisa Salisbury - ORCID: 0000-0002-1400-3224 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1400-3224Replaced AM with VoR 2021-07-08.Introduction: We need to understand the impact of COVID-19 on Critical Care (CCNs) and redeployed nurses and NHS organisations. Methods and analysis: This is a mixed methods study (QUANT – QUAL), underpinned by a theoretical model of occupational stress, the Job-Demand Resources Model (JD-R). Participants are critical care and redeployed nurses from Scottish and three large English units. Phase one is a cross-sectional survey in part replicating a pre-COVID-19 study and results will be compared with this data. Linear and logistic regression analysis will examine the relationship between antecedent, demographic, and professional variables on health impairment (burnout syndrome, mental health, posttraumatic stress symptoms), motivation (work engagement, commitment), and organisational outcomes (intention to remain in critical care nursing and quality of care). We will also assess the usefulness of a range of resources provided by the NHS and professional organisations. To allow in-depth exploration of individual experiences, phase two will be one-to-one semi-structured interviews with 25 CCNs and 10 redeployed nurses. The JD-R model will provide the initial coding framework to which the interview data will be mapped. The remaining content will be analysed inductively to identify and chart content that is not captured by the model. In this way the adequacy of the JD-R model is examined robustly and its expression in this context will be detailed. Ethics and dissemination: Ethics approval was granted from the University of Aberdeen CERB2020101993. We plan to disseminate findings at stakeholder events, publish in peer reviewed journals and at present at national and international conferences.https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-05132611pubpub

    On burning ground: theatre of the oppressed and ecological crisis in Bolivia

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    No abstract available

    Acoustic emission as an aid to understanding raceway damage in rolling element bearings [Abstract]

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    Acoustic Emission (AE) sensors were used to detect signals arising from a cylindrical roller bearing with artificial defects seeded onto the outer raceway. High frequency analysis indicated the condition of the bearings through the determination of an increase in the structural resonances of the system as the size of an artificial defect was increased. As higher loads were applied, frequencies around 100kHz were excited, indicating the release of AE possibly attributed to friction and the plastic deformation as peaks, induced through engraving of the raceway, were over-rolled and worn down. Sensitivity of AE to this level in bearings indicates that detection of subsurface cracking may be possible in future work, providing early indication of incipient failure

    Overview of Advanced LIGO Adaptive Optics

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    This is an overview of the adaptive optics used in Advanced LIGO (aLIGO), known as the thermal compensation system (TCS). The thermal compensation system was designed to minimize thermally-induced spatial distortions in the interferometer optical modes and to provide some correction for static curvature errors in the core optics of aLIGO. The TCS is comprised of ring heater actuators, spatially tunable CO2_{2} laser projectors and Hartmann wavefront sensors. The system meets the requirements of correcting for nominal distortion in Advanced LIGO to a maximum residual error of 5.4nm, weighted across the laser beam, for up to 125W of laser input power into the interferometer

    Overview of Advanced LIGO Adaptive Optics

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    This is an overview of the adaptive optics used in Advanced LIGO (aLIGO), known as the thermal compensation system (TCS). The TCS was designed to minimize thermally induced spatial distortions in the interferometer optical modes and to provide some correction for static curvature errors in the core optics of aLIGO. The TCS is comprised of ring heater actuators, spatially tunable CO_2 laser projectors, and Hartmann wavefront sensors. The system meets the requirements of correcting for nominal distortion in aLIGO to a maximum residual error of 5.4 nm rms, weighted across the laser beam, for up to 125 W of laser input power into the interferometer

    Real-time binding kinetic analyses of the interaction of the dietary stain Orange II with dentin matrix

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    Objectives Dietary stains can be adsorbed into the dentin of teeth. Using Orange II as a model dietary stain, this study investigated the strength of its interaction with the mineral and protein components of dentin matrix and how hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) treatment influences this interaction. Methods Dentin slices were prepared from human teeth and were either deproteinized (5.6% sodium hypochlorite, 12 days), demineralised (0.5 M EDTA, 3 days) or left as intact control samples. Samples were stained with Orange II for 1-168 h, during which staining intensity was quantified by image analysis. Similarly, uptake of stain by deproteinized / demineralized samples treated with 10 or 30% H2O2 was investigated. Using surface plasmon resonance technology, real-time binding kinetics were determined assessing the interaction of orange II with the dentin matrix protein constituents, collagen type I, biglycan, decorin, dentin sialoprotein and osteopontin. Results Deproteinization of dentin matrix reduced the uptake of the orange II compared to the intact control. Conversely, demineralization of dentin samples increased the uptake of the dye. Treatment of samples for 48 h with H2O2 reduced subsequent uptake of the orange II. Real-time kinetic analysis indicated moderate strength of binding for Orange II with collagen type I, weak binding with decorin and biglycan and negligible binding with dentine sialoprotein and osteopontin. Conclusion These results indicate a predominant role for collagen type I, which accounts for 90% of the organic protein matrix of teeth, for attracting dietary stains. Binding analyses indicate that the interaction is highly dissociable, and further binding is reduced following H2O2 treatment. Clinical significance This study provides new information regarding adsorption of dietary stains into tooth dentin, suggesting that they are attracted and moderately bound to the collagen type I matrix. This study also contributes valuable information for discussion for considering the effect of H2O2 on bleaching teeth and its influence on subsequent uptake of dietary stains following whitening treatments
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