Practice Bold as Love: ‘Professing’ Community Work

Community work is a values driven occupation committed to social transformation, human rights, equality, anti-discrimination, social and environmental justice through the processes of collective empowerment, and participation (Ledwith 2005; AIEB 2016). The story of community work in Ireland sees a shift from a once relatively independent practice towards a situation where it is increasingly becoming part of the State’s apparatus of service delivery (Harvey 2012, 2015). These two stories are at odds with each other. I was curious to find out if this situation was impacting on community workers’ ‘professing’, that is their way of being in and seeing the world. Story is an essential aspect of community work (Ledwith 2005; Born 2014; Kelly and Westoby 2018). I chose narrative inquiry as a way of researching community workers stories. Narrative inquiry accepts that the world is storied and that through collecting and analysing stories it is possible to gain an understanding of how another ‘professes’ their world to be (Andrews, et al., 2013; Clandinin 2013). I gathered the stories of six leading community workers and from these I fashioned a collective narrative of ‘professing’. This illustrates community workers’ ‘profession’ as an intermeshing of three commitments to, social justice, community, and reflexive practice

Practice Bold as Love: ‘Professing’ Community Work

Community work is a values driven occupation committed to social transformation, human rights, equality, anti-discrimination, social and environmental justice through the processes of collective empowerment, and participation (Ledwith 2005; AIEB 2016). The story of community work in Ireland sees a shift from a once relatively independent practice towards a situation where it is increasingly becoming part of the State’s apparatus of service delivery (Harvey 2012, 2015). These two stories are at odds with each other. I was curious to find out if this situation was impacting on community workers’ ‘professing’, that is their way of being in and seeing the world. Story is an essential aspect of community work (Ledwith 2005; Born 2014; Kelly and Westoby 2018). I chose narrative inquiry as a way of researching community workers stories. Narrative inquiry accepts that the world is storied and that through collecting and analysing stories it is possible to gain an understanding of how another ‘professes’ their world to be (Andrews, et al., 2013; Clandinin 2013). I gathered the stories of six leading community workers and from these I fashioned a collective narrative of ‘professing’. This illustrates community workers’ ‘profession’ as an intermeshing of three commitments to, social justice, community, and reflexive practice

Governing culture: legislators, interpreters and accountants

Cultural policy has become dominated by questions of how to account for the intangible value of government investments. This is as a result of longstanding developments within government’s approaches to policy making, most notably those influenced by practices of audit and accounting. This paper will outline these developments with reference to Peter Miller’s concept of calculative practices, and will argue two central points: first, that there are practical solutions to the problem of measuring the value of culture that connect central government discourses with the discourses of the cultural sector; and second, the paper will demonstrate how academic work has been central to this area of policy making. As a result of the centrality of accounting academics in cultural policy, for example in providing advice on the appropriate measurement tools and techniques, questions are raised about the role academia might take vis-à-vis public policy. Accounting professionals and academics not only provide technical expertise that informs state calculative practices, but also play a surveillance role through the audit and evaluation of government programmes, and act as interpreters in defining terms of performance measurement, success and failure. The paper therefore concludes by reflecting on recent work by Phillip Schlesinger to preserve academic integrity whilst allowing accounting scholars and academics influence and partnership in policy

Understanding Infrared Galaxy Populations: the SWIRE Legacy Survey

We discuss spectral energy distributions, photometric redshifts, redshift distributions, luminosity functions, source-counts and the far infrared to optical luminosity ratio for sources in the SWIRE Legacy Survey. The spectral energy distributions of selected SWIRE sources are modelled in terms of a simple set of galaxy and quasar templates in the optical and near infrared, and with a set of dust emission templates (cirrus, M82 starburst, Arp 220 starburst, and AGN dust torus) in the mid infrared. The optical data, together with the IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 mu data, have been used to determine photometric redshifts. For galaxies with known spectroscopic redshifts there is a notable improvement in the photometric redshift when the IRAC data are used, with a reduction in the rms scatter from 10% in (1+z) to 5%. While further spectroscopic data are needed to confirm this result, the prospect of determining good photometric redshifts for the 2 million extragalactic objects in SWIRE is excellent. The distribution of the different infrared sed types in the L{ir}/L{opt} versus L{ir} plane, where L{ir} and L{opt} are the infrared and optical bolometric luminosities, is discussed. Source-counts at 24, 70 and 160 mu are discussed, and luminosity functions at 3.6 and 24 mu are presented.Comment: 8 pages, 14 figures, to appear in proceedings of 'Spitzer IR Diagnostics Conference, Nov 14-16, 2005

Ionic Liquids Enabling Revolutionary Closed-Loop Life Support

Minimizing resupply from Earth is essential for future long duration manned missions. The current oxygen recovery system aboard the International Space Station is capable of recovering approximately 50% of the oxygen from metabolic carbon dioxide. For long duration manned missions, a minimum of 75% oxygen recovery is targeted with a goal of greater than 90%. Theoretically, the Bosch process can recover 100% of oxygen, making it a promising technology for oxygen recovery for long duration missions. However, the Bosch process produces elemental carbon which ultimately fouls the catalyst. Once the catalyst performance is compromised, it must be replaced resulting in undesired resupply mass. Based on the performance of a Bosch system designed by NASA in the 1990's, a three year Martian mission would require approximately 1315 kg (2850 lbs) of catalyst resupply. It may be possible to eliminate catalyst resupply with a fully regenerable system using an Ionic Liquid (IL)-based Bosch system. In 2016, we reported the feasibility of using ILs to produce an iron catalyst on a copper substrate and to regenerate the iron catalyst by extracting the iron from the copper substrate and product carbon. Additionally, we described a basic system concept for an IL-based Bosch. Here we report the results of efforts to scale catalyst preparation, catalyst regeneration, and to scale the carbon formation processing rate of a single reactor

The Influence of Changing Pen Design From a Small to Large Configuration on the Performance of the Grow-to-Finisher Pig

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of small versus large pens throughout the grow-finish period on growth performance of the pig. This experiment consisted of two replications. One wean to finish site within a large Midwestern commercial production system was used for both replications. The site consisted of four rooms. Within each room, one side of the aisle was set-up with the small pen treatment (SP; n = 96 pens [34 pigs/pen; 0.69 m2/pig]), while the other side was set-up with the large pen treatment (LP; n = 12 pens [272 pigs/pen; 0.69 m2/pig]). Pens were mixed sexed and when the first market group of pigs reached the targeted market weight in both treatments the trial was terminated. Starting and ending weights and average daily gain on a pen basis was recorded and calculated for a total of 6,528 crossbred pigs. Performance was analyzed using the PROC MIXED procedure of SAS. Small penned pigs had a higher ADG (P = 0.004) and overall gain (P = 0.05) than large penned pigs. In conclusion, pigs raised in small pens throughout the grow-finish period had a higher average daily gain and overall gain than pigs housed in large pens throughout the grow-finish period

The Influence of Small Versus Large Pen Design on Health and Lesion Scores of the Grow-finisher Pig

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of raising pigs in small versus large pens during the grow-finish period on health and number of lesions of the finisher pig. The experiment was conducted from April to July, 2009. One wean to finish site within a large Midwestern commercial production system was used. There were four rooms on this site. A total of 3,162 pigs were used to compare health status and frequency of lesions. Within each room, one side of the aisle was set-up with the small pen treatment (SP; n = 45 pens; [34 pigs/pen]), while the other side was set-up with the large pen treatment (LP; n= 6 pens; [272 pigs/pen]). Therefore, both treatments were represented in each room. All pigs were kept in smaller pen configurations for 4 weeks and then the back gates of eight consecutive pens in the LP treatment were opened. Pens were mixed sexed and when the first market group of pigs reached targeted market weight the trial was terminated. One day prior to trial termination, a total of 316 pigs (10% of the population) were visually assessed by two observers for the frequency of lesions. Lesions were defined per the PQA Plus definition of skin lesions (NPB, 2007), as “…breaks that completely penetrate the skin, such as bites or other lesions that penetrate through the skin.” Lesion scores were analyzed using the PROC GLIMMIX procedure of SAS. When a pig was identified within their home pen as requiring medication, the drug type, number of pigs treated, the dose amount and cost per dose were recorded and this information will be presented descriptively. There were differences in lesion frequency with pigs housed in large pens having a higher (P \u3c 0.05) number of lesions compared to pigs in the small treatment. This was consistent across all locations on the pig. More pigs were treated in the large pen (n = 198) compared to the small pen (n = 158) and consequently a higher drug cost was noted for large pens ($127.63 vs.$95.47). Therefore in conclusion, larger pens had higher lesion frequency and higher drug treatment costs

Utilizing Ionic Liquids to Enable the Future of Closed-Loop Life Support Technology

Current oxygen recovery technology onboard the International Space Station only recovers approximately 50% of the oxygen from metabolic carbon dioxide, thus requiring resupply mass in order to sustain life onboard. Future long duration manned missions will require maximum oxygen recovery in order to reduce resupply mass. Complete recovery of oxygen can be achieved through Bosch technology. The challenge with this technology is that the solid carbon produced during the process results in undesired catalyst resupply mass. Although there have been several approaches to solve this challenge, in order to totally eliminate the need for resupply only one potential process has been identified. This process is a fully-regenerable Ionic Liquid (IL)-based Bosch system that employs in situ resources. In 2016, efforts were made that proved the feasibility of an IL-based Bosch system. ILs were used to electroplate iron onto a copper substrate and to regenerate the iron by extracting the iron from the copper substrate and product carbon. In 2017, efforts were initiated to scale the proposed technology. Here we report the results of those efforts as well as an IL-based Bosch system concept and basic reactor design

Data quality of Aeolus wind measurements

The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Earth Explorer Aeolus was launched in August 2018 carrying the world's first spaceborne wind lidar, the Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument (ALADIN). ALADIN uses a high spectral resolution Doppler wind lidar operating at 355nm to measure profiles of line-of-sight wind components in near-real-time (NRT). ALADIN samples the atmosphere from 30km altitude down to the Earth's surface or to the level where the lidar signal is attenuated by optically thick clouds. The global wind profiles provided by ALADIN help to improve weather forecasting and the understanding of atmospheric dynamics as they fill observational gaps in vertically resolved wind profiles mainly in the tropics, southern hemisphere, and over the northern hemisphere oceans. In January 2020, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) became the first numerical weather prediction (NWP) centre to assimilate Aeolus observations for operational forecasting. A main prerequisite for beneficial impact is data of sufficient quality. Such high data quality has been achieved through close collaboration of all involved parties within the Aeolus Data Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC), which was established after launch to study and improve the data quality of Aeolus products. The tasks of the Aeolus DISC include the instrument and platform monitoring, calibration, characterization, retrieval algorithm refinement, processor evolution, quality monitoring, product validation, and impact assessment for NWP. The achievements of the Aeolus DISC for the NRT data quality and the current status of Aeolus wind measurements will be described and summarized. Further, an outlook on future improvements and the availability of reprocessed datasets with enhanced data quality will be provided

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far