Teachers’ constructions of creativity in secondary English : who gets to be creative in class?

This thesis examines English teachers’ constructions of creativity in three different schools. The investigation is of interest because of the importance given to creativity by English teachers and the contested, shifting role it plays in English teaching and education as a whole. It differs from similar work because it treats creativity as a material resource that teachers can draw on in different ways and measures. In this, it treats the enactment of creativity as a matter of social justice. The thesis draws on a wide body of literature about creativity. Fundamental to this is an overview of the literature as it relates to creativity and language, with most significance given to Williams’ ideas about the centrality of "creativity and self-creation" to knowledge generation (1977: p.212), and to Freire’s about “problem posing” and “banking” forms of education (1970: pps.64-65). It also draws on recent research into the effect of accountability measures in schools. This research suggests that such measures have considerable influence on how education is enacted in schools, placing limits, for example, on creative practices. The data is qualitative in nature and analysed using a framework of critical discourse theory, exploring patterns and omissions in teachers’ comments and interrogating them within the context of dominant policy, educational and institutional discourses. The research itself gathered data from semi-structured interviews with individual English teachers in three different secondary schools, one private and two state comprehensives. The study found that teachers across all three schools constructed creativity in similar ways in the abstract, but in accounts of actual practice, considerable differences emerged across schools. The most pronounced differences were between responses by teachers in the two state schools compared to teachers in the private one. These differences clustered most significantly around constructions of creativity as it related to accountability measures in schools. The findings are important because they suggest that teachers struggle to draw on creative practices, even as they see them as pedagogically important, because of the restrictive nature of accountability measures. They also suggest that some teachers feel more able than others to enact creative practices, depending on the institutional nature of their school

Monotherapy with major antihypertensive drug classes and risk of hospital admissions for mood disorders

Major depressive and bipolar disorders predispose to atherosclerosis, and there is accruing data from animal model, epidemiological, and genomic studies that commonly used antihypertensive drugs may have a role in the pathogenesis or course of mood disorders. In this study, we propose to determine whether antihypertensive drugs have an impact on mood disorders through the analysis of patients on monotherapy with different classes of antihypertensive drugs from a large hospital database of 525 046 patients with follow-up for 5 years. There were 144 066 eligible patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria: age 40 to 80 years old at time of antihypertensive prescription and medication exposure >90 days. The burden of comorbidity assessed by Charlson and Elixhauser scores showed an independent linear association with mood disorder diagnosis. The median time to hospital admission with mood disorder was 847 days for the 299 admissions (641 685 person-years of follow-up). Patients on angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers had the lowest risk for mood disorder admissions, and compared with this group, those on β-blockers (hazard ratio=2.11; [95% confidence interval, 1.12–3.98]; P=0.02) and calcium antagonists (2.28 [95% confidence interval, 1.13–4.58]; P=0.02) showed higher risk, whereas those on no antihypertensives (1.63 [95% confidence interval, 0.94–2.82]; P=0.08) and thiazide diuretics (1.56 [95% confidence interval, 0.65–3.73]; P=0.32) showed no significant difference. Overall, our exploratory findings suggest possible differential effects of antihypertensive medications on mood that merits further study: calcium antagonists and β-blockers may be associated with increased risk, whereas angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may be associated with a decreased risk of mood disorders

Scintillation in the Circinus Galaxy water megamasers

We present observations of the 22 GHz water vapor megamasers in the Circinus galaxy made with the Tidbinbilla 70m telescope. These observations confirm the rapid variability seen earlier by Greenhill et al (1997). We show that this rapid variability can be explained by interstellar scintillation, based on what is now known of the interstellar scintillation seen in a significant number of flat spectrum AGN. The observed variability cannot be fully described by a simple model of either weak or diffractive scintillation.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. AJ accepte

Fraudulent Tax Refunds: The Notorious Career of Harriette Walters

Harriette Walters embezzled more than $48 million from the District of Columbia by processing fraudulent real estate tax refunds. This paper describes the Walters scheme and discusses, from the perspective of the COSO framework, internal control weaknesses that enabled the fraud to go undetected for more than 20 years. While this analysis of the Walters fraud should be of interest to both accounting academics and audit professionals, it should be particularly helpful to students, fi nancial managers, and inexperienced auditors in understanding the importance of effective internal controls for preventing and detecting fraud in a wide variety of organizational settings

The arithmetic of hyperelliptic curves

We summarise recent advances in techniques for solving Diophantine problems on hyperelliptic curves; in particular, those for finding the rank of the Jacobian, and the set of rational points on the curve

Banda Aceh-The Value of Earth Observation Data in Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction: A Case Study

On 26 December 2004, Banda Aceh in Indonesia was at the center of one of the worst natural disasters to affect mankind. Large amounts of international aid poured in to assist in the relief and reconstruction efforts. Amongst this effort, were investments in basic earth observation data from in-situ, airborne and space observations. While the use of this data is assumed to be crucial, few efforts have gone into quantifying the benefits of its acquisition. The objectives of this study were to interview a cross-section of agencies operating in Banda Aceh and across the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam on the use, sources and quality of earth observation data in the relief/reconstruction effort; and to analyze and quantify the value that earth observation data brings to the relief/reconstruction effort based on the survey results and specific examples. Key findings from the interviews point to an overall improvement in the spatial data situation since the tsunami. Problems identified included insufficient training, lack of timely data and sometimes poor spatial resolution. Specific examples of the cost-benefits of earth observation data were typically on the order of millions of dollars and involved large time savings. IIASA is one of 12 partners in the European Union sponsored project "Global Earth Observation/Benefit Estimation: Now, Next and Emerging" (GEO-BENE). Additional GEO-BENE partner countries include Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, Netherlands, Finland, South Africa and Japan. Within GEO-BENE we are developing methodologies and analytical tools to assess societal benefits of GEO in nine societal benefit areas- one of which is disasters. The tsunami affected province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, and specifically Banda Aceh, has been selected as a case study. Other case studies representing different societal benefit areas include: biodiversity in South Africa, health and climate in Finland, fire in Europe, etc. For more information please refer to: www.geo-bene.eu

A critical examination of the presumptive coliform test in milk

The Presumptive Coliform test is used as an indicator of possible faecal contamination of water supplies. In the attempts to provide a bacteriological standard for milk of good keeping quality which is safe for human consumption, the same test has been applied to milk. Thus, milks of high coliform content tend to be regarded by Department of Health authorities as "not up to standard" and not suitable for marketing. This view antagonises the farmer or producer who suffers financially if his milk is withheld from the market. His immediate reaction is to condemn the coliform test as valueless because it is not a true indicator of the standard of milk. The controversy arises because, for water samples, the presumptive coliform test is a good indicator of faecal contamination but has quite a different significance in milk. A positive test with milk may indeed indicate faecal contamination but there are many other possible explanations. Above all coliforms quickly die in water and their presence therefore shows recent faecal contamination; whereas in milk the organisms not only do not die but grow abundantly. Opinion differs greatly on the validity of the test, as can be seen from the fact that in England the test was abolished in 1949 whereas it is still retained in Scotland, In America it is retained for milk of "Certified" grade. The chief aim in milk production should be to provide the consumer with milk of good keeping quality and free from any pathogenic bacteria. How does the presumptive coliform test stand in this matter? In Scotland there are three main grades of milk namely, "Certified", Tuberculin Tested (T.T.) and Pasteurised milk, and / and each has its own coliform-test standard, "Certified" milk comes from tuberculin-tested herds, is produced under very clean conditions, and is bottled on the farm. It is regarded by many people as the "best" milk. T.T, milk comes from tuberculin-tested herds and may or may not be pasteurised. In Scotland 99.8% of herds are T.T. (Chalmers and Sampson, 1958). Pasteurised milk has undergone heat treatment to destroy any pathogenic bacteria which may be present. Undoubtedly it will be the safest milk, but many people dislike its 'flat' taste and are under the impression that it loses some important fraction of its nutritive value after heat treatment. With the above points in view, it was decided to examine milks of different grades, at different seasons, as purchased by the consumer i.e. milk delivered in bottles after it had passed through all stages of production. This was decided upon because most routine testing of milk is done before the milk reaches the consumer, usually on individual samples from farms or on bulk samples at creameries. It seemed of interest to discover whether the bacteriology of the milk would shed some light on the possible status of the test by the time that the milk had actually reached its destination. Presumptive coliform tests were carried out, and positive samples were further examined to see whether coliform organisms were indeed responsible for the positive tests. Samples were also examined by other tests and some interesting points arose. One of the most surprising was the high incidence of Staphylococcus aureus in raw milk, and the revealing fact that on bacteriological grounds "Certified" milk is far from being a "good" milk compared with Pasteurised milk. The following work is therefore directed mainly towards findings on the examination of milks by the presumptive coliform test. It also includes, however, a number of relevant observations on the significant bacterial flora of consumer milk