1,732 research outputs found
An investigation to explore how gentle teaching can be embedded and sustained in a school culture
his thesis explores a humanistic intervention called Gentle Teaching and how a special residential school has attempted to embed this into its school culture. This thesis explores a range of concepts and as such a conceptual framework has been
created to link each of these areas together. The conceptual framework is based upon Gentle Teaching, School Culture and Symbolic Interaction. Symbolic Interaction has been employed as a lens to explore the concepts of truth through the understanding of various factors that influence the understanding that people how regarding the meaning objects, interactions and words have for us. This is true still for the unique pupils within the school who express their own understanding of the school culture and what this feels like to them.
This thesis has a series of sub-research questions to ascertain if Gentle Teaching is a natural ability or if this can be taught/learned, it also seeks to identify if the recipients of Gentle Teaching are aware of the process and finally, how Gentle Teaching can be embedded within a school culture. A qualitative methodological approach is employed to gather data from adult staff participants and the views and opinions from the students within the school. This thesis contributes to a modern exploration of the Gentle Teaching pedagogy. This thesis also gains insight into the views and opinions of an often overlooked and marginalised group of students and offers an illustration of what Gentle Teaching can offer to other schools as both a pedagogical and behavioural approach that could become an alternative to less humanistic approaches
A new method to calibrate ionospheric pulse dispersion for UHE cosmic ray and neutrino detection using the Lunar Cherenkov technique
UHE particle detection using the lunar Cherenkov technique aims to detect
nanosecond pulses of Cherenkov emission which are produced during UHE cosmic
ray and neutrino interactions in the Moon's regolith. These pulses will reach
Earth-based telescopes dispersed, and therefore reduced in amplitude, due to
their propagation through the Earth's ionosphere. To maximise the received
signal to noise ratio and subsequent chances of pulse detection, ionospheric
dispersion must therefore be corrected, and since the high time resolution
would require excessive data storage this correction must be made in real time.
This requires an accurate knowledge of the dispersion characteristic which is
parameterised by the instantaneous Total Electron Content (TEC) of the
ionosphere. A new method to calibrate the dispersive effect of the ionosphere
on lunar Cherenkov pulses has been developed for the LUNASKA lunar Cherenkov
experiments. This method exploits radial symmetries in the distribution of the
Moon's polarised emission to make Faraday rotation measurements in the
visibility domain of synthesis array data (i. e. instantaneously). Faraday
rotation measurements are then combined with geomagnetic field models to
estimate the ionospheric TEC. This method of ionospheric calibration is
particularly attractive for the lunar Cherenkov technique as it may be used in
real time to estimate the ionospheric TEC along a line-of-sight to the Moon and
using the same radio telescope.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of ARENA 2010, Nantes, France;
doi:10.1016/j.nima.2010.10.12
Prospects for radio detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos
The origin and nature of the highest energy cosmic ray events is currently
the subject of intense investigation by giant air shower arrays and fluorescent
detectors. These particles reach energies well beyond what can be achieved in
ground-based particle accelerators and hence they are fundamental probes for
particle physics as well as astrophysics. Because of the scarcity of these
high-energy particles, larger and larger ground-based detectors have been
built. The new generation of digital radio telescopes may play an important
role in this, if properly designed. Radio detection of cosmic ray showers has a
long history but was abandoned in the 1970's. Recent experimental developments
together with sophisticated air shower simulations incorporating radio emission
give a clearer understanding of the relationship between the air shower
parameters and the radio signal, and have led to resurgence in its use.
Observations of air showers by the SKA could, because of its large collecting
area, contribute significantly to measuring the cosmic ray spectrum at the
highest energies. Because of the large surface area of the moon, and the
expected excellent angular resolution of the SKA, using the SKA to detect radio
Cherenkov emission from neutrino-induced cascades in lunar regolith will be
potentially the most important technique for investigating cosmic ray origin at
energies above the photoproduction cut-off. (abridged)Comment: latex, 26 pages, 17 figures, to appear in: "Science with the Square
Kilometer Array," eds. C. Carilli and S. Rawlings, New Astronomy Reviews,
(Elsevier: Amsterdam
Experimental Limit on the Cosmic Diffuse Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Flux
We report results from 120 hours of livetime with the Goldstone Lunar
Ultra-high energy neutrino Experiment (GLUE). The experiment searches for <10
ns microwave pulses from the lunar regolith, appearing in coincidence at two
large radio telescopes separated by 22 km and linked by optical fiber. Such
pulses would arise from subsurface electromagnetic cascades induced by
interactions of >= 100 EeV neutrinos in the lunar regolith. No candidates are
yet seen, and the implied limits constrain several current models for
ultra-high energy neutrino fluxes.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revtex4 style. New intro section, Fig. 2, Fig 4;
in final PRL revie
Peptide redesign for inhibition of the complement system: Targeting age-related macular degeneration.
PurposeTo redesign a complement-inhibiting peptide with the potential to become a therapeutic for dry and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).MethodsWe present a new potent peptide (Peptide 2) of the compstatin family. The peptide is developed by rational design, based on a mechanistic binding hypothesis, and structural and physicochemical properties derived from molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The inhibitory activity, efficacy, and solubility of Peptide 2 are evaluated using a hemolytic assay, a human RPE cell-based assay, and ultraviolet (UV) absorption properties, respectively, and compared to the respective properties of its parent peptide (Peptide 1).ResultsThe sequence of Peptide 2 contains an arginine-serine N-terminal extension (a characteristic of parent Peptide 1) and a novel 8-polyethylene glycol (PEG) block C-terminal extension. Peptide 2 has significantly improved aqueous solubility compared to Peptide 1 and comparable complement inhibitory activity. In addition, Peptide 2 is more efficacious in inhibiting complement activation in a cell-based model that mimics the pathobiology of dry AMD.ConclusionsWe have designed a new peptide analog of compstatin that combines N-terminal polar amino acid extensions and C-terminal PEGylation extensions. This peptide demonstrates significantly improved aqueous solubility and complement inhibitory efficacy, compared to the parent peptide. The new peptide overcomes the aggregation limitation for clinical translation of previous compstatin analogs and is a candidate to become a therapeutic for the treatment of AMD
VLA Observations of Candidate Supernova Remnants from the Clark Lake 30.9 MHz Galactic Plane Survey
We report the results of 1464 MHz continuum VLA observations of eight fields containing unidentified
small-diameter objects associated with candidate supernova remnants from the Clark Lake 30.9 MHz
galactic plane survey. The observations were made in the C configuration, giving a resolution of
-12-20 arcsec, and a sensitivity of typically <0.5 mJy per beam. Polarization measurements were
made as well. One of the 30.9 MHz candidates, G41.4+ 1.2, appears to be confirmed as a supernova
remnant by our observations. Of the remaining seven fields observed, three were found to contain
small-diameter objects which met some of the criteria for nonthermal origin, but will require further
study to evaluate whether they are associated with the candidate supernova remnants. Two of the fields
were found to contain groups of unresolved objects consistent with expectations for extragalactic
background sources. In these cases the 30.9 MHz observations, which could not resolve the individual
sources but would view them as a single extended source, may have mistakenly identified them as
possible supernova remnants. Finally, two fields contained bright H II region
Recommended from our members
Observations of the Askaryan Effect in Ice
We report on the first observations of the Askaryan effect in ice: coherent impulsive radio Cherenkov radiation from the charge asymmetry in an electromagnetic (EM) shower. Such radiation has been observed in silica sand and rock salt, but this is the first direct observation from an EM shower in ice. These measurements are important since the majority of experiments to date that rely on the effect for ultra-high energy neutrino detection are being performed using ice as the target medium. As part of the complete validation process for the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, we performed an experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in June 2006 using a 7.5 metric ton ice target, yielding results fully consistent with theoretical expectations
- …