Teachers as mediators: an exploration of situated English teaching

Within the context of lower secondary English teaching in South West England, this study identifies in broad terms the competing goals between which English teachers mediate and the explicit and hidden tensions that result. To understand the interactions of competing goals, teachers’ goal-oriented behaviours are referenced to a set of idealised ‘role types’ based on the dimensions of goals, norms, discourses and practices. It is asserted that competing goals, significant to particular educational circumstances, emanate from various sometimes contradictory local, national and perhaps broader social and cultural influences on practice. Yet the teachers observed moved smoothly between goal-oriented behaviours in a continuous and comfortable style, easily and without reflecting any tensions between them. Thus, this article elaborates an account of situated English teaching

Reconsiderando el significado de Hogar en la Rehabilitación: hacia una ciudad histórica sostenible

Despite the significant literature about the meaning of home and the scholars’ research concerning the home environment, the concept of home didn’t filter into the rehabilitation process. The conservation theory and the rehabilitation methodology are still concentrating on the material aspects of the built environment and ignoring the immaterial aspects and meanings. In view of that the dwellings are not only artifacts but they are a livable example of the social structure and behavioral patterns. Understanding the dwellers relationship with their dwellings will be helpful in establishing a connection between the rehabilitation of the historical domestic architecture and the concept of home. This requires reconsidering the theoretical frame work of the rehabilitation process so as to be able to recognize the change in the historical house’s spatial structure and order and to link them to the social structure and pattern of use.A pesar de la gran cantidad de literatura sobre el significado del hogar y las investigaciones hechas por académicos sobre el ambiente del hogar, el concepto de hogar no se filtró en el proceso de rehabilitación. La teoría de la conservación y la metodología de rehabilitación siguen concentrándose en los aspectos materiales del ambiente construido e ignoran los aspectos inmateriales. Tomando en cuenta que las viviendas no son sólo objetos, sino ejemplos de estructuras sociales, y patrones de conducta, el entendimiento de la relación entre habitantes y sus viviendas será de utilidad para establecer una conexión entre la rehabilitación de la arquitectura doméstica histórica y el concepto del hogar. Para ello es necesario reconsiderar el marco de trabajo teórico del proceso de rehabilitación con el fin de ser capaz de reconocer el cambio en la estructura espacial del hogar histórico y el orden, y vincularlos a la estructura social

Health-Related Quality of Life after Ischemic Stroke: The Impact of Pharmaceutical Interventions on Drug Therapy (Pharmaceutical Care Concept)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after stroke is an important healthcare measure. Pharmaceutical Care (PC) is an evolving concept to optimize drug-therapy, minimize drug-related problems, and improve HRQoL of patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of PC on HRQoL, as determined by Short Form 36 (SF-36) among patients after TIA or ischemic stroke one-year following their initial entry in hospital.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Patients were assigned to either an intervention (IG) or a control group (CG). The individual assignment of the patient to IG or CG depended on the community pharmacy to which the patients were assigned for care. Community pharmacies either delivered standard care (CG) or provided intensified PC (IG). Pharmacists who are members of the "Quality Assurance Working Group" (QAWG) provided PC for patients in IG.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>255 patients were recruited (IG: n = 90; CG: n = 165) between 06/2004 to 01/2007. During the study, the HRQoL of the patients in IG did not change significantly. In the CG, a significant decrease in the HRQoL was observed in 7/8 subscales and in both summary measures of SF-36.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This is the first follow-up study in Germany involving a major community hospital, rehabilitation hospitals, community pharmacies and general practitioners investigating the impact of PC on HRQoL of patients after ischemic stroke. Our findings indicate that an intensified education and care of patients after ischemic stroke by dedicated pharmacists based on a concept of PC may maintain the HRQoL of IG patients.</p

Aircraft wheel testing with remote eddy current technique using a SQUID magnetometer

An aircraft wheel testing system using a planar HTS SQUID gradiometer with Joule-Thomson machine cooling in conjunction with a differential eddy current (EC) excitation has recently been developed El], From a routine performance test in the wheel testing facility at the Lufthansa Base, Frankfurt/M, airport, we learned that the quadrupolar flaw signatures complicate signal interpretation considerably. In order to overcome these difficulties, the system was equipped with a HTS rf magnetometer SQUID sensor and an absolute EC excitation coil. The coil was mounted with a lateral displacement with respect to the SQUID. The geometry was chosen similar to the remote EC technique: a given point on the rotating wheel first passes underneath the excitation coil and then underneath the sensor. We analyzed the dependence of the response field of an inside crack on excitation coil displacement, EC frequency and lock-in phase angle and found an optimum rotation velocity for deep lying defects. The depth selectivity of the technique is discussed

Human Time-Frequency Acuity Beats the Fourier Uncertainty Principle

The time-frequency uncertainty principle states that the product of the temporal and frequency extents of a signal cannot be smaller than $1/(4\pi)$. We study human ability to simultaneously judge the frequency and the timing of a sound. Our subjects often exceeded the uncertainty limit, sometimes by more than tenfold, mostly through remarkable timing acuity. Our results establish a lower bound for the nonlinearity and complexity of the algorithms employed by our brains in parsing transient sounds, rule out simple "linear filter" models of early auditory processing, and highlight timing acuity as a central feature in auditory object processing.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; Accepted at PR

USING GASEOUS EMISSIONS OF A PROTON ACCELERATOR FACILITY AS TRACER FOR SMALL-SCALE ATMOSPHERIC DISPERSION

The gaseous effluents of the proton accelerator facility located in the Western part of the Paul Scherrer Institute, Aargau, Switzerland, contain a mixture of positron emitters (50 % 15O, 20 % 13N and 30 % 11C). For the experimental verification of a future upgrade of the dispersion model in the complex topography of the Aare valley, a measuring campaign using three continuous gamma-spectrometric measuring stations was launched in 2011. The concept of a modified man-made-gross-count (MMGC) ratio yields a clear signal associated with the positron emitters while minimising the influence of radon progeny rain-out events. A dependence of the measured MMGC ratios on the emitted activity and wind direction could be demonstrated using frequency distributions of the modified MMGC ratio measured in 2012 and 2013. A significant fraction of high MMGC-ratio values was found associated with dispersion directions (based on measurements of the wind direction in 70 m above ground) not towards or even against the direction between stack and measuring statio