Flexural properties of the equine hoof wall

The equine hoof wall is a hard keratinous structure which transmits forces generated when the hoof contacts the ground to the skeleton of the horse. During locomotion, the hoof capsule is known to yield under impact resulting in an inward curvature of the dorsal wall and expansion of the heels. However, whilst researchers have studied the tensile and compressive properties of the hoof wall, there is a lack of data on the flexural properties in different locations around the hoof capsule. In this study the flexural properties and hydration status of the hoof wall was investigated, in two orthogonal directions, in different locations around the hoof capsule. The hoof was divided into three regions: the dorsal-most aspect (toe); the medial and lateral regions (quarters) and the heels caudally. Beams were cut both perpendicular and parallel to the axis of the tubules, termed transverse and longitudinal beams respectively. Differences in the mechanical properties were then investigated using three-point bending tests. There were considerable differences in the mechanical properties around the hoof capsule; transverse beams from the toe were 81% stiffer and 28% stronger than those from the heels. This corresponded with differences in the hydration of the hoof wall; beams from the toe had a lower water content (24.1±0.25%) than those from the heels (28.3±0.37%). Differences in the flexural properties are thought to be largely a result of variation in the water content. Mechanical data are further discussed in relation to variation in the structure and loading of the hoof wall

How can we move forward when we know so little about where we've been? Questions about assessment from a five year longitudinal study into learning in higher education

Education is an overt attempt to influence students, to change their habits of thought and patterns of engagement. Whilst recent decades have witnessed a rhetorical shift from discourses of education to discourses of learning, this shift has arguably been stimulated more by a desire to better understand the effects of educators’ activities than by a desire to embrace student articulations of the nature and purposes of learning. This paper will report on a longitudinal research study in higher education which was designed to explore such student articulations, in relation to both the texts that were produced for assessment, and the multiple contexts from which both texts and talk emerged. Using a theoretical and methodological framing based on complexity theories, the study attempts to both produce and analyse data in a way that tries to take account of aspects of phenomena that are usually largely beyond the reach of conventional research approaches and current trends. For example, although starting from a broadly social and collectivist position, the study attempts to explore the ways in which individuals within collectives experience participatory practices differentially, are differentially engaged, and produce differential results in terms of assessment outcomes. This is of particular relevance in the still-individually-assessed world of institutional learning, which is arguably quite different to the workplace learning contexts which have given rise to theories such as situated learning and activity theory. From a complexity perspective, however, information about differential engagement is only a small part of the kaleidoscope of interconnecting factors and contexts which work together to produce specific assessment outcomes. The analysis attempts to examine assessment outcomes as emergent effects which arise when the interactions of particular and multiple individual contexts intersect through time with the interactions of equally specific and multiple institutional situations. The results of the study will be discussed in relation to some of the issues highlighted in the overview of the seminar series. For example, the assumption that digitisation can or will make education ‘borderless’, particularly in the light of the ‘largely literary structure of the university’s DNA’. The data will also be examined for evidence of ‘the valuing of social and pedagogic diversity’. Questions will be raised about who may be excluded from the new generations now seen to be attributed with technological literacy, and the limitations of the idea that flexible access and support will solve current problems by ‘accommodating a wide range of teaching and learning styles’

Constructions of learning in higher education: metaphor, epistemology, and complexity

This chapter sets out to explore the ways in which learning in Higher Education is discussed by a group of learners, as opposed to how it is discussed by theorists and policy makers2. This will be done through examining metaphors in the talk of a group of mature students who are about to embark upon a university access course. Questions will then be raised about the type of analysis which underpins this discussion, and an alternative analysis will be explored which will attempt to look at description and metaphor from a different epistemological perspective, that of complexity and non-linear/dynamic systems theory (Cilliers, 1998; Bosma & Kunnen, 2001)

Linking the global and the local in educational research: some insights from dynamic systems theory

Furlong’s (2004) recent discussion of ‘the re-emergence of the paradigm wars’ draws attention to the remarkable resilience of what Martin Hammersley (2002) has called ‘two worlds theories’ in educational research (e.g. theory/practice; quantitative/ qualitative; global/local). Although the last thirty years or so have witnessed a range of analyses and deconstructions of binary thinking from a variety of critical and postmodern perspectives (see, for example, Derrida, 1976; Kaufman, 2001; Parker, 1997, Stronach & McLure, 1997), such thinking appears to be particularly recalcitrant within educational discourses

Placing the post in the landscape of colonial memories: revisiting the memory of a colonial frontier. [abstract].

Paul Fox closes his exploration of the institutionalisation of memory within museums with the question 'do Australians inhabit a postcolonial world or a landscape of colonial memories?' [Fox, 1992, 317] The question forms for him out of an analysis of the ways in which the orderings of aboriginality and space of the colonial museum continued to haunt Australian cultural imaginaries in the early 1990s. Fox traces how colonial museums ordered their knowledge always in reference to the imperial centre, accomplishing a kind of double colonialism – reinforcing 'the European acquisition of space' while ensuring that, for the 'former peripheral city of empire ... memory exists in and belongs to a system of knowledge created elsewhere' [ibid, pp. 308-9]. It seems to me Fox posed his question to invite a response affirming the colonial quality of Australian memory. However, considering his question in 2005, ‘post’ the debates over race, reconciliation, and history that dominated the turn of century, elicits a more uncertain response in me. This paper explores these questions through a study of the social memory of a colonial frontier in the southeast of South Australia. Drawing on Healy’s conception of social memory as a 'network of performances' in which 'relationships between past and present are performed' (1995, p. 5) the paper focuses on the ways in which one colonial ‘memory’ of the frontier, Mrs Christina Smith’s book "The Booandik Tribe of South Australian Aborigines: a Sketch of their Habits, Customs, Legends, and Language", first published in 1880, is performed in two contemporary renderings of the social memory of colonialism: the Lady Nelson Discovery Centre, in Mount Gambier, South Australia, and the writings of Mrs Heather Carthew, great granddaughter of Mrs Smith

Conceptualising the case in adult and higher education research: a dynamic systems view

In terms of the framing and focus of research, recent years have seen a theoretical shift in many areas of the social sciences towards a recognition of some of the limits of currently dominant epistemologies. ‘Recognising limits’ is not meant here only in the sense that there will always be limits to the results of all processes of abstraction aimed at explanation. In addition, research is dominated by particular types of abstraction and explanation, when other types may also be possible

Influencing Positive Outcomes For Troubled Youth

The BHB Theory (Haggis, 2011) is based on an empirical case study that examined teachers’ perceptions of what they do in their educational settings to create a positive learning environment for troubled youth in their classrooms. Research - including this study - indicates a need for transformational change in how teachers interrelate with students in education environments intended for at risk-youth. Traditionally, approaches to working with troubled youth have been punitive in design.  Research indicates that this approach is counterproductive and that teachers have the opportunity to build capacity for success with at risk-youth through the use of peers; building social competencies; role modeling; relationship building; setting high expectations and fostering student strengths. Understanding what effective teachers working with troubled youth do to create a positive learning environment in their classrooms is critical for identifying factors that influence a positive outcome for students in such programs. The descriptive case study described utilized a mixed methods approach using teachers within two residential schools. The BHB study’s data analysis discovered that there was significant agreement among the teacher participants of the study about factors perceived as strongly influential in creating a positive learning environment for their students.  Consistent with prior research, these factors included providing a classroom atmosphere that supports positive peer relationships, setting high expectations for student success, encouraging students to take responsibility for their own actions, strong relationship building and generating an environment of trust and respect.  Recommendations for strengthening teacher practice are offered.

Approaching complexity: A commentary on Keshavarz, Nutbeam, Rowling and Khavapour

First paragraph: In their paper, ‘‘Schools as social complex adaptive systems: A new way to understand the challenges of introducing the health promoting schools concept’’ Keshavarz, Nutbeam, Rowling, and Khavarpour (2010) have made a courageous move in attempting to apply complexity theory to the problem of how to better understand why school health programmes have not always been as successful as policy-makers have hoped. Theories of complex adaptive systems (I use complexity theory and theories of complex adaptive systems [CAS] interchangeably) arguably have the potential to examine and articulate many aspects of complex phenomena which have hitherto defied articulation by more conventional means, in both the natural and the social worlds. Working out exactly how this potential may be realised, however, is an enormous challenge

Researching the student experience in the Humanities and Social Sciences: the implications of difference

Tamsin Haggis warns against over-generalisation in understanding how students approach their learning