Journeys in the City: Empathising With the Users of Transport Buildings

Accessibility is a considerable and growing issue in the design of many public buildings including vital high use buildings such as train stations. Yet research methods for these buildings are poor. This paper suggests that one new approach to design is to use immersive, auto-ethnographic methods to achieve an empathetic understanding of design needs. The paper asks: what can we learn about the mobility requirements of station users when we are immersed in a train station environment, and what mobile research methods can we use to begin to explore this? The paper reports on a study that used video diaries to explore Canary Wharf Station in a November evening rush hour in dry conditions, and specifically to study passenger behaviours on an island platform within the station. The analysis focused on how to improve mobility in the station from a user’s perspective. This use of auto-ethnography is discussed as part of a broader methodological debate about how to explore universal design issues from a user’s perspective, and in the context of empathetic desig

Can Karl Barth's Canonical Narrative Theology guide rural parishes in the Anglican diocese of Carlisle as they attempt to respond to the challenges set out in the recent Mission and Evangelism strategy? John Reeves

This practical theology thesis investigates the theology gy of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968)in order to see if this can help the rural parishes of the Carlisle diocese as they face the challenges set ot in the latest mission and evangelism strategy Growing Disciples Vision and Strategy: 2011-2020 (GD). The exercise brings together, in a sharp conversation, Barth and the content of GD.The dialogue leads to several practical evangelistic outcomes that are offered to the traditional churches of the diocese. The partnership that is created between Barth and Carlisle is galvanised by focusing on several concerns about discipleship expressed by both parties.These include: the nature of revelation; the possibility of knowing God; the content of the gospel; the task of minisrty and the challenge of mission and evangelism.The strategic plan expresses anxiety over declining church attendance in the Carlisle diocese. This was a matter Barth faced during his early years as a pastor and it is argued that it is an issue that should not dominate the thinking of traditional churches or deflect them from the main task of mission and evangelism. By placing the roots of Barth's thinking in the arena of Canonical Narrative Theology, the Bible becomes the main source of instruction from which creative insights are derived. However, to aviod giving the impression that Barth's theology of mission and discipleship can be transferred uncritically to Carlisle, the argument is deliberately reflective as it weaves in and out of both Barth's theology and Carlisle's strategic mission plan. An attempt is made to construct practical outcomes in the form of resources which can be offered to the rural parishes of the diocese where there is eagerness to make new dosciples

An Integrated Approach to Postgraduate Curriculum in Translation Studies

This article details how a group of instructors at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar instituted an integrated curriculum for all students entering the university’s Master in Translation Studies and Master in Audiovisual Translation. First, it discusses the unique multicultural context in which these two programs operate. It then describes the details of the implementation, focusing on the role that an oral history project played in the curriculum. It ends with an appraisal of the program’s success and a consideration of future directions, looking at the need for integrated approaches to learning in the context of emerging institutions of higher education

The Multi-Component Nature of the Vela Pulsar Nonthermal X-ray Spectrum

We report on our analysis of a 274 ks observation of the Vela pulsar with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The double-peaked, pulsed emission at 2 - 30 keV, which we had previously detected during a 93 ks observation, is confirmed with much improved statistics. There is now clear evidence, both in the spectrum and the light curve, that the emission in the RXTE band is a blend of two separate non-thermal components. The spectrum of the harder component connects smoothly with the OSSE, COMPTEL and EGRET spectrum and the peaks in the light curve are in phase coincidence with those of the high-energy light curve. The spectrum of the softer component is consistent with an extrapolation to the pulsed optical flux, and the second RXTE pulse is in phase coincidence with the second optical peak. In addition, we see a peak in the 2-8 keV RXTE pulse profile at the radio phase.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa

Alliances, assemblages, and affects: Three moments of building collective working-class literacies

© 2018 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. This article explores how assemblage and affect theories can enable research into the formation of a collective working-class identity, inclusive of written, print, publication, and organizational literacies through the origins of the Federation of Worker Writer and Community Publishers, an organization that expanded its collectivity as new heritages, ethnicities, and immigrant identities altered the organization’s membership and “class” identity

Alliances, assemblages, and affects : three moments of building collective working-class literacies

This article explores how assemblage and affect theories can enable research into the formation of a collective working-class identity, inclusive of written, print, publication, and organizational literacies through the origins of the Federation of Worker Writer and Community Publishers, an organization that expanded its collectivity as new heritages, ethnicities, and immigrant identities altered the organization’s membership and "class" identity

Automated Detection of Vessel Abnormalities on Fluorescein Angiogram in Malarial Retinopathy

The detection and assessment of intravascular filling defects is important, because they may represent a process central to cerebral malaria pathogenesis: neurovascular sequestration. We have developed and validated a framework that can automatically detect intravascular filling defects in fluorescein angiogram images. It first employs a state-of-the-art segmentation approach to extract the vessels from images and then divide them into individual segments by geometrical analysis. A feature vector based on the intensity and shape of saliency maps is generated to represent the level of abnormality of each vessel segment. An AdaBoost classifier with weighted cost coefficient is trained to classify the vessel segments into normal and abnormal categories. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we apply this framework to 6,358 vessel segments in images from 10 patients with malarial retinopathy. The test sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under curve (AUC) are 74.7%, 73.5%, 74.1% and 74.2% respectively when compared to the reference standard of human expert manual annotations. This performance is comparable to the agreement that we find between human observers of intravascular filling defects. Our method will be a powerful new tool for studying malarial retinopathy

P.A.C.E.S. - A Study on Academic Integrity Among Engineering Undergraduates (Preliminary Conclusions)

Student academic dishonesty, commonly referred to as cheating, has become a serious problem at institutions of higher education. This is particularly true of engineering students who, according to previous research, are among the most likely to cheat in college. To investigate this concern, the authors have undertaken a research project on the Perceptions and Attitudes toward Cheating among Engineering Students (P.A.C.E.S.). The premise of this research is that a combination of pressures, rather than malicious motivations, account for most student cheating. The P.A.C.E.S study consists of a seven page, self-reported survey that investigates: (1) student definitions of academic dishonesty; (2) the magnitude of academic dishonesty among engineering undergraduates; (3) the correlations of academic dishonesty with theories of psychological, demographic and situational factors; and (4) student opinions on different approaches used to discourage academic dishonesty. The survey was administered to approximately 350 engineering and pre engineering undergraduates at 5 institutions, ranging from community colleges to a large research university. This paper will discuss some of the current results from the study as well as future goals, which include the refinement and further distribution of the survey instrument and the development of practical pedagogical methods to help students avoid the pressure of cheating and a better understanding of what students and faculty perceive as cheating