How do we do race in design and technology?

This chapter deliberately takes a different format to others within this book. The authors and contributors have come together to co-author and collaborate on this work, which we think breaks new ground within design and technology. For the contributors, we are drawing on the teacher as researcher and teacher as reflexive practitioner; the authors are drawing on their lived experiences to explore the question, how do we do race in design and technology, and begin the road to exploring some possible answers. We also wondering: Who are the voices that have shaped the design & technology curriculum around raceissues of decolonisation, definitions and clarifications? The chapter starts with an overview of decolonisation and diversity in design and technology, and then broadens out into understanding the language around race and diversity. The design discourse takes us to globalisation and cultural values and the monolithic space taken by only structuring the current design and technology curriculum with a Eurocentric modelling of design history. The narrative voices of teachers then provide the backdrop to rest of the chapter, their voices speak of the differing experiences, their perspectives asreflective practitioners are there to offer thoughts and reflections, they do not yet provide answers. The chapter ends with a call to reclaim the curriculum and bring the marginalised voices in from the margins

Good rotations

Numerical integrations in celestial mechanics often involve the repeated computation of a rotation with a constant angle. A direct evaluation of these rotations yields a linear drift of the distance to the origin. This is due to roundoff in the representation of the sine s and cosine c of the angle theta. In a computer, one generally gets c^2 + s^2 1, resulting in a mapping that is slightly contracting or expanding. In the present paper we present a method to find pairs of representable real numbers s and c such that c^2 + s^2 is as close to 1 as possible. We show that this results in a drastic decrease of the systematic error, making it negligible compared to the random error of other operations. We also verify that this approach gives good results in a realistic celestial mechanics integration.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Verbal memory and search speed in early midlife are associated with mortality over 25 years’ follow-up, independently of health status and early life factors: a British birth cohort study

Background: Cognitive capabilities in childhood and in late life are inversely associated with mortality rates. However it is unclear if adult cognition, at a time still relatively free from comorbidity, is associated with subsequent mortality, and if this explains the associations of early life factors on adult mortality. Methods: We used data from the MRC National Survey of Health and Development, a birth cohort study prospectively assessing 5362 participants born in 1946. The present analysis includes participants followed-up from age 43 and undergoing cognitive assessment (verbal memory and search speed). Mortality outcomes were notified through linkage with a national register. Cox regression was used to estimate mortality hazards in relation to cognitive performance at age 43, adjusting for early life factors, socio-economic position and health status. Results: Data were available on 3192 individuals. Univariable analyses indicated that adult verbal memory and search speed, parental factors, childhood cognition and educational attainment were associated with mortality. However, multivariable models showed the mortality associations with earlier life factors were explained by adult cognitive capability. A standard deviation increase in verbal memory and search speed scores was associated with lower mortality rates (HR=0.86, 95%CI 0.77-0.97, p=0.02; HR=0.88, 95%CI 0.78-1.00, p=0.05, respectively), after adjustment for adult health. Conclusions: Cognitive capability in early midlife was inversely associated with mortality rates over 25 years and accounted for the associations of family background, childhood cognitive ability and educational attainment with mortality. These findings, in a nationally representative cohort with long-term follow-up, suggest that building cognitive reserve may improve later life health and survival chances

A new diagnostic algorithm for assessment of patients with single ventricle before a Fontan operation

ObjectivesCardiac catheterization has a low diagnostic yield before a Fontan operation, and magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography are reliable alternatives to invasive angiography. A new diagnostic algorithm to avoid cardiac catheterization in “low-risk” subjects before a Fontan operation is proposed.MethodsThe proposed algorithm would identify “high-risk” subjects on the basis of risk factors on medical history, echocardiography, and noninvasive angiography. The efficacy of this algorithm in screening for subjects deemed to be inoperable after catheterization was evaluated retrospectively in 151 children. For this analysis, results of conventional angiography (assumed to be equivalent to noninvasive angiography) were used.ResultsAccording to the algorithm, 95 (63%) of 151 subjects had no risk factors (“low risk”) whereas 56 (37%) of 151 had 1 risk factor or more (“high risk”). Nine (6%) of 151 subjects were found to be inoperable after catheterization and all 9 were correctly classified as high risk by the algorithm. In the 135 of 151 subjects who underwent a Fontan operation, the algorithm predicted an adverse postoperative outcome with a sensitivity of 51% and specificity of 78%. However, this prediction was not improved by including elevated pulmonary artery pressure or ventricular filling pressure as additional risk factors.ConclusionsThe proposed algorithm effectively screened for subjects who were deemed unsuitable for a Fontan procedure. In addition, omitting preoperative invasive hemodynamic assessment did not impair prediction of adverse postoperative outcomes. Prospective evaluation of such a noninvasive diagnostic strategy before the Fontan operation is warranted

An analysis of the composite stellar population in M32

We obtained long-slit spectra of high signal-to-noise ratio of the galaxy M32 with the GMOS spectrograph at the GEMINI North telescope. We analysed the integrated spectra by means of full spectral fitting in order to extract the mixture of stellar populations that best represents its composite nature. Three different galactic radii were analysed, from the nuclear region out to 2 arcmin from the centre. This allows us to compare, for the first time, the results of integrated light spectroscopy with those of resolved colour-magnitude diagrams from the literature. As our main result, we propose that an ancient and an intermediate-age population coexist in M32, and that the balance between these two populations change between the nucleus and outside 1 effective radius in the sense that the contribution from the intermediate population is larger at the nuclear region. We retrieve a smaller signal of a young population at all radii whose origin is unclear and may be a contamination from horizontal-branch stars, such as the ones identified by Brown et al. in the nuclear region. We compare our metallicity distribution function for a region 1 to 2 arcmin from the centre to the one obtained with photometric data by Grillmair et al. Both distributions are broad, but our spectroscopically derived distribution has a significant component with [Z/Z_{\sun}] \leq -1, which is not found by Grillmair et al.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

Cognitive-behaviour therapy for post-traumatic stress in schizophrenia: a randomised controlled trial

Background. There is limited evidence for effective interventions in the treatment of posttraumatic stress symptoms within individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Clinicians have concerns about using exposure treatments with this patient group. The current trial was designed to evaluate a 16-session cognitive restructuring programme, without direct exposure, for the treatment of posttraumatic stress symptoms specifically within individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Method. A multicentre randomized controlled single-blinded trial with assessments at 0 months, 6-months (post-treatment) and 12 months (follow-up) was conducted. Sixty-one participants diagnosed with schizophrenia and exhibiting posttraumatic stress symptoms were recruited. Those randomized to treatment were offered up to 16 sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT, including psychoeducation, breathing training and cognitive restructuring) over a 6-month period, with the control group offered routine clinical services. The main outcome was blind rating of posttraumatic stress symptoms using the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for Schizophrenia (CAPS-S). Secondary outcomes were psychotic symptoms as measured by the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) and the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scale (PSYRATS). Results. Both the treatment and control groups experienced a significant decrease in posttraumatic stress symptoms over time but there was no effect of the addition of CBT on either the primary or secondary outcomes. Conclusions. The current trial did not demonstrate any effect in favour of CBT. Cognitive restructuring programmes may require further adaptation to promote emotional processing of traumatic memories within people diagnosed with a psychotic disorder

Natural Resistance-Associated Macrophage Protein Is a Cellular Receptor for Sindbis Virus in Both Insect and Mammalian Hosts

SummaryAlphaviruses, including several emerging human pathogens, are a large family of mosquito-borne viruses with Sindbis virus being a prototypical member of the genus. The host factor requirements and receptors for entry of this class of viruses remain obscure. Using a Drosophila system, we identified the divalent metal ion transporter natural resistance-associated macrophage protein (NRAMP) as a host cell surface molecule required for Sindbis virus binding and entry into Drosophila cells. Consequently, flies mutant for dNRAMP were protected from virus infection. NRAMP2, the ubiquitously expressed vertebrate homolog, mediated binding and infection of Sindbis virus into mammalian cells, and murine cells deficient for NRAMP2 were nonpermissive to infection. Alphavirus glycoprotein chimeras demonstrated that the requirement for NRAMP2 is at the level of Sindbis virus entry. Given the conserved structure of alphavirus glycoproteins, and the widespread use of transporters for viral entry, other alphaviruses may use conserved multipass membrane proteins for infection

Troubling "understanding mathematics-in-depth": Its role in the identity work of student-teachers in England

Copyright @ The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.comThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.In this paper, we focus on an initiative in England devised to prepare non-mathematics graduates to train as secondary mathematics teachers through a 6-month Mathematics Enhancement Course (MEC) to boost their subject knowledge. The course documentation focuses on the need to develop “understanding mathematics in-depth” in students in order for them to become successful mathematics teachers. We take a poststructural approach, so we are not interested in asking what such an understanding is, about the value of this approach or about the effectiveness of the MECs in developing this understanding in their participants. Instead we explore what positions this discourse of “understanding mathematics in-depth” makes available to MEC students. We do this by looking in detail at the “identity work” of two students, analysing how they use and are used by this discourse to position themselves as future mathematics teachers. In doing so, we show how even benign-looking social practices such as “understanding mathematics in-depth” are implicated in practices of inclusion and exclusion. We show this through detailed readings of interviews with two participants, one of whom fits with the dominant discourses in the MEC and the other who, despite passing the MEC, experiences tensions between her national identity work and MEC discourses. We argue that it is vital to explore “identity work” within teacher education contexts to ensure that becoming a successful mathematics teacher is equally available to all.King’s College Londo

Change management: The case of the elite sport performance team

The effective and efficient implementation of change is often required for both successful performance and management survival across a host of contemporary domains. However, although of major theoretical and practical significance, research to date has overlooked the application of change management (hereafter CM) knowledge to the elite sport performance team environment. Considering that the success of ‘off-field’ sports businesses are largely dependent on the performances of their ‘on-field’ team, this article explores the application of current CM theorizing to this specific setting and the challenges facing its utility. Accordingly, we identify the need and importance of developing theory specific to this area, with practical application in both sport and business, through examination of current knowledge and identification of the domain's unique, dynamic and contested properties. Markers of successful change are then suggested to guide initial enquiry before the article concludes with proposed lines of research which may act to provide a valid and comprehensive theoretical account of CM to optimize the research and practice of those working in the field