Is there a place for love in early childhood education and care in England? Early years educators’ beliefs

The importance of love for young children is well documented. Increasing numbers of young children are spending time in early years settings. The recent Government policy announcement of free childcare for children from nine months is likely to increase the number of babies attending early years settings, so the concept of love within early years education and childcare has never been more important. However, the qualifications that enable someone to work within an early years setting in England do not mention love. Similarly, love does not feature within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, which those working with our youngest children must follow. This research identified polarised opinions regarding the place of love within early childhood education and care, with some practitioners clearly uncomfortable with the idea of loving children who are not their own, whilst others believing that loving the children you work with is vital

Improving the diversity of resistance mechanisms available in wheat to combat Fusarium ear blight disease

Fusarium ear blight (FEB) is a disease of wheat and small grain cereals, caused by the fungi Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium graminearum. The disease causes premature bleaching of spikelets and shrivelling of the grain can result in a direct yield loss. Mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol produced by the fungus can reduce grain quality. Breeding for resistant wheat cultivars is considered one of the best control options. Previously identified resistance has been reported in the Chinese genotype Sumai 3. The principal aim of this project was to identify novel sources of resistance to FEB. Twenty four wheat genotypes were evaluated for resistance to FEB in this project. Molecular markers linked to previously identified QTL from Sumai 3 conferring resistance were used to confirm their absence in the genotypes under investigation, and revealed that none of the genotypes under investigation contained all of the QTL for resistance. Field trials conducted over two years screening for resistance demonstrated that, although not statistically similar to Sumai 3, levels of disease were below 10% in some of the Chinese genotypes. Follow up experiments using reporter strains of Fusarium graminearum explored the accumulation of fungal biomass and the expression of the gene Tri5, which is essential for DON biosynthesis. Fungal biomass levels were not significantly different between genotypes; however expression of the Tri5 gene was significantly lower in the genotype Alsen. A previously developed wheat leaf seedling bioassay was also explored. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of fungal hyphae in advance of the visible lesion during the infection course of F. culmorum. Inoculation with a Tri5 mutant strain of F. graminearum demonstrated that a lack of mycotoxin production altered the lesion type. This project has successfully identified potential novel resistance mechanisms and the future prospects for the control of this disease are discussed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Is there a place for love in early childhood education and care in England? Early years educators’ beliefs

The importance of love for young children is well documented. Increasing numbers of young children are spending time in early years settings. The recent Government policy announcement of free childcare for children from nine months is likely to increase the number of babies attending early years settings, so the concept of love within early years education and childcare has never been more important. However, the qualifications that enable someone to work within an early years setting in England do not mention love. Similarly, love does not feature within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, which those working with our youngest children must follow. This research identified polarised opinions regarding the place of love within early childhood education and care, with some practitioners clearly uncomfortable with the idea of loving children who are not their own, whilst others believing that loving the children you work with is vital

Application of Optical Biosensors in Small-Molecule Screening Activities

The last two decades have seen remarkable progress and improvements in optical biosensor systems such that those are currently seen as an important and value-adding component of modern drug screening activities. In particular the introduction of microplate-based biosensor systems holds the promise to match the required throughput without compromising on data quality thus representing a sought-after complement to traditional fluidic systems. This article aims to highlight the application of the two most prominent optical biosensor technologies, namely surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and optical waveguide grating (OWG), in small-molecule screening and will present, review and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different assay formats on these platforms. A particular focus will be on the specific advantages of the inhibition in solution assay (ISA) format in contrast to traditional direct binding assays (DBA). Furthermore we will discuss different application areas for both fluidic as well as plate-based biosensor systems by considering the individual strength of the platforms

Early maturation processes in coal. Part 1: Pyrolysis mass balances and structural evolution of coalified wood from the Morwell Brown Coal seam

In this work, we develop a theoretical approach to evaluate maturation process of kerogen-like material, involving molecular dynamic reactive modeling with a reactive force field to simulate the thermal stress. The Morwell coal has been selected to study the thermal evolution of terrestrial organic matter. To achieve this, a structural model is first constructed based on models from the literature and analytical characterization of our samples by modern 1-and 2-D NMR, FTIR, and elemental analysis. Then, artificial maturation of the Morwell coal is performed at low conversions in order to obtain, quantitative and qualitative, detailed evidences of structural evolution of the kerogen upon maturation. The observed chemical changes are a defunctionalization of the carboxyl, carbonyl and methoxy functional groups coupling with an increase of cross linking in the residual mature kerogen. Gaseous and liquids hydrocarbons, essentially CH4, C4H8 and C14+ liquid hydrocarbons, are generated in low amount, merely by cleavage of the lignin side chain