Literature-informed, one-turn action research: three cases and a commentary

Although action research is a common feature of courses of initial teacher training, the evidence as to its efficacy, in encouraging reflection among trainees, is mixed. This article discusses cases of action research assignments carried out by three trainees into their own practice in relation to a) behaviour management, b) monitoring and assessing, and c) pupil-centred education. The assignments are analysed using Bloom’s (1964) typology of thinking skills, Handal & Lauvas’ (1987) model of reflective practice, and typologies of action research by Noffke (1997) and Rearick & Feldman (1999). They are positioned as cases of ‘literature-informed, one-turn’ action research; a concept which is discussed in relation to other concepts of action research

Impact of UK sport fishing on fish welfare and conservation

Sport fishing or angling is the capture of fish for recreation or competition, i.e., for entertainment. Contrary to the claims of Key (2016), there is good evidence that fish feel pain and have the capacity for self-awareness (Sneddon et al., 2018; Woodruff, 2017). Wild fish experience a variety of adverse conditions in nature that can harm their welfare, but this does not justify humans intentionally inflicting such conditions on fish solely for our pleasure. This commentary summarises the many ways fish suffer harm to their welfare as a result of sport fishing. There are also discussions on associated activities that have negative effects on the welfare and conservation of other animals, as well as deleterious impacts on the environment. We should not allow scientific evidence-based conclusions to be discounted because of the large number of people that participate in the sport or the large sums generated for regional or national economies. The time has come for improvements in fish welfare to be incorporated in sport fishing, and a logical starting point would be the development of welfare guidelines for anglers

Impact of UK sport fishing on fish welfare and conservation

Sport fishing or angling is the capture of fish for recreation or competition, i.e., for entertainment. Contrary to the claims of Key (2016), there is good evidence that fish feel pain and have the capacity for self-awareness (Sneddon et al., 2018; Woodruff, 2017). Wild fish experience a variety of adverse conditions in nature that can harm their welfare, but this does not justify humans intentionally inflicting such conditions on fish solely for our pleasure. This commentary summarises the many ways fish suffer harm to their welfare as a result of sport fishing. There are also discussions on associated activities that have negative effects on the welfare and conservation of other animals, as well as deleterious impacts on the environment. We should not allow scientific evidence-based conclusions to be discounted because of the large number of people that participate in the sport or the large sums generated for regional or national economies. The time has come for improvements in fish welfare to be incorporated in sport fishing, and a logical starting point would be the development of welfare guidelines for anglers

Probability calibration trees

Obtaining accurate and well calibrated probability estimates from classifiers is useful in many applications, for example, when minimising the expected cost of classifications. Existing methods of calibrating probability estimates are applied globally, ignoring the potential for improvements by applying a more fine-grained model. We propose probability calibration trees, a modification of logistic model trees that identifies regions of the input space in which different probability calibration models are learned to improve performance. We compare probability calibration trees to two widely used calibration methods—isotonic regression and Platt scaling—and show that our method results in lower root mean squared error on average than both methods, for estimates produced by a variety of base learners

Designing an Assistant for the Disclosure and Management of Information about Needs and Support: the ADMINS project

In this paper, we describe accessible design considerations for the Assistants for the Disclosure and Management of Information about Needs and Support project (ADMINS). In ADMINS, artificial intelligence (AI) services are being used to create a virtual assistant (VA), which is being designed to enable students to disclose any disabilities, and to provide guidance and suggestions about appropriate accessible support. ADMINS explores the potential of a conversational user interface (CUI) to reduce administrative burden and improve outcomes, by replacing static forms with written and spoken dialogue. Students with accessibility needs often face excessive administrative burden. A CUI could be beneficial in this context if designed to be fully accessible. At the same time, we recognise the broader potential of CUIs for these types of processes, and the project aims to understand the multiple opportunities and challenges, using participatory design, iterative development and trials evaluations

Robust future changes in temperature variability under greenhouse gas forcing and the relationship with thermal advection

Recent temperature extremes have highlighted the importance of assessing projected changes in the variability of temperature as well as the mean. A large fraction of present day temperature variance is associated with thermal advection, as anomalous winds blow across the land-sea temperature contrast for instance. Models project robust heterogeneity in the 21st century warming pattern under greenhouse gas forcing, resulting in land-sea temperature contrasts increasing in summer and decreasing in winter, and the pole-to-equator temperature gradient weakening in winter. In this study, future monthly variability changes in the 17 member ensemble ESSENCE are assessed. In winter, variability in midlatitudes decreases while in very high latitudes and the tropics it increases. In summer, variability increases over most land areas and in the tropics, with decreasing variability in high latitude oceans. Multiple regression analysis is used to determine the contributions to variability changes from changing temperature gradients and circulation patterns. Thermal advection is found to be of particular importance in the northern hemisphere winter midlatitudes, where the change in mean state temperature gradients alone could account for over half the projected changes. Changes in thermal advection are also found to be important in summer in Europe and coastal areas, although less so than in winter. Comparison with CMIP5 data shows that the midlatitude changes in variability are robust across large regions, particularly high northern latitudes in winter and mid northern latitudes in summer

Recent high school graduates support mandatory cardiopulmonary resuscitation education in Australian high schools

Objective: To evaluate recent high school graduates\u27 opinions on mandatory cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in the high school curriculum as a solution to improving bystander CPR rates. Methods: Participants completed questionnaires assessing their CPR training history during their high school education, their willingness to learn CPR during their high school years and their opinion on making CPR training mandatory for high school curricula. Results: Of the 178 participants in this study, 60% had undertaken CPR training during their high school education. Of those who had not undertaken CPR training, 75% reported that they would have been willing to learn CPR had they been provided with the opportunity. A total of 97% of participants were in support of mandatory CPR training in high school education. Conclusion: Implementing mandatory CPR training in high school education would be embraced by students. Implications for public health: Findings of this study support our recommendation to implement mandatory CPR training in the high school curriculum. This will likely increase the number of bystanders in the community who would spontaneously administer CPR, thereby improving outcomes for patients experiencing out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest

Effects of Subchronic Phencyclidine (PCP) Treatment on Social Behaviors, and Operant Discrimination and Reversal Learning in C57BL/6J Mice

Subchronic treatment with the psychotomimetic phencyclidine (PCP) has been proposed as a rodent model of the negative and cognitive/executive symptoms of schizophrenia. There has, however, been a paucity of studies on this model in mice, despite the growing use of the mouse as a subject in genetic and molecular studies of schizophrenia. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of subchronic PCP treatment (5 mg/kg twice daily × 7 days, followed by 7 days withdrawal) in C57BL/6J mice on (1) social behaviors using a sociability/social novelty-preference paradigm, and (2) pairwise visual discrimination and reversal learning using a touchscreen-based operant system. Results showed that mice subchronically treated with PCP made more visits to (but did not spend more time with) a social stimulus relative to an inanimate one, and made more visits and spent more time investigating a novel social stimulus over a familiar one. Subchronic PCP treatment did not significantly affect behavior in either the discrimination or reversal learning tasks. These data encourage further analysis of the potential utility of mouse subchronic PCP treatment for modeling the social withdrawal component of schizophrenia. They also indicate that the treatment regimen employed was insufficient to impair our measures of discrimination and reversal learning in the C57BL/6J strain. Further work will be needed to identify alternative methods (e.g., repeated cycles of subchronic PCP treatment, use of different mouse strains) that reliably produce discrimination and/or reversal impairment, as well as other cognitive/executive measures that are sensitive to chronic PCP treatment in mice