International Affairs and Latvia’s Baltic Germans

YesThis is an article examining the impact of Baltic Germans on foreign policy during the 1920s and 1930s

The use of BCL in a list processing environment

Imperial Users onl

National minorities as peace-builders? How three Baltic Germans responded to the First World War

YesMany members of Europe’s national minorities had particularly terrible experiences during the First World War. This article examines how three ethnic German minority activists from the Baltic region responded to those dreadful years by, subsequently, presenting themselves as peace campaigners promoting a novel model for multi-ethnic society. They promoted ideas such as the ‘a-national state’ and ‘cultural autonomy’ at both national and international levels, not least in the hope of influencing the League of Nations. To what extent should they be accepted as early peacebuilders?British Academ

The past, the present and the person: an exploration of the use of reminiscence-based activities as a catalyst for learning in later life

This study explores the ways in which learning might take place in a reminiscence group for older people who are moving towards the end of life. The overall aim was to seek a greater understanding of the processes underpinning reminiscence groups as well as the benefits - to individuals and the wider community - of such learning opportunities. This is a piece of practitioner research with the author combining the roles of facilitator of the themed reminiscence groups and observer. The study used a qualitative methodological approach from a social constructivist perspective, relying on observation and follow-up individual interviews to build ‘cases’ of the learning journeys of seven participants. The findings suggest that reminiscence is a potentially useful route to and catalyst for learning about the self and others, with the thesis being structured around the four main research questions which focus on whether learning is taking place, its nature, and the potential outcomes and benefits of such learning to both individual participants and wider society. The study, situated within what is recognized as ‘an ageing society’, hopes to demonstrate the value of learning through group reminiscing in later life and provide encouragement to local councils and their Adult Education teams (the predominant providers of such programmes in the UK) to continue to fund and support such activities. Furthermore, the insights gained make a potential contribution to wider understandings of the individual and social benefits of informal education for older adults in ways which may be useful to policy-makers seeking to promote the wellbeing of an ageing population

Journalism as a means to Reconciliation. Paul Schiemann's Essays 1919-20

YesPaul Schiemann was one of the most significant ethnic Germans left outside the German state by the post-First World War peace settlement. As editor of Rigasche Rundschau and an active politician in the new Latvian state, he was well placed both to comment on developments in the political life of the Baltic region and to attempt to work towards responses to them. This article focuses specifically on his journalism during the critical years 1919-20. As the Latvian state was forming against a background of considerable on-going violence and instability, Schiemann disseminated consistently a call for reconciliation between Latvia’s mutually suspicious national groups. The paper examines the compelling arguments he used

Elmendorf's Theorem for Diagrams

The notion of a continuous $G$-action on a topological space readily generalizes to that of a continuous $D$-action, where $D$ is any small category. Dror Farjoun and Zabrodsky introduced a generalized notion of orbit, which is key to understanding spaces with continuous $D$-action. We give an overview of the theory of orbits and then prove a generalization of "Elmendorf's Theorem,'' which roughly states that the homotopical data of of a $D$-space is precisely captured by the homotopical data of its orbits.Comment: 26 pages. Comments welcome

The Influence Of The Reliability Of The Dependent Variable On Statistical Power

PROBLEM: In the planning phase of developing quality educational research there are several critical decision points. Some of these decisions are made to en sure that the research will have adequate statistical power, that is, the capability to detect meaningful differences, if they do exist. In an unpublished article, K. D. Hopkins from the Laboratory of Educational Research, University of Colorado and B. R. Hopkins from the University of the Pacific commented that all theoretical and empirical options for increasing statistical power had been investigated except for the reliability of the dependent variable. In this article, they derived a method for estimating the statistical power of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) which factored out the influence of the reliability of the dependent variable. This method involved modifying the non-centrality parameters used in estimating the power of the ANOVA and ANCOVA tests. This modification required some untested mathematical assumptions and therefore needed to be empirically verified

Using interprofessional dementia learning opportunities to prepare the future healthcare workforce: Findings from a pilot study

Nearly 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia. Communication difficulties linked to this illness demand that all healthcare professionals are prepared to meet the needs of this group of service users. In response to this, the United Kingdom government is calling for professionals to acquire a basic (Tier 1) Dementia Awareness (DA) qualification. As healthcare students need to engage in interprofessional learning (IPL), this report describes the development, implementation and evaluation of an initiative to link the DA qualification to an existing IPL module delivered to first-year healthcare students (IPL1). A DA learning package was developed by a group of educators from a range of professions to ensure an interprofessional focus. It comprised of a set of practical exercises that students completed during and after IPL1. Sixty students evaluated the DA learning package by completing a post-intervention survey. 57 students rated it helpful or very helpful, in enhancing their knowledge of how to care for a person with dementia, while 3 students rated it as average. Two themes emerged from open-ended questions, which highlighted the importance of: i) learning to work together; and ii) blended learning. Students also suggested some changes for the full roll out, such as moving the Dementia Friends component into IPL1. This is an innovative approach that can be used to meet the challenges linked with the large-scale preparation of our future workforce and to ensure purposeful IPL

Calibration of an orientation sensor for freehand 3D ultrasound and its use in a hybrid acquisition system

BACKGROUND: Freehand 3D ultrasound is a powerful imaging modality with many potential applications. However, its reliance on add-on position sensors, which can be expensive, obtrusive and difficult to calibrate, is a major drawback. Alternatively, freehand 3D ultrasound can be acquired without a position sensor using image-based techniques. Sensorless reconstructions exhibit good fine scale detail but are prone to tracking drift, resulting in large scale geometrical distortions. METHOD: We investigate an alternative position sensor, the Xsens MT9-B, which is relatively unobtrusive but measures orientation only. We describe a straightforward approach to calibrating the sensor, and we measure the calibration precision (by repeated calibrations) and the orientation accuracy (using independent orientation measurements). We introduce algorithms that allow the MT9-B potentially to correct both linear and angular drift in sensorless reconstructions. RESULTS: The MT9-B can be calibrated to a precision of around 1 degrees . Reconstruction accuracy is also around 1 degrees . The MT9-B was able to eliminate angular drift in sensorless reconstructions, though it had little impact on linear drift. In comparison, six degree-of-freedom drift correction was shown to produce excellent reconstructions. CONCLUSION: Gold standard freehand 3D ultrasound acquisition requires the synthesis of image-based techniques, for good fine scale detail, and position sensors, for good large scale geometrical accuracy. A hybrid system incorporating the MT9-B offers an attractive compromise between quality and ease of use. The position sensor is unobtrusive and the system is capable of faithful acquisition, with the one exception of linear drift in the elevational direction