Valuing initial teacher education at Master's level

The future of Master’s-level work in initial teacher education (ITE) in England seems uncertain. Whilst the coalition government has expressed support for Master’s-level work, its recent White Paper focuses on teaching skills as the dominant form of professional development. This training discourse is in tension with the view of professional learning advocated by ITE courses that offer Master’s credits. Following a survey of the changing perceptions of Master’s-level study during a Post Graduate Certificate in Education course by student teachers in four subject groups, this paper highlights how the process of professional learning can have the most impact on how they value studying at a higher level during their early professional development

Cross Section Measurements Using the Zero Degree Detector

The Zero Degree Detector (ZDD) is an instrument that has been used in accelerator exposures to measure the angular dependence of particles produced in heavy ion fragmentation experiments. The ZDD uses two identical layers of pixelated silicon detectors that make coincident measurements over the active area of the instrument. The angular distribution of secondary particle produced in nuclear interactions for several heavy ions: and target materials will be presented along with performance characteristic of the instrument

Wigs, disguises and child's play : solidarity in teacher education

It is generally acknowledged that much contemporary education takes place within a dominant audit culture, in which accountability becomes a powerful driver of educational practices. In this culture both pupils and teachers risk being configured as a means to an assessment and target-driven end: pupils are schooled within a particular paradigm of education. The article discusses some ethical issues raised by such schooling, particularly the tensions arising for teachers, and by implication, teacher educators who prepare and support teachers for work in situations where vocational aims and beliefs may be in in conflict with instrumentalist aims. The article offers De Certeau’s concept of ‘la perruque’ to suggest an opening to playful engagement for human ends in education, as a way of contending with and managing the tensions generated. I use the concept to recover a concept of solidarity for teacher educators and teachers to enable ethical teaching in difficult times

Fragmentation of 14-N, 16-O, 20-Ne, and 24-Mg Nuclei at 290 to 1000 MeV/nucleon

We report fragmentation cross sections measured at 0 deg for beams of 14-N, 16-O, 20-Ne, and 24-Mg ions, at energies ranging from 290 MeV/nucleon to 1000 MeV/nucleon. Beams were incident on targets of C, CH2, Al, Cu, Sn, and Pb, with the C and CH2 target data used to obtain hydrogen-target cross sections. Using methods established in earlier work, cross sections obtained with both large-acceptance and small-acceptance detectors are extracted from the data and when necessary corrected for acceptance effects. The large-acceptance data yield cross sections for fragments with charges approximately half of the beam charge and above, with minimal corrections. Cross sections for lighter fragments are obtained from small-acceptance spectra, with more significant, model-dependent corrections that account for the fragment angular distributions. Results for both charge-changing and fragment production cross sections are compared to the predictions of the Los Alamos version of the Quark Gluon String Model (LAQGSM) as well as the NUCFRG2 and PHITS models. For all beams and targets, cross sections for fragments as light as He are compared to the models. Estimates of multiplicity-weighted helium production cross sections are obtained from the data and compared to PHITS and LAQGSM predictions. Summary statistics show that the level of agreement between data and predictions is slightly better for PHITS than for either NUCFRG2 or LAQGSM.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, 13 tables, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Obesity alone or with type 2 diabetes is associated with tissue specific alterations in DNA methylation and gene expression of PPARGC1A and IGF2

BACKGROUND: Epigenetic modifications of key genes have been linked to the development of aging related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, with increased DNA methylation of the transcriptional co-activator, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PPARGC1A) in islets and skeletal muscle of patients with type 2 diabetes. Here, we examined DNA methylation and gene expression of PPARGC1A and insulin like growth factor-2 (IGF2) in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle of lean and morbidly obese individuals with or without type 2 diabetes. METHODS: Adipose tissue and skeletal muscle biopsies were collected from 24 lean, obese, and obese patients with type 2 diabetes (n=8/group). DNA methylation and gene expression of PPARGC1A and IGF2 were measured using pyrosequencing and quantitative real-time PCR respectively. RESULTS: DNA methylation and expression of both genes varied in a tissue specific manner (P<0.05). The highest levels of PPARGC1A methylation were observed in subcutaneous adipose tissue and lowest in muscle (P≤0.001), whereas IGF2 methylation was lowest in subcutaneous adipose tissue as compared with visceral adipose tissue and muscle (P≤0.04). Expression of PPARGC1A and IGF2 was highest in muscle and lowest in subcutaneous adipose tissue (P≤0.001) and PPARGC1A expression was conversely correlated with DNA methylation in skeletal muscle (r=-0.54, P=0.008). Obese patients with type 2 diabetes had higher PPARGC1A methylation in subcutaneous adipose tissue (P=0.01) and lower IGF2 DNA methylation in muscle (P=0.01) as compared with lean individuals. Obese patients with and without type 2 diabetes had reduced expression of both genes in subcutaneous adipose tissue (P≤0.04) as compared to lean individuals. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed tissue specific DNA methylation and gene expression of PPARGC1A and IGF2, which may also be associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. Further study of the effects of tissue specific DNA methylation on risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in a larger cohort is now warranted.Miaoxin Chen, Anne Macpherson, Julie Owens, Gary Wittert and Leonie K. Heilbron