Learning and Libraries: Competencies for Full Participation

published or submitted for publicatio

Organisation of sequences homologous to the major rDNA insertion of drosophila melanogaster

Imperial Users onl

Articulating, reclaiming and celebrating the professionalism of teacher educators in England

This paper examines the cumulative effects on teacher educators of a series of ideological and policy changes in the English teacher education landscape since the early 80s. We argue that these rapid changes have marginalized the role of the university in teacher learning and resulted in narrower, more instrumental forms of teacher education. Within this landscape we see a distinct need to re-state (and reinstate) the importance of higher education-based teacher educators, and to reclaim and celebrate their practices and the nature of the professionalism involved. We invite the reader to rethink teacher educator professionalism as what is enacted by teacher educators, as engaged in their professional activities. A view of enacted professionalism gives central stage to and trusts the professional judgement of teacher educators to do what they deem is good, appropriate, or best – understood in a broad sense – to support the professional learning of newcomers in the profession

Selection on the Human Bitter Taste Gene, TAS2R16, inEurasian Populations

Bitter taste is one of the most important senses alerting humans to noxious foods. In gatherer communities, sensitivity to bitterness is presumably advantageous because of various noxious plants. TAS2R16 is the gene coding the taste receptor molecules for some of the most common toxins in plants. A previous study of this gene indicated selection has increased the frequency of a derived allele in this gene that arose before the human expansion out of Africa. We have applied a different methodology for detecting selection, the Long Range Haplotype (LRH) analysis, to TAS2R16 in a larger sampling of populations from around the world. The haplotype with the derived alleles at both the functional polymorphism and a polymorphism in the regulatory region of TAS2R16 showed evidence for recent positive selection in most of the Eurasian populations, though the highest selection signal occurs in Mbuti Pygmies, an African hunter-gatherer group. In Eurasia, only populations of Mesopotamia and the southeast coast of China have no signals of selection. The evidence of recent selection found in most Eurasian populations differs from the geographic pattern seen in the earlier study of selection. One can speculate that the difference may result from a gathering lifestyle extending into the most recent 10,000 yrs and the need to recognize newly encountered bitter natural toxins as populations expanded into new environments and the biota changes with the ending of the most recent ice age. Alternatively, the promoter region variant may be a marker for altered function beyond what the derived amino acid allele conferred

Prioritising the care of critically ill children: a pilot study using SCREEN reduces clinic waiting times

Objective In low-resource settings, childhood mortality secondary to delays in triage and treatment remains high. This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of the novel Sick Children Require Emergency Evaluation Now (SCREEN) tool on the waiting times of critically ill children who present for care to primary healthcare clinics in Cape Town, South Africa. Methods We used a pre/postevaluation study design to calculate the median waiting times of all children who presented to four randomly chosen clinics for 5 days before, and 5 days after, the implementation of SCREEN. Findings The SCREEN programme resulted in statistical and clinically significant reductions in waiting times for children with critical illness to see a professional nurse (2 hours 45 min to 1 hour 12 min; p<0.001). There was also a statistically significant reduction in the proportion of children who left without being seen by a professional nurse (25.8% to 18.48%; p<0.001). Conclusions SCREEN is a novel programme that uses readily available laypersons, trained to make a subjective assessment of children arriving at primary healthcare centres, and provides a low cost, simple methodology to prioritise children and reduce waiting times in low-resource healthcare clinics

Caraid nan Gaidheal and 'Friend of Emigration': Gaelic emigration literature of the 1840s

This study focuses on Gaelic emigration literature which was published in the aftermath of the Highland potato famine of 1836-37 and before that of 1846-50. The end of the eighteenth century had witnessed a steady flow of emigrants out of the Highlands in response to a complex mix of factors, including landlord pressure, population growth and the prospect of a more prosperous future elsewhere

Teacher Educators and Expansive Learning in the Workplace and Beyond

Research on the professional learning of teacher educators is a relatively young and under-researched area, despite the importance of this occupational group in the fast-changing area of teacher education internationally. Past provision for learning has often focused on either one-off professional development events or workplace learning. Aiming to develop new knowledge and understanding of professional learning for teacher educators, this article attempts firstly, to analyse the impact of a one-off learning event, offered by the European InFo-TED group, on its participants, and secondly, to look at where and how the learning generated there developed further learning back in the workplace. Deploying a conceptual framework emphasising participatory professional learning and Engestrom’s concept of expansive learning, we explore how these two forms of learning might be planned and implemented in order to provide integrated, professionally relevant and enduring forms of learning