Informal peer learning between contemporary artists in Bristol and selected UK cities outside London.How do contemporary artists learn from their peers outside of formal education and what motivates them to do so?

This research has been carried out as part of a collaborative doctoral award with partners Spike Island Art and Design Centre and University of the West of England. It employs a mixed methods approach, including participatory action research, reflexive practice and semi-structured interviews to explore artists’ peer learning in the context of literature from education theory, network theory, philosophy, art theory and sociology.It takes as research participants, artists from the Spike Associates Group, Spike Island, Bristol, and artists from self-organised groups and organisationally facilitated membership groups in several UK cities outside London.It found that peer interactions between artists are particularly significant in times of transition when peer learning pivots on mutual recognition, countering isolation, nurturing self-determination and accessing resources. The construction and reconstruction of practitioner subjectivities and practice identities is a significant peer learning process, often incorporating the initiation of spaces where practice identities can be temporarily suspended. Artists engage with artist-led groups in subtly different ways to organisationally facilitated membership groups. Participation in the former enables experimentation with roles and competencies in a fluid environment where a sense of shared purpose and ownership prevails. The latter are utilised less as ‘communities’ and more as resources to be exploited and graduated through. Informal conversation is a vital site of learning and a catalyst for practice and peer critique, although an important staging post against which to measure practice trajectories, is often problematic due to tensions arising from the need for challenge as well as support. Aspiration towards reciprocity, hospitality and generosity represents a common ethics of entanglement. However, this breaks down where there are conflicting beliefs about what constitutes exchanges of equivalent value. Visibility is a highly valued commodity amongst artists and they look to their peers for strategies to make practice visible to appropriate parties and to gain a clearer overview of regional and national artistic networks and communities.Much previous research on informal learning has been conducted in the fields of work-based learning or community education. This thesis provides a much-needed microanalysis of learning processes that occur in temporary communities that are at the same time social and professional spaces. It makes valuable tacit processes visible in these situations, and the research findings can be used to initiate, adapt and inform learning programmes in arts centres, self-organised groups and other informal settings

The effect of women’s care-giving role on their social security rights

Kitty Malherbe and Lorenzo Wakefield show how roles traditionally allotted to women may obstruct their access to the right to social security. There are instances where women’s care-giving role provides them with benefits they otherwise would not have had, such as child support grants. On the other hand, care-giving can exclude women from the application of other benefits, such as certain retirement funds. The authors examine the need for measures aimed at providing assistance to women as care-givers as well as the potential pitfalls of such measures, such as the danger of stereotyping women as care-givers

Domesticating international standards of education for children with intellectual disabilities: a case study of Kenya and South Africa

International law approaches the right to education for children with disabilities in a rather generic way. This means that the rights of children with intellectual disabilities have to be gleaned from the general provisions of the conventions. In view of the centrality of intellectual capacity in the context of education, it is imperative to decipher the import of the right to education for children with intellectual disabilities. For this purpose, this chapter explores the content of international law on the right to education of children with intellectual disabilities. It uses two case studies to assess the approach of African states to the domestication of the obligations in this regard. Kenya and South Africa have both ratified the CRC, ACRWC and the CRPD. Further, Kenya has ratified and South Africa signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).Department of HE and Training approved lis

Dissimilar metals joint evaluation

Dissimilar metals tubular joints between 2219-T851 aluminum alloy and 304L stainless steel were fabricated and tested to evaluate bonding processes. Joints were fabricated by four processes: (1) inertia (friction) weldings, where the metals are spun and forced together to create the weld; (2) explosive welding, where the metals are impacted together at high velocity; (3) co-extrusion, where the metals are extruded in contact at high temperature to promote diffusion; and (4) swaging, where residual stresses in the metals after a stretching operation maintain forced contact in mutual shear areas. Fifteen joints of each type were prepared and evaluated in a 6.35 cm (2.50 in.) O.D. size, with 0.32 cm (0.13 in.) wall thickness, and 7.6 cm (3.0 in) total length. The joints were tested to evaluate their ability to withstand pressure cycle, thermal cycle, galvanic corrosion and burst tests. Leakage tests and other non-destructive test techniques were used to evaluate the behavior of the joints, and the microstructure of the bond areas was analyzed

Space tug propulsion system failure mode, effects and criticality analysis

For purposes of the study, the propulsion system was considered as consisting of the following: (1) main engine system, (2) auxiliary propulsion system, (3) pneumatic system, (4) hydrogen feed, fill, drain and vent system, (5) oxygen feed, fill, drain and vent system, and (6) helium reentry purge system. Each component was critically examined to identify possible failure modes and the subsequent effect on mission success. Each space tug mission consists of three phases: launch to separation from shuttle, separation to redocking, and redocking to landing. The analysis considered the results of failure of a component during each phase of the mission. After the failure modes of each component were tabulated, those components whose failure would result in possible or certain loss of mission or inability to return the Tug to ground were identified as critical components and a criticality number determined for each. The criticality number of a component denotes the number of mission failures in one million missions due to the loss of that component. A total of 68 components were identified as critical with criticality numbers ranging from 1 to 2990

Light-emitting diode street lights reduce last-ditch evasive manoeuvres by moths to bat echolocation calls

© 2015 The Authors. The light-emitting diode (LED) street light market is expanding globally, and it is important to understand how LED lights affect wildlife populations. We compared evasive flight responses of moths to bat echolocation calls experimentally under LED-lit and -unlit conditions. Significantly, fewer moths performed ‘powerdive’ flight manoeuvres in response to bat calls (feeding buzz sequences from Nyctalus spp.) under an LED street light than in the dark. LED street lights reduce the anti-predator behaviour of moths, shifting the balance in favour of their predators, aerial hawking bats

Learning Disabled Student Needs Met Through Curriculum Redesign of the Illinois Agricultural Education Core Curriculum

This quasi–experimental pilot study included agricultural education students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) in five high schools in the federally designated economically distressed area called the Illinois Delta Region. A unit of instruction taken from the existing 165 units of The Illinois Core Curriculum for Agriculture was redesigned in a manner appropriate to SLD students. Students from the five selected programs were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Results from pre– and posttests in this study found the redesigned curriculum for SLD students effectively increased learning for both SLD and traditional students

Flight speed and performance of the wandering albatross with respect to wind

Background Albatrosses and other large seabirds use dynamic soaring to gain sufficient energy from the wind to travel large distances rapidly and with little apparent effort. The recent development of miniature bird-borne tracking devices now makes it possible to explore the physical and biological implications of this means of locomotion in detail. Here we use GPS tracking and concurrent reanalyzed wind speed data to model the flight performance of wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans soaring over the Southern Ocean. We investigate the extent to which flight speed and performance of albatrosses is facilitated or constrained by wind conditions encountered during foraging trips. Results We derived simple equations to model observed albatross ground speed as a function of wind speed and relative wind direction. Ground speeds of the tracked birds in the along-wind direction varied primarily by wind-induced leeway, which averaged 0.51 (± 0.02) times the wind speed at a reference height of 5 m. By subtracting leeway velocity from ground velocity, we were able to estimate airspeed (the magnitude of the bird’s velocity through the air). As wind speeds increased from 3 to 18 m/s, the airspeed of wandering albatrosses flying in an across-wind direction increased by 0.42 (± 0.04) times the wind speed (i.e. ~ 6 m/s). At low wind speeds, tracked birds increased their airspeed in upwind flight relative to that in downwind flight. At higher wind speeds they apparently limited their airspeeds to a maximum of around 20 m/s, probably to keep the forces on their wings in dynamic soaring well within tolerable limits. Upwind airspeeds were nearly constant and downwind leeway increased with wind speed. Birds therefore achieved their fastest upwind ground speeds (~ 9 m/s) at low wind speeds (~ 3 m/s). Conclusions This study provides insights into which flight strategies are optimal for dynamic soaring. Our results are consistent with the prediction that the optimal range speed of albatrosses is higher in headwind than tailwind flight but only in wind speeds of up to ~ 7 m/s. Our models predict that wandering albatrosses have oval-shaped airspeed polars, with the fastest airspeeds ~ 20 m/s centered in the across-wind direction. This suggests that in upwind flight in high winds, albatrosses can increase their ground speed by tacking like sailboats

Dinosaur tracks from the Kilmaluag Formation (Bathonian, Middle Jurassic) of Score Bay, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK

Tracks of a juvenile theropod dinosaur with footprint lengths of between 2 and 9 cm as well as adults of the same ichnospecies with footprints of about 15–25 cm in length were found in the Bathonian (Middle Jurassic) Kilmaluag Formation of Score Bay, northwestern Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK. Two footprint sizes occur together on the same bedding plane in the central portion of Score Bay, both in situ and on loose blocks. Another horizon containing footprints above this was also identified. The footprints from the lowest horizon were produced in a desiccated silty mud that was covered with sand. A close association of both adults and juveniles with similar travel direction indicated by the footprints may suggest post-hatching care in theropod dinosaurs. Other footprints, produced on a rippled sandy substrate, have been found on the slightly higher bedding plane at this locality. Loose blocks found 130 m to the northeast in the central part of Score Bay have not been correlated with any in situ sediments, but were preserved in a similar manner to those from the higher bedding plane. These tracks represent the youngest dinosaur remains yet found in Scotland

Extending density surface models to include multiple and double-observer survey data

David L. Miller was funded by OPNAV N45 and the SURTASS LFA Settlement Agreement, being managed by the U.S. Navy’s Living Marine Resources program under Contract No. N39430-17-C-1982, collaboration between Douglas B. Sigourney and David L. Miller was also facilitated by the DenMod working group (https://synergy.st-andrews.ac.uk/denmod/) funded under the same agreement. The survey that the fin whale data originate from was funded through two inter-agency agreements with the National Marine Fisheries Service: inter-agency agreement number M14PG00005 with the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Environmental Studies Program, Washington, DC and inter-agency agreement number NEC-16-011-01-FY18 with the US Navy. The survey that the fulmar data originate from was funded by the UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) grant NE/M017990/1.Spatial models of density and abundance are widely used in both ecological research (e.g., to study habitat use) and wildlife management (e.g., for population monitoring and environmental impact assessment). Increasingly, modellers are tasked with integrating data from multiple sources, collected via different observation processes. Distance sampling is an efficient and widely used survey and analysis technique. Within this framework, observation processes are modelled via detection functions. We seek to take multiple data sources and fit them in a single spatial model. Density surface models (DSMs) are a two-stage approach: first accounting for detectability via distance sampling methods, then modelling distribution via a generalized additive model. However, current software and theory does not address the issue of multiple data sources. We extend the DSM approach to accommodate data from multiple surveys, collected via conventional distance sampling, double-observer distance sampling (used to account for incomplete detection at zero distance) and strip transects. Variance propagation ensures that uncertainty is correctly accounted for in final estimates of abundance. Methods described here are implemented in the dsm R package. We briefly analyse two datasets to illustrate these new developments. Our new methodology enables data from multiple distance sampling surveys of different types to be treated in a single spatial model, enabling more robust abundance estimation, potentially over wider geographical or temporal domains.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe