Rhetoric of landscape architecture and interior design discourses: preparation for cross-disciplinary practice

In the current reform context, the uniqueness of local disciplinary practices is being forgotten in the race towards cross-disciplinary practice. The rhetoric of the pedagogic discourses of landscape architectural students and interior design students is described as part of a doctoral study undertaken to document practices and orientations prior to cross-disciplinary collaboration. We draw on the theoretical framework of Bernstein and the rhetorical method of Burke to study the grammars of 'landscape' representation employed within these disciplinary examples. We offer a method of investigating how prepared final year students may be for working in a cross-disciplinary manner. The discursive interactions of their work, as illustrated by four examples of drawn images and written text, are described. Comparisons of these examples show both similarities and differences in the students' grammars of representation within their disciplines. Furthermore, however, the findings suggest a progressive weakening of the grammars of the pedagogic discourses that apply to the concepts and procedures of both disciplines. This poses some key issues for educators. It is argued that while weak grammars foster students' deeper understanding of concepts, they also weaken the pedagogic identity and autonomy of their discipline. Strong grammars resist domination and subordination, ensuring the ongoing relative autonomy of a discipline

Egyptian Mummies at the Redpath Museum: Unravelling the History of McGill University’s Collection

This article provides the context for the acquisition of the Egyptian Mummies collection at the Redpath Museum through donors such as James Ferrier, Sir Thomas Roddick and the Montreal Natural History Society. Since the 19th century the Mummies have solicited a great deal of public interest and have also been the object of rigorous scientific studies, this paper explores the history of the collection at Redpath and the impact of new technologies on adding to our knowledge of the collection.

“Our Only Child Has Died” – A Study of Bereaved Older Chinese Parents

Long and complicated grief is a relevant factor contributing to the deterioration of the older adults’ later life quality. In China, the unintentional consequence of the one child policy has emerged. There, the group of older adults who lost their only child is called shiduers. The current study compared 42 older adults who lost their only child to 33 older adults who have a child, in term of their physical and mental health, and social support. The results confirmed the general deteriorating trend in those aspects of the bereaved Chinese parents’ life after their only child’s death. The results also revealed the impairments on the shiduers’ physical, mental, and social aspects were significant, compared to the clinical diagnosis cutoff points used in Western countries. Unique policy and cultural characteristics are the main factors contributing to the severe impairment of shiduers. Results have implications for policy advocacy and practice intervention in specific cultural environments

A Pilot Training Program for Improving Resident Physicians\u27 Teaching Skills

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate a pilot training program on teaching skills and determine if such a program could significantly improve the teaching behavior of resident physicians in the East Tennessee State University College of Medicine. (Abstract shortened.

Identification and Analysis of Selected Wellness Programs in Educational Institutions in the State of Texas

A Wellness Program Questionnaire was designed to survey educational institutions in Texas as to the definition, goals, components, and services of their wellness programs. Through the pilot study and full study, 11 independent school districts, 13 junior/community colleges, and 8 universities were identified as having wellness programs.Higher Educatio

Implementing a new initiative in mental health in Australian primary schools

Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisher.Student wellbeing is of central concern for parents/caregivers and teachers and for state and national governments. In Australia in recent times several major initiatives have been undertaken to address the area of student mental health, including the KidsMatter Initiative. Across 2007-8 a trial of KidsMatter was carried out in 101 schools across Australia. Part of the roll-out of KidsMatter was a detailed evaluation of its implementation. Thus, in this paper we report on findings associated with the implementation of the KidsMatter Initiative. Underpinned by a framework of quality, fidelity and dosage (Domitrovich, 2008) we used Latent Class Analysis to create an Implementation Index, which was used to classify KidsMatter schools into high implementation and low implementation categories. Profiles of the high and low categories provide insights to the characteristics of successful and less successful implementation. This analysis shows the influence of factors associated with both the KidsMatter initiative and the environments in the sites where KidsMatter was implemented

Atlantic bluefin tuna : a novel multistock spatial model for asessing population biomass

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 6 (2011): e27693, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027693.Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is considered to be overfished, but the status of its populations has been debated, partly because of uncertainties regarding the effects of mixing on fishing grounds. A better understanding of spatial structure and mixing may help fisheries managers to successfully rebuild populations to sustainable levels while maximizing catches. We formulate a new seasonally and spatially explicit fisheries model that is fitted to conventional and electronic tag data, historic catch-at-age reconstructions, and otolith microchemistry stock-composition data to improve the capacity to assess past, current, and future population sizes of Atlantic bluefin tuna. We apply the model to estimate spatial and temporal mixing of the eastern (Mediterranean) and western (Gulf of Mexico) populations, and to reconstruct abundances from 1950 to 2008. We show that western and eastern populations have been reduced to 17% and 33%, respectively, of 1950 spawning stock biomass levels. Overfishing to below the biomass that produces maximum sustainable yield occurred in the 1960s and the late 1990s for western and eastern populations, respectively. The model predicts that mixing depends on season, ontogeny, and location, and is highest in the western Atlantic. Assuming that future catches are zero, western and eastern populations are predicted to recover to levels at maximum sustainable yield by 2025 and 2015, respectively. However, the western population will not recover with catches of 1750 and 12,900 tonnes (the “rebuilding quotas”) in the western and eastern Atlantic, respectively, with or without closures in the Gulf of Mexico. If future catches are double the rebuilding quotas, then rebuilding of both populations will be compromised. If fishing were to continue in the eastern Atlantic at the unregulated levels of 2007, both stocks would continue to decline. Since populations mix on North Atlantic foraging grounds, successful rebuilding policies will benefit from trans-Atlantic cooperation.This work was supported by grants from the TAG A Giant Foundation, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, the Lenfest Ocean Program, Washington, DC, USA, the Canadian Fisheries and Oceans International Governance Strategies Fund and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States