Robert Hooke's microscope: the epistemology of an instrument

Robert Hooke's Micrographia of 1665 displayed the intricacies of tiny nature as they had not been seen before, and in doing so it represented a novel idea of the relationship between humans and the natural world. As this relationship shifted, so too did ideas about effective ways to gain knowledge, and even about the nature of knowledge itself. This epistemology is the topic of this thesis. I focus on Hooke's microscope examine his indelible contribution to the meaning of experiment and instrument use in natural philosophy. This approach complements existing Hooke scholarship, which focuses largely on his achievements with instruments, rather than his physical practice with them or his view of the knowledge his instruments themselves articulated. Micrographia was born of Hooke's ingenuity and skill at manipulating everything from lenses to light to insects, stabilised into a printed artifact. In 1665, the microscope was a relatively new instrument, and its use for natural philosophers was not obvious. To unpack the philosophical import that Hooke attached to his construction of knowledge, I examine his instrument in two main ways. First, I take his microscope apart to look into the materials that composed it and Hooke's techniques in manipulating them. Second, I discuss concepts of the microscope as they appeared in the writing of contemporaries such as Henry Power and Margaret Cavendish. From here I take a broader view, and situate Hooke's work both in a philosophical and an institutional context. Hooke was working in the wake of the revolution in optics sparked by Kepler and Descartes, at the height of the popularity of mechanical philosophy, and within the collaborative ideal of Baconian natural philosophy. These general themes, focused to a point by his microscope, revealed to Hooke the contingency of human experience, and the necessity to observe nature from contrived perspectives to approach philosophical knowledge

A pattern enumeration approach to the trim loss problem

This thesis examines the characteristics of practical one dimensional trim loss problems. As a result of the wide range of these characteristics, previous scheduling methods have only had a limited range of applicability. A heuristic approach is proposed, based on pattern enumeration, which can be used to develop scheduling methods for a reasonably wide class of trim loss problems. The effectiveness of the approach depends on its ability to avoid the intractable residual problems which normally arise towards the end of a heuristic scheduling procedure. The approach is used in three case studies, and the efficiency of the schedules generated is compared with that yielded by other methods

Quantitative experiments in urinary antisepsis

1. The limitations of the field of usefulness 1 of any internal urinary antiseptic have been defined.2. A method is described for the estimation of the action of a urinary antiseptic.3. The effects upon the urine of oral admini of sodium citrate are: a. to lower the hydrogen ion concentration or true acidity; b. to lower the total acidity; c. to increase the amount of urine voided.4. A degree of alkalinity of the urine such as would render it bactericidal cannot be produced by oral medication.5. A bactericidal degree of acidity may be produced, but this may be accompanied by such discomfort to the patient as to render its employment impracticable.6. Hexamine in lesser concentration than 1/3,000 is inert against B. coli in acid urine.7. In concentration of 1/1,800 hexamine inhibits the growth of B. coli in acid urine for five hours, and as the concentration increases hexamine gradually becomes lethal to B. coli in acid urine.8. Such a concentration of hexamine could be achieved only by intravenous administration of the drug.9. Hexamine in alkaline urine has no action on the growth of B. coli.10. Hexyl resorcinol in oral doses of up to 1.35 gram in the day has only a slight bacteriastatic effect on the urine in vitro.11. Amyl meta cresol in oral doses of 1.35 gram in the day has a bacteriostatic effect on the urine in vitro. It is suggested that this may be of therapeutic value.12. Urine passed by patients in a state of ketosis has a bacteriostatic effect on B. coli in vitro.13. Whether this effect is dependent upon the reaction of the urine is still sub judice

Transformative executive coaching: considerations for an expanding field of research

Executive coaching is growing in popularity as a methodology for developing leaders in organisations. Drawing on recent experiences of the authors, being both educators and practitioners within the field of higher education and executive coaching, this paper explores how the use of transformative learning in a model of transformative executive coaching can enhance the development of the person (P) being coached, thereby augmenting their working environment (E). The purpose of this article is to consider the potential of transformative learning to increase the effectiveness of executive coaching for coaching practitioners and also consider the potential for further research and implementation within the field of transformative learning

Atypical back pain in a child: subcutaneous lumbar abscess associated with chickenpox

Back pain in children has numerous possible causes. Although chickenpox is an extremely common and contagious condition in the paediatric population, it can be associated with potentially life-threatening musculoskeletal complications. We discuss the extremely unusual case of a child with an extensive subcutaneous lumbar abcess who presented with severe back pain associated with active chickenpox infection.Keywords: abscess, back pain, chickenpox, group A  β-haemolytic streptococcus, varicella zoster viru

Transformative action coaching in healthcare leadership

The context of this study focuses on the collaborative interest of three organizations devoted to the development of Healthcare leadership in the United Kingdom, namely the National Health Service (NHS), Army Medical Service (AMS), and the University of Cumbria (UoC). Each organization acknowledges the challenges facing healthcare leaders in their pursuit of effect organizational, personal, and professional learning and have come together and bring into play their own organizational learning to collectively design this pilot programme of leadership development that facilitates deep transformative critical self- reflection, reflexivity and learning. The authors have used the theoretical and practical integration of autoethnographic storytelling and arts-based action learning approaches to facilitate such transformative learning in the group setting of professional leadership development programmes. The aim of this study is to add to the growing discourses in the fields of Transformative Learning, Action Learning, Coaching and Autoethnography by critically evaluating the application of this approach when designing and delivering a combined military, university and NHS leadership development program to a cohort of 24 senior leaders within an NHS hospital