Winning a Living Wage: The Legacy of Living Wage Campaigns

Living wage campaigns, led by community organisations and trade unions, aim to raise the wages and working conditions of some of the most vulnerable workers in society. But are they, ultimately successful in doing this? Drawing on the first major impact study of living wages campaigns in the UK, recent research into employment practices in the cleaning sector and primary research undertaken with cleaning workers at the University of East London, we assess the legacy of living wage campaigns and what this entails for the organisations that lead them

Bone mineral density in children submitted to dairy restriction

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An instrument to guide instructors of undergraduate experimental programs: A comment on findings from physics

Degree programs usually have a series of experimental activities, ranging from practicals, investigations, projects, to field work, forming a contained program often referred to as the ‘undergraduate experimental program’. The experimental program provides students with an understanding of the processes of science, contributes to student experiences and is relevant for mapping against graduate qualities – soft skills. While extant literature points to evaluations of individual experiments (Barrie et al., 2015; Yeung, Cornish, Kable, & Sharma, 2019), evaluations of complete experimental programs are rare. To this end, we have developed the ASELL Laboratory Program Evaluation (ALPE) survey for eliciting student experiences of undergraduate experimental programs. The ALPE was administered with 9790 students in 71 programs at 10 Australian universities, in five disciplines. Based on exploratory factor analysis, two factors emerged: the first factor included ALPE items relating to how the laboratory program influenced students’ science discipline knowledge and skills; the second factor included ALPE items related to how well the course contributed to development of general capabilities, such as items about “teamwork” and “ethics”. Herzberg’s 1968 Two Factor Motivation-Hygiene theory originated in the organisational psychology sphere and has since been applied in various educational settings. The “motivation” factor refers to the elements of work that enhance a person’s satisfaction – associated with achievement and competency. The “hygiene” factor refers to the elements of work that include the provision of resources and support, such as supervision practices and procedures. In this presentation, we demonstrate how the “motivation-hygiene” theory applies to the two factors that emerged from the ALPE survey data, and how it can provide a meaningful framework for interpreting students’ perspectives of their undergraduate laboratory programs. Finally, we comment on the findings from physics within this data set – of the five disciplines included in the large study of the ALPE survey, physics is a standout with lower correlations between individual items and overall laboratory program experience. REFERENCES Barrie, S. C., Bucat, R. B., Buntine, M. A., Burke da Silva, K., Crisp, G. T., George, A. V., Jamie, I. M., Kable, S. H., Lim, K. F., Pyke, S. M., Read, J. R., Sharma M. D., and Yeung A. A (2015) Development, Evaluation and Use of a Student Experience Survey in Undergraduate Science Laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey. International Journal of Science Education, 37(11), 1795-1814. Herzberg, F. (1968). "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?". Harvard Business Review, 46(1), 53–62, OCLC 219963337. Yeung, A., S. Cornish, S. Kable, and M. Sharma. (2019). "What can instructors focus on when improving undergraduate science experiments? Supporting a cross- disciplinary approach." International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 27(3), 25-40

STEM education from the perspective of The University of Sydney STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy

While STEM education is attracting much attention and is strongly advocated for, delivering on the promise of STEM education is still being researched (Rosicka, 2016; Margot & Kettler, 2019). The quest is on for understanding the essentials of STEM education and how to prepare teachers to capture the essence of STEM education in their professional practice. Drawing on ongoing research, the STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy, established within The University of Sydney in 2014, has developed in-service programs for teachers of both primary and secondary schools. The Academy is driven by the belief that STEM education is not a ‘fad’ and has the potential to transform pedagogy, thus motivating and enthusing students to participate more fully in the STEM disciplines, continue into senior secondary STEM subjects and beyond, ultimately addressing a shortage in STEM-related careers. With an expanding alumnus, currently at 800 teachers from 139 high schools and 370 teachers from 90 primary schools, the Academy has gathered scholarly evidence for the effectiveness and impact of its programs (Anderson, 2019; Anderson, Wilson, Tully, & Way, 2019). This presentation will share the design and structure of the Academy’s evidence-based programs as well as research on its efficacy. REFERENCES Margot, K. C. & Kettler, T. (2019). Teachers’ perception of STEM integration and education: a systematic literature review. International Journal of STEM Education, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0151-2 Anderson, J. (2019). Supporting STEM curriculum implementation with professional learning: The University of Sydney STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 1340 012001 Anderson, J., Wilson, K., Tully, D., & Way, J. (2019). “Can we build the wind powered car again?” Students’ and teachers’ responses to a new integrated STEM curriculum. Journal of Research in STEM Education, 5(1), 20–39. Rosicka, C. (2016). Translating STEM education research into practice. Camberwell, Vic.: Australian Council for Educational Research

Allergic Contact Cheilitis to Food Additives

Os aditivos alimentares, em que se incluem os sulfitos e os galatos, modificam intencionalmente as propriedades dos alimentos. A utilização dos sulfitos na indústria alimentar deve-se à sua acção antibacteriana, prevenção da oxidação e inibição do escurecimento enzimático e não-enzimático durante os processos de preparação, distribuição e armazenamento dos alimentos. Os galatos são utilizados tanto na indústria alimentar como em cosméticos. Descrevemos o caso de uma doente de 36 anos com um quadro de queilite de contacto alérgica atribuída ao metabissulfito de sódio (E223) de uma salada de fruta comercializada possivelmente perpetuada por alergia de contacto a galatos presentes nos batons utilizados.Food additives are used intentionally to modify food properties. Sulfites are used in food industry due to its antibacterial action, prevention of oxidation and inhibition of enzymatic and nonenzymatic browning discoloration of food during the process of preparation, distribution and storage. Gallates are used as antioxidants both in food and cosmetics. We report the case of a 36 years-old patient with allergic contact cheilitis to sodium metabisulfite (E223) found in a fruit salad, possibly perpetuated by the antioxidants in her lipsticks

Antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii and Leishmania spp. in domestic cats from Luanda, Angola

Toxoplasma gondii and Leishmania spp. are zoonotic protozoa of importance to animal and public health. The present study aimed to assess for the first time the seroprevalence of these zoonotic parasites in a domestic feline population living in Luanda, Angola. One hundred and two cats were sampled at a veterinary medical centre, from May 2014 to February 2016. The age of the cats ranged from 2.5 to 143 months (median: 12 months; interquartile range: 7.5–24). Serum samples were tested for immunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies to T. gondii at two-fold dilutions of 1:20 to 1:2560 with a modified agglutination test (MAT) commercial kit. The direct agglutination test (DAT) for titration of IgG antibodies specific to Leishmania spp. used a standard freeze-dried antigen at a concentration of 5 × 10 7 promastigotes per milliliter, following a predefined protocol. Two-fold dilution series ranging from 1:25 to 1:800 were tested, with a cut-off titre of 100 chosen for seropositivity. Four out of 102 cats (3.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1–9.7) had antibodies to T. gondii: one had a titer of 20, one a titer of 160, and two had a titer ≥ 2560. No cat (0.0%; CI: 0.0–3.5) was found seropositive for Leishmania spp. A statistically significant difference was found between T. gondii seroprevalence and Leishmania spp. seroprevalence (p = 0.043). The odds of a cat being seropositive to T. gondii increased by an average factor of 1.58 for each 1-year increase in age (p = 0.003). The sampled cats were well-cared animals and may not represent the overall feline population of Angola at the national and city levels. The fact that only 12 out of the 102 sampled cats ate or had access to raw or undercooked meat and/or viscera may have reduced the likelihood of finding seropositive results. Under these circumstances, additional studies, including a larger number of cats, are necessary for a more comprehensive assessment of the zoonotic risk posed by these animals in Angola.The authors would like to express their gratitude to Hugo Vilhena for his logistic support. This work was sponsored by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Ministry of Education and Science, Portugal, under the Projects UID/CVT/00772/2013 and UID/CVT/ 0772/2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio