UNESCO inclusion policy and the education of school students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities: where to now?

The education of school students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities presents diverse challenges to practitioners, families and policymakers. These challenges are philosophically and ethically complex, and impact curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. Given the international ascendancy of both the UNESCO Policy Guidelines on inclusion in education and the principles of inclusion for people with disabilities with respect to human services policy and practice, the authors build on their previous work to advocate for renewed debate about the nature of school education for these students, and put forward four pathways to inform this debate

Emergence of long memory in stock volatility from a modified Mike-Farmer model

The Mike-Farmer (MF) model was constructed empirically based on the continuous double auction mechanism in an order-driven market, which can successfully reproduce the cubic law of returns and the diffusive behavior of stock prices at the transaction level. However, the volatility (defined by absolute return) in the MF model does not show sound long memory. We propose a modified version of the MF model by including a new ingredient, that is, long memory in the aggressiveness (quantified by the relative prices) of incoming orders, which is an important stylized fact identified by analyzing the order flows of 23 liquid Chinese stocks. Long memory emerges in the volatility synthesized from the modified MF model with the DFA scaling exponent close to 0.76, and the cubic law of returns and the diffusive behavior of prices are also produced at the same time. We also find that the long memory of order signs has no impact on the long memory property of volatility, and the memory effect of order aggressiveness has little impact on the diffusiveness of stock prices.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures and 1 tabl

What is motivating engineering students to use 1:1 mobile devices for learning?

Context: Engineering education is embarking on a new journey, where curriculum designers are needing evidence based research to understand how the use of 1:1 mobile devices can influence student perceptions of self-directed learning, to improve curriculum engagement and to measurable assessment outcomes. Using student perceptions of learning motivation and learning intervention theory, higher order thinking skills can be encouraged in problem-based learning. Understanding what is motivating students to learn when and using 1:1 mobile devices will help curriculum designers and facilitators to engage students.Purpose: This paper will explore survey results of a recent study, revealing how students are responding to a self-directed curriculum design where engineering students are accessing learning interventions to enhance their learning experience when using 1:1 mobile device technology.Approach: This study approach is focusing on answering the following questions:How do engineering students use their 1:1 mobile devices for self-directed learning?What learning motivation perceptions do engineering students have when they are making choices about using a 1:1 mobile device for their learning?How does using a 1:1 mobile device translate into improved learning outcomes?How does the improved learning outcomes foster a culture of innovation?Finding answers to these questions is important for this study to provide academic rigour identify learning motivations that may prove useful for curriculum designers who are interested in developing self-directed learning pathways. It is accepted, technology is a student directed and socially accepted variable that is proving to be an important \u27value-add\u27 to the learning spaces of higher education students.Results: An analysis has shown that student motivation is influenced by motivation variables when curriculum interventions are used in engineering courses. The data suggests that student perceptions of learning motivations can be an important factor to influence the level of engagement when using 1:1 devices for learning. Curriculum designers and course facilitators may benefit from implementing selective interventions with the aim to encourage higher order thinking when problem solving.Conclusions: Engineering curriculum designers will benefit from this research when considering how best to implement 1:1 mobile devices as a motivating factor for learning. Learning interventions are an important factor in influencing student perceptions of motivation to learn when using 1:1 mobile devices

A "superstorm": When moral panic and new risk discourses converge in the media

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Health, Risk and Society, 15(6), 681-698, 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13698575.2013.851180.There has been a proliferation of risk discourses in recent decades but studies of these have been polarised, drawing either on moral panic or new risk frameworks to analyse journalistic discourses. This article opens the theoretical possibility that the two may co-exist and converge in the same scare. I do this by bringing together more recent developments in moral panic thesis, with new risk theory and the concept of media logic. I then apply this theoretical approach to an empirical analysis of how and with what consequences moral panic and new risk type discourses converged in the editorials of four newspaper campaigns against GM food policy in Britain in the late 1990s. The article analyses 112 editorials published between January 1998 and December 2000, supplemented with news stories where these were needed for contextual clarity. This analysis shows that not only did this novel food generate intense media and public reactions; these developed in the absence of the type of concrete details journalists usually look for in risk stories. Media logic is important in understanding how journalists were able to engage and hence how a major scare could be constructed around convergent moral panic and new risk type discourses. The result was a media ‘superstorm’ of sustained coverage in which both types of discourse converged in highly emotive mutually reinforcing ways that resonated in a highly sensitised context. The consequence was acute anxiety, social volatility and the potential for the disruption of policy and social change

Influence of palaeoweathering on trace metal concentrations and environmental proxies in black shales

The mineralogical and chemical compositions of Lower Carboniferous (Tournaisian) marine black shale from the Kowala quarry, the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland, were investigated. This study focuses on disturbances in palaeoenvironmental proxies caused by palaeoweathering, which progressively changed the major and trace element abundances. Palaeomagnetic investigations reveal that the Devonian – Carboniferous succession was weathered during the Permian-Triassic by the infiltration of oxidizing fluids related to karstification following post-Variscan exhumation. The weathering process led to vermiculitization of chlorite, partial dissolution of calcite and replacement of pyrite by hematite and goethite. Moreover, the concentrations of some trace metals, including Co, Cu, Pb, Mo, Ni, As and U, significantly decreased. Consequently, some elemental abundance ratios that are used as environmental proxies, including U/Th, Ni/Co and V/Cr, were altered. Elements that are bound to iron sulphides (e.g., Mo) appear to be especially prone to mobilization by even a lightly weathered black shale. The documented weathering, including changes in elemental concentrations, can potentially create misinterpretations of the original palaeoenvironmental conditions. In addition, the palaeoweathering of the studied samples appears to have substantially changed the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and molybdenum stable isotope values. The nitrogen and molybdenum stable isotope ratios, in particular, appear to be most sensitive to the effects of weathering and therefore are good indicators of (palaeo)weathering processes. The major cause of these changes is the decay of organic matter and pyrite. For the organic carbon stable isotopes ratios, the main factor that controlls this process appears to be the preferential degradation of labile organic matter. A combination of the total organic carbon (TOC), total sulphur (TS) content, Mo concentration and stable isotope compositions seems to be the most useful for identify (palaeo)weathering. Our results suggest that reductions in TS and Mo in tandem with diminished Mo stable isotope values in the absence of obvious changes to the TOC content provide the most compelling evidence of (palaeo)weathering

New technologies for the old: Potential implications of living in later life for travel demand

Assistive technologies for older people, such as personal tracking devices and community alarms, can facilitate living independently for longer. Where and how older people live will affect patterns of travel associated with their lifestyles and needs. They may remain in their own homes, those of relatives or in residential care homes. They may make minimal or extensive use of technologies. As such, assistive technologies represent an example of technological developments and their social uptake outside the field of transport. Such developments may, nevertheless, have an indirect impact on travel demand and one which may be quite substantial. This paper aims, through a series of expert interviews, to examine: (i) to what extent the mobility effects of technological developments (outside transport) are being considered within the transport sector; (ii) how important or relevant it is for such consideration to be given; and (iii) ways in which such impacts can be accounted for in travel demand analysis and policy decisions. What emerges is that such indirect impacts are considered very important but rarely are they examined. The transport experts interviewed noted various ways of increasing the integration between transport and other domains. Several saw more emphasis on these issues in the education of transport professionals as an important starting point. The paper concludes with the case for using scenario planning as a means to emphasise how the living arrangements for older people, facilitated through assistive technologies, could produce distinct and significant consequences for travel demand. © 2013 The Authors

Team-taught versus individually taught undergraduate education: A qualitative study of student experiences and preferences

Team teaching is becoming more common in undergraduate programmes of study although the relative merits to the more traditional individually taught courses have not been determined for best practice. For this study, 15 final year undergraduate students were interviewed to gain insight into their learning experiences. A thematic analysis of the interview data identified the perceived advantages and disadvantages of each mode of teaching. The advantages of individually taught courses included: Consistency of content delivery and advice, Familiarity with the lecturer’s teaching style and better Continuity of the subject content. The disadvantage of individually taught modules included Missing knowledge, compared to a team approach. Advantages of team taught modules included: Greater insight into a topic delivered by multiple team members. Disadvantages included: Content overlap, Conflicting messages relating to assessment, team members not taking Ownership of their roles and responsibilities and a belief that overall Team failure is worse than individual failure to deliver a module well. The results revealed that individually taught modules were generally preferred to team taught modules. A set of best practice recommendations are proposed to address the challenges when delivering team-taught teaching and become more student focused

Upper ocean oxygenation dynamics from I/Ca ratios during the Cenomanian-Turonian OAE 2

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography 30 (2015): 510–526, doi:10.1002/2014PA002741.Global warming lowers the solubility of gases in the ocean and drives an enhanced hydrological cycle with increased nutrient loads delivered to the oceans, leading to increases in organic production, the degradation of which causes a further decrease in dissolved oxygen. In extreme cases in the geological past, this trajectory has led to catastrophic marine oxygen depletion during the so-called oceanic anoxic events (OAEs). How the water column oscillated between generally oxic conditions and local/global anoxia remains a challenging question, exacerbated by a lack of sensitive redox proxies, especially for the suboxic window. To address this problem, we use bulk carbonate I/Ca to reconstruct subtle redox changes in the upper ocean water column at seven sites recording the Cretaceous OAE 2. In general, I/Ca ratios were relatively low preceding and during the OAE interval, indicating deep suboxic or anoxic waters exchanging directly with near-surface waters. However, individual sites display a wide range of initial values and excursions in I/Ca through the OAE interval, reflecting the importance of local controls and suggesting a high spatial variability in redox state. Both I/Ca and an Earth System Model suggest that the northeast proto-Atlantic had notably higher oxygen levels in the upper water column than the rest of the North Atlantic, indicating that anoxia was not global during OAE 2 and that important regional differences in redox conditions existed. A lack of correlation with calcium, lithium, and carbon isotope records suggests that neither enhanced global weathering nor carbon burial was a dominant control on the I/Ca proxy during OAE 2.Z.L. thanks NSF OCE 1232620. J.D.O. is supported by an Agouron Postdoctoral Fellowship. T.W.L. acknowledges support from the NSF-EAR and NASA-NAI. A.R. thanks the support of NERC via NE/J01043X/1.2015-11-1