A Pedagogical Heartbeat: The Integration of Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Education

With so many figurative references to the heart, the heart has become an overextended metaphor and threatens to become less meaningful. Widely circulated books on Critical Pedagogies and Contemplative Pedagogies refer to the heart. Though they may share a sense of learning as transformation, each has a very different method, which I identify as dialectical or dialogical. And, each one defines its liberatory transformation in a very different way, one with “third space” and the other in relational and holistic space, which is considered transcendent. This essay describes two forms of heartfelt awareness, first-order heart-based knowledge and the heart’s second-order regulatory function. Then, through the lens of the heart’s regulatory function, it examines the differences between Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies. I do so in order to articulate, through the form and function of the actual heart, a model for how to measure the way contemplative and conventional philosophies of education might come together for transformative education

Living Walls in The City: Community Values and Expectations

There is an increasing interest in living walls in the urban environment, particularly when linked into green infrastructure for urban heat island mitigation. However, the social acceptance of such systems in Australia is largely untested. To address this knowledge gap, a survey of nineteen local government authorities and twenty living wall owners and managers was conducted. The survey participants included commercial and residential buildings. The survey was used to study living wall owners’ motivations and expectations of living walls as well as the social values attached to the installed infrastructure. This study related the experiences of living wall owners to the current technical knowledge of living walls and contextualised the benefits and costs of living walls for Australian homes and buildings within the public attitudes and motivations for installing such infrastructure. The survey found that social acceptance and the aesthetic values placed on living walls and greenery more broadly represented a substantial advantage for living walls

Living Walls in The City: Community Values and Expectations

There is an increasing interest in living walls in the urban environment, particularly when linked into green infrastructure for urban heat island mitigation. However, the social acceptance of such systems in Australia is largely untested. To address this knowledge gap, a survey of nineteen local government authorities and twenty living wall owners and managers was conducted. The survey participants included commercial and residential buildings. The survey was used to study living wall owners’ motivations and expectations of living walls as well as the social values attached to the installed infrastructure. This study related the experiences of living wall owners to the current technical knowledge of living walls and contextualised the benefits and costs of living walls for Australian homes and buildings within the public attitudes and motivations for installing such infrastructure. The survey found that social acceptance and the aesthetic values placed on living walls and greenery more broadly represented a substantial advantage for living walls

Water resources: future Nile river flows

Climate change is projected to increase annual Nile river flow; importantly, year-to-year variability is also expected to increase markedly. More variable flows could present a challenge for consistent water resource provision in this region

On the selection and design of proteins and peptide derivatives for the production of photoluminescent, red-emitting gold quantum clusters

Novel pathways of the synthesis of photoluminescent gold quantum clusters (AuQCs) using biomolecules as reactants provide biocompatible products for biological imaging techniques. In order to rationalize the rules for the preparation of red-emitting AuQCs in aqueous phase using proteins or peptides, the role of different organic structural units was investigated. Three systems were studied: proteins, peptides, and amino acid mixtures, respectively. We have found that cysteine and tyrosine are indispensable residues. The SH/S-S ratio in a single molecule is not a critical factor in the synthesis, but on the other hand, the stoichiometry of cysteine residues and the gold precursor is crucial. These observations indicate the importance of proper chemical behavior of all species in a wide size range extending from the atomic distances (in the AuI-S semi ring) to nanometer distances covering the larger sizes of proteins assuring the hierarchical structure of the whole self-assembled system

DRAM-3 modulates autophagy and promotes cell survival in the absence of glucose

Macroautophagy is a membrane-trafficking process that delivers cytoplasmic constituents to lysosomes for degradation. The process operates under basal conditions as a mechanism to turnover damaged or misfolded proteins and organelles. As a result, it has a major role in preserving cellular integrity and viability. In addition to this basal function, macroautophagy can also be modulated in response to various forms of cellular stress, and the rate and cargoes of macroautophagy can be tailored to facilitate appropriate cellular responses in particular situations. The macroautophagy machinery is regulated by a group of evolutionarily conserved autophagy-related (ATG) proteins and by several other autophagy regulators, which either have tissue-restricted expression or operate in specific contexts. We report here the characterization of a novel autophagy regulator that we have termed DRAM-3 due to its significant homology to damage-regulated autophagy modulator (DRAM-1). DRAM-3 is expressed in a broad spectrum of normal tissues and tumor cells, but different from DRAM-1, DRAM-3 is not induced by p53 or DNA-damaging agents. Immunofluorescence studies revealed that DRAM-3 localizes to lysosomes/autolysosomes, endosomes and the plasma membrane, but not the endoplasmic reticulum, phagophores, autophagosomes or Golgi, indicating significant overlap with DRAM-1 localization and with organelles associated with macroautophagy. In this regard, we further proceed to show that DRAM-3 expression causes accumulation of autophagosomes under basal conditions and enhances autophagic flux. Reciprocally, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated disruption of DRAM-3 impairs autophagic flux confirming that DRAM-3 is a modulator of macroautophagy. As macroautophagy can be cytoprotective under starvation conditions, we also tested whether DRAM-3 could promote survival on nutrient deprivation. This revealed that DRAM-3 can repress cell death and promote long-term clonogenic survival of cells grown in the absence of glucose. Interestingly, however, this effect is macroautophagy-independent. In summary, these findings constitute the primary characterization of DRAM-3 as a modulator of both macroautophagy and cell survival under starvation conditions

Design of an electrochemical micromachining machine

Electrochemical micromachining (μECM) is a non-conventional machining process based on the phenomenon of electrolysis. μECM became an attractive area of research due to the fact that this process does not create any defective layer after machining and that there is a growing demand for better surface integrity on different micro applications including microfluidics systems, stress-free drilled holes in automotive and aerospace manufacturing with complex shapes, etc. This work presents the design of a next generation μECM machine for the automotive, aerospace, medical and metrology sectors. It has three axes of motion (X, Y, Z) and a spindle allowing the tool-electrode to rotate during machining. The linear slides for each axis use air bearings with linear DC brushless motors and 2-nm resolution encoders for ultra precise motion. The control system is based on the Power PMAC motion controller from Delta Tau. The electrolyte tank is located at the rear of the machine and allows the electrolyte to be changed quickly. This machine features two process control algorithms: fuzzy logic control and adaptive feed rate. A self-developed pulse generator has been mounted and interfaced with the machine and a wire ECM grinding device has been added. The pulse generator has the possibility to reverse the pulse polarity for on-line tool fabrication.The research reported in this paper is supported by the European Commission within the project “Minimizing Defects in Micro-Manufacturing Applications (MIDEMMA)” (FP7-2011-NMPICT- FoF-285614)

Mixed News about the Bad News Game

Basol et al. (2020) tested the “the Bad News Game” (BNG), an app designed to improve ability to spot false claims on social media. Participants rated simulated Tweets, then played either the BNG or an unrelated game, then re-rated the Tweets. Playing the BNG lowered rated belief in false Tweets. Here, four teams of undergraduate psychology students each attempted an extended replication of Basol et al., using updated versions of the original Bad News game. The most important extension was that the replications included a larger number of true Tweets than the original study and planned analyses of responses to true Tweets. The four replications were loosely coordinated, with each team independently working out how to implement the agreed plan. Despite many departures from the Basol et al. method, all four teams replicated their key finding: Playing the BNG reduced belief in false Tweets. But playing the BNG also reduced belief in true Tweets to the same or almost the same extent. Exploratory signal detection theory analyses indicated that the BNG increased response bias but did not improve discrimination. This converges with findings reported by Modirrousta-Galian and Higham (2023)

Alkaline-earth phosphonate MOFs with reversible hydration-dependent fluorescence

A new rigid tritopic phosphonic ligand, 2,4,6-tris(4-phosphonophenyl)pyridine (H6L), was synthesized and used to assemble isostructural barium (1) and strontium (2) phosphonate metal organic frameworks that exhibit fully reversible and selective water-dependent fluorescence red-shift at room temperature