Celebrating our subjectivity: Research as lived experience

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Teachers\u27 concerns about implementing environmental education through their classroom programmes

This study examined the concerns of teachers when implementing environmental education into classroom programmes. A metropolitan district of Perth was used for data collection. Four schools and thirteen teachers participated in the study. The measure of concern was calculated using the Stages of Concern Questionnaire. The concerns were then subjected to a SAS computing analysis· programme to determine the relationship between level of concern and predetermined factors. These factors were personal factors: teaching experience; knowledge of the principles of environmental education; colleague support and year level taught; and school-level factors: the presence of school policies; participation in inservices or workshops; Principal advocacy; and available resources and support. To substantiate the quantitative data collected, a multi-method approach to data collection and analysis was incorporated into the study. Three styles of qualitative measure were included in the study design. These qualitative measures were obtained by: an open-ended statement of concern; a demographic profile for each individual; and informal interviews, discussions and observations. The results showed that knowledge of the principles of environmental education, the presence of school policies, participation in workshops and the availability of resources and support had the greatest influence on level of teacher concern. The overall response pattern of the district was of a nonuser. Interpretation of individual responses and patterns of individual profiles revealed that teachers could be categorised into five sub-groups. These sub-groups were the anxious user, the experienced user, the inexperienced anxious user, the nonuser, and the unconcerned user. The presence of anxiety was indicated to be the product of lack of knowledge about the innovation. The conclusions made from this study were: 1. Teachers implementing environmental education were, on the whole, confused and lacked understanding of what environmental education constituted. 2. The characteristics of environmental education, and the conflicting ideologies that it presents with implementation, have a relationship to the anxiety of the implementing agents. 3. The absence of structured professional development in preservice and inservice institutions has increased the level of concern and anxiety towards the innovation. 4. There was no significant relationship between teaching experience, colleague support or year level taught to the level of concern

Science Thinking Books: Children talking, thinking and drawing their way into science

This article presents the story of how as a science teacher I came to use Science Thinking Books as a tool for supporting children to explore and share their experiences, thinking and understanding of the world

Growing Season Definition and Use in Wetland Delineation

The definition of growing season in the 1987 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wetland Delineation Manual is derived from the soil biological-zero temperature concept. Lacking direct information on soil temperatures, minimum air temperature thresholds are used as indicators of the beginning and ending dates for the growing season. The 1987 Manual regional supplements allow for field observations of above-ground plant growth to estimate the growing season period. Since acceptance of the 1987 Manual, the growing season concept has been controversial. Soil biological zero does not apply to large areas of the continental United States, minimum air temperature thresholds appear inconsistent with observations of above- and below-ground biological activity, and photoperiodism and thermoperiodism result in local, regional, and annual variations for determining the growing season period based on plant activity. Additionally, the belief that wetlands perform ecological functions year round supports the argument that defining the growing season is irrelevant. A literature review of the environmental factors that influence above- and below-ground biological activity is presented. Recommendations are made on the use of the growing season concept to support jurisdictional wetland delineation determinations.https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ebooks/1013/thumbnail.jp

The acute effects of diet-induced energy restriction on physical activity energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate in men and women with overweight and obesity

Introduction: Reductions in physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) have been proposed as factors that may hinder diet-induced body mass loss. Although diet-mediated changes in PAEE and BMR are subject to large inter-individual variability, research investigating the impact of sex on diet-induced modulation of PAEE and BMR is lacking. Therefore, this study examined the effect of a diet-induced energy restriction on PAEE and BMR in non-exercising overweight and obese men and women. Methods: Eleven women (Age: 25 ± 7 yr; BMI: 29.7 ± 4.2 kg/m 2) and eight men (Age 29.6 ± 4.0 yr; BMI: 29.7 ± 4.0 kg/m 2) completed a 29-day investigation. Assessment of physical activity (PA) (PAEE and step count), BMR, body composition, systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure and fasting blood glucose (FBG) occurred on days 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29. Between days 15–22, participants consumed a liquid diet formula equivalent to 50% of their total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). The effects of time, sex and their interaction on all variables were assessed through a two-way mixed model ANOVA. Results: Both men and women achieved a modest 3% body mass loss at the end of the intervention week. An effect of time was detected for body mass (p &lt; 0.001), BMI (p &lt; 0.001), body fat % (p = 0.001), SBP (p = 0.007), DBP (p = 0.033) and BG (p &lt; 0.001). There was a time and sex interaction for body mass (p = 0.002), BMI (p = 0.002) and body fat % (p = 0.043). Sex differences were only present for body fat % (p = 0.001) and BMR (p &lt; 0.001). No main or interaction effects were present for PAEE and step count. Conclusion: In the present study, a 7-day diet-induced energy restriction of 50% did not elicit compensatory changes in PAEE and BMR in overweight and obese men and women. Findings suggest that it may be a viable short-term strategy to produce initial reductions in body mass and body fat %, with improvements in fasting blood glucose and resting blood pressure.</p

Social Media Mining for Toxicovigilance: Automatic Monitoring of Prescription Medication Abuse from Twitter

Introduction Prescription medication overdose is the fastest growing drug-related problem in the USA. The growing nature of this problem necessitates the implementation of improved monitoring strategies for investigating the prevalence and patterns of abuse of specific medications. Objectives Our primary aims were to assess the possibility of utilizing social media as a resource for automatic monitoring of prescription medication abuse and to devise an automatic classification technique that can identify potentially abuse-indicating user posts. Methods We collected Twitter user posts (tweets) associated with three commonly abused medications (Adderall®, oxycodone, and quetiapine). We manually annotated 6400 tweets mentioning these three medications and a control medication (metformin) that is not the subject of abuse due to its mechanism of action. We performed quantitative and qualitative analyses of the annotated data to determine whether posts on Twitter contain signals of prescription medication abuse. Finally, we designed an automatic supervised classification technique to distinguish posts containing signals of medication abuse from those that do not and assessed the utility of Twitter in investigating patterns of abuse over time. Results Our analyses show that clear signals of medication abuse can be drawn from Twitter posts and the percentage of tweets containing abuse signals are significantly higher for the three case medications (Adderall®: 23 %, quetiapine: 5.0 %, oxycodone: 12 %) than the proportion for the control medication (metformin: 0.3 %). Our automatic classification approach achieves 82 % accuracy overall (medication abuse class recall: 0.51, precision: 0.41, F measure: 0.46). To illustrate the utility of automatic classification, we show how the classification data can be used to analyze abuse patterns over time. Conclusion Our study indicates that social media can be a crucial resource for obtaining abuse-related information for medications, and that automatic approaches involving supervised classification and natural language processing hold promises for essential future monitoring and intervention tasks

Assessing the Efficacy of MODIS Satellite-derived Start of Growing Season for Jurisdictional Determination of East Texas Bottomland Hardwood Wetlands

Introduction: Crucial to the determination of a jurisdictional wetland is the definition of “growing season”. Satellite imagery is being utilized in other ecological applications, but is lagging in wetland growing season determination. Both cost and temporal limitations historically have restrained use of satellite imagery in assessing the start up of the growing season. Multiple commercial satellites are available that provide high resolution imagery, but the cost are prohibitive for most studies. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage the Landsat and the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite programs. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images an area every sixteen (16) days. The rapid biological changes indicating the start up of the growing season must be captured more frequently to successfully use satellite imagery for such a time dependent event. In 1999 NASA launched the MODIS program with the Terra satellite and followed with the Aqua satellite in 2000. Terra’s orbit around the Earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning. Aqua will pass south to north over the equator in the afternoon. This continual, comprehensive coverage allows MODIS to complete an electromagnetic picture of the globe every day. MODIS imagery is available on a daily basis, but the trade-off for the increased speed at which the satellites travel is a lower resolution image when compared to other satellite systems. Research utilizing MODIS for studying vegetation phenology is beginning to emerge, but there is a lack of validation through ground observation for these studies. (Figure 1 and Figure 2

Making a difference for children and families: an appreciative inquiry of health visitor values and why they start and stay in post

The study aimed to develop an understanding of health visitor recruitment and retention by examining what existing staff and new recruits wanted from their job, their professional aspirations and what would encourage them to start and stay in employment. Following a period of steady decline in numbers, the health visitor workforce in England has recently been invested in and expanded to deliver universal child public health. To capitalise on this large investment, managers need an understanding of factors influencing workforce retention and continuing recruitment of health visitors. The study was designed using an interpretive approach and involved students (n = 17) and qualified health visitors (n = 22) from the north and south of England. Appreciative inquiry (AI) exercises were used as methods of data collection during 2012. During AI exercises students and health visitors wrote about ‘a practice experience you have felt excited and motivated by and briefly describe the factors that contributed to this’. Participants were invited to discuss their written accounts of practice with a peer during an audio-recorded sharing session. Participants gave consent for written accounts and transcribed recordings to be used as study data, which was examined using framework analysis. In exploring personal meanings of health visiting, participants spoke about the common aspiration to make a difference to children and families. To achieve this, they expected their job to allow them to: connect with families; work with others; use their knowledge, skills and experience; use professional autonomy. The study offers new insights into health visitors’ aspirations, showing consistency with conceptual explanations of optimal professional practice. Psychological contract theory illustrates connections between professional aspirations and work commitment. Managers can use these findings as part of workforce recruitment and retention strategies and for building on the health visitor commitment to making a difference to children and families

Metatranscriptomic analysis reveals active bacterial communities in diabetic foot infections

Despite the extended view of the composition of diabetic foot infections (DFIs), little is known about which transcriptionally active bacterial communities are pertinent to infection, and if any differences are associated with increased infection severity. We applied a RNA sequencing approach to analyze the composition, function, and pathogenicity of the active bacterial communities in DFIs. Taxonomic profiling of bacterial transcripts revealed the presence of 14 bacterial phyla in DFIs. The abundance of the Spiroplasma, Vibrio, and Mycoplasma were significantly different in different infection severities (P < 0.05). Mild and severe stages of infections were dominated by Staphylococcus aureus and Porphyromonas asaccharolytica, respectively. A total of 132 metabolic pathways were identified of which ribosome and thiamin being among the most highly transcribed pathways. Moreover, a total of 131 antibiotic resistance genes, primarily involved in the multidrug efflux pumps/exporters, were identified. Furthermore, iron acquisition systems (synthesize and regulation of siderophores) and pathways involved in the synthesis and regulation of cell-surface components associated with adhesion, colonization, and movement of bacterial cells were the most common virulence factors. These virulence factors may help bacteria compete for scares resources and survive the host wound proteases. Characterization of transcriptionally active bacterial communities can help to provide an understanding of the role of key pathogens in the development of DFIs. Such information can be clinically useful allowing replacement of DFIs empirical therapy with targeted treatment