Visual representations of literacy in the press : report to the Leverhulme Trust February 2001.

This project investigated the ways in which literacy practices are represented in visual images in a range of British newspapers. The aims of the research were: a) to contribute to theoretical understandings of literacy as socio-cultural practice and their implications for educational policy discourses about literacy b) to offer a framework and new data about the construction of visual messages in the media. c) to develop computer-based methodologies for dealing with visual data which are of relevance to social research more generally. The data showed that a mismatch exists between text-based stories and visual representations of literacy practices in the press: whilst text-based stories present a view of literacy as a neutral, technical, cognitive skill or deficit, the visual representations show it to be embedded in everyday social practice and to carry powerful ritual and symbolic as well as functional meanings

Helping Everday Users Establish Confidence for Everyday Applications

End users obtain their desired results by combining elements of information and computation from different applications. Software engineering provides little support for identifying, selecting, or combining these elements – that is, for helping end users to design computational support for their own tasks. Software engineering provides even less support to help end users to decide whether the resulting system is sufficiently dependable –whether it will meet their expectations. Many users, especially end users, base judgments about software on informal and undependable information, and they draw conclusions with informal rather than rational decision methods. We have been developing support for everyday dependability, with an emphasis on expressing expectations in abstractions familiar to the user and on obtaining software behavior that reasonably satisfies those expectations. In this Dagstuhl I would like to explore the differences between everyday informal reasoning and the rational processes of computer science in order to develop means for establishing credible indications of confidence for end users. Everyday Dependability for Everyday Users “Dependability ” is an overarching property of software systems that includes, to various viewers and to various extents, elements of correctness, reliability, fault-tolerance, performance, security

OPTION WEALTH AND BEQUEST VALUES: THE VALUE OF PROTECTING FUTURE GENERATIONS FROM THE HEALTH RISKS OF NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE

We devise a simple model of intergenerational altruism under uncertainty. We present an estimable form of the model that relies on a few, plausible, assumptions. We apply the model to data collected in a survey of Southern Nevadans concerning the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nye County, NV. We find strong evidence of a bequest motive. Approximately one third of the option wealth lost by households near the repository can be attributed to costs to future generations.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Adolescent Breakfast Skipping: An Australian Study

Eating breakfast is important for the health and development of children and adolescents. This paper reports on the findings of an Australian survey of 699 thirteen-year-olds concerning the extent of skipping breakfast. Results indicated that approximately 12% of the sample skipped breakfast. Gender was the only statistically significant sociodemographic variable, with females skipping at over three times the rate of males. Skippers were more likely to be dissatisfied with their body shape and to have been on a diet to lose weight than were those who ate breakfast. However, in a follow-up telephone survey, the reasons given for skipping breakfast were almost exclusively lack of time and not being hungry in the morning. While North American school nutrition programs have considered poverty to be a key issue in breakfast skipping, these findings suggest that, for Australian adolescents, skipping breakfast is a matter of individual choice

Testing Lidar-Radar Derived Drop Sizes Against In Situ Measurements

How well can a co-located lidar and radar retrieve a drop size distribution in drizzling clouds? To answer, we mimic scattering from a laboratory cloud to retrieve a lidar-radar effective diameter. Using only the shape parameter of the gamma-distributed drops, the mean diameter of the drops can be estimated from lidar-radar effective diameter to within a few percent of the true mean. In practice, the shape parameter of the gamma distribution is not known. To set bounds, mean diameters were calculated from the lidar-radar effective diameter using a range of in situ measured gamma shape parameters. The estimated means varied within 13% below to 18% above the true mean. To put this range of inherent uncertainty for lidar-radar retrievals in perspective, a decrease of 15-20% in drop size is argued to be sufficient to offset a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations (e.g., Slingo 1990)

Signed Language Academic Papers

Signed language academic papers are a new possibility that recent developments in technologies for recording, editing, presenting, and reviewing visual materials have made practical in an academic setting. This article presents guidelines the authors developed for papers specifically in American Sign Language (ASL)interpreting courses; however, signed language academic papers can be effectively used in signed language classes of all levels in any country. The authors offer rationales for assigning signed language academic papers to bilingual students and suggest style and practical guidelines analogous to guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA). Recommended guidelines address practical and academic considerations. The recommendations arose from a collaborative process with students and have been refined over time through implementation in an interpreting program. Observed benefits of signed language academic papers are a transformative change in students\u27 conception of the capacities of signed language as a language; opportunities for linguistic analysis and improved fluency; opportunities for planned, formal, and academic use of signed language; and transfer of skills to interpretations and translations. The end result has produced successful student outcomes from the perspectives of students and instructors

Interpreting Lived Experience through Writing Online in a Graduate Seminar

Participants in an online doctoral seminar participated in the use of a writing strategy to explore the sociocultural contexts of their lived experience. Creating literary texts in three forms was an effective strategy in mediating participants’ understanding. Each form provided a new lens through which to interpret experience. Participants functioned as an interpretive community. The final papers, autobiographical narratives, illuminated the complex relations among prediscursive experience, reflection on experience, distancing, and the iterative transformational quality of time. The online format embodied a virtual interpretive location which allowed participants to revisit texts and postings over time. Des participants dans un cours de doctorat en ligne, ont utilisé une stratégie de rédaction leur permettant d’explorer les contextes socioculturels de leurs expériences de vie. La création de trois formes de textes littéraires s’est avèrée une stratégie efficace pour faciliter la compréhension des participants. Chaque forme littéraire a offert de nouvelle perspectives aux étudiants pour interpréter leurs expériences. Les participants dans cette communauté ont pu interpréter collectivement leurs expériences de vie. Les textes finaux, qui ont pris la forme de narratifs autobiographiques ont illustré la complexité des relations qui existent entre une expérience pré-réfléchie, la réflexion sur l’expérience, la capacité de prendre de la distance face a l’expérience. Dans ces mêmes textes on y trouve la nature réitérée et la qualitée transformative du temps. Le format en ligne a crée un endroit virtuel interprétatif qui a permis aux participants de revisiter les textes et les messages affichés dans le temps