Literature-informed, one-turn action research: three cases and a commentary

Although action research is a common feature of courses of initial teacher training, the evidence as to its efficacy, in encouraging reflection among trainees, is mixed. This article discusses cases of action research assignments carried out by three trainees into their own practice in relation to a) behaviour management, b) monitoring and assessing, and c) pupil-centred education. The assignments are analysed using Bloom’s (1964) typology of thinking skills, Handal & Lauvas’ (1987) model of reflective practice, and typologies of action research by Noffke (1997) and Rearick & Feldman (1999). They are positioned as cases of ‘literature-informed, one-turn’ action research; a concept which is discussed in relation to other concepts of action research

Looking at Archives in Cinema: Recent Representations of Records in Motion Pictures

Archivists who followed the Best Picture Nominees for the 2013 Academy Awards would have noticed the appearance of a recurring character – records. The winning film, Argo, depicts the rescue of six American hostages during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Lincoln, praised for Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of the Sixteenth President, presents a look at Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency during the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. The most controversial of the three, Zero Dark Thirty chronicles the events leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden. While archivists and archival repositories are absent from these three films, records and records creation play a central role in the development of each of the stories. This paper will analyze the depiction of records and records creation in these three films through the use of the framework proposed by Barbara Craig and James O’Toole in their analysis of representations of records in art. Craig and O’Toole argue that the way in which records are depicted can lead to an understanding of how the creators and audiences of art understand records, suggesting that these representations may further our understanding of the “cultural penetration of archives.”i The authors suggest that in art, records are depicted in a number of ways: as props, as representations of specific documents, as the central subject, and as information objects that are created and used. We expand Craig and O’Toole’s framework with the addition of two themes: the integration of original documentation into the films themselves, and the use of source material that has an affective influence on the mise-en-scène

Mutual exclusivity develops as a consequence of abstract rather than particular vocabulary knowledge

Mutual exclusivity (ME) refers to the assumption that there are one-to-one relations between linguistic forms and their meanings. It is used as a word-learning strategy whereby children tend to map novel labels to unfamiliar rather than familiar referents. Previous research has indicated a relation between ME and vocabulary development, which could either be due to children's developing knowledge of the labels for familiar objects, or to enhanced general word-learning skills. In this study, ME was related to receptive vocabulary for 17- to 19-month-old children in a novel paradigm where children's familiarity with the objects and labels was controlled. It was found that infants with larger receptive vocabularies employed ME to a greater extent than infants with a smaller vocabulary size. The results indicate that ME use is more reliable in infants with larger receptive vocabulary size, and, critically, that ME gradually consolidates as an abstract word-learning strategy as infants' linguistic experience increases

Reliability of the Tekscan Matscan® System for the Measurement of Postural Stability in Older People With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Postural stability can be measured in clinical and research settings using portable plantar pressure systems. People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have decreased postural stability compared to non-RA populations and impaired postural stability is associated with falls in people with RA. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the reliability of the TekScan MatScan® system in assessing postural stability in people with RA

Direct access to a cAAC-supported dihydrodiborene and its dianion

The two-fold reduction of (cAAC)BHX2 (cAAC = 1-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-3,3,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidin-2-ylidene); X = Cl, Br) provides a facile, high-yielding route to the dihydrodiborene (cAAC)2B2H2. The (chloro)hydroboryl anion reduction intermediate was successfully isolated using a crown ether. Overreduction of the diborene to its dianion [(cAAC)2B2H2]2– causes a decrease in the B-B bond order whereas the B-C bond orders increase

Shear friction strength of monolithic concrete interfaces

YesThis paper presents an integrated model for shear friction strength of monolithic concrete interfaces derived from the upper-bound theorem of concrete plasticity. The model accounts for the effects of applied axial stresses and transverse reinforcement on the shear friction action at interfacial shear cracks. Simple equations were also developed to generalize the effectiveness factor for compression, ratio of effective tensile to compressive strengths and angle of concrete friction. The reliability of the proposed model was then verified through comparisons with previous empirical equations and 103 push-off test specimens compiled from different sources in the literature. The previous equations considerably underestimate the concrete shear transfer capacity and the underestimation is notable for the interfaces subjected to additional axial stresses. The proposed model provides superior accuracy in predicting the shear friction strength, resulting in a mean between experimental and predicted friction strengths of 0.97 and least scatter. Moreover, the proposed model has consistent trends with test results in evaluating the effect of various parameters on the shear friction strength

Dibora[2]ferrocenophane: a carbene-stabilized diborene in a strained cis-configuration

Unsaturated bridges that link the two cyclopentadienyl ligands together in strained ansa metallocenes are rare and limited to carbon-carbon double bonds. The synthesis and isolation of a strained ferrocenophane containing an unsaturated two-boron bridge, isoelectronic with a C=C double bond, was achieved by reduction of a carbene-stabilized 1,1’-bis(dihaloboryl)ferrocene. A combination of spectroscopic and electrochemical measurements as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations was used to assess the influence of the unprecedented strained cis configuration on the optical and electrochemical properties of the carbene-stabilized diborene unit. Initial reactivity studies show that the dibora[2]ferrocenophane is prone to boron-boron double bond cleavage reactions

Trans‐selective insertional dihydroboration of a cis‐diborene: synthesis of linear sp3‐sp2‐sp3‐triboranes and subsequent cationization

The reaction of aryl‐ and amino(dihydro)boranes with dibora[2]ferrocenophane 1 leads to the formation 1,3‐trans‐dihydrotriboranes by formal hydrogenation and insertion of a borylene unit into the B=B bond. The aryltriborane derivatives undergo reversible photoisomerization to the cis‐1,2-μ‐H‐3hydrotriboranes, while hydride abstraction affords cationic triboranes, which represent the first doubly base‐stabilized B3H4+ analogues

Facile synthesis of a stable dihydroboryl {BH2}– anion

While the one-electron reduction of (CAACMe)BH2Br (CAACMe = 1-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-3,3,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidin-2-ylidene) yields a hydride-shift isomer of the corresponding tetrahydrodiborane, a further reversible reduction leads to the first stable parent boryl anion, [(CAACMe)BH2]–, which acts as a powerful boron nucleophile