A Movement Against and Beyond Boundaries: Exploring the Impact of Transgressive Teaching on the Student Affairs Practices of White, Heterosexual Men

Transgressive teaching can have a substantive and transformative impact on the experiences of students in primary, secondary, and higher education classrooms. Transgressive teaching is exemplified by the engaged pedagogy outlined by bell hooks in the seminal work Teaching to Transgress, in which teachers seek to engage spaces of learning in deeper and more holistic ways. Scholars have theorized transgressive teaching, when implemented by student affairs professionals, can have similar effects on the experiences of students, especially those from identity groups which have historically been marginalized in higher education. However, there is a limited understanding of the experiences of student affairs professionals learning and applying these concepts to their practice. This study used a qualitative phenomenological approach, augmented by modified grounded theory, to understand deeper connections between the experiences of nine student affairs professionals who identify as White, heterosexual, and male; work in a variety of functional areas and institution types; and have varying levels of experience in the field. Using a purposive sampling approach, data was collected in four stages via an initial interview with each participant, the collection of journal entries kept by participants while reading Teaching to Transgress, a second interview of participants immediately after their reading, and a final interview of participants three to six weeks after their reading. Data was analyzed using an In Vivo coding approach. The findings of this study address three major areas: (a) putting theory into practice, (b) identity salience, and (c) leadership. The findings of this study hold significance for higher education and student affairs. First, findings reflect ways transgressive teaching helps White, heterosexual, male student affairs professionals with multiple dominant group identities examine those identities’ impact on practice. Second, the findings illuminate ways transgressive teaching can be incorporated into professional training in graduate school and professional development programs for White, heterosexual, male student affairs professionals. Finally, the findings explore how these experiences can contribute to White, heterosexual, male student affairs professionals understanding and practicing leadership

The politics of a stateless nation: The dynamics of cultural nationalism in post-union Scotland, 1707-1830

The development of Scottish nationalism has generated significant scholarly debate. Much of the scholarship on modern Scottish nationalism has focused on the political elements, namely the project aimed at the establishment of an independent Scottish state. This generalisation of Scottish nationalism is misplaced as it does not sufficiently consider the historical circumstances that Scotland has been situated. Scotland did maintain an independent state until it voluntarily relinquished these claims following the ratification of the Acts of Union on May 01, 1707. The question of whether nationalism or nationalist sentiment in Scotland after the Acts of Union discontinued have not yet adequately been examined. This thesis will confront this gap by understanding nationalism in a frame other than political. Rather, this thesis will argue that more attention needs to be given to cultural nationalism, whose primary aim is the formation of national communities. Analysis of cultural nationalism which takes the form of a national revival will unfold through common factors that promote a national community: national language; literature; the arts; educational activities; religious cohesion; and economic self-help. Ultimately this thesis will demonstrate that the main concern for nationalists in post-union Scotland was not the re-establishment of an independent state but rather the revival of the Scottish community in light of the new political reality. This is largely due to the desire to redefine the identity of political communities in light of a retreat from politics

Doo bee doo bee doo

We explore the design and implementation of Frank, a strict functional programming language with a bidirectional effect type system designed from the ground up around a novel variant of Plotkin and Pretnar's effect handler abstraction. Effect handlers provide an abstraction for modular effectful programming: a handler acts as an interpreter for a collection of commands whose interfaces are statically tracked by the type system. However, Frank eliminates the need for an additional effect handling construct by generalising the basic mechanism of functional abstraction itself. A function is but the special case of a Frank operator that interprets no commands. Moreover, Frank's operators can be multihandlers which simultaneously interpret commands from several sources at once, without disturbing the direct style of functional programming with values. Effect typing in Frank employs a novel form of effect polymorphism which avoids mentioning effect variables in source code. This is achieved by propagating an ambient ability inwards, rather than accumulating unions of potential effects outwards. With the ambient ability describing the effects that are available at a certain point in the code, it can become necessary to reconfigure access to the ambient ability. A primary goal is to be able to encapsulate internal effects, eliminating a phenomenon we call effect pollution. Moreover, it is sometimes desirable to rewire the effect flow between effectful library components. We propose adaptors as a means for supporting both effect encapsulation and more general rewiring. Programming with effects and handlers is in its infancy. We contribute an exploration of future possibilities, particularly in combination with other forms of rich type systems

Governance Framework for ICT Professionalism - Proposal

This research project was launched by the European Commission Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry as part of the European Commission’s on-going e-skills agenda. The specific objective of WP5 is to develop proposals for a pan-European institutional and governance framework for the ICT profession, and as such it is also part of an on-going initiative to mature ICT Professionalism in Europe. This work builds on earlier work undertaken in the 2012 IVI/CEPIS study on a European ICT Professionalism Framework (Mclaughlin et al., 2012) and will be followed by a research project which aims to identify a sustainable operating model for the promotion of ICT professionalism in Europe (European Commission, 2013). The current project aims to support the development of a European institutional and governance framework for ICT professionalism, with the goal of enhancing professionalism and mobility across Europe. The proposed framework has been developed iteratively in conjunction with stakeholder representatives. The research report also includes validated stakeholder value models and recommendations for next steps

Nanofluid Development Using Silver Nanoparticles and Organic-Luminescent Molecules for Solar-Thermal and Hybrid Photovoltaic-Thermal Applications

Exploiting solar energy using photo-thermal (PT) and/or hybridised photovoltaic/thermal (PVT) systems can represent a viable alternative to the growing demand for renewable energy. For large-scale implementation, such systems require thermal fluids able to enhance the combined conversion efficiency achievable by controlling the ‘thermal’ and ‘electrical’ components of the solar spectrum. Nanofluids are typically employed for these purposes and they should exhibit high heat-transfer capabilities and optical properties tuned towards the peak performance spectral window of the photovoltaic (PV) component. In this work, novel nanofluids, composed of highly luminescent organic molecules and Ag nanoparticles dispersed within a base fluid, were tested for PT and PVT applications. These nanofluids were designed to mimic the behaviour of luminescent down-shifting molecules while offering enhanced thermo-physical characteristics over the host base fluid. The nanofluids’ conversion efficiency was evaluated under a standard AM1.5G weighted solar spectrum. The results revealed that the Ag nanoparticles’ inclusion in the composite fluid has the potential to improve the total solar energy conversion. The nanoparticles’ presence minimizes the losses in the electrical power component of the PVT systems as the thermal conversion increases. The enhanced performances recorded suggest that these nanofluids could represent suitable candidates for solar energy conversion application

FLIP: A Targetable Mediator of Resistance to Radiation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Resistance to radiotherapy due to insufficient cancer cell death is a significant cause of treatment failure in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The endogenous caspase-8 inhibitor, FLIP, is a critical regulator of cell death that is frequently overexpressed in NSCLC and is an established inhibitor of apoptotic cell death induced via the extrinsic death receptor pathway. Apoptosis induced by ionizing radiation (IR) has been considered to be mediated predominantly via the intrinsic apoptotic pathway; however, we found that IR-induced apoptosis was significantly attenuated in NSCLC cells when caspase-8 was depleted using RNA interference (RNAi), suggesting involvement of the extrinsic apoptosis pathway. Moreover, overexpression of wild-type FLIP, but not a mutant form that cannot bind the critical death receptor adaptor protein FADD, also attenuated IR-induced apoptosis, confirming the importance of the extrinsic apoptotic pathway as a determinant of response to IR in NSCLC. Importantly, when FLIP protein levels were down-regulated by RNAi, IRinduced cell death was significantly enhanced. The clinically relevant histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors vorinostat and entinostat were subsequently found to sensitize a subset of NSCLC cell lines to IR in a manner that was dependent on their ability to suppress FLIP expression and promote activation of caspase-8. Entinostat also enhanced the anti-tumor activity of IR in vivo. Therefore, FLIP down-regulation induced by HDAC inhibitors is a potential clinical strategy to radio-sensitize NSCLC and thereby improve response to radiotherapy. Overall, this study provides the first evidence that pharmacological inhibition of FLIP may improve response of NCSLC to IR

Gene expression analysis in human osteoblasts exposed to dexamethasone identifies altered developmental pathways as putative drivers of osteoporosis

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis, a disease of decreased bone mineral density represents a significant and growing burden in the western world. Aging population structure and therapeutic use of glucocorticoids have contributed in no small way to the increase in the incidence of this disease. Despite substantial investigative efforts over the last number of years the exact molecular mechanism underpinning the initiation and progression of osteoporosis remain to be elucidated. This has meant that no significant advances in therapeutic strategies have emerged, with joint replacement surgery being the mainstay of treatment. METHODS: In this study we have used an integrated genomics profiling and computational biology based strategy to identify the key osteoblast genes and gene clusters whose expression is altered in response to dexamethasone exposure. Primary human osteoblasts were exposed to dexamethasone in vitro and microarray based transcriptome profiling completed. RESULTS: These studies identified approximately 500 osteoblast genes whose expression was altered. Functional characterization of the transcriptome identified developmental networks as being reactivated with 106 development associated genes found to be differentially regulated. Pathway reconstruction revealed coordinate alteration of members of the WNT signaling pathway, including frizzled-2, frizzled-7, DKK1 and WNT5B, whose differential expression in this setting was confirmed by real time PCR. CONCLUSION: The WNT pathway is a key regulator of skeletogenesis as well as differentiation of bone cells. Reactivation of this pathway may lead to altered osteoblast activity resulting in decreased bone mineral density, the pathological hallmark of osteoporosis. The data herein lend weight to the hypothesis that alterations in developmental pathways drive the initiation and progression of osteoporosis