Changing discourses in women and science policy: responding to austerity in gender and SET

The issue of ‘women in science’ has been a recurring theme in government policy both in the UK and the EU (and indeed globally) for several decades. While considerable research has been done about the problem (Barnard et al 2010), most initiatives during the 80s and 90s tended to be localised and there was little attention to this within broader science policy despite intermittent funding most often linked to labour market concerns. However, in the UK the UKRC was set up and funded in 2004 as part of the government’s science and skills strategy (Greenfield et al, 2002) which for the first time gave substantial centralised and high level funding to support entry, retention and progression of women in science, engineering and technology (SET). Yet this support has been short lived - with government funding for the UKRC now being phased out as part of public sector cuts there is an increasing emphasis on ‘mainstreaming’ and this presents questions about what the future gender equality landscape may present for women in SET in the UK and how to respond to this. Using examples from policy documents and reports, the paper will discuss changing policy discourses that have addressed women, science and technology and considers how public spending cuts might impact on the continuation of policy and practice in this field

Assessing control risk: Effects of procedural differences on auditor consensus

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_proceedings/1073/thumbnail.jp

Action zone theory and the hearing-impaired student in the mainstreamed classroom

This study examines the effect of the action zone phenomenon on the classroom participation of mainstreamed, hearing-impaired students. They are constrained by their need for visual input to sitting on the sides of the classroom out of the action zone. Six mainstreamed classes were observed and coded for location of student-teacher interactions. Action zone patterns were found in two classes. It was concluded that hearing-impaired students who must sit on the periphery of the classroom have similar opportunities to hearing students for participation when no action zone exists. When one does exist however they are at a great disadvantage

Epistemic Responsibility and the Literary Journalist

The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of epistemic responsibility in the practice of book-length literary journalism. Literary journalism offers a powerful alternative to mainstream journalism. Its narrative mode and storytelling techniques open possibilities of representation often closed by traditional reporting practices. Subsequently, literary journalists have attracted criticism for unorthodox modes of representation and attendant “truth claims” in many texts. In this thesis I draw on the work of epistemologist Lorraine Code to highlight the tension between the branches of ethics and epistemology, and argue that holding them apart for the purposes of explication yields important insights into the practice of literary journalism. I argue that criticism of literary journalism has at times conflated ethical and epistemic concerns, resulting in censure of the practitioner on primarily moral grounds. While such a critique is often valid, I propose that it can mislabel problematic cognitive processes as moral deficiencies. A re-examination of significant controversies raised by literary journalism shows disputed areas stemming from epistemic “blind spots”. These “blind spots” are often characterised as ethical lapses, but I argue that framing criticism in this way inhibits progress in sound practice. Recurring controversies over works by practitioners such as Janet Malcolm and Australia’s Helen Garner bear this out. I also offer close readings of three works of contemporary US literary journalism through their paratextual frames. The limits of transparency are demonstrated here, including the fact that disclosure can hide more than it illuminates. Code’s “epistemic responsibilist” approach is subsequently presented as an important addition to literary journalism scholarship, as it offers a sound foundation for reflexive practice—for both writers and critics. Using this approach, I offer critical readings of the “truth claims” in three contemporary US texts: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family (2003), Dave Cullen’s Columbine (2009) and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010). A secondary aim of this thesis is to characterise contemporary Australian book-length literary journalism. Using Code’s concept of an “epistemic community”, I propose that the nature of national discourse influences the voice of the Australian literary journalist, as revealed by anxiety over representation in the texts under analysis. These texts highlight the pressures of subjectivity on truth, which results in a destabilisation of “truth claims”. In comparison with the US practitioners analysed, their three Australian counterparts analysed place less emphasis on disclosure transparency, and rely more heavily upon self-presentation as seekers, rather than discoverers, of knowledge and truth. I further maintain that these three texts represent a dominant national function of book-length literary journalism. Issues of national identity are bound up in the relationship between the land and its people, and are evident in the work of Margaret Simons, Chloe Hooper and Anna Krien, three of Australia’s most notable literary journalists. Through the lens of a civic dispute, each of these practitioners join one of the most pressing cultural issues in contemporary national discourse, that is, to explore what it means to be “Australian”

Prospective Elementary Mathematics Teacher Content Knowledge: What Do We Know, What Do We Not Know, and Where Do We Go?

In this Special Issue, the authors reviewed 112 research studies from 1978 to 2012 on prospective elementary teachers’ content knowledge in five content areas: whole numbers and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Looking across these studies, this final paper identifies the trends and common themes in terms of the counts and types of studies and commonalities among findings. Analyses of the counts show that the number of articles published each year focusing on prospective teacher (PT) content knowledge is increasing. Most articles across the content areas show that PTs tend to rely on procedures rather than concepts. However, the focus of most articles is identifying PTs’ misconceptions rather than understanding PTs’ conceptions and the development thereof. Both the limitations of the reviews and the directions for future research studies are elaborated

Outer Membrane Proteins of Pasteurella Haemolytica

The Sarkosyl method of obtaining outer membrane proteins (OMPs) from Pasteurella haemolytica Al was more efficient and less laborious than separating membranes by sucrose gradient centrifugation. More OMPs were recovered and major OMPs were present in greater concentrations in the Sarkosyl-derived preparations. Therefore, OMPs of P. haemolytica serovars 1 through 15 (serovars 3, 4, 10, and 15 being T biotypes and the remainder being A biotypes) were prepared by the Sarkosyl method and compared by SDS-PAGE. Serovars 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12 which are A biovars had similar OMP profiles characterized by major OMPs of 30.5 and 43 kDa. Biovar T strains were characterized by doublet protein bands in the 26-28 kDa region and a major OMP in the 38-40 kDa range. Serovars 9, 13, and 14 which are also A biovars had profiles more consistent, although not identical, with the T biovars. A 43 kDa protein was present in all serovars although concentration was greater in the A biovars. Surface-exposed proteins of P. haemolytica Al determined by 125!-labeling of whole cells were 94, 84, 53.5, 49, 43, 41, 29.5, and 16 kDa. Iodine-labeling of serovars A2 and A6 which have similar OMP profiles by SDS-PAGE resulted in autoradiographs indistinguishable from Al.A Sarkosyl-derived outer membrane protein (OMP) fraction of Pasteurella haemolytica Al (SKI-1) induced a protective response in calves against intrathoracic challenge with the homologous serovar. Outer membrane proteins from heterologous serovars, A6 and A9, induced partial protection that was associated with their respective similarities to Al in OMP profiles by SDS-PAGE. Calves vaccinated with SKI preparations did not have detectable neutralizing antibody to P. haemolytica Al leukotoxin. Antibodies to whole cell antigens and carbohydrate-protein subunit (CPS) antigen were associated with resistance which indicates that protein antigens shared among whole cell surface, CPS and SKI preparations are immunogenic and enhance resistance to experimental challenge.Irnmunoblotting data revealed that antibodies to outer membrane proteins of 84.5, 50.5, 45.5, 37, or 16.5 kDa from calves vaccinated with outer membrane protein-enriched fractions of Pasteurella haemolytica Al (SKI-1), A6 (SKI-6), or A9 (SKI-9) were significantly associated with resistance to experimental challenge. All three vaccines produced a similar antibody response to the 84.5 kDa protein while SKI- 1 and SKI-6 produced higher levels of antibodies as measured by densitometry to the 50.5, 37, and 16.5 kDa antigens than did the SKI-9 vaccine. SKI-1 produced higher antibody levels than either SKI-6 or SKI-9 to the 45.5 kDa protein. Irnmunoblots using sera from calves vaccinated with P. haemolytica bacterins or live organisms reacted against SKI- 1 antigens demonstrated that antibodies to outer membrane proteins of 82, 63, 45.5 and 29 kDa were significantly correlated to resistance. Based on these results, OMPs that appear to be protective irnmunogens are 45.5, 82-84.5, 16.5, 37, 29, and 63 kDa.Veterinary Microbiolog

Anti-Ageing and Women's Bodies: Spaces, Practices, and Knowledges of Cosmetic Intervention

This thesis examines women’s responses to ageing through cosmetic intervention, as part of broader practices of health and wellbeing. The thesis identifies a lack of geographical attention to the embodied and emotional dimensions of the ageing process and the management and modification of bodies through anti-ageing body-work. In response to this the thesis contributes to existing feminist geographical approaches to embodied experience by addressing the multiple ways that women respond to, and negotiate, the pressures of gendered socio-cultural norms and expectations associated with the body. The embodied methodological approach I take focuses primarily on semi-structured in-depth interviews with practitioners and consumers of anti-ageing technologies and techniques, and participant observation in anti-ageing ‘treatment’ sites, including aesthetic clinics and beauty salons. Informed by corporeal feminism (Grosz, 1994) I use these approaches to engage with the fluidity and ‘fleshy materiality’ of bodies (Longhurst, 2001). In doing so I contribute to existing knowledges of gendered body-work and self-care practices, both empirically and theoretically. The thesis contributes significant new empirical data to the study of the ageing body, enabling reflexive discussion of theoretical approaches, as well as offering new perspectives on theoretical questions on the body and cosmetic intervention. Through analysis of the spaces, practices, and knowledges of anti-ageing body-work the thesis extends existing geographical approaches to emotion and embodiment, gender and identity, and health and wellbeing. I identify contradictions between the medical and therapeutic rationales of anti-ageing body-work, and the ways that such tensions are enacted through the spaces, practices and professional identities associated with ‘aesthetic health’ (Edmonds, 2010). I also develop analysis of anti-ageing body-work in terms of the ‘reframing’ and ‘realignment’ of corporeal temporalities, ‘anticipatory’ biopolitical frameworks of bodily futures, and the emotional context and consequences of the materialisation of time on the body. I also consider such practices in terms of regulation and control, highlighting the growing normalisation of cosmetic intervention as implicated in disciplinary frameworks of corporeal anxiety in relation to gendered framings of body image, risk and responsibility. Finally, I draw attention to a number of future directions in which this research could be developed

The development of critical thinkers : Do our efforts coincide with students’ beliefs?

Critical thinking is one of the key attributes that crops up regularly in discussions concerning the role of tertiary education. In particular, it manifests in discussions about graduate and employability attributes: along with disciplinary content and skills, stakeholders contend that graduates should emerge from their tertiary studies with enhanced abilities in critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, logical reasoning and so forth. Indeed, excellence in teaching is seen to be tied to students’ development of these skills just as much as to their building of discipline-specific knowledge. So, given that the development of these skills is thought to be an essential part of students’ university experiences, what are they, how might we go about fostering them, and how do our students perceive our efforts? What are their perceptions of not only critical thinking, its importance, development and transferability to other subjects in their education or aspects of their lives, but of our attempts to inculcate it in their education as a core value and set of skills? Hence, rather than expounding on the importance of critical thinking skills or outlining the various strategies I have developed as a philosophy lecturer to best facilitate students’ acquisition of these skills, this paper tells another story. Specifically it presents highlights from the results of a recent research project (carried out in 2008 and involving philosophy students at the University of Ballarat) that analysed students’ own beliefs regarding their development as critical thinkers

An apple a day? Assessing gardeners’ lead exposure in urban agriculture sites to improve the derivation of soil assessment criteria

Globally, many of our urban agriculture sites (UAS) contain high levels of lead (Pb), a contaminant of toxicological concern to humans. To improve the derivation of soil assessment criteria at UAS, and avoid inappropriate closure of these valuable community spaces, we sampled nearly 280 paired soil and crop samples across 31 UAS gardens. This sampling was coupled with an exposure and food frequency questionnaire and participants blood Pb levels (BLL), (43 gardeners and 29 non-gardening neighbours). In 98% of the sampled soils, Pb concentrations were above the current UK soil guideline for UAS (80 mg/kg), however despite the high soil Pb (geometric mean: 324 mg/kg), and high soil bioaccessible Pb (geometric mean: 58.7%), all participants BLL were 0.1 mg/kg FW).The importance of defining the exposure scenario of a specific sub-population (i.e. UAS gardeners) is highlighted. Our preferred models predict site specific assessment criteria (SSAC) of 722 – 1634 mg/kg. We found fruit and vegetable consumption rates by all participants, and not just the UAS gardeners, to be considerably higher than those currently used to derive the UK’s category 4 screening levels (C4SLs). Furthermore, the soil to plant concentration factors (SPCFs) used to derive the UAS C4SL significantly over predict Pb uptake. Our study indicates it may be appropriate to develop a distinct exposure dataset for UAS. In particular we recommend the derivation of SPCFs that are reflective of urban soils, both in terms of the range of soil Pb concentrations typically observed, but also the sources (and hence human oral bioaccessibility and plant-availability) of this Pb

Bone marrow transplantation corrects haemolytic anaemia in a novel ENU mutagenesis mouse model of TPI deficiency.

In this study, we performed a genome-wide N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) mutagenesis screen in mice to identify novel genes or alleles that regulate erythropoiesis. Here, we describe a recessive mouse strain, called RBC19, harbouring a point mutation within the housekeeping gene, Tpi1, which encodes the glycolysis enzyme, triosephosphate isomerase (TPI). A serine in place of a phenylalanine at amino acid 57 severely diminishes enzyme activity in red blood cells and other tissues, resulting in a macrocytic haemolytic phenotype in homozygous mice, which closely resembles human TPI deficiency. A rescue study was performed using bone marrow transplantation of wild-type donor cells, which restored all haematological parameters and increased red blood cell enzyme function to wild-type levels after 7 weeks. This is the first study performed in a mammalian model of TPI deficiency, demonstrating that the haematological phenotype can be rescued