The effects of personal peer counselling on the self concept and attainment of secondary aged slow learning pupils

The aim of this study was to investigate the progress achieved in self concept and academic attainment by older slow learning pupils through the stimulus of peer counselling additional to classroom based general education. This was compared with control groups receiving the same education but without the peer counselling. It has been felt for some time that specialist remedial education is of questionable value in the long term, and that seemingly encouraging gains are short-lived. Research into causes and treatment of educational failure has left the professional teacher without clear direction for the future, but there has been in recent years a shift of attention from cognitive aspects of slow learners to an emphasis on the child's emotional state as being his most outstanding handicap to further progress. [Continues]

Old-growth Policy

Most federal legislation and policies (e.g., the Wilderness Act, Endangered Species Act, National Forest Management Act) fail to speak directly to the need for old-growth protection, recruitment, and restoration on federal lands. Various policy and attitudinal barriers must be changed to move beyond the current situation. For example, in order to achieve the goal of healthy old growth in frequent-fire forests, the public must be educated regarding the evolutionary nature of these ecosystems and persuaded that collaborative action rather than preservation and litigation is the best course for the future of these forests. Land managers and policy makers must be encouraged to look beyond the single-species management paradigm toward managing natural processes, such as fire, so that ecosystems fall within the natural range of variability. They must also see that, given their recent evidence of catastrophic fires, management must take place outside the wildland—urban interface in order to protect old-growth forest attributes and human infrastructure. This means that, in some wilderness areas, management may be required. Land managers, researchers, and policy makers will also have to agree on a definition of old growth in frequent-fire landscapes; simply adopting a definition from the mesic Pacific Northwest will not work. Moreover, the culture within the federal agencies needs revamping to allow for more innovation, especially in terms of tree thinning and wildland fire use. Funding for comprehensive restoration treatments needs to be increased, and monitoring of the Healthy Forest Initiative and Healthy Forest Restoration Act must be undertaken

The English Patent System and Early Railway Technology 1800-1852

This thesis examines the relationship between the English patent system and early railway-related inventive activity, and it is proposed that the patent system influenced the rate and direction of early railway technology. Contrary to the current historiography of the patent system, it is argued that prior to the Patent Law Amendment Act (1852), in the absence of substantive Parliamentary intervention, the judiciary crafted and shaped the principles of patent law which provided certainty and security for patentees. Inventors involved in railway-related technology found great utility in a unique patent system which they used, relied upon, and promoted to their peers. The requirement post-1733 for a specification to be filed with a patent application, contributed to the origins of what today might be termed knowledge management. The patent system engendered a developing database of technical knowledge that was codified, controlled, circulated and commercially exploited. Profit was a key motive for those who patented railway-related inventions, which often involved high expenditure, of both time and money, and the patent system secured vital monopoly profits. The pecuniary advantage offered by an effective patent system served to incentivise the development and diffusion of early railway technology. This thesis demonstrates the value of industry-specific analysis of the workings of the patent system. The early railways are recognised as a fully cultural artefact, an approach that provides insights into the technological processes and economic development of the early railways, and since nascent railway technology was but one of several emerging, interwoven technologies, the investigation extends beyond the railway proper. These proposals are tested by reference to contemporary evidence relating to the professional engineering enterprises of George and Robert Stephenson, Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a number of individuals of less renown, whose patented inventive activity met the demands of the emerging railways

Forward Modelling of Multifrequency SAR Backscatter of Snow-Covered Lake Ice: Investigating Varying Snow and Ice Properties Within a Radiative Transfer Framework

Lakes are a key feature in the Northern Hemisphere landscape. The coverage of lakes by ice cover has important implications for local weather conditions and can influence energy balance. The presence of lake ice is also crucial for local economies, providing transportation routes, and acting as a source of recreation/tourism and local customs. Both lake ice cover, from which ice dates and duration can be derived (i.e., ice phenology), and ice thickness are considered as thematic variables of lakes as an essential climate variable by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) for understanding how climate is changing. However, the number of lake ice phenology ground observations has declined over the past three decades. Remote sensing provides a method of addressing this paucity in observations. Active microwave remote sensing, in particular synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is popular for monitoring ice cover as it does not rely on sunlight and the resolution allows for the monitoring of small and medium-sized lakes. In recent years, our understanding of the interaction between active microwave signals and lake ice has changed, shifting from a double bounce mechanism to single bounce at the ice-water interface. The single bounce, or surface scattering, at the ice-water interface is due to a rough surface and high dielectric contrast between ice and water. However, further work is needed to fully understand how changes in different lake ice properties impact active microwave signals. Radiative transfer modelling has been used to explore these interactions, but there are a variety of limitations associated with past experiments. This thesis aimed to faithfully represent lake ice using a radiative transfer framework and investigate how changes in lake ice properties impact active microwave backscatter. This knowledge was used to model backscatter throughout ice seasons under both dry and wet conditions. The radiative transfer framework used in this thesis was the Snow Microwave Radiative Transfer (SMRT) model. To investigate how broad changes in ice properties impact microwave backscatter, SMRT was used to conduct experiments on ice columns representing a shallow lake with tubular bubbles and a deep lake without tubular bubbles at L/C/X-band frequencies. The Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo) was used to parameterize SMRT. Ice properties investigated included ice thickness, snow ice bubble radius and porosity, root mean square (RMS) height of the ice-water interface, correlation length of the ice-water interface, and tubular bubble radius and porosity. Modelled backscatter indicated that changes in ice thickness, snow ice porosity, and tubular bubble radius and porosity had little impact on microwave backscatter. The property that had the largest impact on backscatter was RMS height at the ice-water interface, confirming the results of other recent studies. L and C-band frequencies were found to be most sensitive to changes in RMS height. Bubble radius had a smaller impact on backscatter, but X-band was found to be most sensitive to changes in this property and would be a valuable frequency for studying surface ice conditions. From the results of these initial experiments, SMRT was then used to simulate the backscatter from lake ice for two lakes during different winter seasons. Malcolm Ramsay Lake near Churchill, Manitoba, represented a shallow lake with dense tubular bubbles and Noell lake near Inuvik, Northwest Territories, represented a deep lake with no tubular bubbles. Both field data and CLIMo simulations for the two lakes were used to parameterize SMRT. Because RMS height was determined to be the ice property that had the largest impact on backscatter, simulations focused on optimizing this value for both lakes. Modelled backscatter was validated using C-band satellite imagery for Noell Lake and L/C/X-band imagery for Malcolm Ramsay Lake. The root mean square error values for both lakes ranged from 0.38 to 2.33 dB and Spearman’s correlation coefficient (ρ) values >0.86. Modelled backscatter for Noell Lake was closer to observed values compared to Malcolm Ramsay Lake. Optimized values of RMS height provided a better fit compared to a stationary value and indicated that roughness likely increases rapidly at the start of the ice season but plateaus as ice growth slows. SMRT was found to model backscatter from ice cover well under dry conditions, however, modelling backscatter under wet conditions is equally important. Detailed field observations for Lake Oulujärvi in Finland were used to parameterize SMRT during three different conditions. The first was lake ice with a dry snow cover, the second with an overlying layer of wet snow, and the third was when a slush layer was present on the ice surface. Experiments conducted under dry conditions continued to support the dominance of scattering from the ice-water interface. However, when a layer of wet snow or slush layer was introduced the dominant scattering interface shifted to the new wet layer. Increased roughness at the boundary of these wet layers resulted in an increase in backscatter. The increase in backscatter is attributed to the higher dielectric constant value of these layers. The modelled backscatter was found to be representative of observed backscatter from Sentinel-1. The body of work of this thesis indicated that the SMRT framework can be used to faithfully represent lake ice and model backscatter from ice covers and improved understanding of the interaction between microwave backscatter and ice properties. With this improved understanding inversion models can be developed to retrieve roughness of the ice-water interface, this could be used to build other models to estimate ice thickness based on other remote sensing data. Additionally, insights into the impact of wet conditions on radar backscatter could prove useful in identifying unsafe ice locations

An auto-ethnography: Decolonising educational leadership in Aotearoa /New Zealand

This auto-ethnography examines how I, as the principal in an English-medium state secondary school in Aotearoa/New Zealand, hence forth referred to as Aotearoa, collaborated to transform the school culture, leading to improved outcomes for indigenous Māori students. By examining the transcripts of interviews between myself and external researchers, the key strategies and behaviours of decolonising and transformative leadership that led the transformation of a school culture and system, begin to be revealed. Imperative in addressing the long-term underachievement of Māori students as a result of colonisation is a framework for educational leaders to both challenge and transform a system, created through colonisation, that continues to underserve Māori students and whānau . The findings provide examples and tested guidelines for leaders to work within transformative spaces, created through a decolonising leadership framework. It provides a model of effective leadership utilising deliberate acts of decolonisation alongside partnerships of mana ōrite to transform negative systems and behaviours perpetuated by colonisation

A systematic review on the effectiveness of yoga for endometriosis-associated symptoms

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of Yoga on endometriosis-related symptoms: pain, quality of life (QoL), and mental health. Methods: Data Sources: PubMed, ScienceDirect, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane, ProQuest Central. Independent journals: International Journal of Women’s Health (IJoWH), Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (JoBMT), International Journal of Yoga (IJoY). All searched in March 2022. Study Selection: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs), comparative studies, and systematic reviews (SR) conducted interventions using Yoga and its effect on Primary Dysmenorrhea (PD), Secondary Dysmenorrhea (SD), Endometriosis, and Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP). Synthesis Method: This SR followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Included studies were assessed for methodology quality using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database Scale (PEDro). Search results reviewed, and selection using predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria. Research (PM) independently analysed and extracted data. Data was inputted into tabular form. Critical analysis of findings completed textually. Results: In total, 428 studies screened. 10 studies were selected for final evaluation involving 606 participants. Risk of bias assessment determined all were externally valid; with 2 studies of ‘fair’ quality, 3 studies of ‘good’ quality, and 5 studies of ‘excellent’ quality based on internal validity and statistical reporting. Conclusion(s): 10 Studies found Yoga to be effective in improving QoL and symptoms in endometriosis, PD and CPP. Implicating the need for conservative management guidelines to be updated incorporating yoga in physio-therapeutic management. More research is needed into the effect on stage of endometriosis as well as comparison to other conservative management techniques. Impact: Identifies movement therapy to be effective for dysmenorrhea management thereby indicating physiotherapy lead practice has the ability to aid severity of symptoms experienced and improve QoL. Further analysis is needed to differentiate symptoms verse disease staging, specific to endometriosis, highlighting a need for further research

Inorganic Nitrate Promotes Glucose Uptake and Oxidative Catabolism in White Adipose Tissue through the XOR Catalyzed Nitric Oxide Pathway

An ageing global population combined with sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diets has contributed to an increasing incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes. These metabolic disorders are associated with perturbations to nitric oxide (NO) signaling and impaired glucose metabolism. Dietary inorganic nitrate, found in high concentration in green leafy vegetables, can be converted to NO in vivo and demonstrates anti-diabetic and anti-obesity properties in rodents. Alongside tissues including skeletal muscle and liver, white adipose tissue is also an important physiological site of glucose disposal. However, the distinct molecular mechanisms governing the effect of nitrate on adipose tissue glucose metabolism, and the contribution of this tissue to the glucose tolerant phenotype, remain to be determined. Using a metabolomic and stable-isotope labeling approach, combined with transcriptional analysis, we found that nitrate increases glucose uptake and oxidative catabolism in primary adipocytes and white adipose tissue of nitrate-treated rats. Mechanistically, we determine that nitrate induces these phenotypic changes in primary adipocytes through the xanthine oxidoreductase catalysed reduction of nitrate to nitric oxide and independently of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor α. The nitrate-mediated enhancement of glucose uptake and catabolism in white adipose tissue may be a key contributor to the anti-diabetic effects of this anion

Metabolomics and Lipidomics Study of Mouse Models of Type 1 Diabetes Highlights Divergent Metabolism in Purine and Tryptophan Metabolism Prior to Disease Onset.

With the increase in incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1DM), there is an urgent need to understand the early molecular and metabolic alterations that accompany the autoimmune disease. This is not least because in murine models early intervention can prevent the development of disease. We have applied a liquid chromatography (LC-) and gas chromatography (GC-) mass spectrometry (MS) metabolomics and lipidomics analysis of blood plasma and pancreas tissue to follow the progression of disease in three models related to autoimmune diabetes: the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse, susceptible to the development of autoimmune diabetes, and the NOD-E (transgenic NOD mice that express the I-E heterodimer of the major histocompatibility complex II) and NOD-severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mouse strains, two models protected from the development of diabetes. All three analyses highlighted the metabolic differences between the NOD-SCID mouse and the other two strains, regardless of diabetic status indicating that NOD-SCID mice are poor controls for metabolic changes in NOD mice. By comparing NOD and NOD-E mice, we show the development of T1DM in NOD mice is associated with changes in lipid, purine, and tryptophan metabolism, including an increase in kynurenic acid and a decrease in lysophospholipids, metabolites previously associated with inflammation

Spreading the word: using film to share research findings and knowledge about children with disabilities in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea

While there is increasing international interest in disability inclusive development, people with disability largely remain ‘unseen, unheard and uncounted’ (UN ESCAP 2012:1). Children with disability, particularly, remain excluded from research informing development, and there is a paucity of information that is drawn directly from the self-report of children with disability living in developing countries. This exclusion occurs across all stages of research, including access to research findings. When child research is conducted in such countries, to gain further evidence to support disability inclusive development and advance human rights, researchers must question how findings will be reported back to participants and their communities, and seek a method that is both accessible and culturally relevant. This paper reports on the Voices of Pacific children with disability research project about the human rights of children with disability in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea (PNG), and focuses on film as a dissemination method. Project researchers developed methods to enhance the participation of children with diverse disabilities as informants, and drew upon community development principles to disseminate research findings via film; a method that resonated with the aural and visual story telling traditions of participants.This medium also included accessibility features that have been utilised by local and international audiences