Making academia more accessible

Academia can be a challenging place to work and academics who have a disability, neurodiversity or chronic illness are further disadvantaged, as non-stereotypical ways of working are not necessarily supported or catered for. The remit of this paper is to provide practical ideas and recommendations to address accessibility issues in events and conferences as a first step to improving existing working conditions. We start with providing a brief overview of and background to the issues of ableism, disabilities, chronic illnesses and neurodiversities in academia. We then offer a detailed description of the organisational and developmental strategies relating to the Ableism in Academia conference to practically demonstrate how accessibility can be achieved. Despite vast literature available on theorisations of reasonable adjustments and some individual handbooks on conference accessibility, noted the absence of a systematic write-up of a case study that would demonstrate the thought processes required for the organisation of a fully accessible and inclusive event. This paper provides almost a step-by-step rationale and rundown of the decisions that had to be taken in order to facilitate an accessible event. After a brief consideration of challenges we encountered along the way, we share personal reflections regarding the event and future developments

Embodied reflection ‐ exploring creative routes to teaching reflective practice within dance training

This article draws from a collaboration between Rambert School of Dance, University of Kent, University College London Institute of Education and an anthropological filmmaker. Together we took a creative and embodied approach to teaching reflective practice within a conservatoire to second-year dance students. In this article, we explore where this somatically inspired pedagogy sits within dance training. We discuss the nature of reflection for dance training, and in particular consider embodied reflective practice. Finally we offer effective methodologies for drawing out and capturing embodied practice

Fronto-striatal cognitive deficits at different stages of Parkinson's disease

Groups of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, either medicated or unmedicated, were compared with matched groups of normal controls on a computerized battery previously shown to be sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction, including tests of planning, spatial working memory and attentional set-shifting. In a series of problems based on the 'Tower of London' test, medicated patients with Parkinson's disease were shown to be impaired in the amount of time spent thinking about (planning) the solution to each problem. Additionally, an impairment in terms of the accuracy of the solution produced on this test was only evident in those patients with more severe clinical symptoms and was accompanied by deficits in an associated test of spatial short-term memory. Medicated patients with both mild and severe clinical symptoms were also impaired on a related test of spatial working memory. In contrast, a group of patients who were unmedicated and 'early in the course' of the disease were unimpaired in all three of these tests. However, all three Parkinson's disease groups were impaired in the test of attentional set-shifting ability, although unimpaired in a test of pattern recognition which is insensitive to frontal lobe damage. These data are compared with those previously published from a group of young neurosurgical patients with localized excisions of the frontal lobes and are discussed in terms of the specific nature of the cognitive deficit at different stages of Parkinson's disease

Embodied Reflection: Exploring somatic narratives within dance training

This article draws from a collaboration between Rambert School of Dance, University of Kent, University College London Institute of Education and an anthropological filmmaker. Together we took a creative and embodied approach to teaching reflective practice within a conservatoire to second-year dance students. In this article, we explore where this somatically inspired pedagogy sits within dance training. We discuss the nature of reflection for dance training, and in particular consider embodied reflective practice. Finally we offer effective methodologies for drawing out and capturing embodied practice

Another Leigh-Strassler deformation through the Matrix model

In here the matrix model approach, by Dijkgraaf and Vafa, is used in order to obtain the effective superpotential for a certain deformation of N=4 SYM discovered by Leigh and Strassler. An exact solution to the matrix model Lagrangian is found and is expressed in terms of elliptic functions.Comment: 15 pages,2 figure

On the Z_2 Monopole of Spin(10) Gauge Theories

An "expanded" description is introduced to examine the spinor-monopole identification proposed by Strassler for four-dimensional $\cal N$ = 1 supersymmetric Spin(10) gauge theories with matter in F vector and N spinor representations. It is shown that a Z_2 monopole in the "expanded" theory is associated with massive spinors of the Spin(10) theory. For N=2, two spinor case, we confirm this identification by matching the transformation properties of the two theories under SU(2) flavor symmetry. However, for N $\ge$ 3, the transformation properties are not matched between the spinors and the monopole. This disagreement might be due to the fact that the SU(N) flavor symmetry of the Spin(10) theory is partially realized as an SU(2) symmetry in the "expanded" theory.Comment: 16 pages, LaTex, no figur

More on Chiral-Nonchiral Dual Pairs

Expanding upon earlier work of Pouliot and Strassler, we construct chiral magnetic duals to nonchiral supersymmetric electric theories based upon SO(7), SO(8) and SO(9) gauge groups with various numbers of vector and spinor matter superfields. Anomalies are matched and gauge invariant operators are mapped within each dual pair. Renormalization group flows along flat directions are also examined. We find that confining phase quantum constraints in the electric theories are recovered from semiclassical equations of motion in their magnetic counterparts when the dual gauge groups are completely Higgsed.Comment: 25 pages, harvmac and tables macros, 1 figur

Massive higher spins and holography

We review recent progress towards the understanding of higher spin gauge symmetry breaking in AdS space from a holographic vantage point. According to the AdS/CFT correspondence, N=4 SYM theory at vanishing coupling constant should be dual to a theory in AdS which exhibits higher spin gauge symmetry enhancement. When the SYM coupling is non-zero, all but a handful of HS currents are violated by anomalies, and correspondingly local higher spin symmetry in the bulk gets spontaneously broken. In agreement with previous results and holographic expectations, we find that, barring one notable exception (spin 1 eating spin 0), the Goldstone modes responsible for HS symmetry breaking in AdS have non-vanishing mass even in the limit in which the gauge symmetry is restored. We show that spontaneous breaking a' la Stueckelberg implies that the mass of the relevant spin s'=s-1 Goldstone field is exactly the one predicted by the correspondence.Comment: 8 pages, talk presented by M.B. at the "Fourth Meeting on Constrained Dynamics and Quantum gravity" held in Cala Gonone (Sardinia, Italy), September 12-16, 200

Exact Superpotentials in Four Dimensions

Supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions can display interesting non-perturbative phenomena. Although the superpotential dynamically generated by these phenomena can be highly nontrivial, it can often be exactly determined. We discuss some general techniques for analyzing the Wilsonian superpotential and demonstrate them with simple but non-trivial examples.Comment: 32 pages, RU-94-2

Dual Descriptions of SO(10) SUSY Gauge Theories with Arbitrary Numbers of Spinors and Vectors

We examine the low energy structure of N=1 supersymmetric SO(10) gauge theory with matter chiral superfields in N_Q spinor and N_f vector representations. We construct a dual to this model based upon an SU(N_f+2N_Q-7) x Sp(2N_Q-2) gauge group without utilizing deconfinement methods. This product theory generalizes all previously known Pouliot-type duals to SO(N_c) models with spinor and vector matter. It also yields large numbers of new dual pairs along various flat directions. The dual description of the SO(10) theory satisfies multiple consistency checks including an intricate renormalization group flow analysis which links it with Seiberg's duality transformations. We discuss its implications for building grand unified theories that contain all Standard Model fields as composite degrees of freedom.Comment: 36 pages, harvmac and tables macros, 1 figur