Robert George Cameron : the First Professor of Education, at UWA 1927-1954

There has been much debate about the status of Education as a field of study within universities. In many circumstances the evidence suggests that there was hostility towards the inclusion of Education within the university curriculum. The fact that ‘teacher training was never accepted at the Universities of Sydney or Melbourne in the same manner as the professional training courses such as Medicine, Law or Engineering’ (Bessant and Holbrook, 1995. p.266) was a legacy of the association of teaching with the public service and apprenticeship training

The Construction Of Education as an Area of Study at Murdoch University: 1974-2003

This paper is concerned with the extent to which both structural and agency factors were at play in the establishment and maintenance of an innovative model of Education Studies at Murdoch University in Western Australia, from the mid 1970s to 2003. Regarding structural factors, the fact that the University was established as one of a number of ‘new’ universities on the national scene, with a brief to break out of the curricular traditions of the established universities, meant that there was latitude for the adoption of new curriculum structures in outlining the parameters of Education Studies. However, it required the agency of Brian Hill, the Foundation Professor of Education, to make this happen. The paper outlines how the nature of the model that eventuated was largely a transfer of models which Hill witnessed both in North America and within Australia and which he adapted to local conditions, seeking in the process to bring about what he considered to be an improved composite version based on his professional experience in a number of universities

What the Upper Atmospheres of Giant Planets Reveal

The upper atmospheres of the Giant Planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are transition regions between meteorological layers and outer space. As a result of their exceptionally rarefied nature, they are highly sensitive and therefore revealing probes of the forcing exerted both from above and below. This review provides an overview of these upper atmospheres and the major processes that take place within them, including their powerful auroras, the giant planet ‘energy crisis’ and the decay of Saturn’s rings into the planet. We discuss the many remote-sensing tools that have been used to understand them, for example, large ground-based observatories such as the Keck telescope, space-based observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and orbiters such as the Cassini spacecraft. Looking into the future, we discuss the possibilities afforded by the latest and next generation of observatories and space missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope

Ground-based observations of Saturn’s auroral ionosphere over three days:trends in H3+ temperature, density and emission with Saturn local time and planetary period oscillation

On 19–21 April 2013, the ground-based 10-m W.M. Keck II telescope was used to simultaneously measure View the MathML sourceH3+ emissions from four regions of Saturn’s auroral ionosphere: (1) the northern noon region of the main auroral oval; (2) the northern midnight main oval; (3) the northern polar cap and (4) the southern noon main oval. The View the MathML sourceH3+ emission from these regions was captured in the form of high resolution spectral images as the planet rotated. The results herein contain twenty-three View the MathML sourceH3+ temperatures, column densities and total emissions located in the aforementioned regions – ninety-two data points in total, spread over timescales of both hours and days. Thermospheric temperatures in the spring-time northern main oval are found to be cooler than their autumn-time southern counterparts by tens of K, consistent with the hypothesis that the total thermospheric heating rate is inversely proportional to magnetic field strength. The main oval View the MathML sourceH3+ density and emission is lower at northern midnight than it is at noon, in agreement with a nearby peak in the electron influx in the post-dawn sector and a minimum flux at midnight. Finally, when arranging the northern main oval View the MathML sourceH3+ parameters as a function of the oscillation period seen in Saturn’s magnetic field – the planetary period oscillation (PPO) phase – we see a large peak in View the MathML sourceH3+ density and emission at ∼115° northern phase, with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of ∼44°. This seems to indicate that the influx of electrons associated with the PPO phase at 90° is responsible at least in part for the behavior of all View the MathML sourceH3+ parameters. A combination of the View the MathML sourceH3+ production and loss timescales and the ±10° uncertainty in the location of a given PPO phase are likely, at least in part, to be responsible for the observed peaks in View the MathML sourceH3+ density and emission occurring at a later time than the peak precipitation expected at 90° PPO phase

Global upper-atmospheric heating on Jupiter by the polar aurorae

Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is considerably hotter than expected from the amount of sunlight that it receives1,2,3. Processes that couple the magnetosphere to the atmosphere give rise to intense auroral emissions and enormous deposition of energy in the magnetic polar regions, so it has been presumed that redistribution of this energy could heat the rest of the planet4,5,6. Instead, most thermospheric global circulation models demonstrate that auroral energy is trapped at high latitudes by the strong winds on this rapidly rotating planet3,5,7,8,9,10. Consequently, other possible heat sources have continued to be studied, such as heating by gravity waves and acoustic waves emanating from the lower atmosphere2,11,12,13. Each mechanism would imprint a unique signature on the global Jovian temperature gradients, thus revealing the dominant heat source, but a lack of planet-wide, high-resolution data has meant that these gradients have not been determined. Here we report infrared spectroscopy of Jupiter with a spatial resolution of 2 degrees in longitude and latitude, extending from pole to equator. We find that temperatures decrease steadily from the auroral polar regions to the equator. Furthermore, during a period of enhanced activity possibly driven by a solar wind compression, a high-temperature planetary-scale structure was observed that may be propagating from the aurora. These observations indicate that Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is predominantly heated by the redistribution of auroral energy

Asymmetric Ionospheric Jets in Jupiter's Aurora

Simultaneous infrared observations of (Formula presented.) and H2 emissions from Jupiter's northern aurora using the Near Infrared Spectrograph at Keck Observatory were used to measure the ionospheric and thermospheric wind velocities. (Formula presented.) ions supercorotate near the dawn auroral oval and subcorotate across the dusk sector and in the dawn polar region relative to the planetary rotation rate, broadly in agreement with past observations and models. An anticyclonic vortex is discovered in H2 flows, closely matching the mean magnetospheric subcorotation when the observed magnetospheric flows are averaged azimuthally. In comparing ion and neutral winds, we measure the line-of-sight effective ion drift in the neutral reference frame for the first time, revealing two blue-shifted sunward flows of ∼2 km/s. Observed (Formula presented.) and H2 emissions overlap with predictions of the Pedersen conductivity layer, suggesting two different regions of the ionosphere: (a) a deep layer, where neutral forces dominate the thermosphere and symmetric breakdown-in-corotation currents can close, and (b) a higher layer, where the observed effective ion drift allows dawn-to-dusk Pedersen currents within the upper atmosphere, in turn closing asymmetric currents within the magnetosphere. This ionospheric structure aligns well with recent Juno observations of Jupiter's aurora. The detected thermospheric vortex implies the driving of neutral flows by the momentum from the magnetosphere within the thermosphere and deeper in the atmosphere to potentially 20 mbar. Jovian neutral thermosphere might bridge the gap between current observations and modelings and perhaps be significant to the dynamics of aurora on Earth and other outer planets

Espacio, tiempo y educación

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónLa investigación indica una de las direcciones que podrían tomarse en relación con la investigación histórica sobre los maestros laicos en las escuelas católicas desde la década de 1940 hasta la actualidad. Primero, se propone analizar el trabajo historiográfico que se ha realizado sobre la historia de los profesores de manera más amplia. Una descripción general de lo que luego se considera el estatus oficial de los laicos y del maestro laico históricamente dentro de la Iglesia. Finalmente, un argumento para el uso de un enfoque de investigación de «historias de vida» para la generación de preguntas al investigar de la experiencia de ser profesor laico en las escuelas católicas. El enfoque es adecuado para «Investigación interna», en la que se centra la investigación de cuestiones que preocupan a los participantes, en lugar de perseguir preguntas preestablecidas de interés para el investigador y que generalmente surgen principalmente a partir de una lectura de la literatura de antecedentes relevantes únicamente.ES

Fast Alternating Direction Optimization Methods

Alternating direction methods are a common tool for general mathematical programming and optimization. These methods have become particularly important in the field of variational image processing, which frequently requires the minimization of nondifferentiable objectives. This paper considers accelerated (i.e., fast) variants of two common alternating direction methods: the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and the alternating minimization algorithm (AMA). The proposed acceleration is of the form first proposed by Nesterov for gradient descent methods. In the case that the objective function is strongly convex, global convergence bounds are provided for both classical and accelerated variants of the methods. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the superior performance of the fast methods for a wide variety of problems