3,365 research outputs found
The iPad - an EFL Revolution? An exploratory study of the iPad in tertiary education in the UAE
This thesis is under permanent embargo as it is an earlier version of the final thesis, which is available in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/122150ABSTRACT: TheāÆiPad: an EFLāÆclassroom revolution? The motivation for this study was the 2012 launch of the iPad as the de facto delivery platform for Foundations-level students at all public universities in the UAE, the largest nationwide adoption of the device anywhere in the world. Not only was this of interest in terms of scale, it was also of interest linguistically, English being the language of instruction at all public universities, despite their student body being almost exclusively indigenous Arab nationals. It also presented the opportunity to examine the marrying of a cutting-edge emerging technology with an EFL tertiary education context, an uncommon occurrence. Though eulogised by university management and the local press as an educational revolution, for some the iPad initiative was unusual, given the speed of its roll-out, lack of piloting or teacher training, and the linguistic level of most Foundations-level students. Thus, the objective of this thesis was to examine the device in both a pedagogical and socio-cultural context, and assess whether it was the educational panacea promised, or the result of a successful marketing strategy. It was also hoped to establish the iPadās worth in terms of educating the UAEās youth for successful integration into the knowledge economy, a key government Vison 2021 strategy. To address these issues, the research focus was on evaluations of the iPad by Foundations teaching faculty, at both a male and female campus at one of the UAEās public tertiary education institutions. A mixed methods approach was chosen, utilising both a questionnaire and interviews. The results revealed the iPad was regarded as a potentially useful supplementary pedagogic tool by faculty, although there were strong caveats regarding its sole use, its ability to distract, and its suitability for the level of student, as well as the larger knowledge economy. This thesis adds weight to observations already extant in the literature, but also provides new insights, such as specific iPad classroom use in terms of apps at tertiary level in an EFL context, and consequent training and support requirements. Though not a longitudinal study, it does provide a longer-term examination of the device than much of the germane literature. What the thesis further posits, is that to understand ambitious and untested educational projects like the iPad initiative in the UAE, it may be necessary to understand the larger socio-political context of the policies, rather than see such projects in a wholly educational framework
An exploratory study of the iPad in tertiary education in the UAE
An earlier version of this thesis is in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/122010. It is under permanent embargoABSTRACT: The iPad: an EFL classroom revolution? The motivation for this study was the 2012 launch of the iPad as the de facto delivery platform for Foundations-level students at all public universities in the UAE, the largest nationwide adoption of the device anywhere in the world. Not only was this of interest in terms of scale, it was also of interest linguistically, English being the language of instruction at all public universities, despite their student body being almost exclusively indigenous Arab nationals. It also presented the opportunity to examine the marrying of a cutting-edge emerging technology with an EFL tertiary education context, an uncommon occurrence. Though eulogised by university management and the local press as an educational revolution, for some the iPad initiative was unusual, given the speed of its roll-out, lack of piloting or teacher training, and the linguistic level of most Foundations-level students. Thus the objective of this thesis was to examine the device in both a pedagogical and socio-cultural context, and assess whether it was the educational panacea promised, or the result of a successful marketing strategy. It was also hoped to establish the iPadās worth in terms of educating the UAEās youth for successful integration into the knowledge economy, a key government Vison 2021 strategy. To address these issues, the research focus was on evaluations of the iPad by Foundations teaching faculty, at both a male and female campus at one of the UAEās public tertiary education institutions. A mixed methods approach was chosen, utilising both a questionnaire and interviews. The results revealed the iPad was regarded as a potentially useful supplementary pedagogic tool by faculty, although there were strong caveats regarding its sole use, its ability to distract, and its suitability for the level of student, as well as the larger knowledge economy. This thesis adds weight to observations already extant in the literature, but also provides new insights, such as specific iPad classroom use in terms of apps at tertiary level in an EFL context, and consequent training and support requirements. Though not a longitudinal study, it does provide a longer-term examination of the device than much of the germane literature. What the thesis further posits, is that to understand ambitious and untested educational projects like the iPad initiative in the UAE, it may be necessary to understand the larger socio-political context of the policies, rather than see such projects in a wholly educational framework
At Home in Narrative: The Kept Mistress in George Eliotās Daniel Deronda
This essay argues that in her novel Daniel Deronda, George Eliot offers her kept mistress character a compassionate context, integrates her into the narrative in a meaningful way, and locates her in the domestic space of a middle-class housewife. She thus performs an intervention on levels of both narrative structure and content that challenges conventional Victorian ideology and creates a new narrative for kept mistresses, who had previously been invisible in both nineteenth-century fiction and nonfiction.[1][1] I am grateful to Margaret Breen, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, and their readers for this opportunity, and for the generosity of Amy Schlag, Katherine Montwieler, Michelle Scatton-Tessier, Marissa Bolin, Susan McCaffray, and the British Womenās Writers Association and Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies communities
Contribution of the Primate Frontal Cortex to Eye Movements and Neuronal Activity in the Superior Colliculus
Humans and non-human primates must precisely align the eyes on an object to view it with high visual acuity. An important role of the oculomotor system is to generate accurate eye movements, such as saccades, toward a target. Given that each eye has only six muscles that rotate the eye in three degrees of freedom, this relatively simple volitional movement has allowed researchers to well-characterize the brain areas involved in their generation. In particular, the midbrain Superior Colliculus (SC), is recognized as having a primary role in the generation of visually-guided saccades via the integration of sensory and cognitive information.
One important source of sensory and cognitive information to the SC is the Frontal Eye Fields (FEF). The role of the FEF and SC in visually-guided saccades has been well-studied using anatomical and functional techniques, but only a handful of studies have investigated how these areas work together to produce saccades. While it is assumed that the FEF exerts its influence on saccade generation though the SC, it remains unknown what happens in the SC when the FEF is suddenly inactivated. To test this prediction, I use the combined approach of FEF cryogenic inactivation and SC neuronal recordings, although it also provides a valuable opportunity to understand how FEF inputs to the SC govern saccade preparation. Nonetheless, it was first necessary to characterize the eye movement deficits following FEF inactivation, as it was unknown how a large and reversible FEF inactivation would influence saccade behaviour, or whether cortical areas influence fixational eye movements (e.g. microsaccades).
Four major results emerged from this thesis. First, FEF inactivation delayed saccade reaction times (SRT) in both directions. Second, FEF inactivation impaired microsaccade generation and also selectively reduced microsaccades following peripheral cues. Third, FEF inactivation decreased visual, cognitive, and saccade-related activity in the ipsilesional SC. Fourth, the delayed onset of saccade-related SC activity best explained SRT increases during FEF inactivation, implicating one mechanism for how FEF inputs govern saccade preparation. Together, these results provide new insights into the FEF\u27s role in saccade and microsaccade behaviour, and how the oculomotor system commits to a saccade
Biomedical applications team tasks
The status of the biomedical applications team is discussed along with its activity in applications engineering. Various technology requests are summarized
An examination of the precipitation delivery mechanisms for Dolleman Island, eastern Antarctic Peninsula
Copyright @ 2004 Wiley-BlackwellThe variability of size and source of significant precipitation events were studied at an Antarctic ice core drilling site: Dolleman Island (DI), located on the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Significant precipitation events that occur at DI were temporally located in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) reanalysis data set, ERA-40. The annual and summer precipitation totals from ERA-40 at DI both show significant increases over the reanalysis period. Three-dimensional backwards air parcel trajectories were then run for 5 d using the ECMWF ERA-15 wind fields. Cluster analyses were performed on two sets of these backwards trajectories: all days in the range 1979ā1992 (the climatological time-scale) and a subset of days when a significant precipitation event occurred. The principal air mass sources and delivery mechanisms were found to be the Weddell Sea via lee cyclogenesis, the South Atlantic when there was a weak circumpolar trough (CPT) and the South Pacific when the CPT was deep. The occurrence of precipitation bearing air masses arriving via a strong CPT was found to have a significant correlation with the southern annular mode (SAM); however, the arrival of air masses from the same region over the climatological time-scale showed no such correlation. Despite the dominance in both groups of back trajectories of the westerly circulation around Antarctica, some other key patterns were identified. Most notably there was a higher frequency of lee cyclogenesis events in the significant precipitation trajectories compared to the climatological time-scale. There was also a tendency for precipitation trajectories to come from more northerly latitudes, mostly from 50ā70Ā°S. The El NiƱo Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was found to have a strong influence on the mechanism by which the precipitation was delivered; the frequency of occurrence of precipitation from the east (west) of DI increased during El NiƱo (La NiƱa) events
Mind the Gap
BackgroundRecent analysis has demonstrated a remarkably consistent, nonlinear relationship between estimated inhaled dose of combustion particles measured as PM(2.5) (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ā¤ 2.5 Āµm) and cardiovascular disease mortality over several orders of magnitude of dose--from cigarette smoking, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure, and ambient air pollution exposure.ObjectivesHere we discuss the implications of this relationship and point out the gaps in our knowledge that it reveals.DiscussionThe nonlinear exposure-response relationship that is revealed-much steeper at lower than at higher doses-explains the seemingly inconsistent risks observed from ambient air pollution and cigarette smoking but also raises important questions about the relative benefits of control at different points along the curve. This analysis also reveals a gap in the evidence base along the dose-response curve between ETS and active smoking, which is the dose range experienced by half the world's population from indoor biomass and coal burning for cooking and heating.ConclusionsThe shape of the exposure-response relationship implies much larger public health benefits of reductions at the lower end of the dose spectrum (e.g., from reductions in outdoor air pollution) than from reducing the rate of active smoking, which seems counterintuitive and deserving of further study because of its importance for control policies. In addition, given the potential risks and consequent global disease burden, epidemiologic studies are urgently needed to quantify the cardiovascular risks of particulate matter exposures from indoor biomass burning in developing countries, which lie in the dose gap of current evidence
Planck Observations of M33
We have performed a comprehensive investigation of the global integrated flux
density of M33 from radio to ultraviolet wavelengths, finding that the data
between 100 GHz and 3 THz are accurately described by a single modified
blackbody curve with a dust temperature of = 21.670.30 K
and an effective dust emissivity index of = 1.350.10,
with no indication of an excess of emission at millimeter/sub-millimeter
wavelengths. However, sub-dividing M33 into three radial annuli, we found that
the global emission curve is highly degenerate with the constituent curves
representing the sub-regions of M33. We also found gradients in
and across the disk of M33, with both
quantities decreasing with increasing radius. Comparing the M33 dust emissivity
with that of other Local Group members, we find that M33 resembles the
Magellanic Clouds rather than the larger galaxies, i.e., the Milky Way and M31.
In the Local Group sample, we find a clear correlation between global dust
emissivity and metallicity, with dust emissivity increasing with metallicity. A
major aspect of this analysis is the investigation into the impact of
fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) on the integrated flux
density spectrum of M33. We found that failing to account for these CMB
fluctuations would result in a significant over-estimate of
by 5 K and an under-estimate of by 0.4.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
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