Black Female Teachers in White-Dominated Educational Spaces: Narratives of Professional Identity

This study provides a narrative account of the experiences of 10 Black female teachers as they navigate white-dominated educational workspaces and explores how these experiences have shaped their professional identities. Very little research has focussed on Black female teachers’ professional identities specifically in England. This study therefore seeks to address the apparent gap, thus contributing to further understanding Black women as teachers, using Critical Race Theory in education and consciousness of Black feminist thought. The foundations of the two theories led to using narrative inquiry as the methodology. A semi-structured interview approach was used to elicit accounts from participants at various stages of their careers in a range of state-funded schools across England. The data were analysed through both theoretical lenses. Thematic analysis was undertaken to draw out commonalities of experiences to accumulate knowledge from the richness of individual stories. The findings suggested that participants experienced a number of oppressions in their schools, demonstrated through a lack of career progression, being perceived by white colleagues through stereotyped images of Black women and the impact of seeing unjust practices towards Black and minoritised learners. Despite this, participants held a positive view of themselves. They drew their ability to resist hegemonic stereotyped images from their parents’, particularly their fathers’ aspirations for them and their agency maintaining positive professional self-definitions. Further, they drew on an enhanced definition of Du Bois’ double consciousness, that of ‘Blackness’ and ‘gender’, for agentic action to drive for inclusive educational practices and to facilitate positive consequences, especially for minoritised children, their families and staff representation, whilst challenging normative stereotypes of Black women. This study found that participants held a unique experiential positionality in white-dominated school spaces, the implications of which provides a positive counter-narrative to encourage Black women to enter and remain in teaching. Further, it provides evidence of the impact of schools’ practices on their Black female workforce and a rationale for making positive cultural changes

Young men and women's talk about the emergence of the 'metrosexual' male.

Gender studies in South Africa, especially the understanding of masculinity, is still in its infancy and as such paucity in literature and qualitative studies is evident. This study was aimed at exploring how male and female university students talked about the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ male and the changes, if any, that masculinity has undergone. The rationale of this study is to therefore contribute to the growing understanding of the ‘metrosexual’ male and to try and bridge the gap between theoretical understandings of masculinity and the lived experiences of the South African population. The sample for this study consisted of eight University of Witwatersrand undergraduate students (four male and four female). . The research process involved each participant undergoing a semi structured interview, after which their talk around the ‘metrosexual’ male was analysed using discourse analysis. The researcher was interested in learning how the participants talked about current masculinity, the ‘metrosexual’ male, factors that are responsible for the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ male and finally the suggestion that masculinity is in crisis. The data suggests that whilst the ‘metrosexual’ is understood as being another form of masculinity, the suggestion of a crisis is questionable, as perhaps the so called crisis is created through people’s discourses as a means of repositioning masculinity and maintaining its inherent dominance. The ‘metrosexual’ male was therefore seen as a positioning of masculinity that implies freedom to explore without disrupting the hegemonic qualities of masculinity

A Legal System that Compromises Due Process and Promotes Organ Harvesting and Human Rights Abuse of Prisoners: A Case Study of China

On June 21, 1989, three men were executed in Shanghai two weeks after their arrests. The Xinhua News Agency reported that Bian Hanwu, Xu Guoming and Yan Xuerong were arrested, charged and convicted for sabotaging transportation. Upon rejection of their appeals by the Shanghai People’s High Court, they were executed. Again, Xinhua reported on January 26, 2003, the execution of Lobsang Dondrub, (who was found guilty of inciting a split in the country and illegally possessing firearms and ammunition), hours after his death sentence was approved by the Sichuan Province Higher People’s Court, despite an assurance to a US delegation that a thorough review of his sentence would have been undertaken. In the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC), the Death Penalty is utilized for many criminal offences apart from homicide and treason. As is indicated above, the speed at which executions occur raises concerns regarding violations of prisoners’ rights. The situation shows that the nature of the Chinese legal system serves to subvert justice by having prisoners executed by a compromise of due process

Genotype, Nitrogen and Harvest Management Effects on Switchgrass Production

Use of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) as a forage and feedstock species requires knowledge of fertilizer application rates and harvest timing to optimize yield and quality. Three experiments were conducted at the Brown Loam Branch Experiment Station, Raymond, MS to quantify nitrogen rates, harvest timing, and genotype effects on biomass, nutrient removal, chemical composition and ethanol yield. Dry matter yield varied with N rate, genotype, harvest frequency and timing. Yields among genotypes were: NF/GA992 = NF/GA001 (13.7 Mg ha-1) \u3e Alamo (11.6 Mg ha-1) \u3e Cave-in-Rock (6.1 Mg ha-1). A single (9.5 Mg ha-1) or two harvests annually (10.3 Mg ha-1) produced the greatest dry matter yield. As harvest frequency increased from three (7.3Mg ha-1) to six (5.9 Mg ha-1) harvests annually, yield decreased. There was an effect of N application on yield, but not at application rates greater than 80 kg ha-1. Nitrogen did not consistently affect tissue nutrient concentrations but more frequent harvests led to increased nutrient concentration. Nutrient removal responses to N application were mostly similar to the yield responses. Nitrogen use efficiency and recovery declined as N rate increased. Estimated ethanol yield averaged 162 L Mg-1 for Alamo, NF/GA001 and NF/GA992 . A single (2.4 kL ha-1) or 2 harvests annually (2.3 kL ha-1) produced the greatest ethanol production and was correlated with by biomass yield. Nutrient removal, N use efficiency, N recovery and ethanol production were related to biomass yields rather than chemical composition differences. The findings in this dissertation will enable a database on management effects on ethanol yield and composition, enhance current biomass models, facilitate improved management of feedstock production inputs and improve feasibility of alternative fuel development

Slurry-phase desulphurization of tyre derived oil using unsupported and supported alkaline earth metal oxides.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The global consumption of tyres continues to increase to meet industrial, commercial, and personal transportation needs, which means that more tyres reach end-of-life. There are various methods of dealing with waste tyres, such as shredding, incineration, landfill, pyrolysis, and rethreading. The pyrolysis of waste tyres can be used to produce alternative fuels. The main waste tyre pyrolysis products are tyre pyrolysis oil, non-condensable gases and char. Due to the composition of tyres, some unwanted components end up in tyre derived oil. These unwanted components are sulphur-containing compounds, metal and metalloid impurities, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Significant sulphur emissions such as sulphur oxides, sulphate particulate matter, and sulphur-containing compounds are released during the direct combustion of tyre derived oil. The sulphur emissions cause acid rain and environmental pollution that is harmful to human and animal health. As a result, many countries have enforced policies to minimize sulphur emissions. The study served the following purposes: (1) to identify and characterize high-value compounds within tyre derived oil to supplement existing literature for tyre derived oil as a potential replacement to conventional liquid fuels, (2) to synthesize and characterize supported alkaline earth metal oxides for desulphurization, (3) to desulphurize tyre derived oil using unsupported and supported alkaline earth metal oxides, and (4) to develop a mathematical model to describe the desulphurization results. The tyre derived oil was obtained from Mandini, a tyre pyrolysis company based in Alberton, Johannesburg. The GC-MS results showed that the tyre derived oil consists of a complex mixture of organic compounds, within the C5-C36 range. The main aromatic compounds found in the tyre derived oil were toluene (0.71 %), styrene (0.15 %), xylene (1.39 %), limonene (6.55 %), cymene (2.56 %) and benzothiazole (0.80 %). The high percentage of aromatics and naphthenic components make the tyre derived oil suitable as an alternative to conventional liquid fuels. The alkaline earth metal oxides of calcium, magnesium, and barium were chosen to desulphurize tyre derived oil. The silica-supported alkaline earth metal oxides were synthesized using the wet impregnation technique. The SEM-EDX analysis confirmed the presence of alkaline earth metal oxides on the surface of the silica particles. The untreated and treated tyre derived oil was analysed using a GC-PFDP to determine the performance of the alkaline earth metal oxides in terms of the total sulphur adsorbed. A 56.76 wt.% desulphurization was optimally achieved at a temperature of 240 oC for 30 min with a 0.0375 g/ml sorbent-to-oil ratio, using supported calcium oxide. The following sizes of silica gel were used for the invention: (1) silica gel with a 30 Å pore size and a 100-200 mesh particle size, (2) silica gel with a 60 Å pore size and a 35-60 mesh particle size, and (3) silica gel with a 150 Å pore size and a 35-60 mesh particle size. The desulphurization results, using supported alkaline earth metal oxides, suggested that pore diameter and mesh particle size do not significantly impact desulphurization for the operating conditions studied. Combining the supported alkaline earth metal oxides did not improve the desulphurization of the tyre derived oil at a temperature of 240 oC for 30 min with a 0.0125 g/ml sorbent-to-oil ratio. The balance between temperature, reaction time and sorbent-to-oil ratio provides the impetus for continued research into the combined effect of alkaline earth metal oxides for desulphurization

The Canada-Guyana medical education partnership: using videoconferencing to supplement post-graduate medical education among internal medicine trainees

Background: A Guyana-based, internal medicine (IM) post-graduate medical education program was established in 2013. However, lack of formal teaching sessions are barriers to the program’s success.Objective: To describe the partnership between the University of Calgary and the University of Guyana’s internal medicine residency programs (IMRP). This partnership was created to support the Guyana’s IM academic half-day and is characterized by mutually beneficial, resident-led videoconference teaching sessions.Methods: Calgary medical residents volunteered to create and present weekly teaching presentations to Guyanese residents via videoconference. Questionnaires were completed by Guyanese residents and provided to Calgary residents as feedback on their teaching and presentation skills. A similar survey was completed by Calgary residents.Lessons learned: Twenty-four videoconference teaching sessions were conducted over eight months with a total of 191 and 16 surveys completed by Guyana and Calgary residents, respectively. Over 92% of both Guyana and Calgary residents agreed that the sessions enhanced their learning and over 93% reported increased interest in becoming more involved in international collaborations. 88% of Calgary residents felt the sessions improved their teaching skills.Conclusion: The formation of a resident-led, videoconference teaching series is a mutually beneficial partnership for Canadian and Guyanese medical residents and fosters international collaboration in medical education.

Securinine, a Myeloid Differentiation Agent with Therapeutic Potential for AML

As the defining feature of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a maturation arrest, a highly desirable therapeutic strategy is to induce leukemic cell maturation. This therapeutic strategy has the potential of avoiding the significant side effects that occur with the traditional AML therapeutics. We identified a natural compound securinine, as a leukemia differentiation-inducing agent. Securinine is a plant-derived alkaloid that has previously been used clinically as a therapeutic for primarily neurological related diseases. Securinine induces monocytic differentiation of a wide range of myeloid leukemia cell lines as well as primary leukemic patient samples. Securinine\u27s clinical potential for AML can be seen from its ability to induce significant growth arrest in cell lines and patient samples as well as its activity in significantly impairing the growth of AML tumors in nude mice. In addition, securinine can synergize with currently employed agents such as ATRA and decitabine to induce differentiation. This study has revealed securinine induces differentiation through the activation of DNA damage signaling. Securinine is a promising new monocytic differentiation inducing agent for AML that has seen previous clinical use for non-related disorders

Decoding neural activity in sulcal and white matter areas of the brain to accurately predict individual finger movement and tactile stimuli of the human hand

Millions of people worldwide suffer motor or sensory impairment due to stroke, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, diabetes, and motor neuron diseases such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). A brain-computer interface (BCI), which links the brain directly to a computer, offers a new way to study the brain and potentially restore impairments in patients living with these debilitating conditions. One of the challenges currently facing BCI technology, however, is to minimize surgical risk while maintaining efficacy. Minimally invasive techniques, such as stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) have become more widely used in clinical applications in epilepsy patients since they can lead to fewer complications. SEEG depth electrodes also give access to sulcal and white matter areas of the brain but have not been widely studied in brain-computer interfaces. Here we show the first demonstration of decoding sulcal and subcortical activity related to both movement and tactile sensation in the human hand. Furthermore, we have compared decoding performance in SEEG-based depth recordings versus those obtained with electrocorticography electrodes (ECoG) placed on gyri. Initial poor decoding performance and the observation that most neural modulation patterns varied in amplitude trial-to-trial and were transient (significantly shorter than the sustained finger movements studied), led to the development of a feature selection method based on a repeatability metric using temporal correlation. An algorithm based on temporal correlation was developed to isolate features that consistently repeated (required for accurate decoding) and possessed information content related to movement or touch-related stimuli. We subsequently used these features, along with deep learning methods, to automatically classify various motor and sensory events for individual fingers with high accuracy. Repeating features were found in sulcal, gyral, and white matter areas and were predominantly phasic or phasic-tonic across a wide frequency range for both HD (high density) ECoG and SEEG recordings. These findings motivated the use of long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks (RNNs) which are well-suited to handling transient input features. Combining temporal correlation-based feature selection with LSTM yielded decoding accuracies of up to 92.04 ± 1.51% for hand movements, up to 91.69 ± 0.49% for individual finger movements, and up to 83.49 ± 0.72% for focal tactile stimuli to individual finger pads while using a relatively small number of SEEG electrodes. These findings may lead to a new class of minimally invasive brain-computer interface systems in the future, increasing its applicability to a wide variety of conditions

Case study: persistent recovery of hand movement and tactile sensation in peripheral nerve injury using targeted transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation

Peripheral nerve injury can lead to chronic pain, paralysis, and loss of sensation, severely affecting quality of life. Spinal cord stimulation has been used in the clinic to provide pain relief arising from peripheral nerve injuries, however, its ability to restore function after peripheral nerve injury have not been explored. Neuromodulation of the spinal cord through transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS), when paired with activity-based training, has shown promising results towards restoring volitional limb control in people with spinal cord injury. We show, for the first time, the effectiveness of targeted tSCS in restoring strength (407% increase from 1.79 ± 1.24 N to up to 7.3 ± 0.93 N) and significantly increasing hand dexterity in an individual with paralysis due to a peripheral nerve injury (PNI). Furthermore, this is the first study to document a persisting 3-point improvement during clinical assessment of tactile sensation in peripheral injury after receiving 6 weeks of tSCS. Lastly, the motor and sensory gains persisted for several months after stimulation was received, suggesting tSCS may lead to long-lasting benefits, even in PNI. Non-invasive spinal cord stimulation shows tremendous promise as a safe and effective therapeutic approach with broad applications in functional recovery after debilitating injuries