Kinematic structure for robust mechanical architectures in robotic planetary exploration

This paper describes new research into the kinematic structure of autonomous robotic systems, and into the associated design processes. The approach aims to develop novel insights and applicable tools and techniques for designing advanced mechanical architectures for planetary exploration systems. These should provide enhanced functionality for tackling complex autonomous operations, and improved levels of robustness in the face of the inevitable system faults

Toward a pedagogy for professional noticing: Learning through observation

A necessary skill that underpins all professional practice is noticing that which is salient. Noticing can be learned directly and indirectly through a variety of campus-based and placement activities. This paper suggests that developing a capacity for noticing is under conceptualised and underdeveloped in courses preparing students for the professions. It discusses three aspects of noticing: noticing in context, noticing of significance and noticing learning, and explores the use of these through a case study of simulation in nursing education. The case study points to the importance of close attention to the circumstances in which noticing can be fostered and, in doing so, points toward the potential of developing a pedagogy of professional noticing

(Semi)Public Places, Practices and Pedagogy

Rather than being banal and uninteresting, Western women’s public toilets may be seen as educational spaces. While prolific in number and usage, they have typically escaped research attention. This paper argues that the common inclusion of toilet texts in these places renders them not only interesting but also worthy of inclusion in accounts of public pedagogies. The paper draws attention to the pedagogical voices that occupy the ostensible privacy of places like toilets. It does so by discussing a collection of toilet texts using the entangled concepts of place, practice and pedagogy. Overall, the paper demonstrates how the texts act as proxy for absent pedagogues who seek to disseminate particular knowledges and/or promote specific cultural practices, and in doing so it repositions women’s (semi)public toilets as richly pedagogical

States, Congress, \u3ci\u3eor\u3c/i\u3e the Courts: Who Will Be First to Reform ERISA Remedies?

Curtis Rooney\u27s article reviews the ERISA law and it relationship to managed care. The piece continues with a review of the relevant preermption provisions and a extentivsive discussion of related U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The author discusses malpractice and design liabilities. The article concludes with a discussion of reform initiatives directed toward the ERISA preemption and damage provisions

Enhancing students’ learning through simulation: dealing with diverse, large cohorts

As the field of health care simulation matures, new questions about appropriate pedagogy are emerging which present challenges to research and practices. This has implications for how we investigate and deliver effective simulations, how we conceive effectiveness, and how we make decisions about investment in simulation infrastructure. In this article, we explore two linked challenges that speak to these wider concerns: student diversity and large cohorts. We frame these within contemporary simulation practices and offer recommendations for research and practice that will account for students' varying cultural expectations about learning and clinical practice in the Australian context

Everyday learning at work: communities of practice in TAFE.

Ongoing restructuring, new types of students, changes in systems and the movement of staff within sections and institutes are only some of the daily challenges facing practitioners in many areas of TAFE as they grapple with the notion of organisational flexibility and customer responsiveness. This paper looks at how members of four workgroups based in two metropolitan institutes are dealing with challenges through informal learning. This paper draws from preliminary findings of an Australian Research Council collaborative research project concerned with determining the significance of informal learning and its contribution to organisational performance. The project is currently midway through and has completed interviews and held feedback sessions with members of four workgroups undertaking quite different types of work. While the project is based in an educational organisation, the major focus of the research project is on TAFE as a workplace. Wenger has written extensively on communities of practice and his work provides a new perspective for viewing learning occurring in workplaces (Wenger, 1998). This paper draws from Wenger’s theoretical work and views the four workgroups from the point of view of communities of practice. In doing so, it enables many of the everyday work practices of the workgroups to be articulated as ‘learning’. This offers potential for learning and development because it begins to foreground practices within TAFE that may foster informal learning environments and strengthen what is already occurring in these communities

Coupling the 1-D lake model FLake to the community land-surface model JULES

Results are presented from the merging of the lake model FLake into the community land-surface model JULES. It is shown, by comparison with observational data, that the combined JULES-FLake model performs more realistically than JULES with its original or upgraded parametrizations for inland water. Tests against observations from lakes in the UK and Sweden show that JULES-FLake gives results for both midlatitude and arctic lakes which are comparable to the original lake model, FLake. The accuracy of JULES-FLake as a general model of the land surface is therefore enhanced. Differences in sign of the model errors in the prediction of lake-ice thickness indicate possible future directions for development and testing of these models

Making space for consuming practices

This empirically driven paper is about workplace learning with specific focus on the ‘work’ of consuming practices. By consuming we refer to the eating, and the drinking, and (at times) to the smoking that workers, in most organisations, do on a daily basis. Indeed, it is the quotidian nature of consuming, coupled with its absence from workplace learning research that make them noteworthy practices to explore. In using the term practice we draw on the recent tranche of practice based theorisations: notably Schatzki (1996, Organization Studies, 26(3), 465-484, 2005, Organization Studies, 27(12), 1863-1873, 2006) and Gherardi (Human Relations, 54(1), 131-139, 2001, 2006, Learning Organization, 16(5), 352-359, 2009). The paper frames consuming practices as ‘dispersed’ (general) practices and, illustrated through empirical data from multiple projects, we progressively outline how these contribute to the learning of ‘integrative’ (specialized work) practices. Our overall aim is to (re)position consuming practices from prosaic, to having much relevance for research on workplace learning