477 research outputs found

    Beneath Brooklyn’s Darkened Skies, Court Continues Long Into the Night

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    Tens of thousands of people who pass annually through New York’s criminal justice system via night court in Brooklyn. In these eight hours, the administration of justice slows and the human foundation of this bureaucracy is on display as the court works into the night. http://www.emilieruscoe.com/night-court

    Pre-adulthood developmental psycho-social influences behind women becoming engineers in contemporary Australia

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    This study explored the pre-adulthood development of female engineers with a focus on influences behind their career choice. Pre-adulthood encompasses the ages 0. to 23 and includes all development prior to settling on a career (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, & McKee, 1979). ,This area of study derives its importance from the continuing low proportion of women in engineering (9.6%; Kaspura, 2009), the gender bias that this may indicate (Burke & Mattis, 2007), and the benefits of increasing the number of women• in engineering (Engineers Australia, 20 I 0). A phenomenological methodology was applied, utilising semi-structured interviews with 10 female graduate, engineers aged 22 to 25 who had completed primary, secondary, and tertiary education ih Australia. Content analysis revealed several potential influences behind career choice for these women, some of which do not appear in the literature. Potential influences included playing with Lego and blocks in childhood, gender bias from students at school and university, compatibility with perceived male culture, female nerd status at school, a male propensity to swear more than females interfering with facilitative male-female relationships, and anticipated lack of family-flexibility in engineering careers. These potential influences on career choice may highlight aspects of pre-adulthood and engineering in Australia that warrant further investigation and may be useful for increasing the proportion of women in engineering and reducing gender bia

    Agricultural impacts on plant beneficial pseudomonads

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    The soil microbiome is a dynamic and complex environment that offers numerous ecosystem services. Beneficial Pseudomonas spp. are agriculturally relevant bacteria with a plethora of plant growth promoting (PGP) traits, making them desirable targets for microbial inoculant development. Microbial inoculants have typically failed to produce reliable results, which can be attributed to the introduction of microbes into ecologically unsuitable environments. Its therefore important to better understand factors that can alter Pseudomonas spp. community structure and functioning. Crop domestication and land management have both played important roles in the development of agriculture over the last 10,000 years, however they have been associated with negative impacts on the soil microbiome. Here, the impacts of these agricultural components on soil pseudomonads was investigated. The study of 17 domesticated and ancestral wheat genotypes cultivated in a grassland soil revealed no clear difference in pseudomonad community structure within rhizosphere or bulk soil. The Highfield experiment at Rothamsted Research tests the impact of land management and revealed various impacts to soil properties, wheat physiology and total microbial abundance across grassland, arable and bare fallow managed soils. However, pseudomonad abundance was not found to significantly differ in bulk soil and rhizosphere communities. Additional studies looking at the more closely associated root compartment of wheat grown in soils from distinct land uses, revealed differences in abundance and phylogeny of cultivated pseudomonads. A range of PGP genetic and functional potentials including siderophore production, anti-fungal activity and phosphate solubilisation differed in isolates according to land use. The presence of the 1-Aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase gene (acdS) was of particular interest, due to its potential to reduce levels of stress ethylene in plants by degrading its precursor ACC. Intriguingly, acdS gene abundance, phylogeny and functional activity appeared to differ in pseudomonads associated with the different land uses. The rhizosphere and root compartments of wheat had a higher acdS gene abundance, particularly in the bare fallow soil which is known to have degraded soil properties. This suggests factors associated with wheat grown in different land managements were driving the selection of ACC deaminase producing pseudomonads. In vitro attempts to promote wheat growth under salt stress by applying ACC deaminase-containing isolates was not successful. Overall this thesis evidences the functional potential of pseudomonads for use in microbial inoculants, whilst providing an insight into the complexity of soil-plant-microbe interactions

    Southern Sting Nematode (Ibipora lolii) on Turf Grass in Western Australia

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    Prying the Bond that Ties; Breaking Variations in Nuclear Capabilities from Changes in Strategic Stability

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    Do variations in state nuclear capabilities drive changes in strategic stability? The importance of strategic stability’s causal relationship with nuclear capabilities is impossible to overstate, given the bulk of Cold War scholarship. Viewed broadly, strategic stability is the degree of mutual deterrence from war between potential adversaries. Since the close of World War II, tomes of research from scholars and practitioners alike have frequently coupled variations in nuclear capabilities with changes in strategic stability, treating the two conditions as if they existed in a mutually dependent relationship. The results of the present research show that this unconditional causal relationship does not exist. To determine the existence of the tight coupling of nuclear capabilities with strategic stability that scholarship has suggested, the present research examines case studies in which strategic stability changed in a dyadic state system where both sides had nuclear capabilities. Early in the Cold War, any changes in nuclear capabilities should have driven changes in strategic stability as the United States and Soviet Union fought to develop and field ever larger atomic arsenals. Throughout the 1950s and for most of the 1960s, the United States constructed atomic dominance, which afforded the government an opportunity to obtain strategic stability by denying the Soviet Union the ability to strike back if hit first. However, the Soviet Union built more significant nuclear capabilities and, in the late 1960s, American dominance waned. This enabled each side to achieve second-strike capabilities, breaking the capability–stability causal relationship. The case studies reported as part of this research detail events that occurred between 1957 and 1967, centered on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, a time when the causal relationship between nuclear capabilities and strategic stability should have been at its strongest. Viewed from the perspective of escalation theory, changes in strategic stability represent both positive and negative adjustments in dyadic state relations relative to dyadic state war. The results of this research apply to all existing nuclear dyads, making early Cold War dyadic state relationships relevant in the here and now. Advancing my claim further, any time that technological innovations of war have the potential to cause dyadic state strategic instability, this research shows that the causal factors of dyadic states driving toward and away from war will remain varied and not reliant on any singular weapon or capability. Through the examination of these cases, I present the argument that nuclear capabilities are sometimes sufficient to cause changes in strategic stability, but are not a necessary component

    Dialogic Drawing: A method for researching abstract phenomenon in early childhood

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    This article explores the theoretical, ethical, and practical opportunities and constraints considered in the methodological design and use of Dialogic Drawing, a participatory method for accessing qualitative data with young children. The method was designed to gather data about abstract phenomena from young children, as part of a larger study investigating the impact of discursive affordances in the first year of compulsory school in Western Australia. Methodological findings are reported from the application of Dialogic Drawing with 28 five-year-old children from diverse school-based semiotic landscapes in the Perth metropolitan area in Western Australia. Three strands of analysis are described and critiqued: drawn product, drawing process, and approach to drawing. Thematic analysis of drawn visual schema, dialog and embodied behaviours highlights the potential reach of Dialogic Drawing for interdisciplinary research significant to early childhood. The participating children revealed they perceive drawing as the child\u27s domain, endorsing Dialogic Drawing as a relevant and accessible method with capacity to gain untapped information significant to qualitative researchers seeking to elicit the authentic perspectives of children

    Transforming transitions to school: Using funds of knowledge and identity

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    This resource describes a project where ten Western Australian Independent Schools embraced a way of viewing children and their family’s transition to school. Participating teachers came together as a community of practice and engaged in different ways of thinking and investigating accepted practice.Transition practices were affirmed or challenged as teachers were mentored through design-based thinking. Transition ideas were explored focussing on children’s funds of knowledge and identity. This resource outlines why transitions are important, considers transitions through a funds of knowledge and identity lens, and describes each school’s journey as they re-imagined transitions in this project. Finally, the ideas and strategies that supported the adoption of new practices to affirm a child-centred approach to transition are described..

    Reflective practice with teachers of early writers 2014: A professional learning research project for early childhood teachers

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    Reflective Practice with Teachers of Early Writers was a professional learning project that sought to develop teacher understanding and practice in relation to how young children learn to communicate through writing. The project, which was funded by the association of Independent Schools of Western Australia (AISWA), was a collaborative venture between AISWA and Edith Cowan University (ECU). It built on the success of the 2013 project, Creating Texts with 21st Century Early Learners in which teachers undertook an action research project to explore effective ways of facilitating early writing..
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