Brief report: self-compassion, physical health and the mediating role of health-promoting behaviours

To test the hypothesis that self-compassion predicts better physical health and that this is partially mediated through health-promoting behaviours, 147 adults completed self-report measures of self-compassion, health-promoting behaviours and physical health. Self-compassion and health-promoting behaviours were negatively associated with physical symptom scores. Self-compassion was positively associated with health-promoting behaviours. A bootstrapped mediation model confirmed a significant direct effect of self-compassion on physical health through health-promoting behaviours (R(2) = 0.13, b = -8.98, p = 0.015), which was partially mediated through health-promoting behaviours (R(2) = 0.06, b = -3.16, 95 per cent confidence interval [-6.78, -0.86]). Findings underscore the potential health-promoting benefits of self-compassion.non

Adamawa primary education research: final report

No description supplie

Adamawa primary education research: executive summary

No description supplie

The female teacher trainee scholarship scheme: operational research study for UNICEF Girls Education Project Phase 3 (GEP3)

No description supplie

Education and work: children’s lives in rural sub-Saharan Africa

This paper proposes a dynamic conceptual framework – the edu-workscape – for understanding how rural children in sub-Saharan Africa navigate three key gendered social arenas: the household, school and workplaces. Focusing on school, in particular, the paper highlights the violence, harm and labour that occur there, and argues that learning, work and harm co-exist across all three institutional domains, and in context, and should therefore be considered holistically

Troubled spaces: negotiating school–community boundaries in northern Nigeria

Community participation is a vital component of the educational decentralisation policies that are now widespread in Nigeria. In this paper, we explore school–community relations in different localities in northern Nigeria, where there is both very little inter-generational experience of schooling and minimal engagement by local communities in social and political management processes. Drawing on ethnographic data in and around six primary schools in Adamawa State, northern Nigeria, we problematise school–community relations and highlight the complexities and tensions in their social interactions. This we do by focusing on the school boundary that both connects and distinguishes it from the surrounding community. In particular, we explore the agonistic spatial and temporal regulation that operates at the school boundary, with specific attention to the different ways that students, teachers and the community comply or resist such strategies of governmentality. In concluding, we argue that it is imperative to think through the implications for/of international education and development policies as they are launched in diverse localities. This would help to avoid accounts of local deficit that are so readily invoked when top-down policies reach communities

Analyzing student travel patterns with augmented data visualizations

Visualization and visual analytics tools can provide critical support for experts and stakeholders to understand transportation flows and related human activities. Correlating and representing quantitative data with data from human actors can provide explanations for patterns and anomalies. We conducted research to compare and contrast the capabilities of several tools available for visualization and decision support as a part of an integrated urban informatics and visualization research project that develops tools for transportation planning and decision making. For this research we used the data collected by the StudentMoveTO (Toronto) survey which was conducted in the fall of 2015 by Toronto's four universities with the goal of collecting detailed data to understand travel behaviour and its effect on the daily routines of the students. This paper discusses the usefulness of new software which can allow designers to build meaningful narratives integrating 3D representations to assist in Geo-spatial analysis of the data

Structural characterization of a hypothetical protein: a potential agent involved in trimethylamine metabolism in Catenulispora acidiphila

Catenulispora acidiphila is a newly identified lineage of actinomycetes that produces antimicrobial activities and represents a promising source of novel antibiotics and secondary metabolites. Among the discovered protein coding genes, 68 % were assigned a putative function, while the remaining 32 % are genes encoding “hypothetical” proteins. Caci_0382 is one of the “hypothetical” proteins that has very few homologs. Sequence analysis shows that the protein belongs to the NTF2-like protein family. The structure of Caci_0382 demonstrates that it shares the same fold and has a similar active site as limonene-1,2-epoxide hydrolase, which suggests that it may have a related function. Using a fluorescence thermal shift assay, we identified stabilizing compounds that suggest potential natural ligands of Caci_0382. Using this information, we determined the crystal structure in complex with trimethylamine to provide a better understanding of the function of this uncharacterized protein. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10969-014-9176-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Becoming a teacher: experiences of female trainees in initial teacher education in northern Nigeria

This article foregrounds the experiences of female trainees on a scholarship programme for initial teacher education aimed at increasing the numbers of qualified female teachers from rural northern Nigeria, and boosting female pupil enrolments. Challenging conditions in colleges of education, including curricular shortcomings, overcrowding, limited resources and inadequate learning support were compounded by non-academic factors – especially financial, and gendered constraints. Collectively, they threatened student retention, learning and attainment, and the programme’s gender equity goals. Findings highlight the need to move beyond increasing numbers of female student-teachers, to improving quality in teacher education, paying attention to out-of-college conditions too