Participation Investigation: The Development of a Method for Working with Arts-Averse Adolescents

The therapist’s role in fostering engagement in art-making is an often-overlooked topic within the expressive therapies. Many individual clients and groups present as disinterested in art which can put the expressive therapist in a particularly challenging position with regards to working in their preferred methods. This paper investigates primary motivations and barriers to participation as they relate to adolescents presenting with behaviors that interfere with their academic success by delving into literature examining participation and relationship building. In an attempt to identify possible solutions that encourage engagement with the arts, four principles for the design of inclusive arts experientials are developed and implemented as two distinct arts experientials. Results show promise in the efficacy of a method by which the expressive therapist can work towards expanding their scope of practice to engage individuals and groups in the art making process

Toward a Transformative Criticality for Democratic Citizenship Education

This article uses a well-received recent text—Hess and McAvoy’s The Political Classroom—to suggest that democratic citizenship education today has a social accountability problem. I locate this discussion in the context of a longstanding conflict between the critical thinking approach to democratic citizenship education, the approach typified by The Political Classroom, and the critical pedagogical approach, which has an equal but opposite problem, that of indoctrination. If democratic citizenship educators are truly interested in transforming the social order, I suggest, then we need to listen appreciatively, and respond thoughtfully, to critiques of the approach we favor. The article ends by outlining a possible way forward, by means of a concept I term “transformative criticality.” I suggest that such an approach to criticality is enacted in another well-received recent volume in the field, Stitzlein’s Teaching for Dissent

Tunable operation of a gain-switched diode laser by nonresonant self-injection seeding

In this letter, we report tunable operation of a gain-switched diode laser by nonresonant self-injection seeding from an uncoated glass slide used as an external cavity reflector. A spectral linewidth reduction from 11 to 0.05 nm has been achieved for picosecond pulses with little effect on other laser characteristics. Good agreement with numerical simulations based on a compound-cavity laser model is also reported

Nonresonant self-injection seeding of a gain-switched diode laser

We demonstrate step-tunable single-mode operation of a gain-switched diode laser by nonresonant self-injection seeding from an uncoated glass slide used as an external cavity reflector. A spectral bandwidth reduction from 11 mn to 0.05 nm and wavelength tunability has been achieved for picosecond (near-transform-limited) pulses with little effect on other laser characteristics. Good agreement with numerical simulations based on a compound-cavity laser model is also reported

Ultrafast electroabsorption dynamics in an InAs quantum dot saturable absorber at 1.3 mu m

The authors report a direct measurement of the absorption dynamics in an InAs p-i-n ridge waveguide quantum dot modulator. The carrier escape mechanisms are investigated via subpicosecond pump-probe measurements at room temperature, under reverse bias conditions. The optical pulses employed are degenerate in wavelength with the quantum dot ground state transition at 1.28 mu m. The absorption change recovers with characteristic times ranging from 62 ps (0 V) to similar to 700 fs (-10 V), showing a decrease of nearly two orders of magnitude. The authors show that at low applied fields, this recovery is attributed to thermionic emission while for higher applied fields, tunneling becomes the dominant mechanism. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.</p

Optical trapping with "on-demand" two-photon luminescence using Cr:LiSAF laser with optically addressed saturable Bragg reflector

We demonstrate a diode-pumped Cr:LiSAF laser with controllable and reliable fast switching between its continuous-wave and mode-locked states of operation using an optically-addressed semiconductor Bragg reflector, permitting dyed microspheres to be continuously trapped and monitored using a standard microscope imaging and on-demand two-photon-excited luminescence techniques

A Raman spectroscopy bio-sensor for tissue discrimination in surgical robotics

We report the development of a fiber-based Raman sensor to be used in tumour margin identification during endoluminal robotic surgery. Although this is a generic platform, the sensor we describe was adapted for the ARAKNES (Array of Robots Augmenting the KiNematics of Endoluminal Surgery) robotic platform. On such a platform, the Raman sensor is intended to identify ambiguous tissue margins during robot-assisted surgeries. To maintain sterility of the probe during surgical intervention, a disposable sleeve was specially designed. A straightforward user-compatible interface was implemented where a supervised multivariate classification algorithm was used to classify different tissue types based on specific Raman fingerprints so that it could be used without prior knowledge of spectroscopic data analysis. The protocol avoids inter-patient variability in data and the sensor system is not restricted for use in the classification of a particular tissue type. Representative tissue classification assessments were performed using this system on excised tissue

Ascertainment, prediction and implications of dementia diagnosis in a study of 'healthy' cognitive ageing: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921

In the context of an ageing global population, dementia poses a significant public health challenge. While there is no cure, understanding the risks for dementia and how these may be minimised is key to reducing the impact of the disease. As life expectancy improves, increasing proportions of the population are expected to survive into advanced old age. As such, understanding the risks for dementia in the oldest-old and how these may differ from earlier old age is of increasing importance. The existing literature specific to the oldest-old is lower in volume and many of the findings are inconsistent. The first two chapters provide a background to the thesis such that the reader may understand the context for the subsequent studies. The first of these chapters provides an overview of dementia, focussing on the impact of the disease and the requirement for further research. The concept of the oldest-old age group is described, along with a discussion regarding the complexities associated with studying those in advanced old age. The potential impact of diverse and complex health and disease profiles in this sector of the population are introduced. The thesis objectives are introduced within the text and summarised at the close of the chapter. The second chapter introduces the study cohort on which all of the studies included in the thesis are based – the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921). The present thesis had three primary objectives. The first was to determine incident cases of dementia in a study cohort of oldest-old participants: the LBC1921. Dementia cases in this cohort were ascertained using existing data primarily and the dementia ascertainment method was developed following a systematic review of such methodology within the literature. While no ‘gold standard’ method was found, the evidence on which the methodology for this thesis was developed is presented and discussed. Using this method, 22.5% of the n=489 eligible participants were found to have developed dementia during the follow-up period. Comparing these results with ‘expected’ dementia rates in the cohort, the ascertainment method was determined to be relatively effective. The second objective of this thesis was to investigate potential risk factors for dementia in oldest age, with a focus on those that would be considered modifiable. The first study of risk factors considered a range of potentially modifiable health and lifestyle factors including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking, hypercholesterolaemia and physical activity. The most well documented genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease – APOE ɛ4 – was also included in the analyses. Contrary to other studies of dementia in the oldest-old, the presented study found that carrying at least one APOE ɛ4 allele continued to be a statistically significant risk factor for dementia in those aged over 79 years (OR: 2.23; 95% CI: 1.29, 3.86). A history of hypertension was shown to decrease the risk for incident dementia after age 79 years (OR: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.23, 0.98). This is a similar pattern to that described within the literature on the oldest-old but differs in direction from the association observed in earlier old age. The results also indicated an increased risk for dementia with greater lifetime leisure-based physical activity (OR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.32). This finding was again contradictory to the findings of studies of dementia in earlier old age. A history of statin-use was also observed to increase risk for dementia (OR: 3.39, 95% CI: 1.04, 11.02), while increased height reduced the risk for dementia (OR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.55, 0.95). Overall, the findings suggested that the risk factor profile for dementia in the oldest-old, as observed in the LBC1921, differs from the risk factor profile in earlier old age. The second study of risk factors examined the association between physical fitness and dementia. The published study presented within the chapter considered three specific measures of fitness in oldest age: grip strength, walking speed and lung function (FEV1). These analyses did not demonstrate an association between any of the fitness measures at age 79 years and subsequent dementia; FEV1 (HR per unit increase 1.30, p = 0.37), grip strength (HR 0.98, p = 0.35), walking speed (HR 0.99, p = 0.90). The findings were again different to those described in studies of younger participants and supported the possibility of a changed risk factor profile for dementia in oldest-age. The final study of risk factors considered whether DNA methylation-based measures of accelerated ageing may be associated with dementia risk. Such measures of accelerated ageing may be considered, in simplest terms, as whether someone’s ‘biological age’ is more advanced than their chronological age. The results did not demonstrate any consistent association between recognised age acceleration measures and dementia. The third objective of the thesis was to revisit previous studies of non-pathological cognitive ageing in the LBC1921 and determine whether previously unidentified cases of dementia had influenced the findings. The study looked at five previous studies, and four factors reported to be associated with poorer cognitive ageing: smoking, APOE ɛ4, reduced fitness and lower vitamin B12. After excluding those participants who had gone on to develop dementia, the analyses were repeated. The overall findings were unchanged from the original studies, with all four factors continuing to be associated with poorer cognitive ageing (p<0.05). The final chapter of the thesis provides an overview and summary of the findings from the included studies. The general limitations, with regard to methodology and the study cohort, are outlined. The chapter closes with suggestions for further research