#any use? What do we know about how teachers and doctors learn through social media use?

This scoping literature review describes the landscape of recent publications (2007-2016) about how teachers and doctors learn through social media to identify whether learning was being considered and, if so, how evidence was collected (N=162). Sixty-seven percent (N=108) were teacher-related and thirty-three percent (N=54) doctor-related, covering empirical studies, literature reviews, position articles and letters to academic journals. Empirical studies were dominant – ninety-one percent (N=98) of teacher-related and sixty-one percent (N=33) of doctor-related – with both fields dominated by in-course evaluations and use/attitude studies. Although doctor-related articles focused on professional online behaviour, rather than professional learning, conference communication and information evaluation were interesting areas of enquiry. Despite professional interest in social media in these professions, there is a dearth of academic studies about their benefits for teacher and doctor learning

Balancing fairness to victims, society and defendants in the cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses: an impossible triangulation?

This article argues that direct cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses should be removed from Australian trials, to reduce any illegitimate advantage to the defendant. Abstract Cross-examination is fundamental to the adversarial criminal trial. However, when children and witnesses with an intellectual disability are cross-examined, it can lead to unreliable evidence and further trauma to the victim. Various reforms in Australian jurisdictions, England and elsewhere have had only limited practical effect as they fail to address the underlying problems that arise from the adversarial system itself. While any changes must maintain a defendant’s vital right to a fair trial, the current criminal trial may allow defendants an illegitimate advantage. Fairness to the defendant, victim and society can and must be balanced. In order to reduce any illegitimate advantage, direct cross-examination should be removed. Instead, cross-examination should be conducted in advance of trial by a suitable third party and video-recorded. A similar process is used in Norway. A wholesale transformation into an inquisitorial system is not required for the benefits of non-adversarial examination to be achieved

Playing Reindeer Games: Native Alaskans and the Federal Trust Doctrine

The Reindeer Industry Act of 1937 established a de facto Native Alaskan monopoly in the reindeer industry as a means of subsistence that would allow Native Alaskans to remain self-sufficient and continue to practice their traditional customs. In 1997, the Ninth Circuit held that the Reindeer Act did not preclude nonNatives from owning and selling reindeer, thereby opening the reindeer industry up to non-Natives. The unique Native Alaskan culture of the Seward Peninsula, which depends upon the reindeer industry, is in jeopardy as a result of competition it now faces from non-Natives. The federal government has a fiduciary obligation to protect the cultural welfare of Native Alaskans as a result of the trust relationship that exists between the federal government and Native Americans. The federal government has yet to take action to fulfill that fiduciary obligation to the Native Alaskan reindeer herders of the Seward Peninsula

Introduction to the R package TDA

We present a short tutorial and introduction to using the R package TDA, which provides some tools for Topological Data Analysis. In particular, it includes implementations of functions that, given some data, provide topological information about the underlying space, such as the distance function, the distance to a measure, the kNN density estimator, the kernel density estimator, and the kernel distance. The salient topological features of the sublevel sets (or superlevel sets) of these functions can be quantified with persistent homology. We provide an R interface for the efficient algorithms of the C++ libraries GUDHI, Dionysus and PHAT, including a function for the persistent homology of the Rips filtration, and one for the persistent homology of sublevel sets (or superlevel sets) of arbitrary functions evaluated over a grid of points. The significance of the features in the resulting persistence diagrams can be analyzed with functions that implement recently developed statistical methods. The R package TDA also includes the implementation of an algorithm for density clustering, which allows us to identify the spatial organization of the probability mass associated to a density function and visualize it by means of a dendrogram, the cluster tree

The effect of turbulent clustering on particle reactivity

The effect of turbulence on the heterogeneous (solid-fluid) reactions of solid particles is studied numerically with Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). A simplified reaction system is used, where the solid-fluid reaction is represented by a single isothermal reaction step. It is found that, due to the clustering of particles by the isotropic turbulence, the overall reaction rate is entirely controlled by the turbulence for large Damk\"ohler numbers. The particle clustering significantly slows down the reaction rate for increasing Damk\"ohler numbers which reaches an asymptotic limit that can be analytically derived. This implies that the effect of turbulence on heterogeneously reacting particles should be included in models that are used in CFD simulations of e.g. char burnout in combustors or gasifiers. Such a model, based on the chemical and turbulent time scales, is here proposed for the heterogeneous reaction rate in the presence of turbulence.Comment: Published online in the Proceedings of the Combustion Institut

Being and becoming a teacher in medical education

Medical teachers’ conceptions of teaching have implications for student learning. The way teachers understand what it means to be a good teacher and what it means to develop as a teacher affect their aims and practice as teachers and their motivation for engaging in development activities. The aim of this thesis was to clarify how medical teachers understand being lecturers, clinical supervisors and mentors and also how they understand teaching and development as a teacher. In this thesis, the term medical teacher is used for everyone teaching or supervising undergraduate students in medicine or allied health professions at a university campus or associated hospitals. Thirty-nine medical teachers were interviewed. The interviews were semi-structured and analysed using a phenomenographic approach. The findings include qualitatively different ways of understanding: · Being a teacher in the teaching roles of being a lecturer, clinical supervisor and mentor (Study I and II) · Development as a teacher and of teaching (Study III) · Teaching; particularly in relation to how opportunities and barriers for development are perceived (Study IV) The findings of the studies are further elaborated in three ways: 1) By using a model of learning and teaching to explore the different understandings of what it means to be and become a teacher. 2) By exploring perceived differences and similarities between the three teaching roles as described by the individual respondents, 3) By analysing the relationship between different ways of understanding the phenomena studied on an individual level. The way being and becoming a teacher is understood is dynamic and changes over time. Teachers’ understanding of their role constitutes a fundamental dimension of their development as teachers and exerts a significant influence on their teaching. By exploring the effects of various contexts and perceptions of different facets of the teacher role, aspects important to supporting student learning can be addressed