Peer observation in professional development : occupational therapists perceptions

Aims: peer observation of practice is used to promote reflection and facilitate personal and professional development. However, there appears to be no published research on the use of peer observation by occupational therapists working in higher education. This action research project explored the perceptions of occupational therapy staff within a higher education setting towards the use of a peer observation of practice scheme. Methods: all colleagues within a directorate of occupational therapy were invited to complete a questionnaire. Additionally, five staff were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews and core themes were identified following thematic analysis, typified by grounded theory. Findings: staff used a range of methods to support professional development, including peer observation. Key themes identified were the concept that peer observation has both positive and negative connotations, that feedback must be carefully managed, that the relationship between observed and observer is important and that staff want clear ground rules for peer observation schemes. Conclusions: findings indicated the need for further research into peer observation and how such a scheme could be formally implemented

Studies on the mechanism of retinoid-induced pattern duplications in the early chick limb bud: temporal and spatial aspects.

All-trans-retinoic acid causes striking digit pattern changes when it is continuously released from a bead implanted in the anterior margin of an early chick wing bud. In addition to the normal set of digits (234), extra digits form in a mirror-symmetrical arrangement, creating digit patterns such as a 432234. These retinoic acid-induced pattern duplications closely mimic those found after grafts of polarizing region cells to the same positions with regard to dose-response, timing, and positional effects. To elucidate the mechanism by which retinoic acid induces these pattern duplications, we have studied the temporal and spatial distribution of all-trans-retinoic acid and its potent analogue TTNPB in these limb buds. We find that the induction process is biphasic: there is an 8-h lag phase followed by a 6-h duplication phase, during which additional digits are irreversibly specified in the sequence digit 2, digit 3, digit 4. On average, formation of each digit seems to require between 1 and 2 h. The tissue concentrations, metabolic pattern, and spatial distribution of all-trans-retinoic acid and TTNPB in the limb rapidly reach a steady state, in which the continuous release of the retinoid is balanced by loss from metabolism and blood circulation. Pulse-chase experiments reveal that the half-time of clearance from the bud is 20 min for all-trans-retinoic acid and 80 min for TTNPB. Manipulations that change the experimentally induced steep concentration gradient of TTNPB suggest that a graded distribution of retinoid concentrations across the limb is required during the duplication phase to induce changes in the digit pattern. The extensive similarities between results obtained with retinoids and with polarizing region grafts raise the possibility that retinoic acid serves as a natural "morphogen" in the limb

Changepoint detection for data intensive settings

Detecting a point in a data sequence where the behaviour alters abruptly, otherwise known as a changepoint, has been an active area of interest for decades. More recently, with the advent of the data intensive era, the need for automated and computationally efficient changepoint methods has grown. We here introduce several new techniques for doing this which address many of the issues inherent in detecting changes in a streaming setting. In short, these new methods, which may be viewed as non-trivial extensions of existing classical procedures, are intended to be as useful in as wide a set of situations as possible, while retaining important theoretical guarantees and ease of implementation. The first novel contribution concerns two methods for parallelising existing dynamic programming based approaches to changepoint detection in the single variate setting. We demonstrate that these methods can result in near quadratic computational gains, while retaining important theoretical guarantees. Our next area of focus is the multivariate setting. We introduce two new methods for data intensive scenarios with a fixed, but possibly large, number of dimensions. The first of these is an offline method which detects one change at a time using a new test statistic. We demonstrate that this test statistic has competitive power in a variety of possible settings for a given changepoint, while allowing the method to be versatile across a range of possible modelling assumptions. The other method we introduce for multivariate data is also suitable in the streaming setting. In addition, it is able to relax many standard modelling assumptions. We discuss the empirical properties of the procedure, especially insofar as they relate to a desired false alarm error rate

Observational Drawing: A Middle School-based In-Service Course

This article results from (a) my own interest and art teaching experience; (b) doubts expressed currently about 'affective' areas of the curriculum in subjects like art and design and which tend to suffer from a degree of verbal inarticulateness; (c) D.E.S. primary and secondary reports, and (d) concern about the use of observational drawing in the education of children. These factors, together with my own continuing concerns for staff development, led directly to the course which is reported here and to a project contribution for the improvement of in-service arrangements among teachers working with children aged 5-13.The course was conceived with OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING (which need not be seen as synonymous with 'art' and which is now referred to as 'reference art'). The specific content might be different in other circumstances or at other times, but the general principles of organisation and teacher response have significance and relevance to the wider issues of teacher in-service education and training within schools

Uncontacted Peoples Of The Javari Valley, Brazil

The Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in Western Brazil has the greatest concentration of uncontacted human groups on Earth. A recent report by Brazil’s National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI) reports 9 confirmed and 4 unconfirmed uncontacted groups in the Javari Valley alone. FUNAI defines isolated or uncontacted peoples as “the indigenous groups that have never established permanent contact with Brazilian national society, which distinguishes them from other indigenous groups that have already made permanent contact.” Since 1987 FUNAI has prohibited entry into the Javari Valley in the hopes of protecting its vulnerable uncontacted inhabitants from disease and conflict. Unfortunately today the area is threatened by loggers, oil companies, and narcotics traffickers operating with virtual impunity in neighboring Peru. In this thesis I will analyze relevant local media articles, government studies, and NGO publications in an attempt to evaluate whether FUNAI’s current efforts are an adequate response to the increasingly severe threats of forced contact