24,910 research outputs found
An appreciative inquiry to midwifery education in Aotearoa
Background: Education is a transformative process, that promotes both self and professional development, and has rewards and challenges (Griffiths, 2012). For women, choosing a career pathway that gives meaning and purpose is an integral element of their decision making (Elley-Brown, 2015). The themes from our literature review identify midwifery educators as helping to sustain the profession by inspiring others, and promoting self and professional development through higher education. The role of the educator is identified as highly relational and often assumes an advisory and mentoring role (Elly-Brown, 2015). Midwifery educators promote growth and development of the profession (Albarran & Rosser, 2014). When considering recruitment of students into midwifery as a profession and midwives into education, it was clear that this is strongly linked to internal drivers; these include the feeling of making a difference, inspiring educational role models, having particular attributes, and encouragement from others (Albarran, & Rosser, 2014; Crowther, Hunter, McAra-Couper, Warren, Gilkison, Hunter, Fielder, & Kirkam, 2016; Doherty, M, 2010; Elley-Brown, 2015; Gilkison, Pairman, McAra-Couper, Kensington, & James, 2016; Gui, Barriball, & While, 2009). The credibility and impact of midwifery teachers was explored by Fraser, Avis & Mallik (2013) who found that teachers were valued for their unique and crucial role in the support of student’s application of knowledge into practice. Briscoe & Clarke, (2018) also commented that midwifery education needs to be dynamic and responsive to societal changes, showing authenticity within a curriculum that is evidence-based and supports students to reach their full potential as a health professional. Reciprocity of relationship between women and midwives, midwifery colleagues, students and teachers are also valued (Crowther, Hunter, McAra-Couper, Warren, Gilkison, Hunter, Feilder, Kirkham, 2016).
He aha te mea nui? He tāngata, He tāngata, He tāngata!
What is the greatest thing? It is people, it is people, it is people
Androgen-induced rhox homeobox genes modulate the expression of AR-regulated genes
Rhox5, the founding member of the reproductive homeobox on the X chromosome (Rhox) gene cluster, encodes a homeodomain-containing transcription factor that is selectively
expressed in Sertoli cells, where it promotes the survival of male germ cells. To identify Rhox5-regulated genes, we generated 15P-1 Sertoli cell clones expressing physiological levels of Rhox5 from a stably transfected expression vector. Microarray analysis identified many
genes altered in expression in response to Rhox5, including those encoding proteins controlling cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, metabolism, and cell-cell interactions. Fifteen of these Rhox5-regulated genes were chosen for further analysis. Analysis of Rhox5-null male
mice indicated that at least 9 of these are Rhox5-regulated in the testes in vivo. Many of them have distinct postnatal expression patterns and are regulated by Rhox5 at different postnatal time points. Most of them are expressed in Sertoli cells, indicating that they are
candidates to be directly regulated by Rhox5. Transfection analysis with expression vectors encoding different mouse and human Rhox family members revealed that the regulatory
response of a subset of these Rhox5-regulated genes is both conserved and redundant. Given that Rhox5 depends on AR for expression in Sertoli cells, we examined whether some Rhox5-regulated genes are also regulated by androgen receptor (AR). We provide several lines of evidence that this is the case, leading us to propose that RHOX5 serves as a key intermediate transcription factor that directs some of the actions of AR in the testes
Accurate Reaction-Diffusion Operator Splitting on Tetrahedral Meshes for Parallel Stochastic Molecular Simulations
Spatial stochastic molecular simulations in biology are limited by the
intense computation required to track molecules in space either in a discrete
time or discrete space framework, meaning that the serial limit has already
been reached in sub-cellular models. This calls for parallel simulations that
can take advantage of the power of modern supercomputers; however exact methods
are known to be inherently serial. We introduce an operator splitting
implementation for irregular grids with a novel method to improve accuracy, and
demonstrate potential for scalable parallel simulations in an initial MPI
version. We foresee that this groundwork will enable larger scale, whole-cell
stochastic simulations in the near future.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure
Ebola 2014: Just how ‘delayed’ is the response?
In her 2008 article, Haemorrhagic Fevers in Africa: Narratives, Politics and Pathways of Disease and Response, Melissa Leach draws attention to the ‘ecological and social dynamics’ present in African communities, the ‘structural shifts that may be impinging on the nature and frequency of outbreaks, and on local and regional vulnerability to them.’ She highlights that issues with tackling diseases such as Ebola cannot be separated from the battle against poverty and stresses that the increasing frequency and severity of outbreaks calls for the integration of longer-term perspectives into practical, sustainable responses to Ebola, if a future health crisis is to be avoided
Do cladistic and morphometric data capture common patterns of morphological disparity?
The distinctly non-random diversity of organismal form manifests itself in discrete clusters of taxa that share a common body plan. As a result, analyses of disparity require a scalable comparative framework. The difficulties of
applying geometric morphometrics to disparity analyses of groups with vastly divergent body plans are overcome partly by the use of cladistic characters. Character-based disparity analyses have become increasingly popular, but it is not clear how they are affected by character coding strategies or revisions of primary homology statements. Indeed, whether cladistic and morphometric data capture similar patterns of morphological variation remains a moot point. To address this issue, we employ both cladistic and geometric morphometric data in an exploratory study of disparity focussing on caecilian amphibians. Our results show no impact on relative intertaxon distances when different coding strategies for cladistic characters were used or when revised concepts of homology were considered. In all instances, we found no statistically significant difference between pairwise Euclidean and Procrustes distances, although the strength of the correlation among distance matrices varied. This suggests that cladistic and geometric morphometric data appear to summarize morphological variation in comparable ways. Our results support the use of cladistic data for characterizing organismal disparity
Constraining the nature of High Frequency Peakers. I. The spectral variability
We investigate the spectral characteristics of 51 candidate High Frequency
Peakers (HFPs), from the ``bright'' HFP sample, in order to determine the
nature of each object, and to obtain a smaller sample of genuine young radio
sources. Simultaneous multi-frequency VLA observations carried out at various
epochs have been used to detect flux density and spectral shape variability in
order to pinpoint contaminant objects, since young radio sources are not
expected to be significantly variable on such a short time-scale. From the
analysis of the spectral variability we find 13 contaminant objects, 11
quasars, 1 BL Lac, and 1 unidentified object, which we have rejected from the
sample of candidate young radio sources. The 6 years elapsed between the first
and latest observing run are not enough to detect any substantial evolution of
the overall spectrum of genuine, non variable, young radio sources. If we also
consider the pc-scale information, we find that the total radio spectrum we
observe is the result of the superposition of the spectra of different regions
(lobes, hot-spots, core, jets), instead of a single homogeneous radio
component. This indicates that the radio source structure plays a relevant role
in determining the spectral shape also in the rather common case in which the
morphology appears unresolved even on high-resolution scales.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures; accepted for pubblication in A&
Poincare Indices of Rheoscopic Visualisations
Suspensions of small anisotropic particles, termed 'rheoscopic fluids', are
used for flow visualisation. By illuminating the fluid with light of three
different colours, it is possible to determine Poincare indices for vector
fields formed by the longest axis of the particles. Because this vector field
is non-oriented, half-integer Poincare indices are possible, and are observed
experimentally. An exact solution for the direction vector appears to preclude
the existence of topological singularities. However, we show that upon
averaging over the random initial orientations of particles, singularities with
half-integer Poincare index appear. We describe their normal forms.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Fingerprints of Random Flows?
We consider the patterns formed by small rod-like objects advected by a
random flow in two dimensions. An exact solution indicates that their direction
field is non-singular. However, we find from simulations that the direction
field of the rods does appear to exhibit singularities. First, ` scar lines'
emerge where the rods abruptly change direction by . Later, these scar
lines become so narrow that they ` heal over' and disappear, but their ends
remain as point singularities, which are of the same type as those seen in
fingerprints. We give a theoretical explanation for these observations.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure
Recent research on cattle worms : research round-up
Summary of research carried out on cattle worms
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