Experimentally characterizing the behavior of fiber reinforced composite laminates under multi-axial loading: A historical review and current state of the art

The mechanical behaviour of fibre reinforced composite laminates under applied loading is a complex process due to a variety of factors including geometry effects at various scales (micro-, meso- and macro-level), complex constitutive responses, and the interaction and competition between progressive damage modes. While the study of fibre reinforced composite laminates under multi-axial loading conditions has been an area of study for over 40 years, the number of experimental studies is limited primarily due to the difficulty in performing relevant experiments. The importance of these types of experiments, however, is critical to help advance the understanding and prediction of laminate response and failure. Improved understanding and predictive capabilities will ultimately lead to the future development of more advanced (and practical) tools which can reduce the cost and effort in designing and qualifying new composite structures

Compassion in the Bhutanese Gross National Happiness (GNH) infused classrooms

There is a growing interest in research on the role of compassion in the fields of positive psychology and social psychology. Compassion in the educational setting is focused on well-being and relationship-based approaches to support students to flourish academically, emotionally and socially. This paper is a review of compassion in the literature and provides a foreground of future research on compassion in the Bhutanese classroom. It also presents a discussion on compassion in relation to benefits for self and others, compassion fatigue and self-compassion. More importantly, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the role of compassion in education in building the teaching-learning process and foregrounds the need for further investigation into compassionate teaching and learning for a range of school-based curriculum subjects

An Evaluation of the use of an Online Demonstration School

In 2016, a change was made to the approach taken for delivery of the first practicum placement experience for initial teacher education students at [the university]. Rather than the traditional 20-day in-school observation placement, an alternative 10-day online experience, called the Online Demonstration School (ODS), was developed. The ODS provided students with a fully online practicum experience involving viewing videos of a variety of classroom situations developed in conjunction with local schools. Subsequent reflection and collaboration with peers and academics allowed targeted aspects in the classroom situations to be examined in depth. This article summarises the literature supporting this change and presents a comparison of the effectiveness of these two alternative approaches based upon an analysis of mentor teacher grading of the second practicum placement completed. The analysis indicates that there are few significant differences in grading of the second in-school practicum placement by mentor teachers based upon whether students complete the in-school placement or the ODS. The benefits of the use and possible future development of the ODS are discussed

Shifting mindsets within: self-study of professional learning

In an educational environment focused on providing flexible learning options to diverse student groups — rural and remote, cross-cultural, mature-aged, and second-chance learners—there need to be effective capacity building strategies for the professionals who provide these educational services. People do not resist change; they resist being changed. This chapter describes the capacity building of early childhood educators redesigning curriculum for distance learning. They engaged in self-study using metaphor as a research strategy to investigate their own adaptive practices. The creation of a professional learning community was made possible by supporting personal mastery and reflecting on the shared vision. The process of focusing meta-cognition on one's own values and beliefs brought about a change in attitudes and perspectives relating to what could be achieved in an online learning environment. This chapter describes the research strategies and outcomes of an academic self-study professional development project. In addition, the authors suggest broader application of metaphor analysis as an elucidating strategy for capacity building

Vulnerability: An uncomfortable means to a positive place

In this chapter we share our metaphors of transformation towards an academe environment. Metaphor has provided a powerful tool for capturing, making explicit, and thus transforming our tacit understandings of ourselves as individuals and the continual revisiting and reformation of our professional identities. Our initial metaphors shared with openness and an acceptance of a vulnerable state provided each of us with the self-confidence and ability to transition … our ways of being, thinking, and relating in academe. Through the process of sharing and analysing our metaphors, we have found that the metaphor images become embodied. Their significance to us, as colleagues, becomes carried forward and is often applied to new personal and professional situations. We have come to believe that accepting the state of vulnerability and working within it enhances the quality of relationships, positive interactions, and connections. Through doing so, we have a far greater understanding of our roles and responsibilities within a shared teaching and learning context - academe. Accepting, and working with our vulnerabilities, supports relationships absent of fear, ridicule, and harassment, and results in a sense of belonging and greater creative expression, exploration, and imagination

Social media-enabled learning and the curriculum in Australian higher education: A literature review

This study is centred on the impact of social media-enabled learning on the curriculum within higher education in Australia and focuses on curriculum in relation to distance education. The impact on curriculum design of the trend for rapid uptake of social media, but with less active contribution of user generated content, is discussed, as are the implications for higher education of other central ethical issues in relation to the protection of identity and development of trust in utilizing social media sites in higher education. The review explores the applicability of six curriculum models within a social media-enriched learning environment: curriculum as product, curriculum as a body of knowledge for transmission, curriculum as process curriculum, as praxis, curriculum as knowledge creation and community as curriculum. The importance of open and flexible design methodologies emerges; the conclusion being that social media-enabled learning moves higher education beyond a focus on content provision into a dynamic communal process of sense-making and knowledge

An Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal find Relational space: Yarns from a Joint Leadership Team at a Rural Community Based Preschool

Members of the dominant culture have generally not been prepared to relinquish power or status as professional leaders in education (Colbung, Glover, Rau, & Ritchie 2007; Huggins 1998). My research tells our story, one of a relationship of belonging, of community, of creating a place for early childhood education. It is a story of three women, two of whom came together as joint directors of a community based preschool in a rural district. Two of the main characters are women from the local Bundjalung people who are the traditional custodians of the land where the preschool is situated. The other woman, myself, is non-Aboriginal. An objective of my thesis is to share reflections about myself as a non-Aboriginal person collaborating with the Bundjalung community for over twenty five years, rather than another white expert or observer of Aboriginal people. As an active participant of my community, I can discuss my own discoveries, such as the knowledge gained through learning to turn down the 'white noise' (McCoy 2000). My methodology is an auto-ethnographic narrative that has been influenced by phenomenology, yarning, feminist poststructural method, and postmodern emergence. This methodology permits me to write in an accepted academic method, which also honours the spiritual essence of my story. This thesis tells a story; it is my story, their story, our story. It is the story of our day. It is a story of moving from contact zone to relational space

The Emergence of Group Dynamics from Contextualised Social Processes: A Complexity-Oriented Grounded-Theory Approach

A formal group, within a University, is typically created to accomplish work goals through on-going coordination, combination, and integration of member resources. Group behaviour emerges from the confluence of individual and social forces and behaviours enacted to pursue desired goals. Interactions between group members in context create patterns of group processes and behaviours, and how these patterns change over time creates group dynamics. However, group dynamics do not simply reflect intra-group processes; they also reflect influences that arise from larger contexts within which the group is embedded. Group behaviour can, therefore, be argued to reflect emergent self-organisation, sensitivity to time and initial conditions, and causal ambiguity, properties associated with complex, dynamic and adaptive systems. Much of the research into group dynamics and behaviour (especially experimental social psychology research employing a positivist reductionist theoretical perspective) has tended not to look at groups through such a complexity lens. The research reported in this thesis was intended to push into this frontier. The fundamental question addressed in this thesis is: 'What occurs during group interactions associated with the emergence and maintenance of different types of group dynamics and how do those dynamics tend to unfold over time?' I argue in this thesis that a deep and contextual understanding of the complexity of group dynamics can be achieved using an interpretivist/constructivist perspective coupled with a grounded theory approach employing methodologies that permit the deeper exploration of the meaning of individual as well as collective group behaviours. To achieve the depth of learning needed in this research, I focused on a single long-standing group, a committee that existed within a larger university. I gathered qualitative data using three distinct data gathering strategies: (1) participant observation of the group at its regular monthly meetings over a 12- month period; (2) semi-structured interviews with current and former individual group members; and (3) the review of historical documents (e.g., minutes of meetings, discussion papers) relevant to the group's initial genesis and evolution over the time period prior to this research as well as my own field notes amassed over the duration of the study. I employed MAXQDA 11 Plus to support my analyses of the qualitative data amassed using these three strategies and to aid the development of grounded theory that accounted for the group's contextual dynamics. The results of this study revealed that when the focal group was addressing routine group tasks, systematic and consistent patterns of behaviour were observed. However, when the group was exposed to or perceived an internal or external shock, some interesting and unexpected emergent patterns of behaviour were observed. These behaviours could be traced to the desire for a select few members to maintain the historically based group identity, function, and direction. This maintenance process was accomplished through the application of varying types of power to offset possible bifurcation. For example, one class of such behaviours focused on 'leadership hijacking', where control over the group's consideration of an issue was taken over by a person who was not the discussion leader but for whom that issue was 'hot' and perceived to be strongly threatening. Of the number of external shocks observed, the interplay between the university's and other larger contextual agendas and the group's agenda was visible and often vigorous. This type of shock caused confrontation and escalation behaviours to emerge with the goal, once again, to maintain the historically based group identity and agenda. The addition of data gathered from semi-structured interviews with current and former group members and the review of historical documents relevant to the group provided further evidence relevant to how members strived to maintain the historically based group agenda through the application of their unique brand of group dynamics. In some cases, depending upon the issue at hand, the maintenance of this historically based group agenda centred upon one group member and, in other cases, involved the creation of shorter- and longer-term coalitions. Thus, an understanding of the dynamics of interaction within this group was achieved through close examination of the various contexts within which the group was embedded as well as the contexts of the individual group members. The results support the need to employ a complex adaptive systems perspective when trying to unpack group dynamics as they play out in real time. This research also reinforces the value of adopting an interpretivist perspective to enhance the depth of this learning

Engineering nucleotide specificity of succinyl-CoA synthetase in blastocystis: the emerging role of gatekeeper residues

Charged, solvent-exposed residues at the entrance to the substrate binding site (gatekeeper residues) produce electrostatic dipole interactions with approaching substrates, and control their access by a novel mechanism called "electrostatic gatekeeper effect". This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that the nucleotide specificity can be engineered by altering the electrostatic properties of the gatekeeper residues outside the binding site. Using Blastocystis succinyl-CoA synthetase (SCS, EC 6.2.1.5), we demonstrated that the gatekeeper mutant (ED) resulted in ATP-specific SCS to show high GTP specificity. Moreover, nucleotide binding site mutant (LF) had no effect on GTP specificity and remained ATP-specific. However, via combination of the gatekeeper mutant with the nucleotide binding site mutant (ED+LF), a complete reversal of nucleotide specificity was obtained with GTP, but no detectable activity was obtained with ATP. This striking result of the combined mutant (ED+LF) was due to two changes; negatively charged gatekeeper residues (ED) favored GTP access, and nucleotide binding site residues (LF) altered ATP binding, which was consistent with the hypothesis of the "electrostatic gatekeeper effect". These results were further supported by molecular modeling and simulation studies. Hence, it is imperative to extend the strategy of the gatekeeper effect in a different range of crucial enzymes (synthetases, kinases, and transferases) to engineer substrate specificity for various industrial applications and substrate-based drug design