Making a mess of academic work: experience, purpose and identity

Within the policy discourse of academic work, teaching, research and administration are seen as discrete elements of practice. We explore the assumptions evident in this 'official story' and contrast it with the messy experience of academic work, drawing upon empirical studies and conceptualisations from our own research and from recent literature. We propose that purposive disciplinary practice across time and space is inextricably entangled with and fundamental to academic experience and identity; the fabrications of managerialism, such as the workload allocation form, fragment this experience and attempt to reclassify purposes and conceptualisations of academic work. Using actor-network theory as an analytical tool, we explore the gap between official and unofficial stories, attempting to reframe the relationship between discipline and its various manifestations in academic practice and suggesting a research agenda for investigating academic work

Taking a break: doctoral summer schools as transformative pedagogies

This chapter focuses on the doctoral summer school as a challenging pedagogy for doctoral education, in which the traditional supervisory relationship and the disciplinary curriculum are deconstructed through intensive group processes. We draw on our experiences as pedagogues on the Roskilde University Graduate School in Lifelong Learning which has hosted an international summer school for the last ten years. We describe the new learning spaces created and explore the democratic group processes and the collaborative action learning in-volved when discipline and stage of study are set to the side in this multi-paradigmatic, multi-national context. Despite the wide range of participants in terms of length of study, focus and methodological approach, the respite from supervisory pedagogies and the careful critiques of multi-national peer ‘opponents’ is often transformative in the doctoral students’ research sub-jectivities and continuing journeys

The doctor and the blue form: learning professional responsibility

Book synopsis: This book presents leading-edge perspectives and methodologies to address emerging issues of concern for professional learning in contemporary society. The conditions for professional practice and learning are changing dramatically in the wake of globalization, new modes of knowledge production, new regulatory regimes, and increased economic-political pressures. In the wake of this, a number of challenges for learning emerge: more practitioners become involved in interprofessional collaboration developments in new technologies and virtual workworlds emergence of transnational knowledge cultures and interrelated circuits of knowledge. The space and time relations in which professional practice and learning are embedded are becoming more complex, as are the epistemic underpinnings of professional work. Together these shifts bring about intersections of professional knowledge and responsibilities that call for new conceptions of professional knowing. Exploring what the authors call sociomaterial perspectives on professional learning they argue that theories that trace not just the social but also the material aspects of practice – such as tools, technologies, texts but also bodies and actions - are useful for coming to terms with the challenges described above. Reconceptualising Professional Learning develops these issues through specific contemporary cases focused on one of the book’s three main themes: (1) professionals’ knowing in practice, (2) professionals’ work arrangements and technologies, or (3) professional responsibility. Each chapter draws upon innovative theory to highlight the sociomaterial webs through which professional learning may be reconceptualised. Authors are based in Australia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the USA as well as the UK and their cases are based in a range of professional settings including medicine, teaching, nursing, engineering, social services, the creative industries, and more. By presenting detailed accounts of these themes from a sociomaterial perspective, the book opens new questions and methodological approaches. These can help make more visible what is often invisible in today’s messy dynamics of professional learning, and point to new ways of configuring educational support and policy for professionals

Responsibility matters: putting illness back into the picture

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore specific instances of junior doctors’ responsibility. Learning is often understood to be a prerequisite for managing responsibility and risk but this paper aims to argue that this is insufficient because learning is integral to the management of responsibility and risk. Design/methodology/approach – This is a “collective” case study of doctors designed to focus on the interrelationships between individual professionals and complex work settings. The authors focussed on two key points of transition: the transition to beginning clinical practice which is the move from medical student to foundation training (F1) and the transition from generalist to specialist clinical practice. Findings – Responsibility in clinical settings is immediate, concrete, demands response and (in) action has an effect. Responsibility is learnt and is not always apparent; it shifts depending on time of day/night and who else is present. Responsibility does not necessarily increase incrementally and can decrease; it can be perceived differently by different actors. Responsibility is experienced as personal although it is distributed. Originality/value – This detailed examination of practice has enabled the authors to foreground the particularities, urgency and fluidity of everyday clinical practice. It recasts their understandings of responsibility – and managing risk – as involving learning in practice. This is a critical insight because it suggests that the theoretical basis for the current approach to managing risk and responsibility is insufficient. This has significant implications for policy, employment, education and practice of new doctors and for the management of responsibility and risk

Hypervelocity impact simulations of Whipple shields

The problem associated with protecting space vehicles from space debris impact is described. Numerical simulation is espoused as a useful complement to experimentation: as a means to help understand and describe the hypervelocity impact phenomena. The capabilities of a PC-based hydrocode, ZeuS, are described, for application to the problem of hypervelocity impact. Finally, results of ZeuS simulations, as applied to the problem of bumper shield impact, are presented and compared with experimental results

Synthesis of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles and Mesocrystals in an Interphase Droplet Reactor

The attractive properties of nanoparticles and nanostructures has driven their integration into a wide range of modern technologies. Synthesis of nanoparticles in droplet flow reactors offers a solution to the shortcomings of batch reactors. The interphase droplet reactor presented in this work maintains the advantages of a droplet flow reactor while accomplishing reagent addition through mass transfer from the continuous phase to the droplet phase. In this work, sodium hydroxide in a continuous phase of 1-octanol diffuses into aqueous droplets containing a metal salt, initiating nanoparticle synthesis. An acid-base titration confirmed that increasing the total flow rate increased the rate of mass transfer. Addition of Triton X-100 surfactant increased the rate of mass transfer while sodium dodecyl sulfate did not. Zinc oxide nanoparticles with controllable sizes between 41 to 62 nm were produced by changing reaction temperature, reagent concentration, droplet volume, and adding surfactants. Operating the interphase droplet reactor at 25˚C produced large ZnO sheets and increasing the reaction temperature to 40˚C and above produced spherical nanoparticles. Higher inlet sodium hydroxide concentrations transitioned the particle morphology from spherical particles to plates. Decreasing the reactor diameter decreased the mean particle size from 54 nm to 43 nm. The interphase droplet reactor also produced a narrower particle size distribution than a single phase aqueous batch reactor. Low reagent concentrations produced ellipsoidal zinc oxide mesocrystals through oriented attachment. A reaction temperature of 40˚C was adequate for mesocrystal production. The presence of Triton X-100 did not prevent oriented attachment while the addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate did. The ability of the interphase droplet reactor to synthesize other metal oxides was demonstrated by the synthesis of copper (II) oxide. Copper oxide sheet mesocrystals were formed in the absence of acetic acid. The presence of acetic acid in the droplet phase inhibited oriented attachment and produced copper oxide nanowires

Encapsulation of Anti-Traction Material

Anti-Traction Material (ATM) is a highly viscous and viscoelastic aqueous polymer solution that has been demonstrated as an effective area denial, non-lethal technology. However, current means of dispersing ATM require on site pumping of the reagents and large tanks for reagent storage. The moment that ATM is dispensed onto a surface it also begins to dry out, starting the clock on the time it is effective. To counter these problems, ATM has been successfully encapsulated using the inverse alginate gelation technique. To produce capsules of ATM, a novel method of producing drops of the highly viscous and viscoelastic ATM solution was developed. The difference in effective duration between unencapsulated and encapsulated ATM was evaluated through coefficient of friction measurements. An emulsion of 40 wt% alginate solution and 60 wt% silicon oil produces a capsule that offers at minimum an 118% increase in the effective duration of ATM. The capsule\u27s ATM contents can then be dispensed by a rupturing pressure on the order of 3x104 Pa, coating the rupturing object and the surface under it with ATM. Optimization of the capsule size and the concentration of ATM core was investigated. Increasing capsule size was shown to decrease the drying rate by 21% at 48 hours. Decreasing the initial concentration of ATM in the capsule core may also have a similar positive effect on the drying rate

Tritium trick

Large controlled amounts of helium in uniform concentration in thick samples can be obtained through the radioactive decay of dissolved tritium gas to He3. The term, tritium trick, applies to the case when helium, added by this method, is used to simulate (n,alpha) production of helium in simulated hard flux radiation damage studies

The 'Good' Teacher? Constructing Teacher Identities for Lifelong Learning

The symposium will focus on trans-national constructions of the 'good' teacher through popular culture, through professional development orthodoxies and through professional practices such as professional growth plans, inspection and teacher regulation