Aboriginal goals of education in Lac La Ronge, Montreal Lake and Timber Bay, Saskatchewan : a case study

The main purpose of this study was to determine if Aboriginal people prefer goals of education that reflect an Aboriginal or Western perspective in education. In order to do this Aboriginal goals of education first had to be compiled. This study also investigated perspective differences within the Aboriginal community itself. The sub-categories of people in this study were: i) generational (age) differences; ii) level of education differences; and iii) gender differences.The study was conducted in the Aboriginal communities of La Ronge, Montreal Lake and Timber Bay, Saskatchewan. Fifteen respondents were of Cree ancestry. One respondent was of Dene ancestry. There were eight men and eight women. The respondents were asked to rank a mix of Aboriginal goals of education and Saskatchewan Education goals of education. They were then interviewed to ascertain the reason(s) for their choices. The ranking exercise and the interview were equally important features of this study. It was concluded that Aboriginal people would choose Aboriginal goals of education when given the opportunity. The reasons for their choices seem to be rooted in their past experiences and their hopes that their children will have a culturally more beneficial andsuccessful experience. It was also concluded that a Western perspective in education has not completely been discounted

Less government intervention in biodiversity management: risks and opportunities

n a changing global environment, with increasing pressure on ecosystem goods and services, biodiversity conservation is likely to become increasingly important. However, with the current global financial crisis, governments are increasingly trying to stabilise economies through spending cuts aiming to reduce national deficits. Within such an economic climate, the devolution of governance through public participation is an intrinsically appealing concept. We outline a number of challenges that explain why increased participation in biodiversity management has been and may continue to be problematic. Using as a case study the local stakeholder-driven Moray Firth Seal Management Plan in Scotland, we identify four key conditions that were crucial to the successful participatory management of a biodiversity conflict: a local champion, the emergence of a crisis point, the involvement of decision-makers, and long-term financial and institutional support. Three of the four conditions point to the role of direct government involvement, highlighting the risk of devolving responsibility for biodiversity conflict management to local communities. We argue that without an informed debate, the move towards a more participatory approach could pose a danger to hard-won policy gains in relation to public participation, biodiversity conservation and conflict management

Examination of myocardial electrophysiology using novel panoramic optical mapping techniques

Optical mapping of voltage signals has revolutionised the field and study of cardiac electrophysiology by providing the means to visualise changes in electrical activity at a high temporal and spatial resolution from the cellular to the whole heart level under both normal and disease conditions. The aim of this thesis was to develop a novel method of panoramic optical mapping using a single camera and to study myocardial electrophysiology in isolated Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts. First, proper procedures for selection, filtering and analysis of the optical data recorded from the panoramic optical mapping system were established. This work was followed by extensive characterisation of the electrical activity across the epicardial surface of the preparation investigating time and heart dependent effects. In an initial study, features of epicardial electrophysiology were examined as the temperature of the heart was reduced below physiological values. This manoeuvre was chosen to mimic the temperatures experienced during various levels of hypothermia in vivo, a condition known to promote arrhythmias. The facility for panoramic optical mapping allowed the extent of changes in conduction timing and pattern of ventricular activation and repolarisation to be assessed. In the main experimental section, changes in epicardial electrical activity were assessed under various pacing conditions in both normal hearts and in a rabbit model of chronic MI. In these experiments, there was significant changes in the pattern of electrical activation corresponding with the changes in pacing regime. These experiments demonstrated a negative correlation between activation time and APD, which was not maintained during ventricular pacing. This suggests that activation pattern is not the sole determinant of action potential duration in intact hearts. Lastly, a realistic 3D computational model of the rabbit left ventricle was developed to simulate the passive and active mechanical properties of the heart. The aim of this model was to infer further information from the experimental optical mapping studies. In future, it would be feasible to gain insight into the electrical and mechanical performance of the heart by simulating experimental pacing conditions in the model

Black carbon physical and optical properties across northern India during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons

Black carbon (BC) is known to have major impacts on both climate and human health and is therefore of global importance, particularly in regions close to large populations that have strong sources. The size-resolved mixing state of BC-containing particles was characterised using a single-particle soot photometer (SP2). The study focusses on the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) during the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. Data presented are from the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements BAe-146 research aircraft that performed flights during the pre-monsoon (11 and 12 June) and monsoon (30 June to 11 July) seasons of 2016. Over the IGP, BC mass concentrations were greater (1.95 µg m−3) compared to north-west India (1.50 µg m−3) and north-east India (0.70 µg m−3) during the pre-monsoon season. Across northern India, two distinct BC modes were recorded; a mode of small BC particles (core diameter <0.16 µm and coating thickness <50 nm) and a mode of moderately coated BC (core diameter <0.22 µm and coating thickness of 50–200 nm). The IGP and north-east India locations exhibited moderately coated black carbon particles with enhanced coating thicknesses, core sizes, mass absorption cross sections, and scattering enhancement values compared to much lower values present in the north-west. The coating thickness and mass absorption cross section increased with altitude (13 %) compared to those in the boundary layer. As the monsoon arrived across the region, mass concentration of BC decreased over the central IGP and north-east locations (38 % and 28 % respectively), whereas for the north-west location BC properties remained relatively consistent. Post-monsoon onset, the coating thickness, core size, mass absorption cross section, and scattering enhancement values were all greatest over the central IGP much like the pre-monsoon season but were considerably reduced over both north-east and north-west India. Increases in mass absorption cross section through the atmospheric column were still present during the monsoon for the north-west and central IGP locations, but less so over the north-east due to lack of long-range transport aerosol aloft. Across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and north-east India during the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons, solid-fuel (wood burning) emissions form the greatest proportion of BC with moderately coated particles. However, as the monsoon develops in the north-east there was a switch to small uncoated BC particles indicative of traffic emissions, but the solid-fuel emissions remained in the IGP into the monsoon. For both seasons in the north-west, traffic emissions form the greatest proportion of BC particles. Our findings will prove important for greater understanding of the BC physical and optical properties, with important consequences for the atmospheric radiative forcing of BC-containing particles. The findings will also help constrain the regional aerosol models for a variety of applications such as space-based remote sensing, chemistry transport modelling, air quality, and BC source and emission inventories

Signal processing for estimating energy expenditure of elite athletes using triaxial accelerometers

Fitness development of elite athletes requires an understanding of physiological factors such as athlete energy expenditure (EE). For athletes involved in football at the elite level, it is necessary to understand the energy demands during competition to develop training regimes. By identifying an appropriate EE estimator in triaxial accelerometer data, in conjunction with identifying sources of inter-athlete variance in that estimator, signal processing was developed to extract the estimator. In this system, low-power signal processing was implemented to extract both the EE estimator and other information of physiological and statistical interestGriffith Sciences, Griffith School of EngineeringFull Tex

CEQE: Contextualized Embeddings for Query Expansion

In this work we leverage recent advances in context-sensitive language models to improve the task of query expansion. Contextualized word representation models, such as ELMo and BERT, are rapidly replacing static embedding models. We propose a new model, Contextualized Embeddings for Query Expansion (CEQE), that utilizes query-focused contextualized embedding vectors. We study the behavior of contextual representations generated for query expansion in ad-hoc document retrieval. We conduct our experiments on probabilistic retrieval models as well as in combination with neural ranking models. We evaluate CEQE on two standard TREC collections: Robust and Deep Learning. We find that CEQE outperforms static embedding-based expansion methods on multiple collections (by up to 18% on Robust and 31% on Deep Learning on average precision) and also improves over proven probabilistic pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) models. We further find that multiple passes of expansion and reranking result in continued gains in effectiveness with CEQE-based approaches outperforming other approaches. The final model incorporating neural and CEQE-based expansion score achieves gains of up to 5% in P@20 and 2% in AP on Robust over the state-of-the-art transformer-based re-ranking model, Birch

Novel components of the Toxoplasma inner membrane complex revealed by BioID.

UNLABELLED:The inner membrane complex (IMC) of Toxoplasma gondii is a peripheral membrane system that is composed of flattened alveolar sacs that underlie the plasma membrane, coupled to a supporting cytoskeletal network. The IMC plays important roles in parasite replication, motility, and host cell invasion. Despite these central roles in the biology of the parasite, the proteins that constitute the IMC are largely unknown. In this study, we have adapted a technique named proximity-dependent biotin identification (BioID) for use in T.&nbsp;gondii to identify novel components of the IMC. Using IMC proteins in both the alveoli and the cytoskeletal network as bait, we have uncovered a total of 19 new IMC proteins in both of these suborganellar compartments, two of which we functionally evaluate by gene knockout. Importantly, labeling of IMC proteins using this approach has revealed a group of proteins that localize to the sutures of the alveolar sacs that have been seen in their entirety in Toxoplasma species only by freeze fracture electron microscopy. Collectively, our study greatly expands the repertoire of known proteins in the IMC and experimentally validates BioID as a strategy for discovering novel constituents of specific cellular compartments of T.&nbsp;gondii. IMPORTANCE:The identification of binding partners is critical for determining protein function within cellular compartments. However, discovery of protein-protein interactions within membrane or cytoskeletal compartments is challenging, particularly for transient or unstable interactions that are often disrupted by experimental manipulation of these compartments. To circumvent these problems, we adapted an in vivo biotinylation technique called BioID for Toxoplasma species to identify binding partners and proximal proteins within native cellular environments. We used BioID to identify 19 novel proteins in the parasite IMC, an organelle consisting of fused membrane sacs and an underlying cytoskeleton, whose protein composition is largely unknown. We also demonstrate the power of BioID for targeted discovery of proteins within specific compartments, such as the IMC cytoskeleton. In addition, we uncovered a new group of proteins localizing to the alveolar sutures of the IMC. BioID promises to reveal new insights on protein constituents and interactions within cellular compartments of Toxoplasma

It’s not all cat videos: moving beyond legacy media and tackling the challenges of mapping news values on digital native websites

The question “what is news?” has been a topic of scholarly examination for more than 60 years as researchers have sought to develop and revise the taxonomy of news values to inform journalism education and wider public debates on the subjectivity of journalists. However, these studies have focused on legacy print and broadcast media even when attempting to bring their findings into the digital era by examining online content. To date, there has been limited research, in the UK and internationally, on news values on digitally born news websites–platforms that only exist online such as Huffington Post, Buzzfeed News and LADbible, which are consumed by a third of the UK population at least once a week. A significant impediment is the complexity of mapping offline latent coding methods to fluid online content. Digital native websites are particularly problematic due to their varied appearance across platforms–desktop, tablet and mobile–and their multiple access points–via web browser, social media and App. Yet, content analysis has a rich history dating back to the clergy's examination of newspapers in the late 1600s and the method has proved to be an adaptable tool for measuring news output as each new media technology has emerged. This paper argues that it is imperative that researchers look beyond legacy media when studying digital news values due to the growing significance of digital native news websites in the marketplace. The secondary purpose of this methodological paper is to highlight the challenges of capturing and analysing news values on digital native news platforms and suggest how researchers can begin to tackle the complexities of liquid content analysis in this field