‘Useful, usable and used’: Sustaining an Australian model of cross-faculty service learning by concentrating on shared value creation

In recent decades, partnerships between community-based organisations and universities through service-learning programs have proliferated, reflected in an equally energetic growth in the research literature on process, evaluation, benefits and lessons learned. As an example of student experiential education through community engagement, service learning’s potential to contribute to students, community partners and the university is well recognised, although the research has tended to focus on benefits to students rather than the value in engagement for the community sector. UTS Shopfront Community Program is a cross-university initiative that has successfully facilitated curricular service learning in multiple disciplines for 20 years at an Australian university, leading to the completion of more than 1000 community projects. In examining this program, this article aims to describe both a sustainable, generative partnership model for creating shared value and, through analysis of 10 years of evaluation data, define what value is created for community partners and students through this project work. Key components in enabling a shared-value approach include: community-initiated projects based on need; a dedicated cross-university program and an assigned project coordinator; the engagement of faculty expertise through students with developed skills in appropriately structured courses; and community ownership of outcomes. Ongoing challenges include: scoping ‘student-ready’ briefs; managing risk, commitment and workload; designing coursework structures to deliver shared value; and achieving the ‘Holy Grail’ of transdisciplinarity

Hvordan kan sykepleiere gjennom informasjon og undervisning fremme mestring hos Hiv-positive?

I Norge påvises det mellom 200-250 nye tilfeller av Hiv hvert år. Rundt 50- 100 av disse smittetilfellene antas å ha skjedd i Norge. Hiv er en sykdom som samler alle samfunnets tabuer og som ofte er forbundet med frykt, skam og skyldfølelser. Min hensikt med denne oppgaven er derfor å belyse hvordan man som sykepleier kan fremme mestring hos Hiv-positive gjennom informasjon og undervisning. Metoden som er brukt i oppgaven er litteraturstudie hvor jeg bruker tidligere forskning og studier til å besvare min problemstilling. Funnene i denne oppgaven er at informasjon og undervisning omkring sykdommen er med på å gjøre sykdommen mer håndterbar for den som er smittet. Gode og trygge relasjoner viser seg å være viktig for at pasientene skal få best mulig utbytte av informasjonen og undervisningen

Disaggregating Disasters

In the years since the September 11 attacks, scholars and commentators have criticized the emergence of both legal developments and policy rhetoric that blur the lines between war and terrorism. Unrecognized, but equally as damaging to democratic ideals—and potentially more devastating in practical effect—is the expansion of this trend beyond the context of terrorism to a much wider field of nonwar emergencies. Indeed, in recent years, war and national security rhetoric has come to permeate the legal and policy conversations on a wide variety of natural and technological disasters. This melding of disaster and war for purposes of justifying exceptions to ordinary constitutional and democratic norms is particularly apparent in governmental restrictions on the flow of its communications in disasters, as limitations on information flow that might be warranted when there are thinking enemies (such as in times of war) are invoked in disaster scenarios lacking such thinking enemies. The extension of wartime transparency exceptionalism into nonthinking-enemy disasters—reflected in both legislation and official rhetoric—risks the illegitimate construction of enemies by government, the unwarranted transformation of public spaces into war zones from which the public can be more easily excluded, and the inappropriate reliance on notions of the fog of war to justify communication failures and overbroad access restrictions. Only by consciously disaggregating dissimilar forms of emergencies and removing the rhetoric of war from disaster decisionmaking can the government make appropriate determinations about the provision of information in times of community or national crisis

Copper Oxide Nanoparticles Impact Several Toxicological Endpoints and Cause Neurodegeneration in \u3cem\u3eCaenorhabditis elegans\u3c/em\u3e

Engineered nanoparticles are becoming increasingly incorporated into technology and consumer products. In 2014, over 300 tons of copper oxide nanoparticles were manufactured in the United States. The increased production of nanoparticles raises concerns regarding the potential introduction into the environment or human exposure. Copper oxide nanoparticles commonly release copper ions into solutions, which contribute to their toxicity. We quantified the inhibitory effects of both copper oxide nanoparticles and copper sulfate on C. elegans toxicological endpoints to elucidate their biological effects. Several toxicological endpoints were analyzed in C. elegans, including nematode reproduction, feeding behavior, and average body length. We examined three wild C. elegans isolates together with the Bristol N2 laboratory strain to explore the influence of different genotypic backgrounds on the physiological response to copper challenge. All strains exhibited greater sensitivity to copper oxide nanoparticles compared to copper sulfate, as indicated by reduction of average body length and feeding behavior. Reproduction was significantly reduced only at the highest copper dose, though still more pronounced with copper oxide nanoparticles compared to copper sulfate treatment. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of copper oxide nanoparticles and copper sulfate on neurons, cells with known vulnerability to heavy metal toxicity. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons was observed in up to 10% of the population after copper oxide nanoparticle exposure. Additionally, mutants in the divalent-metal transporters, smf-1 or smf-2, showed increased tolerance to copper exposure, implicating both transporters in copper-induced neurodegeneration. These results highlight the complex nature of CuO nanoparticle toxicity, in which a nanoparticle-specific effect was observed in some traits (average body length, feeding behavior) and a copper ion specific effect was observed for other traits (neurodegeneration, response to stress)

Influence of trace erythromycin and eryhthromycin-H2O on carbon and nutrients removal and on resistance selection in sequencing batch reactors (SBRs).

Three sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated in parallel to study the effects of trace erythromycin (ERY) and ERY-H2O on the treatment of a synthetic wastewater. Through monitoring (1) daily effluents and (2) concentrations of nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) in certain batch cycles of the three reactors operated from transient to steady states, the removal of carbon, N, and P was affected negligibly by ERY (100 microg/L) or ERY-H2O (50 microg/L) when compared with the control reactor. However, through analyzing microbial communities of the three steady state SBRs on high-density microarrays (Phylo-Chip), ERY, and ERY-H2O had pronounced effects on the community composition of bacteria related to N and P removal, leading to diversity loss and abundance change. The above observations indicated that resistant bacteria were selected upon exposure to ERY or ERY-H2O. Shortterm batch experiments further proved the resistance and demonstrated that ammonium oxidation (56-95%) was inhibited more significantly than nitrite oxidation (18-61%) in the presence of ERY (100, 400, or 800 microg/L). Therefore, the presence of ERY or ERY-H2O (at microg/L levels) shifted the microbial community and selected resistant bacteria, which may account for the negligible influence of the antibiotic ERY or its derivative ERY-H2O (at microg/L levels) on carbon, N, and P removal in the SBRs

Fra sløjd og håndarbejde til håndværk og design: En kulturanalytisk, didaktisk og materiel undersøgelse af etablerings- og forandringsprocesser i fag og fagdidaktik

Denne afhandling undersøger forandringsprocesserne fra de tidligere fag sløjd og håndarbejde til faget håndværk og design. I min undersøgelse har jeg haft mulighed for at følge processerne på tæt hold blandt andet gennem feltarbejde i skolen. Her fik jeg øje på, at den didaktiske forandringsproces i fagområdet ikke alene var et lokalt anliggende internt i skolen og faget, men et anliggende der havde betydning for og stod i relation til andre praksisformer uden for skolen i både samfund og stat. I dette møde blev det ligeledes synligt, hvordan de tidligere praksisformer i sløjd og håndarbejde spillede ind i håndværk og designfagets tilblivelse. For at gribe hele forandringsprocessen har jeg, ud fra en dialektisk forståelse, integreret teorier i et undersøgelsesdesign, der videnskabsteoretisk trækker på forskellige forståelser. Tilsammen bygger teorierne til på videreudvikling af en bred forståelse af didaktikbegrebet, og søger at bygge bro mellem didaktik og kulturanalyse som videnskabelige tilgange Ud fra et historisk greb er analysen rammesat af fem epoker, hvor følgende praksisformer behandles i hver epoke: fagets undervisningspraksis, folkeskolens praksis, læreruddannelsens praksis, de eksterne deltagere i fagets praksis, den politiske praksis og den mellemstatlige praksis. Efter epokeanalyserne præsenteres en kronologisk praksisfortælling, som viser håndværk og design fagets tilblivelsesproces på én skole gennem flere epoker. Her synliggøres og analyseres, hvordan de didaktiske forandringsprocesser lokalt set trækker tråde til andre praksisformer i skolen, samfund og stat og over tid.   Fælles for alle epoker og praksisfortællingen er, at relationerne mellem de definerede praksisformer synliggøres og undersøges ud fra teori om didaktik og materialitet. Det understreger afhandlingens grundlæggende erkendelsesinteresse, der stiller spørgsmålet om, hvordan didaktisk undervisningspraksis kan forstås og undersøges som noget der formes, dannes og forandres i brede samfunds- og politiske sammenhænge over tid, på tværs af fag, institutioner, fagforståelser og forskellige deltagere. Desuden søger afhandlingen at vise, hvordan den materielle vending åbner for nye mulige måder at undersøge og analysere kulturer og didaktisk praksis på. Således rummer afhandlingen en almen didaktisk undersøgelse af fagdidaktiske tilblivelsesprocesser, som bidrager med nye kulturanalytiske perspektiver på, hvordan fag og fagdidaktik fra sløjd og håndarbejde til håndværk og design kan begribes og gribes an som forandringsprocesser. &nbsp