Editorial

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Re-imagining Khmer Identity: Angkor Wat during the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (1979-1989)

ABSTRACT Re-imagining Khmer Identity: Angkor Wat during the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (1979-1989) Simon Bailey The People’s Republic of Kampuchea period between 1979 and 1989 is often overlooked when scholars work on the history of modern Cambodia. This decade is an academic blind spot sandwiched between the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime and the onset of the United Nations peace process. Utilizing mediums such as popular culture, postage stamps and performance art, this thesis will show how the single most identifiable image of Cambodian culture, Angkor Wat became a cultural binding agent for the government during the 1980s. To prove the centrality of Angkor in the myth-making and nation building mechanisms of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, primary source material from Cambodia’s archives, along with interviews will form the foundation of this investigation. By studying Angkor Wat during Cambodia’s revolutionary moment one can view the malleability of national identity, and the situational political methodology constructed by newly formed, fragile regimes

Taking up the challenge: an interpretive phenomenological analysis of teachers’ perceptions regarding the presence of asylum seeker and refugee pupils (ASR) within mainstream primary schools in the Midlands, and the implications this may hold for educational psychologists practice.

The increase in Asylum Seeker and Refugee (ASR) applications in recent decades (Hart, 2009) has led to an increase in the numbers of ASR children attending schools in the UK. This study utilizes Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a relatively new qualitative research approach within psychology (Smith et al., 2010), to gain the perceptions of a cohort of teachers who work on the ‘front line’ with these pupils to understand the impact their presence has on those teachers, their classrooms and the wider school and community. Using IPA has allowed the researcher to add a distinct psychological perspective to the limited extant research literature in the field, and has provided rich and contextualized accounts regarding the teachers’ perceptions of those children. The findings suggest that these teachers are generally optimistic about ASR children and recognize the important protective role schools can play in supporting them. However set within a context of rising work pressures some of the teachers’ frustrations with the wider systems are surfaced and the impact on ASR children is discussed. The study discusses how psychological theory can be adopted to support teachers in their work alongside ASR children and the role educational psychologists should play in supporting this agenda

Pollination services in the UK: how important are honeybees?

Pollination services are known to provide substantial benefits to human populations and agriculture in particular. Although many species are known to provide pollination services, honeybees (Apis mellifera) are often assumed to provide the majority of these services to agriculture. Using data from a range of secondary sources, this study assesses the importance of insect pollinated crops at regional and national scales and investigates the capacity of honeybees to provide optimal pollination services to UK agriculture. The findings indicate that insect pollinated crops have become increasingly important in UK crop agriculture and, as of 2007, accounted for 20% of UK cropland and 19% of total farmgate crop value. Analysis of honeybee hive numbers indicates that current UK populations are only capable of supplying 34% of pollination service demands even under favourable assumptions, falling from 70% in 1984. In spite of this decline, insect pollinated crop yields have risen by an average of 54% since 1984, casting doubt on long held beliefs that honeybees provide the majority of pollination services. Future land use and crop production patterns may further increase the role of pollination services to UK agriculture, highlighting the importance of measures aimed at maintaining both wild and managed species

Atherosusceptible Shear Stress Activates Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress to Promote Endothelial Inflammation.

Atherosclerosis impacts arteries where disturbed blood flow renders the endothelium susceptible to inflammation. Cytokine activation of endothelial cells (EC) upregulates VCAM-1 receptors that target monocyte recruitment to atherosusceptible regions. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress elicits EC dysregulation in metabolic syndrome. We hypothesized that ER plays a central role in mechanosensing of atherosusceptible shear stress (SS) by signaling enhanced inflammation. Aortic EC were stimulated with low-dose TNFα (0.3 ng/ml) in a microfluidic channel that produced a linear SS gradient over a 20mm field ranging from 0-16 dynes/cm2. High-resolution imaging of immunofluorescence along the monolayer provided a continuous spatial metric of EC orientation, markers of ER stress, VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 expression, and monocyte recruitment. VCAM-1 peaked at 2 dynes/cm2 and decreased to below static TNFα-stimulated levels at atheroprotective-SS of 12 dynes/cm2, whereas ICAM-1 rose to a maximum in parallel with SS. ER expansion and activation of the unfolded protein response also peaked at 2 dynes/cm2, where IRF-1-regulated VCAM-1 expression and monocyte recruitment also rose to a maximum. Silencing of PECAM-1 or key ER stress genes abrogated SS regulation of VCAM-1 transcription and monocyte recruitment. We report a novel role for ER stress in mechanoregulation at arterial regions of atherosusceptible-SS inflamed by low-dose TNFα

On the spectroastrometric separation of binary point-source fluxes

Spectroastrometry is a technique which has the potential to resolve flux distributions on scales of milliarcseconds. In this study, we examine the application of spectroastrometry to binary point sources which are spatially unresolved due to the observational point spread function convolution. The technique uses measurements with sub-pixel accuracy of the position centroid of high signal-to-noise long-slit spectrum observations. With the objects in the binary contributing fractionally more or less at different wavelengths (particularly across spectral lines), the variation of the position centroid with wavelength provides some information on the spatial distribution of the flux. We examine the width of the flux distribution in the spatial direction, and present its relation to the ratio of the fluxes of the two components of the binary. Measurement of three observables (total flux, position centroid and flux distribution width) at each wavelength allows a unique separation of the total flux into its component parts even though the angular separation of the binary is smaller than the observations' point-spread function. This is because we have three relevant observables for three unknowns (the two fluxes, and the angular separation of the binary), which therefore generates a closed problem. This is a wholly different technique than conventional deconvolution methods, which produce information on angular sizes of the sampling scale. Spectroastrometry can produce information on smaller scales than conventional deconvolution, and is successful in separating fluxes in a binary object with a separation of less than one pixel. We present an analysis of the errors involved in making binary object spectroastrometric measurements and the separation method, and highlight necessary observing methodology.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Mitral valve infective endocarditis following device occlusion of a coronary artery fistula

A three year old girl, with a right coronary artery fistula and signs of a hyperdynamic circulation, underwent uncomplicated closure of the fistula using an occluding device introduced via the femoral arterial route and covered with appropriate antibiotics. Two months later she presented with a persistent fever, signs of infective endocarditis (IE) and embolic phenomena in the left lower limb. Mitral valve endocarditis was confirmed immediately and treated effectively. However, initial ultrasound and doppler did not show the femoral artery thrombo-occlusion that was only confirmed on magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) one month later. This case highlights the usefulness of MRA in diagnosing suspected vessel occlusion in young children, and is in keeping with the latest NICE guidelines that suggest that prophylactic antibiotics do not always prevent IE. Parent and patient education on ‘what to look out for’, combined with careful clinical vigilance is paramount in the early detection of IE with a consequent reduction in morbidity and mortality.peer-reviewe

Smoothly parameterized Čech cohomology of complex manifolds

A Stein covering of a complex manifold may be used to realize its analytic cohomology in accordance with the Čech theory. If however, the Stein covering is parameterized by a smooth manifold rather than just a discrete set, then we construct a cohomology theory in which an exterior derivative replaces the usual combinatorial Cech differential. Our construction is motivated by integral geometry and the representation theory of Lie groups.Support from the Australian Research Council and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute is gratefully acknowledged. Research at MSRI is supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9810361. Third author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0070816