Remarks on countable tightness

Countable tightness may be destroyed by countably closed forcing. We characterize the indestructibility of countable tightness under countably closed forcing by combinatorial statements similar to the ones Tall used to characterize indestructibility of the Lindelof property under countably closed forcing. We consider the behavior of countable tightness in generic extensions obtained by adding Cohen reals. We show that certain classes of well-studied topological spaces are indestructibly countably tight. Stronger versions of countable tightness, including selective versions of separability, are further explored.Comment: Extended from 12 pages to 23 pages. Newly extended to 27 page

Professional Ethics and Social Responsibility: Military Work and Peacebuilding

The paper considers a number of important questions related to the involvement of engineers in peacebuilding and military work, including the preference of many countries for high tech weapons based security over peacebuilding, whether and in what circumstances, if any, it is justified for engineers to be involved in military work; and how engineers can persuade their colleagues to apply their skills to support peacebuilding. It is introduced by an overview of what is meant by the term military work and the extent and consequences of the use of military technology worldwide. This is followed by the applications of different approaches and theories of ethics to discuss the questions presented in the introduction. The approaches and theories applied include considerations of micro-and macro-ethics, codes of ethics, virtue ethics, considerations of gender and paradigms and the ethical imperative. Initial insights include the importance of considering the associated context and the need to avoid othering, which can make different treatment of minority groups, including the use of high tech weapons against them, seem acceptable

Supporting EU, home and foreign students in London writing final year undergraduate BA English language studies dissertations

The London Metropolitan University BA English Language Studies degree (BA ELS) attracts more than 50% “non-traditional” entrants, including many with English as a second language. This paper reports on challenges of the compulsory third year Undergraduate Dissertation, and on implementing and evaluating interventions to help students meet these challenges. My colleague and I carried out pre- and post-module surveys of student perception and made use of an ongoing student diary from one student to determine student needs and experiences. We discovered that students find structuring their literature reviews challenging and need to be trained to see the applicability of some of the literature to their particular thesis situations. There is evidence that students in European institutions face similar challenges. Our action research was informed by a constructivist, dialogic, pedagogic approach which, importantly, included supporting students’ writing from within their subject area. In attempting to find solutions to these problems, we were influenced by the academic literacies with its emphasis on learner differences, but more by the genre approach. I argue that existing manuals on research Dissertations, which focus largely on topic choice, storage of notes and may need to give higher priority to structuring the literature review. Our report includes a survey of students’ attitudes and expectations regarding the Dissertation, then moves on to describe and assess changes which were made to the Dissertation in the Degree in question. The greatest focus is on the “literature review”, but we also describe changes to the module documentation (Handbook), changes to the Dissertation structure, to the process of choice of Dissertation topic, and attention to students’ time management

Ethical Engineering and Respect for The ‘Other’

Engineers have a very important role and responsibility in shaping modern society. Diversity amongst engineers is important in fulfilling this responsibility and ensuring that the creativity and needs of the whole population are taken account of. However, only a small percentage of engineers are female and very few of them are disabled. The paper discusses the experiences of women and disabled engineers in the context of othering and considers the way in which the existence of binary divides facilitates marginalisation and exclusion. It also discusses the need to involve end-users in design and development and education to encourage this, with a particular focus on disabled end-users

Cultural syndromes: Socially learned but real

While some of mental disorders due to emotional distress occur cross-culturally, others seem to be much more bound to particular cultures. In this paper, I propose that many of these “cultural syndromes” are culturally sanctioned responses to overwhelming negative emotions. I show how tools from cultural evolution theory can be employed for understanding how the syndromes are relatively confined to and retained within particular cultures. Finally, I argue that such an account allows for some cultural syndromes to be or become mental disorders and also steers clear of some of the anti-realist trappings associated with a social constructivism of cultural syndromes