Challenges for Curriculum Leadership in Contemporary Teacher Education

This paper outlines the complex contemporary milieu of Australian teacher education within which curriculum leaders responsible for designing teacher education programs must make their program design decisions. Particular attention is paid to the collision of vertical (‘hierarchical’ or \u27academic rationalist\u27) and horizontal (‘flat’ or \u27student-centred\u27) curriculum discourses as a program design problem that has emerged within the current context; how it is intensified by an unexpected alliance between progressivist and new managerial curriculum discourses; and how this problem may be amplified in graduate entry teacher education programs. This paper concludes with a provocation to see the curriculum tensions and conditions outlined as offering a challenging design problem for the current generation of curriculum leaders responsible for the assembly of teacher education programs

Adaptive Limited-Supply Online Auctions

We study a limited-supply online auction problem, in which an auctioneer has k goods to sell and bidders arrive and depart dynamically. We suppose that agent valuations are drawn independently from some unknown distribution and construct an adaptive auction that is nevertheless value- andtime-strategy proof. For the k=1 problem we have a strategyproof variant on the classic secretary problem. We present a 4-competitive (e-competitive) strategyproof online algorithm with respect to offline Vickrey for revenue (efficiency). We also show (in a model that slightly generalizes the assumption of independent valuations) that no mechanism can be better than 3/2-competitive (2-competitive) for revenue (efficiency). Our general approach considers a learning phase followed by an accepting phase, and is careful to handle incentive issues for agents that span the two phases. We extend to the k›1 case, by deriving strategyproof mechanisms which are constant-competitive for revenue and efficiency. Finally, we present some strategyproof competitive algorithms for the case in which adversary uses a distribution known to the mechanism.Engineering and Applied Science

Online Auctions with Re-usable Goods

This paper concerns the design of mechanisms for online scheduling in which agents bid for access to a re-usable resource such as processor time or wireless network access. Each agent is assumed to arrive and depart dynamically, and in the basic model require the resource for one unit of time. We seek mechanisms that are truthful in the sense that truthful revelation of arrival, departure and value information is a dominant strategy, and that are online in the sense that they make allocation decisions without knowledge of the future. First, we provide two characterizations for the class of truthful online allocation rules. The characterizations extend beyond the typical single-parameter settings, and formalize the role of restricted misreporting in reversing existing price-based characterizations. Second, we present an online auction for unit-length jobs that achieves total value that is 2-competitive with the maximum offline value. We prove that no truthful deterministic online mechanism can achieve a better competitive ratio. Third, we consider revenue competitiveness and prove that no deterministic truthful online auction has revenue that is constant-competitive with that of the offline Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism We provide a randomized online auction that achieves a competitive ratio of O(log h), where h is the ratio of maximum value to minimum value among the agents; this mechanism does not require prior knowledge of h. Finally, we generalize our model to settings with multiple re-usable goods and to agents with different job lengths.Engineering and Applied Science

The Kick-Smart Program: A Randomised Feasibility Trial Evaluating the Feasibility and Efficacy of a Primary-School Based Martial Arts Program Integrating Mathematics, Physical Fitness and Well-Being

The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of the ‘Kick-Smart’ martial arts programme using a randomised controlled-trial conducted in one Australian primary school. Kick-Smart involved children 9-11yrs (n= 46) randomised into treatment or wait-list control conditions. Kick-Smart consisted of 2x60min curriculum sessions/week for 6-weeks during school hours. Positive feedback was received from students and teachers regarding program enjoyment, perceived benefits and future plans. Significant treatment effects favouring the Kick-Smart group for muscular fitness and mathematics achievement demonstrates preliminary efficacy. Findings indicate Kick-Smart is feasible for delivery in a primary school setting and effective for improving selected fitness and academic outcomes. Further evidence for the effectiveness of Kick-Smart via a larger randomised control trial is recommended

Perfectionistic profiles among elite athletes and differences in their motivational orientations

Although there is an emerging body of research that has examined perfectionistic clusters in the general population, few studies have explored such profiles in athlete samples. The purposes of this research were to explore perfectionistic profiles within a sample of elite athletes and the differences between them on key motivational variables. A sample of 423 elite athletes (179 males, 244 females) aged between 14 and 66 years (M = 25.64; SD = 8.57) from a variety of team (e.g., rowing, hockey, baseball, rugby) and individual sports (e.g., cycling, athletics, triathlon, gymnastics) completed a multisection questionnaire including measures of sport perfectionism, motivation regulation, achievement goals, and fear of failure. Cluster analyses revealed the existence of three perfectionism profiles, namely, nonperfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists, and adaptive perfectionists. Subsequent analyses generally supported the robustness of these perfectionism profiles in terms of differential motivational orientations (achievement goals, fear of failure, and motivation regulation) in hypothesized directions. Overall, the differences in motivational orientations between the three clusters supported a categorical conceptualization of perfectionism

Attentional bias towards positive and negative images amongst offenders and non-offenders with intellectual disabilities

Aims: The aim of the study was to examine attentional bias towards positive and negative images amongst men with intellectual disabilities, some of whom had a history of criminal offending. A secondary aim was to explore the relationship between attentional bias, empathy and distorted cognitions. Method: Forty-six men with intellectual disabilities with a history of criminal offending and 51 men with intellectual disabilities without any known history of criminal offending were recruited and invited to complete a dot-probe paradigm using images, as well as measures of distorted cognitions and empathy. Comparisons were made between the two groups. Results: Non-offenders had a significant attentional bias away from negative images, while offenders had a small attentional bias towards negative images. There was a significant positive relationship between distorted cognitions and an attentional bias towards negative images. There was a significant negative relationship between empathy and an attentional bias towards negative images

Two distinct classes of QTL determine rust resistance in sorghum

Background: Agriculture is facing enormous challenges to feed a growing population in the face of rapidly evolving pests and pathogens. The rusts, in particular, are a major pathogen of cereal crops with the potential to cause large reductions in yield. Improving stable disease resistance is an on-going major and challenging focus for many plant breeding programs, due to the rapidly evolving nature of the pathogen. Sorghum is a major summer cereal crop that is also a host for a rust pathogen which occurs in almost all sorghum growing areas of the world, causing direct and indirect yield losses in sorghum worldwide, however knowledge about its genetic control is still limited. In order to further investigate this issue, QTL and association mapping methods were implemented to study rust resistance in three bi-parental populations and an association mapping set of elite breeding lines in different environments. Results: In total, 64 significant or highly significant QTL and 21 suggestive rust resistance QTL were identified representing 55 unique genomic regions. Comparisons across populations within the current study and with rust QTL identified previously in both sorghum and maize revealed a high degree of correspondence in QTL location. Negative phenotypic correlations were observed between rust, maturity and height, indicating a trend for both early maturing and shorter genotypes to be more susceptible to rust. Conclusions: The significant amount of QTL co-location across traits, in addition to the consistency in the direction of QTL allele effects, has provided evidence to support pleiotropic QTL action across rust, height, maturity and stay-green, supporting the role of carbon stress in susceptibility to rust. Classical rust resistance QTL regions that did not co-locate with height, maturity or stay-green QTL were found to be significantly enriched for the defence-related NBS-encoding gene family, in contrast to the lack of defence-related gene enrichment in multi-trait effect rust resistance QTL. The distinction of disease resistance QTL hot-spots, enriched with defence-related gene families from QTL which impact on development and partitioning, provides plant breeders with knowledge which will allow for fast-tracking varieties with both durable pathogen resistance and appropriate adaptive traits