ANALYSIS OF PLANT MACROFOSSIL REMAINS IN THEIR STRATIGRAPHIC SEQUENCE FROM 42-48 SCOTCH STREET, CARLISLE: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD WITH A BRIEF EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL IN RELATION TO OTHER MEDIAEVAL REMAINS FROM CARLISLE

In 2003 The North Pennines Heritage Trust, now North Pennines Archaeology Limited undertook a programme of archaeological works at 42-48 Scotch Street, Carlisle, in advance of building redevelopment. Multiple phases of archaeological activity were identified and recorded, possibly dating from the prehistoric period to the present day. The area exhibited continuity of use throughout the Roman Period, becoming a backwater of Carlisle in the late Hadrianic/early Antonine period. After the late Roman Period archaeology was found dating through from the late fourth to the twelfth century. The following Mediaeval sequence begins in the early twelfth century with numerous rubbish pits over the site. The most significant Mediaeval activity present was defined by a series of fourteenth century pottery kilns that had gone out of use by the late fourteenth century when the site was covered with other rubbish pits. The late Mediaeval and Early Modern Period in the area witnessed very little activity; the next phase of activity corresponding to the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century redevelopment of Scotch Street; these buildings for the most remaining extant to the present day, most having modern modifications. Analysis of plant macrofossils concentrated on the site at 42-48 Scotch Street, Carlisle and information retrieved from it for the Mediaeval Period. Preserved botanical remains from contexts dating to the Mediaeval Period of the site were used to determine whether there was a correlation between them and the ethnohistorical evidence available for the period. Preliminary assessment conducted previously had led to this study; more in depth analysis leading to these results. The Mediaeval phase for the site was examined using ethno historical sources in conjunction with the botanical material. The results proved the botanical material retrieved reflected the social and economic changes for the period studied. The study concludes with a discussion of the practices leading to the recovery of the botanical material and the relevance of the ethnohistorical data to the interpretations produced

Reasoning about Goal-Plan Trees in Autonomous Agents: Development of Petri net and Constraint-Based Approaches with Resulting Performance Comparisons

Multi-agent systems and autonomous agents are becoming increasingly important in current computing technology. In many applications, the agents are often asked to achieve multiple goals individually or within teams where the distribution of these goals may be negotiated among the agents. It is expected that agents should be capable of working towards achieving all its currently adopted goals concurrently. However, in doing so, the goals can interact both constructively and destructively with each other, so a rational agent must be able to reason about these interactions and any other constraints that may be imposed on them, such as the limited availability of resources that could affect their ability to achieve all adopted goals when pursuing them concurrently. Currently, agent development languages require the developer to manually identify and handle these circumstances. In this thesis, we develop two approaches for reasoning about the interactions between the goals of an individual agent. The first of these employs Petri nets to represent and reason about the goals, while the second uses constraint satisfaction techniques to find efficient ways of achieving the goals. Three types of reasoning are incorporated into these models: reasoning about consumable resources where the availability of the resources is limited; the constructive interaction of goals whereby a single plan can be used to achieve multiple goals; and the interleaving of steps for achieving different goals that could cause one or more goals to fail. Experimental evaluation of the two approaches under various different circumstances highlights the benefits of the reasoning developed here whilst also identifying areas where one approach provides better results than the other. This can then be applied to suggest the underlying technique used to implement the reasoning that the agent may want to employ based on the goals it has been assigned

BEST PRACTICES OF TEAM COHESION IN SMALL SCHOOLS

This study investigates the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. The conclusions from the study assist future educational leaders with using best practices to influence team cohesion within school settings that have small groups of staff. If faculty can achieve team cohesion, goals can be achieved and success can be attained. Research for large organizations and team cohesion is documented; however, this study fills a gap in research by focusing on small schools. The study’s conclusions help prove that small schools benefit from team cohesion and outline the best practices for reaching team cohesion. This study is a quantitative survey-based research study to establish the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. Surveys were given to teachers employed at small private schools in order to investigate perceptions of team cohesion. Though task-oriented cohesion and social-oriented cohesion were a part of the Framework of Cohesive Teams Survey, for study purposes, only those items that were validated to a 100% level in the area of “task” were utilized in the research instrument. The top predictors of team cohesion were the participants’ perception of satisfaction with their organizational leader’s commitment to establishing a cohesive, team-building approach in leading the organization. Avoids secretive behavior in matters pertaining to the team members and the organization was the top practice of team cohesion distinguished by the study

Women in protest and beyond: Greenham common and mining support groups

The main purpose of the thesis is to locate the study of women's protest within broader feminist debates. A critical analysis of feminist theory, methodology and practice uncovers complex problems entailed in taking account of commonality and difference in women's experience. On the basis of the study, I argue for a politically engaged feminism which includes diversity of women's interests and is committed to examining the tensions between commonality and difference. The data strongly support structural analysis underpinning experience rather than disembodied post-modernist constructions of women's fragmented identities. Principles of grounded theory and feminist methods are employed to explore women’s experiences of the Greenham protest and the 1984-5 miners' strike. The data is synthesised through themes of class and gender which emerge from it and which inform our understanding of the processes of engagement and disengagement with protest. The separate contexts of women's struggles and the links which they endeavoured to make across protest are explored through the voices of women activists. The solidaristic ideals of the miners' strike are found to be tempered by the extent of women’s support and by the contradictions which emerged for women confronted by the patriarchal power of the NUM. Orientations to Greenham suggest a fragile unity around ideals of a common womanhood which would overcome all other differences between women. Links across protest are shown to be affected by class difference, which if not an insuperable barrier to collective action, indicate significant problems in achieving a common voice for women. The study suggests that romantic ideals of sisterhood and a common womanhood, far from supporting the struggle of affiliation and co-operation between women, obscure the power differences between them. Recognition of these differences and others which potentially divide women is seen to be essential to the development of an effective feminist theory and practice

The Effects of Teacher Training On Pre-Service Elementary Education Majors\u27 Conceptual Framework of Reading

What is known about the training of teachers? Does training make a difference? If training makes a difference, what type of training? What variables influence the training? What guarantee is there that training will transfer to the actual teaching situation? These are questions that were asked before, during and after the studies presented in this article. The purpose of the studies was to investigate whether a reading methods course and/or student teaching can influence an individual\u27s conceptual framework of reading

Engaging with young children’s voices: implications for practitioners’ pedagogical practice

The paper seeks to extend the knowledge and understanding of how engaging with young children’s voices in a meaningful way, can alter practitioners’ pedagogical practice and thus create environments for learning that are more inclusive. It draws on the findings of a research study that explored practitioners’ (teachers, nursery nurses and teaching assistants) views about engaging with young children’s voices of perceived notions of inclusion in pedagogical activities in the early years classes of two schools in the North of England. It adopted a qualitative methodological approach that operates within constructivist and interpretivist paradigms. The study revealed that practitioners retain some resistance to responding to the voices of young children and that internal and external pressures influence their decision-making. Moreover, it signifies the necessity for greater emphasis on the importance of engaging with children’s voices in the training of newly qualified teachers, and the ongoing professional development for all practitioners in early childhood education

Catalysing learning for development and climate change: an exploration of social learning and social differentiation in CGIAR

There is convergence between current theory and practice in global environmental change research and development communities on the importance of approaches that aim to ‘engage and embed’, i.e. engage diverse and relevant actors in knowledge creation and embed scientific information into societal contexts. Social learning has emerged as a way to both approach and characterise innovative ways of doing this. Defined here as “a change in understanding that goes beyond the individual to become situated within wider social units or communities of practice through social interactions between actors within social networks” (Reed et al. 2010), a social learning approach situates scientific research as just one form of specialised knowledge amidst other contextual knowledge. Co-learning – by bringing diverse knowledge and social worlds together to exchange needs, values and norms – is considered necessary for addressing complex, wicked problems and for building decision processes and adaptive structures that help navigate uncertain futures. Including socially differentiated groups into processes of knowledge creation and decision- making may fundamentally alter what questions are asked, how changes in practices are framed and how to break down systemic patterns of vulnerability and marginalisation. This paper investigates the synergies (and trade-offs) associated with integrating socially differentiated stakeholders and/or groups – the poor, women, elderly, youth and indigenous – into social learning processes aimed at addressing poverty reduction, livelihood development and longer term resilience. An exploratory scan of CGIAR identifies projects that engage socially differentiated groups in processes of social learning. Cases were characterised for their treatment of i) the particular context, including rationale for the engagement of socially differentiated groups, ii) the design of engagement interfaces, iii) the type of learning loops occurring, iv) particular channels that contributed to learning across networks and, where applicable, v) the outcomes and lessons from the learning process. The findings suggest that diverse forms of social differentiation and learning are occurring across many of CGIAR’s fifteen research centres. This is in part due to institutional reform that has put an increasing emphasis on gender strategies and monitored development outcomes. A more explicit recognition of the role and ‘added value’ that social learning research approaches have can enhance its visibility and ultimately the effectiveness of CGIAR’s vast research partnerships

Coffee Under Pressure

Describes experiences of: CIAT, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services with Workshops, NetworksContext: Vulnerability of farmers equals vulnerability of supply chain. Inclusive management involves those that contribute to growing, selling and changing strategies. Crop modelling under different climate conditions requires knowledge of who’s growing, selling and involved in the supply chain. It also requires an analysis of who the beneficiaries of the value chain are and who will be adversely affected by changes in climate and in practice in order to identify appropriate adaptation strategies. Gender analysis is critical. Interface: Researchers and stakeholders such as farmers, extensionists, local governments, and ministers are brought together in workshops to discuss history, crop types and harvesting methods and climate change perceptions. Strategies such as visual questionnaires, maps, and models of 20-year crop/climate projections are used to engage and discuss how resources change over time. Learning: Knowledge and networks from collaborative teams are leveraged in order to mobilize practical tools, systems and practices that build adaptive capacity among the poor and among women. Young people understand much faster about climate change. Youth and women are more engaged in participatory workshops. Interactive approaches feed information back into more relevant crop/climate models. Channel: Working with intermediaries such as Oxfam has contributed to ways of integrating gender-sensitive methods into the research process. The collaboration has provided Oxfam with CIAT’s relevant crop/climate expertise and information, and providing an avenue for research to be disseminated more broadly. Engaging with global food companies has typically included Corporate Social Responsibility departments. There is a recognized need that corporate buyers need to be brought into the collaborations in order to mainstream sustainable supply chains more broadly. A gender expert within CIAT is facilitating learning about the need for differentiated gender components in research. Agronomists are paying attention and using this resource now that the need has been identified within the institution. Outcome: Learning that women play a significant role in the supply chain but do not get shares of revenue leads to new research questions about what varieties and practices contribute to more visible and greater involvement. Oxfam included post-harvest facilities in the supply chain, formalizing women’s involvement in the supply chain and ability to generate income. Funding is viewed as a primary barrier to longer term learning cycles and for building continuous partnerships and trust over time. CIAT is working collaboratively with supply chain stakeholders and making links with large development NGOs, to use one part (approx. 8%) of their funding for relevant scientific research that applies to local development projects. Where possible, it is expected that sampling design and the innovative methodologies developed can then be rolled out across extensive NGO networks, including Oxfam and Catholic Relief Services

BRCA and Early Events in the Development of Serous Ovarian Cancer

Women who have an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have a substantial increased lifetime risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), and epidemiological factors related to parity, ovulation, and hormone regulation have a dramatic effect on the risk in both BRCA mutation carriers and non-carriers. The most common and most aggressive histotype of EOC, high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), is also the histotype associated with germline BRCA mutations. In recent years, evidence has emerged indicating that the likely tissue of origin of HGSC is the fallopian tube. We have reviewed, what is known about the fallopian tube in BRCA mutation carriers at both the transcriptional and translational aspect of their biology. We propose that changes of the transcriptome in BRCA heterozygotes reflect an altered response to the ovulatory stresses from the microenvironment, which may include the post-ovulation inflammatory response and altered reproductive hormone physiology