Education for transformative leadership in Southern Africa

This article argues that education for transformative leadership in a southern African context needs to nurture an understanding of the relationship between spirituality and charisma. This argument is based on a review of some literature pertaining to transformative learning, transformative leadership, and African value systems. The article explores the relationship between transformative leadership and transformative learning and education theories, and relates them to a specific southern African context. It proposes three arguments. First, transformative education may facilitate the transformative leadership development process. Second, transformative education and transformative leadership, although offering features that are sympathetic to African indigenous values, must also take account of particular African contexts. The article does not claim to be reporting from empirical research on this issue but, to support its position, draws on recent literature from an ongoing southern Africa leadership development project and some early empirical data from a small, related study in one southern African country. Third, the article suggests that a key difference between transformative learning and transformative leadership perspectives is the transformative leadership focus on charismatic qualities that inspire motivation to change. However, a defining conceptual thread of spirituality runs through the transformative learning and leadership literature that resonates with southern African core value systems. It is this thread that provides the overall conceptual link between the different strands of thought

Whose research is it anyway? Tensions and difficulties in research that tries to include the ‘hard to research’

In this paper I consider some of the tensions and problems that can arise, and that need to be addressed, in attempting to undertake research with hard to reach groups of ‘subjects’. In terms of my research this specifically relates to studies undertaken families that include children on the autism spectrum (including the children on the spectrum themselves) as well as children with multiple disabilities and visual impairment (MDVI). I begin by summarising my work experience and how this has shaped my research interests before moving on to discuss studies I have undertaken with the ‘hard to research’. I outline the research studies and the process of the studies before moving on to look at the issues arising. Finally I identify seven key factors regarding this type of research

On the value of Candoco's Teacher Training Intensive

In September 2013 I was asked to write a guest blog for Candoco Dance Company, who are world leaders in inclusive dance practice. I participated in their Teacher Training Intensive in 2010 and it has had a significant effect on shaping my pedagogy as an early career academic

Rule-Based Semantic Sensing

Rule-Based Systems have been in use for decades to solve a variety of problems but not in the sensor informatics domain. Rules aid the aggregation of low-level sensor readings to form a more complete picture of the real world and help to address 10 identified challenges for sensor network middleware. This paper presents the reader with an overview of a system architecture and a pilot application to demonstrate the usefulness of a system integrating rules with sensor middleware.Comment: Proceedings of the Doctoral Consortium and Poster Session of the 5th International Symposium on Rules (RuleML 2011@IJCAI), pages 9-16 (arXiv:1107.1686

Testing CMB polarization data using position angles

We consider a novel null test for contamination which can be applied to CMB polarization data that involves analysis of the statistics of the polarization position angles. Specifically, we will concentrate on using histograms of the measured position angles to illustrate the idea. Such a test has been used to identify systematics in the NVSS point source catalogue with an amplitude well below the noise level. We explore the statistical properties of polarization angles in CMB maps. If the polarization angle is not correlated between pixels, then the errors follow a simple $\sqrt{N_{pix}}$ law. However this is typically not the case for CMB maps since these have correlations which result in an increase in the variance since the effective number of independent pixels is reduced. Then we illustrate how certain classes of systematic errors can result in very obvious patterns in these histograms, and thus that these errors could possibly be identified using this method. We discuss how this idea might be applied in a realistic context, and make a preliminary analysis of the WMAP7 data, finding evidence of a systematic error in the Q and W band data, consistent with a constant offset in Q and U.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Some z_n-1 terraces from z_n power-sequences, n being an odd prime power

A terrace for Zm is a particular type of sequence formed from the m elements of Zm. For m odd, many procedures are available for constructing power-sequence terraces for Zm; each terrace of this sort may be partitioned into segments, of which one contains merely the zero element of Zm, whereas every other segment is either a sequence of successive powers of an element of Zm or such a sequence multiplied throughout by a constant. We now refine this idea to show that, for m=n−1, where n is an odd prime power, there are many ways in which power-sequences in Zn can be used to arrange the elements of Zn \ {0} in a sequence of distinct entries i, 1 ≤ i ≤ m, usually in two or more segments, which becomes a terrace for Zm when interpreted modulo m instead of modulo n. Our constructions provide terraces for Zn-1 for all prime powers n satisfying 0 < n < 300 except for n = 125, 127 and 257

It’s more than just books: working with a corporate marketing team to promote library services

In 2005, the Library at the University of East London reviewed its printed promotional material and general marketing strategy, working with the University’s communications team. The issues considered included: evaluating the strategy to decide whether it should be short-term or long-term; the problem of information overload; defining the library's "message"; the most appropriate format to use. The main elements involved in the development and implementation of the new promotional brochure are presented, including: design aspects; branding and slogans; editing and checking. Concludes with an assessment of whether the new scheme worked and discusses the experience of working with non-librarians in a project

Hammers and blind man’s sticks: re-examining the digital double

This presentation draws on my research in to technological embodiment as part of my PhD studies, which explores a phenomenon called the ‘digital double’ – a manipulable representation of the human body in a variety of performance and new media contexts. My research uses lived experience and autoethnographic writing as a methodology to document and reveal embodied knowledge of the interfaces of body, technology and self when technologically embodied through the digital double. This presentation gives an overview of my research alongside discussion of Me and My Shadow (2012), an interactive telematic and live motion-capture performance installation by sound and media artist Joseph Hyde. Using extracts from autoethnographic writing about my embodied experience of the installation as an audience member, I illustrate the theoretical and embodied bases of my research. My intention is to highlight flaws in current theorisations of the digital double and technological embodiment in this context, which stem from reliance on Merleau-Pontian philosophy of the body as the basis for the research area, and its inherent ‘somatophobia’ (Barbour, 2005). I argue that, through an embodied research methodology and consideration of somatic philosophy and dance scholarship, a more holistic understanding of technological embodiment can be reached