2,594 research outputs found
Enthusing and inspiring with reusable kinaesthetic activities
We describe the experiences of three University projects that use a style of physical, non-computer based activity to enthuse and teach school students computer science concepts. We show that this kind of activity is effective as an outreach and teaching resource even when reused across different age/ability ranges, in lecture and workshop formats and for delivery by different people. We introduce the concept of a Reusable Outreach Object (ROO) that extends Reusable Learning Objects. and argue for a community effort in developing a repository of such objects
Accumulation layer profiles at InAs polar surfaces
High resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy, dielectric theory simulations, and charge profile calculations have been used to study the accumulation layer and surface plasmon excitations at the In-terminated (001)-(4 × 1) and (111)A-(2 × 2) surfaces of InAs. For the (001) surface, the surface state density is 4.0 ± 2.0 × 1011 cm – 2, while for the (111)A surface it is 7.5 ± 2.0 × 1011 cm – 2, these values being independent of the surface preparation procedure, bulk doping level, and substrate temperature. Changes of the bulk Fermi level with temperature and bulk doping level do, however, alter the position of the surface Fermi level. Ion bombardment and annealing of the surface affect the accumulation layer only through changes in the effective bulk doping level and the bulk momentum scattering rate, with no discernible changes in the surface charge density
Off the couch and on the move: global public health and the medicalisation of nature
In May 2004 the World Health Organization officially launched the ‘Global
Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health’. Lying at its heart is the
recognition that many of the risk factors associated with non-communicable
diseases, particularly poor diet and physical inactivity, have begun to move
beyond the confines of the West. It was this apparent shift in the
epidemiological boundaries of such diseases, along with fears over the socalled
‘double burden’ that they presented to some nations, that finally
prompted the WHO to develop such a far reaching strategy. This paper adds
to the on-going debate surrounding this important issue by drawing on the
concepts of medicalisation, governmentality and the spatiality of scientific
knowledge to explore one particular element of it: namely, the identification of
nature as a setting for the promotion of physical activity. We adopt this
perspective because we are concerned to understand the ways in which the
knowledge and practice of the new public health travels. As our analysis
reveals, in many Western nations the natural environment has emerged as an
important ‘transactional zone’ where the governmental imperative for the
production of fit and active bodies coalesces with the individual desire to be
healthy. However, while it is apparent that this physical activity discourse
increasingly operates throughout the globe, there is less evidence of an
equivalent discourse that promotes the health-related benefits of nature. We
argue that this is significant because it helps us recognise that contemporary
public health discourse has a distinct geography
Germs, genes and postcolonial geographies: reading the return of tuberculosis to Leicester, UK, 2001
This paper is inspired by an outbreak of pulmonary tuberculosis in the British East Midlands city of Leicester in 2001. In an era characterized by unprecedented advances in Western medical science an event of this kind might appear surprising. It challenges the feeling of wellbeing held in many Western countries, particularly in relation to diseases that appear both temporally and spatially distant. The paper examines how the event was reported in regional and national newspaper media and considers the significance attached to scale in the interactions between experts, the media and the public. In our analysis we mobilize a particular reading based on two biological metaphors, the membrane and the gene. We use this reading to reconsider the connectivity between disease, nation and identity in a world that is increasingly fluid, mobile, anxious and uncertain
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