On the pulse of change: the new beat of special education in higher education

The roles and responsibilities of special educators in both special and regular school settings are changing rapidly. More than two decades ago the move towards more inclusive practices disrupted the traditional, niche separatism of special educators to the extent that they are now an integral part of the regular school teaching staff. Today the broad agenda to facilitate access and participation for all students in education, not just students with disabilities, influences the roles and responsibilities of special educators. This article briefly identifies some of the generic pulses that are moving the special education profession from a focus on low incidence disabilities towards a more comprehensive approach to inclusion, school responsiveness and individualised learning pathways. From the foundation of inclusive practice, this paper will describe how a qualitative study was used to understand the changing roles and responsibilities of special educators. A case study analysis of 17 schools formed the basis of the investigation. Principals, lead teachers in special education and special education teachers were asked to identify trends and priorities in special education and also to identify rewards and challenges in their jobs. Further cross referencing with teacher and special educator standards, a focus group, a stakeholder group and research in the field increased the opportunity for academics and special educators to critically reflect on the emerging demands placed on special educators and the attributes that are needed to be professionally effective

Bayesian Estimation of the Discrepancy with Misspecified Parametric Models

We study a Bayesian model where we have made specific requests about the parameter values to be estimated. The aim is to find the parameter of a parametric family which minimizes a distance to the data generating density and then to estimate the discrepancy using nonparametric methods. We illustrate how coherent updating can proceed given that the standard Bayesian posterior from an unidentifiable model is inappropriate. Our updating is performed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods and in particular a novel method for dealing with intractable normalizing constants is required. Illustrations using synthetic data are provided.European Research Council (ERC) through StG "N-BNP" 306406Regione PiemonteMathematic

Collaborative concept mapping: an education research team leveraging their collaborative efforts

Collaborative concept mapping (CCM) has been a tool deployed by educators to enhance learning in such situations as primary science classes, supported learning environments and asynchronous computer-mediated learning. Of its outcomes, CCM has produced rich group discussion about ideas and possibilities pertinent to the topic or problem at hand. The majority of research into CCM has been explicitly pointed at enhancing learning. This chapter takes a different tack by reporting on how the authors used CCM to seek understandings of its utility in enabling collaborative research by creating synergies within a research team located in the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. The following questions were used to focus the research: • What was the research team’s experience of collaborative concept mapping? • What propositions did the team construct about teamwork and collaboration? • How did the interactions among team members facilitate meaning-making about teamwork and collaboration? The data consisted of this team’s collaborative concept map and recordings of the dialogue during the process of constructing the map. Analysis revealed the team’s emerging propositions about teamwork and collaboration and also contributed understandings of the co-constructed patterns of talk that produced this dynamic map. The chapter concludes that collaborative concept mapping is a useful tool for research and other team development, and possibly for the collaborative conceptualisation of future team research projects

Baryon mass splittings and strong CP violation in SU(3) Chiral Perturbation Theory

We study $SU(3)$ flavor-breaking corrections to the relation between the octet baryon masses and the nucleon-meson CP-violating interactions induced by the QCD $\bar\theta$ term. We work within the framework of $SU(3)$ chiral perturbation theory and work through next-to-next-to-leading order in the $SU(3)$ chiral expansion, which is $\mathcal{O}(m_q^2)$. At lowest order, the CP-odd couplings induced by the QCD $\bar\theta$ term are determined by mass splittings of the baryon octet, the classic result of Crewther et al. We show that for each isospin-invariant CP-violating nucleon-meson interaction there exists one relation which is respected by loop corrections up to the order we work, while other leading-order relations are violated. With these relations we extract a precise value of the pion-nucleon coupling $\bar g_0$ by using recent lattice QCD evaluations of the proton-neutron mass splitting. In addition, we derive semi-precise values for CP-violating coupling constants between heavier mesons and nucleons with $\sim 30\%$ uncertainty and discuss their phenomenological impact on electric dipole moments of nucleons and nuclei.Comment: 49 pages. Published versio

Line Profiles from Discrete Kinematic Data

We develop a method to extract the shape information of line profiles from discrete kinematic data. The Gauss-Hermite expansion, which is widely used to describe the line of sight velocity distributions extracted from absorption spectra of elliptical galaxies, is not readily applicable to samples of discrete stellar velocity measurements, accompanied by individual measurement errors and probabilities of membership. We introduce two parameter families of probability distributions describing symmetric and asymmetric distortions of the line profiles from Gaussianity. These are used as the basis of a maximum likelihood estimator to quantify the shape of the line profiles. Tests show that the method outperforms a Gauss-Hermite expansion for discrete data, with a lower limit for the relative gain of approx 2 for sample sizes N approx 800. To ensure that our methods can give reliable descriptions of the shape, we develop an efficient test to assess the statistical quality of the obtained fit. As an application, we turn our attention to the discrete velocity datasets of the dwarf spheroidals of the Milky Way. In Sculptor, Carina and Sextans the symmetric deviations are consistent with velocity distributions more peaked than Gaussian. In Fornax, instead, there is an evolution in the symmetric deviations of the line profile from a peakier to more flat-topped distribution on moving outwards. These results suggest a radially biased orbital structure for the outer parts of Sculptor, Carina and Sextans. On the other hand, tangential anisotropy is favoured in Fornax. This is all consistent with a picture in which Fornax may have had a different evolutionary history to Sculptor, Carina and Sextans.Comment: MNRAS, accepted for publication, minor change

National counter-terrorism (C-T) policies and challenges to human rights and civil liberties: Case study of United Kingdom

In the UK the rise post-2005 in “home-grown” terrorism, relying to a significant extent on strikes on soft targets by “self-starters,” means that the search for effective preventive measures remains a continuing concern. Below a number of the preventive counter-terror measures adopted post-9/11, and incrementally strengthened in response to the current threat, are found to fall into three categories and represent interventions at the stages in the path toward attacks. This chapter focuses on selected examples of these preventive measures. In terms of three key stages, firstly, there is the attempt to prevent radicalization, under the “Prevent” strategy. A second strategy relies on taking certain measures to control the activities of those considered likely – on the balance of probabilities – to engage in terrorist-related activity. A third preventive strategy relies on the special terrorism offences under the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006, as amended, intended to allow for intervention at a very early stage in terrorist plots and in preparing or instigating terrorist acts (“precursor” offences)

Influence of zinc on distiller’s yeast:cellular accumulation of zinc and impact on spirit congeners

Accumulation of zinc by a whisky distilling yeast strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was studied during fermentation of malt wort and synthetic defined medium. Zinc uptake by yeast cells was very rapid in malt wort, as zinc (0.32 μg/mL) was completely removed from the fermentation medium within one hour. The type of fermentable carbohydrate had an impact on the kinetics of zinc accumulation, with maltose most effective at enhancing metal uptake at zinc concentrations above 3.2 μg/mL. Enriching yeast cells with zinc by “preconditioning” impacted on the production of flavour congeners in the distillates produced from fermented cultures. Such distillates were characterized by an altered flavour and aroma profile. In particular, the production of some higher alcohols increased when yeast cells were preconditioned with zinc. This phenomenon is yeast strain related. Industrial fermentation processes, including brewing and distilling, may benefit from optimization of zinc bioavailability in yeast cultures resulting in more efficient fermentations and improved product quality