Developments in the evaluation of work-based learning: A UK perspective

UK higher education institutions are now expected to be able to demonstrate that they are adhering to the Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education in Placement Learning. The responsibility for ensuring that a placement provides an adequate opportunity for its intended learning outcomes rests with the educational institution. This paper draws on the author's experience of the management and evaluation of placements in the construction sector. In recognition of the increasingly global nature of the business, a placement programme has been developed to meet the particular challenges of students operating in multidisciplinary and multicultural environments. Participation in the European Commission's Leonardo da Vinci Vocational Training Programmes and pilot projects has enabled the identification of further criteria for evaluating and disseminating experience gained in work-based learning across the frontiers of language and culture. However, the paper also identifies problems peculiar to the UK market for construction professions and higher education programmes in construction-related disciplines. A study by Northumbria University highlighted challenges for both industry and higher education arising from economic pressures on students and the positioning of construction-related courses in the higher education market. Given the global nature of the construction business, it is clear that there are significant benefits to be gained from taking a global view of relevant issues

How might critique respond to the urgency of climate change? : a challenge for environmental communication : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Scientists, journalists, politicians and academics regularly describe climate change as both urgent and a crisis. During times that demand urgent action academic disciplines, like communication, also need to take critique more seriously. In contrast to accepting the one-dimensional premise that crisis simply demands action, this thesis also proposes that crisis demands critique. Starting with an assessment of the current shape of critique and critical theories in environmental communication as a distinct sub-field of communications studies, this project addresses the broader prospect for critique by examining the work of four key scholars who have spent significant time addressing climate change. First, the study contrasts Peter Sloterdijk’s trilogy of books on spheres that highlights the spatiality of the humans living in an atmosphere, with his anthropotechnic work on how humans go beyond themselves through practice, training and other technologies. Next, the study examines the role of ecological crisis in the work of Slavoj Žižek with special emphasis on his theorising of climate change as one of four existential threats to the world, which necessitates a communist response. The third theorist, Timothy Morton, interrogates how ecological texts privilege the essentialised concept of nature and the subjectivity of the ‘beautiful soul’ in a manner that undermines the politics of adequately responding to climate crisis. Finally, the study considers Bruno Latour’s insights into how climate change is communicated when the tools of critique have been appropriated by those who seek to use doubt to prevent action. Bringing these theorists together, the study concludes by highlighting four key themes that add critical depth to discussions within environmental communication: the topics of anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene, the global scale of climate change, the role of communism in political responses, and the (mis)use of the concept of nature. The study ends by bringing these themes back to the sub-field of environmental communication, making a series of recommendations to renew the relationship of doubt and scepticism to critique

How I approach trabeculectomy surgery

The purpose of this article is to describe an approach to the most commonly performed surgical treatment for open-angle glaucoma, trabeculectomy. It is important to recognise that the concept of trabeculectomy surgery can be difficult for patients to comprehend in the first place. Their disease is frequently ‘thrust upon them’ by doctors; in other words, they are frequently asymptomatic in the eye that the ophthalmologist is most concerned about. The therapy, at best, can only hope to maintain vision. Vision may well deteriorate as a result of the therapy. These concepts are vital in the consideration of any surgical intervention. Preventive therapy is always more difficult to introduce. This also means the surgeon is all the more challenged to produce the safest possible result. A well-rested surgeon and a calm surgical environment is the start, along with a confident surgical technique. The purpose of trabeculectomy surgery is to create a guarded fistula through which aqueous can drain from the anterior chamber, leading to a steady-state reduced intraocular pressure. If this intervention is appropriate for a patient, drainage surgery has been demonstrated to give long-term intraocular pressure control and visual field preservation. The main complication of this procedure is a failure of drainage due to a scarring response. Other complications include hypotony (low pressure in the eye), infection, and haemorrhage. This article describes each step and lists points for you as a surgeon to consider. It is based on the assumption that the decision to operate is appropriate. What matters is your results. Follow-up of your surgery is vital so you know how successful your surgery is and can take steps to remedy the deficiencies you identify

Equivariant ZFA with Choice: a position paper

We propose Equivariant ZFA with Choice as a foundation for nominal techniques that is stronger than ZFC and weaker than FM, and why this may be particularly helpful in the context of automated reasoning.Comment: In ARW 201

The language of Stratified Sets is confluent and strongly normalising

We study the properties of the language of Stratified Sets (first-order logic with $\in$ and a stratification condition) as used in TST, TZT, and (with stratifiability instead of stratification) in Quine's NF. We find that the syntax forms a nominal algebra for substitution and that stratification and stratifiability imply confluence and strong normalisation under rewrites corresponding naturally to $\beta$-conversion.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1406.406

Catherine Mary White Foster\u27s Eyewitness Account of the Battle of Gettysburg, with Background on the Foster Family Union Soldiers

Catherine Mary White Foster lived with her elderly parents in the red brick house on the northwest corner of Washington and High Streets in Gettysburg at the time of the battle, 1-3 July 1863. She was the only child of James White Foster and Catherine (nee Swope) Foster (a former resident of Lancaster county), who married on 11 May 1817 and settled in Gettysburg, Adams county, Pennsylvania. Her father, James White Foster, had served his country as a first lieutenant in the War of 1812. Her grandparents, James Foster and Catherine (nee White) Foster, had emigrated with her father and five older children from county Donegal, Ireland, in 1790, and settled near New Alexandria, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. [excerpt

Semantics out of context: nominal absolute denotations for first-order logic and computation

Call a semantics for a language with variables absolute when variables map to fixed entities in the denotation. That is, a semantics is absolute when the denotation of a variable a is a copy of itself in the denotation. We give a trio of lattice-based, sets-based, and algebraic absolute semantics to first-order logic. Possibly open predicates are directly interpreted as lattice elements / sets / algebra elements, subject to suitable interpretations of the connectives and quantifiers. In particular, universal quantification "forall a.phi" is interpreted using a new notion of "fresh-finite" limit and using a novel dual to substitution. The interest of this semantics is partly in the non-trivial and beautiful technical details, which also offer certain advantages over existing semantics---but also the fact that such semantics exist at all suggests a new way of looking at variables and the foundations of logic and computation, which may be well-suited to the demands of modern computer science