Measuring sustainability along the food supply chain: further development of a tool for measuring environmental impact of a food business

The sustainability of the food industry with respect to its environmental impact and use of resources is one of the key challenges it faces. Tools and systems are available to measure these but require specialist knowledge in order to apply them. A simple tool for measuring environmental impact was recently published (Salvá et al., 2013) that quantifies various aspects of a food business and gives an overview of its sustainability. This poster describes the further development of this tool so that the parameters can be measured in a more objective and systematic way, using principles from sensory science. The parameters were scaled by defining higher and lower anchors and intermediate points along otherwise-unstructured line scales. A number of food businesses were invited to complete the questionnaire. Scoring was done by marking the point along each scale at which the business believed it lay. By setting up the questionnaire in a spreadsheet, e.g. Excel, the results were produced rapidly, with minimum effort. Data were analysed by presenting the scores on a spider diagram. Differences between businesses were compared statistically in a separate analysis. The study demonstrated that the tool was easy to use and provided both industry, their suppliers and their customers with easily-interpretable results. The tool could be used for longer-term planning and for showing how a business was developing its sustainability

Aiming higher : the Plymouth and Peninsula Tri-Level Model (PPM) for school/HE links : putting the university into school and community

"This report outlines an innovative, effective model of school/higher education (HE) liaison, the Plymouth & Peninsula Model (PPM). The PPM is of major national and international importance. The defining quality of PPM is that it is a genuine partnership, with parity of esteem between HEIs, schools and local authorities (LAs), supported by other major stakeholders. The PPM is based upon firm research evidence, is highly cost effective and could be rolled out nationally to cover geographically all primary and secondary schools and college grouped in consortia" - page iii

Introduction: what is Wandelweiser?

The introduction to a special issue of 'Contemporary Music Review' on Wandelweiser

The Institute of Beasts: strategies of doubt and refusal in a contemporary art practice

The collaborative work of Steve Dutton and Steve Swindells (Dutton and Swindells) can be seen in the context of post-conceptual artistic practices which play with and interrogate images, objects and texts through processes of collage, appropriation and multiple association. The aim of the collaboration is to foster complex interpretations, often from deceptively simple means; consciously working through varied rhetorical devices and tropes, modes of production and strategic interventions. We are tactical artists, preferring to focus on strategies, context and processes, frequently doubling, collaging, reversing, repeating and inverting images, objects and texts as a means of disruption. But a question remains at the heart of such contemporary art practices, namely, a disruption of what? My paper for ATINER focused on strategies of refusal, waywardness, the production of ambiguity and new fictional taxonomies in a contemporary art practice and asked if the use of tactics of doubt in the work of art are useful tools for production of new knowledge. At the heart of these questions are issues around the relationship between art and research, the possibility or impossibility of art within the contexts of the contemporary art/educational institution and art school and the possibility of creating and sustaining an art practice which refuses to align itself to any one canon, manifesto, school, industry, form, institution or critical method. The paper draws on the collaborative practice of Dutton and Swindells and also Michael Phillipson’s 1992 essay “Managing ‘tradition’: the Plight of Aesthetic Practices in techno-scientific culture” as a means of illustrating the potential absorption of the specific into the general under the auspices neo-liberal institutional and commercial agendas

Woodland clearance in the Mesolithic: the social aspects.

Did Mesolithic people regard the woodland as a wilderness or park? Previous models have portrayed the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic as in tune with nature and making use of clearings to attract game. Using equally valid analogies, the authors propose a more hostile landscape that was conceived and managed with clearings and paths to help allay its menacing character

Intervention for a visual attention span processing deficit in a Greek-speaking child with slow reading speed:Developmental dyslexia and visual attention span processing training

We present the case of TN, aged 9;11, a monolingual Greek-speaking girl with accurate but slow word and non-word reading. Neuropsychological assessment revealed a selective deficit in visual attention (VA) span tasks.  TN had previously taken part in a spelling intervention targeting whole word processing and, although her spelling improved, at the end of the programme her reading remained slow. In the present study, we assessed TN in a lexical decision task with semantic primes, and she showed reduced semantic priming in relation to typically developing readers. TN took part in an intervention aimed at mitigating the VA span processing deficit and similar to a programme previously conducted with a twelve-year-old Greek-speaking boy, RF ([author(s)], 2013). Post-test results for TN revealed a significant improvement in letter report ability as well a reduction in word reading latencies; semantic facilitation was also observed in the priming task following the intervention, although differences were not significant. The results indicate, in line with previous research, an association between visual attention span and reading speed

Language support for immigrant children: a study of state schools in the UK and US

In recent decades, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers have sought a new way of life in large numbers, often leaving their countries of origin behind in search of places that offer a better way of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate how elementary and middle school students in state schools in Reading, England (primarily speakers of Asian languages), and Richmond, Virginia (primarily speakers of Spanish), were supported academically, when most children’s first language was not English. The authors were interested in exploring whether or not there were cultural or structural differences in the way each country helped or hindered these students as they progressed through the school systems. Three UK schools in a district of approximately 100,000 and three US schools in a district of approximately 250,000 were the focus of this exploration from 2000 to 2003. Findings indicated that there were cultural and legislative differences and similarities. Teachers and administrators in both countries attempted to provide services with limited and sometimes diminishing resources. Community support varied based on resources, attitudes toward various ethnic groups, and the coping strategies adopted by these groups in their new environments. Marked differences appeared with regard to the manner in which assessments took place and how the results were made available to the public

Social trajectories or disrupted identities? : Changing and competing models of teacher professionalism under New Labour

Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, the teacher’s role in England has changed in many ways, a process which intensified under New Labour after 1997. Conceptions of teacher professionalism have become more structured and formalized, often heavily influenced by government policy objectives. Career paths have become more diverse and specialised. In this article, three post-1997 professional roles are given consideration as examples of these new specialised career paths: Higher Level Teaching Assistants, Teach First trainees and Advanced Skills Teachers. The article goes on to examine such developments within teaching, using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to inform the analysis, as well as Bernstein’s theories of knowledge and identity. The article concludes that there has been considerable specialization and subsequent fragmentation of roles within the teaching profession, as part of workforce remodelling initiatives. However, there is still further scope for developing a greater sense of professional cohesion through social activism initiatives, such as the children's agenda. This may produce more stable professional identities in the future as the role of teachers within the wider children’s workforce is clarified