256 resultados para Puppets and puppet-plays


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With increasing motorisation, road safety has become a major concern within Oman. Internationally, traffic policing plays a major role in improving road safety. Within Oman, the Royal Oman Police's (ROP) Directorate General of Traffic is responsible for policing traffic laws. Many common enforcement approaches originate from culturally different jurisdictions. The ROP is a relatively young policing force and may have different operational practices. Prior to applying practices from other jurisdictions it is important to understand the beliefs and expectations within the Directorate General of Traffic. Further, there is a need for individuals to understand their role and what is expected of them. Therefore, it is important to explore the agreement between levels of the ROP to determine how strategies and expectations transfer within the organisation. Interviews were conducted with 19 police officers from various levels of the ROP. A number of themes and findings emerged. Individuals at the upper level of the traffic police had a clear knowledge of the role of the ROP, believed that traffic police know what is expected of them, are well trained in their role and can have a very positive influence on road safety. These beliefs were less certain lower within the organisations with traffic officers having little knowledge of the role of the ROP or what was expected of them, felt undertrained, and believed their peers have little positive impact on road safety. There is a need to address barriers within the ROP in order to positively impact road safety.

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The membrane-bound ceruloplasmin homolog hephaestin plays a critical role in intestinal iron absorption. The aims of this study were to clone the rat hephaestin gene and to examine its expression in the gastrointestinal tract in relation to other genes encoding iron transport proteins. The rat hephaestin gene was isolated from intestinal mRNA and was found to encode a protein 96% identical to mouse hephaestin. Analysis by ribonuclease protection assay and Western blotting showed that hephaestin was expressed at high levels throughout the small intestine and colon. Immunofluorescence localized the hephaestin protein to the mature villus enterocytes with little or no expression in the crypts. Variations in iron status had a small but nonsignificant effect on hephaestin expression in the duodenum. The high sequence conservation between rat and mouse hephaestin is consistent with this protein playing a central role in intestinal iron absorption, although its precise function remains to be determined.

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This book is a collection of three large-cast plays written in response to a very specific problem. My work as a teacher of drama often required me to locate a script that would somehow miraculously work for a cast of unknown number and gender, and most likely uneven skills and enthusiasm, who I hadn’t even met yet. It’s a familiar dilemma for teachers and students of drama in education contexts, at whatever level you’re teaching. I’d first addressed this creative problem with scripts such as Gate 38 (2010). I had tried using scripts that already existed, but found they required such extensive editing to suit the parameters of cast and performance duration that I may as well have been writing them myself. Even in the setting of a closed studio, in altering these plays I felt I was bending the vision of the playwright, and certainly their narrative structure, out of shape. Everyone who’s attempted to stage a performance with a large cast of students in an educational setting knows it takes time to truly connect with a play, its social contexts, themes and characters. It also takes a lot of time to get on top of the practicalities of learning, rehearsing, directing and running a performance with young people. Often the curtain goes up on something unfinished and unstable. I was looking for ways to reduce the complexity of staging a script, while maintaining the potential of this process as a site of rich, enjoyable learning. Two of the plays (Duty Free and Please Be Seated) are comprised of multiple monologues, combined with music-driven ensemble sequences. The monologues enable individuals to develop and polish their own performances, work in small groups, and cut down on the laborious detail of directing naturalistic scenes based in character interaction. The third (Australian Drama) involves a lot of duologues, meaning that its rehearsal process can happily employ that mainstay of the drama classroom: small group work. There’s plenty of room to move in terms of gender-blind casting as well. Please be Seated is mainly young women. The scripts also contain ensemble-based interludes which are non-verbal, music driven, with a choreographic element. They have also springboarded further explorations in form. The ethical and aesthetic complexities of verbatim works; the interaction between music and theatre; and meta-concerns related to the performing of performance: ‘how can the act of acting ‘acted’. The narratives of all three of these plays are deliberately open, enabling the flexible casting and on-the hop editing that large-group, time-poor processes sometimes necessitate. Duty Free is about the overseas ‘adventures’ of young people. Please Be Seated is based in verbatim text about young people falling in and out of love. Australian Drama is about young people in a drama classroom trying to connect with each other and put their own shine on dull fragments of the theatrical canon. The plays were published as a collection in hardcopy and digital editions by Playlab Press in 2015. Please be Seated is a co-write with a large group. These co-author’s names are listed in the publication, and below in ‘additional information’.

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Runx2-Cbfal, a Runt transcription factor, plays important roles during skeletal development. It is required for differentiation and function of osteoblasts. In its absence, chondrocyte hypertrophy is severely impaired and there is no vascularization of cartilage templates during skeletal development. These tissue-specific functions of Runx2 are likely to be dependent on its interaction with other proteins. We have therefore searched for proteins that may modulate the activity of Runx2. The yeast two-hybrid system was used to identify a groucho homologue, Grg5, as a Runx2-interacting protein. Grg5 enhances Runx2 activity in a cell culture-based assay and by analyses of postnatal growth in mice we demonstrate that Grg5 and Runx2 interact genetically. We also show that Runx2 haploinsufficiency in the absence of Grg5 results in a more severe delay in ossification of cranial sutures and fontanels than occurs with Runx2 haploinsufficiency on a wild-type background. Finally, we find shortening of the proliferative and hypertrophic zones, and expansion of the resting zone in the growth plates of Runx2(+/-)Grg5(-/-) mice that are associated with reduced Ihh expression and Indian hedgehog (Ihh) signaling. We therefore conclude that Grg5 enhances Runx2 activity in vivo.

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Perceiving students, science students especially, as mere consumers of facts and information belies the importance of a need to engage them with the principles underlying those facts and is counter-intuitive to the facilitation of knowledge and understanding. Traditional didactic lecture approaches need a re-think if student classroom engagement and active learning are to be valued over fact memorisation and fact recall. In our undergraduate biomedical science programs across Years 1, 2 and 3 in the Faculty of Health at QUT, we have developed an authentic learning model with an embedded suite of pedagogical strategies that foster classroom engagement and allow for active learning in the sub-discipline area of medical bacteriology. The suite of pedagogical tools we have developed have been designed to enable their translation, with appropriate fine-tuning, to most biomedical and allied health discipline teaching and learning contexts. Indeed, aspects of the pedagogy have been successfully translated to the nursing microbiology study stream at QUT. The aims underpinning the pedagogy are for our students to: (1) Connect scientific theory with scientific practice in a more direct and authentic way, (2) Construct factual knowledge and facilitate a deeper understanding, and (3) Develop and refine their higher order flexible thinking and problem solving skills, both semi-independently and independently. The mindset and role of the teaching staff is critical to this approach since for the strategy to be successful tertiary teachers need to abandon traditional instructional modalities based on one-way information delivery. Face-to-face classroom interactions between students and lecturer enable realisation of pedagogical aims (1), (2) and (3). The strategy we have adopted encourages teachers to view themselves more as expert guides in what is very much a student-focused process of scientific exploration and learning. Specific pedagogical strategies embedded in the authentic learning model we have developed include: (i) interactive lecture-tutorial hybrids or lectorials featuring teacher role-plays as well as class-level question-and-answer sessions, (ii) inclusion of “dry” laboratory activities during lectorials to prepare students for the wet laboratory to follow, (iii) real-world problem-solving exercises conducted during both lectorials and wet laboratory sessions, and (iv) designing class activities and formative assessments that probe a student’s higher order flexible thinking skills. Flexible thinking in this context encompasses analytical, critical, deductive, scientific and professional thinking modes. The strategic approach outlined above is designed to provide multiple opportunities for students to apply principles flexibly according to a given situation or context, to adapt methods of inquiry strategically, to go beyond mechanical application of formulaic approaches, and to as much as possible self-appraise their own thinking and problem solving. The pedagogical tools have been developed within both workplace (real world) and theoretical frameworks. The philosophical core of the pedagogy is a coherent pathway of teaching and learning which we, and many of our students, believe is more conducive to student engagement and active learning in the classroom. Qualitative and quantitative data derived from online and hardcopy evaluations, solicited and unsolicited student and graduate feedback, anecdotal evidence as well as peer review indicate that: (i) our students are engaging with the pedagogy, (ii) a constructivist, authentic-learning approach promotes active learning, and (iii) students are better prepared for workplace transition.

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Road transport plays a significant role in various industries and mobility services around the globe and has a vital impact on our daily lives. However it also has serious impacts on both public health and the environment. In-vehicle feedback systems are a relatively new approach to encouraging driver behaviour change for improving fuel efficiency and safety in automotive environments. While many studies claim that the adoption of eco-driving practices, such as eco-driving training programs and in-vehicle feedback to drivers, has the potential to improve fuel efficiency, limited research has integrated safety and eco-driving. Therefore, this research seeks to use human factors related theories and practices to inform the design and evaluation of an in-vehicle Human Machine Interface (HMI) providing real-time driver feedback with the aim of improving both fuel efficiency and safety.

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BACKGROUND OR CONTEXT The higher education sector plays an important role in encouraging students into the STEM pipeline through fostering partnerships with schools, building on universities long tradition in engagement and outreach to secondary schools. Numerous activities focus on integrated STEM learning experiences aimed at developing conceptual scientific and mathematical knowledge with opportunities for students to show and develop skills in working with each other and actively engaging in discussion, decision making and collaborative problem solving. (NAS, 2013; AIG, 2015; OCS, 2014). This highlights the importance of the development and delivery of engaging integrated STEM activities connected to the curriculum to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and generally preparing students for post-secondary success. The broad research objective is to gain insight into which engagement activities and to what level they influence secondary school students’ selection of STEM-related career choices at universities. PURPOSE OR GOAL To evaluate and determine the effectiveness of STEM engagement activities impacting student decision making in choosing a STEM-related degree choice at university. APPROACH A survey was conducted with first-year domestic students studying STEM-related fieldswithin the Science and Engineering Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. Of the domestic students commencing in 2015, 29% responded to the survey. The survey was conducted using Survey Monkey and included a variety of questions ranging from academic performance at school to inspiration for choosing a STEM degree. Responses were analysed on a range of factors to evaluate the influence on students’ decisions to study STEM and whether STEM high school engagement activities impacted these decisions. To achieve this the timing of decision making for students choice in study area, degree, and university is compared with the timing of STEM engagement activities. DISCUSSION Statistical analysis using SPSS was carried out on survey data looking at reasons for choosing STEM degrees in terms of gender, academic performance and major influencers in their decision making. It was found that students choose their university courses based on what subjects they enjoyed and exceled at in school. These results found a high correlation between enjoyment of a school subject and their interest in pursuing this subject at university and beyond. Survey results indicated students are heavily influenced by their subject teachers and parents in their choice of STEM-related disciplines. In terms of career choice and when students make their decision, 60% have decided on a broad area of study by year 10, whilst only 15% had decided on a specific course and 10% had decided on which university. The timing of secondary STEM engagement activities is seen as a critical influence on choosing STEM disciplines or selection of senior school subjects with 80% deciding on specific degree between year 11 and 12 and 73% making a decision on which university in year 12. RECOMMENDATIONS/IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSION Although the data does not support that STEM engagement activities increase the likelihood of STEM-related degree choice, the evidence suggests the students who have participated in STEM activities associate their experiences with their choice to pursue a STEM-related course. It is important for universities to continue to provide quality engaging and inspirational learning experiences in STEM, to identify and build on students’ early interest and engagement, increase STEM knowledge and awareness, engage them in interdisciplinary project-based STEM practices, and provide them with real-world application experiences to sustain their interest.

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Purpose – Psychological and epidemiological literature suggests that the built environment plays both causal and therapeutic roles in schizophrenia, but what are the implications for designers? The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role the built environment plays in psycho‐environmental dynamics, in order that negative effects can be avoided and beneficial effects emphasised in architectural design. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is a translational exploration of the dynamics between the built environment and psychotic illness, using primary research from disciplines as diverse as epidemiology, neurology and psychology. Findings – The built environment is conceived as being both an agonist and as an antagonist for the underlying processes that present as psychosis. The built environment is implicated through several means, through the opportunities it provides. These may be physical, narrative, emotional, hedonic or personal. Some opportunities may be negative, and others positive. The built environment is also an important source of unexpected aesthetic stimulation, yet in psychotic illnesses, aesthetic sensibilities characteristically suffer from deterioration. Research limitations/implications – The findings presented are based on research that is largely translated from very different fields of enquiry. Whilst findings are cogent and logical, much of the support is correlational rather than empirical. Social implications – The WHO claims that schizophrenia destroys 24 million lives worldwide, with an exponential effect on human and financial capital. Because evidence implicates the built environment, architectural and urban designers may have a role to play in reducing the human costs wrought by the illness. Originality/value – Never before has architecture been so explicitly implicated as a cause of mental illness. This paper was presented to the Symposium of Mental Health Facility Design, and is essential reading for anyone involved in designing for improved mental health.

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Since its initial description as a Th2-cytokine antagonistic to interferon-alpha and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, many studies have shown various anti-inflammatory actions of interleukin-10 (IL-10), and its role in infection as a key regulator of innate immunity. Studies have shown that IL-10 induced in response to microorganisms and their products plays a central role in shaping pathogenesis. IL-10 appears to function as both sword and shield in the response to varied groups of microorganisms in its capacity to mediate protective immunity against some organisms but increase susceptibility to other infections. The nature of IL-10 as a pleiotropic modulator of host responses to microorganisms is explained, in part, by its potent and varied effects on different immune effector cells which influence antimicrobial activity. A new understanding of how microorganisms trigger IL-10 responses is emerging, along with recent discoveries of how IL-10 produced during disease might be harnessed for better protective or therapeutic strategies. In this review, we summarize studies from the past 5 years that have reported the induction of IL-10 by different classes of pathogenic microorganisms, including protozoa, nematodes, fungi, viruses and bacteria and discuss the impact of this induction on the persistence and/or clearance of microorganisms in the host.

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- Background Palliative medicine and other specialists play significant legal roles in decisions to withhold and withdraw life-sustaining treatment at the end of life. Yet little is known about their knowledge of or attitudes to the law, and the role they think it should play in medical practice. Consideration of doctors’ views is critical to optimizing patient outcomes at the end of life. However, doctors are difficult to engage as participants in empirical research, presenting challenges for researchers seeking to understand doctors’ experiences and perspectives. - Aims To determine how to engage doctors involved in end-of-life care in empirical research about knowledge of the law and the role it plays in medical practice at the end of life. - Methods Postal survey of all specialists in palliative medicine, emergency medicine, geriatric medicine, intensive care, medical oncology, renal medicine, and respiratory medicine in three Australian states: New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. The survey was sent in hard copy with two reminders and a follow up reminder letter was also sent to the directors of hospital emergency departments. Awareness was further promoted through engagement with the relevant medical colleges and publications in professional journals; various incentives to respond were also used. The key measure is the response rate of doctors to the survey. - Results Thirty-two percent of doctors in the main study completed their survey with response rate by specialty ranging from 52% (palliative care) to 24% (medical oncology). This overall response rate was twice that of the reweighted pilot study (16%). - Conclusions Doctors remain a difficult cohort to engage in survey research but strategic recruitment efforts can be effective in increasing response rate. Collaboration with doctors and their professional bodies in both the development of the survey instrument and recruitment of participants is essential.

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- Introduction Heat-based training (HT) is becoming increasingly popular as a means of inducing acclimation before athletic competition in hot conditions and/or to augment the training impulse beyond that achieved in thermo-neutral conditions. Importantly, current understanding of the effects of HT on regenerative processes such as sleep and the interactions with common recovery interventions remain unknown. This study aimed to examine sleep characteristics during five consecutive days of training in the heat with the inclusion of cold-water immersion (CWI) compared to baseline sleep patterns. - Methods Thirty recreationally-trained males completed HT in 32 ± 1 °C and 60% rh for five consecutive days. Conditions included: 1) 90 min cycling at 40 % power at VO2max (Pmax) (90CONT; n = 10); 90 min cycling at 40 % Pmax with a 20 min CWI (14 ± 1 °C; 90CWI; n = 10); and 30 min cycling alternating between 40 and 70 % Pmax every 3 min, with no recovery intervention (30HIT; n = 10). Sleep quality and quantity was assessed during HT and four nights of 'baseline' sleep (BASE). Actigraphy provided measures of time in and out of bed, sleep latency, efficiency, total time in bed and total time asleep, wake after sleep onset, number of awakenings, and wakening duration. Subjective ratings of sleep were also recorded using a 1-5 Likert scale. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was completed to determine effect of time and condition on sleep quality and quantity. Cohen's d effect sizes were also applied to determine magnitude and trends in the data. - Results Sleep latency, efficiency, total time in bed and number of awakenings were not significantly different between BASE and HT (P > 0.05). However, total time asleep was significantly reduced (P = 0.01; d = 1.46) and the duration periods of wakefulness after sleep onset was significantly greater during HT compared with BASE (P = 0.001; d = 1.14). Comparison between training groups showed latency was significantly higher for the 30HIT group compared to 90CONT (P = 0.02; d = 1.33). Nevertheless, there were no differences between training groups for sleep efficiency, total time in bed or asleep, wake after sleep onset, number of awakenings or awake duration (P > 0.05). Further, cold-water immersion recovery had no significant effect on sleep characteristics (P > 0.05). - Discussion Sleep plays an important role in athletic recovery and has previously been demonstrated to be influenced by both exercise training and thermal strain. Present data highlight the effect of HT on reduced sleep quality, specifically reducing total time asleep due to longer duration awake during awakenings after sleep onset. Importantly, although cold water recovery accelerates the removal of thermal load, this intervention did not blunt the negative effects of HT on sleep characteristics. - Conclusion Training in hot conditions may reduce both sleep quantity and quality and should be taken into consideration when administering this training intervention in the field.

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The methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene codes for the MTHFR enzyme which plays a key role in the pathway of folate and methionine metabolism. Polymorphisms of genes in this pathway affect its regulation and have been linked to lymphoma. In this study we examined whether we could detect an association between two common non-synonomous MTHFR polymorphisms, 677C>T (rs1801133) and 1298A>C (rs1801131), and susceptibility to non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in an Australian case-control cohort. We found no significant differences between genotype or allele frequencies for either polymorphisms between lymphoma cases and controls. We also explored whether epigenetic modification of MTHFR, specifically DNA methylation of a CpG island in the MTHFR promoter region, is associated with NHL using blood samples from patients. No difference in methylation levels was detected between the case and control samples suggesting that although hypermethylation of MTHFR has been reported in tumour tissues, particularly in the diffuse large B-cell lymphoma subtype of NHL, methylation of this MTHFR promoter CpG island is not a suitable epigenetic biomarker for NHL diagnosis or prognosis in peripheral blood samples. Further studies into epigenetic variants could focus on genes that are robustly associated with NHL susceptibility.

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Car following (CF) and lane changing (LC) are two primary driving tasks observed in traffic flow, and are thus vital components of traffic flow theories, traffic operation and control. Over the past decades a large number of CF models have been developed in an attempt to describe CF behaviour under a wide range of traffic conditions. Although CF has been widely studied for many years, LC did not receive much attention until recently. Over the last decade, researchers have slowly but surely realized the critical role that LC plays in traffic operations and traffic safety; this realization has motivated significant attempts to model LC decision-making and its impact on traffic. Despite notable progresses in modelling CF and LC, our knowledge on these two important issues remains incomplete because of issues related to data, model calibration and validation, human factors, just to name a few. Thus, this special issue will focus on latest developments in modelling, calibrating, and validating two primary vehicular interactions observed in traffic flow: CF and LC.

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Recent reports provide evidence that the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a key role in prostate cancer (PCa) metastasis and therapy resistance. We have recently identified the cell surface receptor, Neuropilin-1 (NRP1) to be increased during epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and this study aims to determine whether the inhibition of NRP1 will be a feasible therapeutic strategy for blocking PCa metastasis and therapy resistance.

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This paper provides a framework for understanding Twitter as a historical source. We address digital humanities scholars to enable the transfer of concepts from traditional source criticism to new media formats, and to encourage the preservation of Twitter as a cultural artifact. Twitter has established itself as a key social media platform which plays an important role in public, real-time conversation. Twitter is also unique as its content is being archived by a public institution (the Library of Congress). In this paper we will show that we still have to assume that much of the contextual information beyond the pure tweet texts is already lost, and propose additional objectives for preservation.