Applying academagogy : the transference of an organised heuristic teaching approach to the digital realm

Much has been written about transferring class materials and teaching techniques to digital platforms, but less has been written about applying heuristic organizing constructs in the same manner. With the transformation of learning ecologies over the past decades as well as requirements to adjust to constantly shifting digital tools and environments, the challenges for learning facilitators are to readily adapt and change, as well as to engage a changing learner demographic. However, most importantly is to engage most effectively with learners in these online environments. This article reviews the existing literature in the heuristic construct of academagogy [1] and applies a case study methodology to discussion of the first application of academagogy to the online delivery of an undergraduate design unit. Through a focus on effective teaching and learning techniques, the transfer from face-to-face (f2f) to the digital realm is explored through four main focal points: Tools for teaching, teaching and learning, communicating with students, and effective teaching methods. These four focal points are then used to discuss ways to meet the challenges of teaching online including how they create new dimensions in teaching practice and how the digital experience changes learning experiences. The article concludes with reflection and consolidation of the similarities and differences between the face-to-face and digital deliveries, and by suggesting changes to the academagogic heuristic to enable its use more easily in a digital space.

The Marrakesh Treaty could bring the world’s books to the blind

An estimated 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired. Some 90% of those live in developing nations, where less than 1% of the world’s books are available in a form they can read. In developed countries, the situation is only marginally better: only around 7% of the world’s books are accessible to print-disabled people. The right to read is part of our basic human rights. Access to the written word is crucial to allow people to fully participate in society. It’s important for education, political involvement, success in the workplace, scientific progress and, not least, creative play and leisure. Equal access to books and other cultural goods is also required by international law. The technology now exists to deliver books in accessible electronic forms to people much more cheaply than printing and shipping bulky braille copies or books on tape. Electronic books can be read with screen readers and refreshable braille devices, or printed into large print or braille if needed. Now that we have this technology, what’s been referred to as the global “book famine” is a preventable tragedy.

Training needs research applied to the development of a standardised incident investigator training framework

In response to the rail industry lacking a consistently accepted standard of minimal training to perform incident investigations, the Australasian rail industry requested the development of a unified approach to investigator training. This paper details how the findings from a training needs analysis were applied to inform the development of a standardised training package for rail incident investigators. Data from job descriptions, training documents and subject matter experts sourced from 17 Australasian organisations were analysed and refined to yield a draft set of 10 critical competencies. Finally the draft of critical competencies was reviewed by industry experts to verify the accuracy and completeness of the competency list and to consider the most appropriate level of qualification for training development. The competencies identified and the processes described to translate research into an applied training framework in this paper, can be generalised to assist practitioners and researchers in developing industry approved standardised training packages.

Mechanisms of mono- and poly-ubiquitination : ubiquitination specificity depends on compatibility between the E2 catalytic core and amino acid residues proximal to the lysine

Ubiquitination involves the attachment of ubiquitin to lysine residues on substrate proteins or itself, which can result in protein monoubiquitination or polyubiquitination. Ubiquitin attachment to different lysine residues can generate diverse substrate-ubiquitin structures, targeting proteins to different fates. The mechanisms of lysine selection are not well understood. Ubiquitination by the largest group of E3 ligases, the RING-family E3 s, is catalyzed through co-operation between the non-catalytic ubiquitin-ligase (E3) and the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2), where the RING E3 binds the substrate and the E2 catalyzes ubiquitin transfer. Previous studies suggest that ubiquitination sites are selected by E3-mediated positioning of the lysine toward the E2 active site. Ultimately, at a catalytic level, ubiquitination of lysine residues within the substrate or ubiquitin occurs by nucleophilic attack of the lysine residue on the thioester bond linking the E2 catalytic cysteine to ubiquitin. One of the best studied RING E3/ E2 complexes is the Skp1/Cul1/F box protein complex, SCFCdc4, and its cognate E2, Cdc34, which target the CDK inhibitor Sic1 for K48-linked polyubiquitination, leading to its proteasomal degradation. Our recent studies of this model system demonstrated that residues surrounding Sic1 lysines or lysine 48 in ubiquitin are critical for ubiquitination. This sequence-dependence is linked to evolutionarily conserved key residues in the catalytic region of Cdc34 and can determine if Sic1 is mono- or poly-ubiquitinated. Our studies indicate that amino acid determinants in the Cdc34 catalytic region and their compatibility to those surrounding acceptor lysine residues play important roles in lysine selection. This may represent a general mechanism in directing the mode of ubiquitination in E2 s.

Jurisprudential Challenges to the Protection of the Natural Environment

Nature exists. Humans exist. The behaviour of one impacts upon the other. The behaviour of humans is governed by the artificial contrivance described as the law. While the law can in this way control the behaviour of humans and the impact that human behaviour has on nature, the behaviour of nature is governed – if at all- in accordance with nature’s own sets of values which are quintessentially a matter for nature. The relationship between nature and humans may be the object of rules of law, but traditional legal doctrine dictates that humans but not nature are the subjects of the rules of law. The jurisprudence of the earth – it would appear – seeks to equalise in the eyes of the law nature as part of the global environment and humans as part of the global environment. How might this be done?

Predicting sense convergence with distributional semantics : an application to the CogALex-IV 2014 shared task

This paper presents our system to address the CogALex-IV 2014 shared task of identifying a single word most semantically related to a group of 5 words (queries). Our system uses an implementation of a neural language model and identifies the answer word by finding the most semantically similar word representation to the sum of the query representations. It is a fully unsupervised system which learns on around 20% of the UkWaC corpus. It correctly identifies 85 exact correct targets out of 2,000 queries, 285 approximate targets in lists of 5 suggestions.

Connecting two wind turbine generators to the grid using only one three level NPC inverter

This paper explores the possibility of connecting two Wind Turbine Generators (WTG) to the grid using a single three level inverter. In the proposed system the rectified output of one WTG is connected across the upper dc-link capacitor of a standard diode clamped three level inverter. Similarly the rectified output of the other WTG is connected across the lower capacitor. This particular combination has several advantages such as, direct connection to the grid, reduced parts count, improved reliability and high power capacity. However, the major problem in the proposed system is the imminent imbalance of dc-link voltages. Under such conditions conventional modulation methods fail to produce desired voltage and current waveforms. A detailed analysis on this issue and a novel space vector modulation method, as the solution, are proposed in this paper. To track the Maximum power point of each WTG a power sharing algorithm is proposed. Simulation results are presented to attest the efficacy of the proposed system.

Comparative analysis of the Metarhizium anisopliae secretome in response to exposure to the greyback cane grub and grub cuticles

Metarhizium anisopliae is a well-characterized biocontrol agent of a wide range of insects including cane grubs. In this study, a two-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis was used to display secreted proteins of M. anisopliae strain FI-1045 growing on the whole greyback cane grubs and their isolated cuticles. Hydrolytic enzymes secreted by M. anisopliae play a key role in insect cuticle-degradation and initiation of the infection process. We have identified all the 101 protein spots displayed by cross-species identification (CSI) from the fungal kingdom. Among the identified proteins were 64-kDa serine carboxypeptidase, 1,3 beta-exoglucanase, Dynamin GTPase, THZ kinase, calcineurin like phosphoesterase, and phosphatidylinositol kinase secreted by M. ansiopliae (FI-1045) in response to exposure to the greyback cane grubs and their isolated cuticles. These proteins have not been previously identified from the culture supernatant of M. anisopliae during infection. To our knowledge, this the first proteomic map established to study the extracellular proteins secreted by M. ansiopliae (FI-1045) during infection of greyback cane grubs and its cuticles.

Duty to the court and the administration of justice : some examples, implications and clarifications

No liberal democracy can survive without popular trust in its judicial system. The legal profession and the judiciary enjoy a level of independence and autonomy from the executive that makes them both powerful and privileged. A UNIQUE AND ORGANIC DUTY: So long as the courts are seen to fulfil their duty to guard against encroachments by the executive on the freedoms and rights of individual citizens with integrity and credibility, they maintain enough public support to retain their normative authority. But support for those with power and privilege is easily undermined. It is contingent upon trust. Lawyers who breach that trust in ways that go to the heart of the legal system ought to expect to be made examples of and to suffer severe penalties. The good news is that the sorts of breach discussed here should be neither difficult to anticipate nor to avoid – in theory. In practice, smart and honest lawyers sometimes fall foul of these duties for all sorts of understandable (if not condonable) reasons. Law does not get practised in a social or cultural vacuum. Lawyers are people, and people have weaknesses, failings and stresses...

A Submission to the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property in Relation to the Issues Paper Relating to the Enforcement of Trade Marks - February 2002

With respect to “shape” marks, there would appear to be a “break”, imposed by the Australian Courts, in the logical conclusion that registration of a shape, which performs a functional purpose, or even further, is indistinguishable from the shape of the item or product, creates a perpetual monopoly in the manufacture of that product.

Submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill

This submission addresses the Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 the objectives of which are to: 1. Permit repeat offenders’ identifying information to be published and open the Children’s Court for youth justice matters involving repeat offenders; 2. Create a new offence where a child commits a further offence while on bail; 3. Permit childhood findings of guilt for which no conviction was recorded to be admissible in court when sentencing a person for an adult offence; 4. Provide for the automatic transfer from detention to adult corrective services facilities of 17 year olds who have six months or more left to serve in detention; 5. Provide that, in sentencing any adult or child for an offence punishable by imprisonment, the court must not have regard to any principle, whether under statute or at law, that a sentence of imprisonment (in the case of an adult) or detention (in the case of a child) should only be imposed as a last resort; 6. Allow children who have absconded from Sentenced Youth Boot Camps to be arrested and brought before a court for resentencing without first being given a warning; and 7. Make a technical amendment to the Youth Justice Act 1992.

‘Structuring’ judicial sentencing discretion : consistency, guidance or pandering to the punitive?

Until quite recently, most Australian jurisdictions gave statutory force to the principle of imprisonment as a sanction of last resort, reflecting its status as the most punitive sentencing option open to the court.1 That principle gave primary discretion as to whether incarceration was the most appropriate means of achieving the purpose of a sentence to the sentencing court, which received all of the information relevant to the offence, the offender and any victim(s). The disestablishment of this principle is symptomatic of an increasing erosion of judicial discretion with respect to sentencing, which appears to be resulting in some extremely punitive consequences.

Psip1/Ledgf p52 binds methylated histone H3K36 and splicing factors and contributes to the regulation of alternative splicing

Increasing evidence suggests that chromatin modifications have important roles in modulating constitutive or alternative splicing. Here we demonstrate that the PWWP domain of the chromatin-associated protein Psip1/Ledgf can specifically recognize tri-methylated H3K36 and that, like this histone modification, the Psip1 short (p52) isoform is enriched at active genes. We show that the p52, but not the long (p75), isoform of Psip1 co-localizes and interacts with Srsf1 and other proteins involved in mRNA processing. The level of H3K36me3 associated Srsf1 is reduced in Psip1 mutant cells and alternative splicing of specific genes is affected. Moreover, we show altered Srsf1 distribution around the alternatively spliced exons of these genes in Psip1 null cells. We propose that Psip1/p52, through its binding to both chromatin and splicing factors, might act to modulate splicing.

Listening to the talk of the city: media and urban informatics in community consultation for architectural and urban design

The discipline of architecture focuses on designing the built environment in response to the needs of society, reflecting culture through materials and forms. The physical boundaries of the city have become blurred through the integration of digital media, connecting the physical environment with the digital. In the recent past the future was imagined as highly technological; Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is set in 2019 and introduces a polluted world where supersized screens inject advertisements in the cluttered urban space. Now, in 2014 screens are central to everyday life, but in a completely different way in respect to what had been imagined. Through ubiquitous computing and social media, information is abundant. Digital technologies have changed the way people relate to urban form supporting discussion on multiple levels, allowing citizens to be more vocal than ever before. Bottom-up campaigns to oppose anticipated developments or to suggest intervention in the way cities are designed, are a common situation in several parts of the world. For some extent governments and local authorities are trying to engage with developing technologies, but a common issue is that social media cannot be controlled or filtered as can be done with more traditional consultation methods. We question how designers can use the affordances of urban informatics to obtain and navigate useful social information to inform architectural and urban design. This research investigates different approaches to engage communities in the debate on the built environment. Physical and digital discussions have been initiated to capture citizens’ opinions on the use and design of public places. Online platforms, urban screens, mobile apps and guerrilla techniques are explored in the context of Brisbane, Australia.

Marx as a Critical Discourse Analyst : The Genesis of a Critical Method and its Relevance to the Critique of Global Capital (with Phil Graham)

In this paper we identify elements in Marx’s economic and political writings that are relevant to contemporary critical discourse analysis (CDA). We argue that Marx can be seen to be engaging in a form of discourse analysis. We identify the elements in Marx’s historical materialist method that support such a perspective, and exemplify these in longitudinal comparison of Marx’s texts.