Teaching PSP: Challenges and lessons learned

Teaching the PSP: Challenges and Lessons Learned by Jurgen Borstler, David Carrington, Gregory W Hislop, Susan Lisack, Keith Olson, and Laurie Williams, pp. 42-48. Soft-ware engineering educators need to provide environments where students learn about the size and complexity of modern software systems and the techniques available for managing these difficulties. Five universities used the Personal Software Process to teach software engineering concepts in a variety of contexts.

Trace organic compounds in the marine environment

Trace organic chemicals include a range of compounds which, due to a combination of their physico-chemical properties and toxicological implications, have been described as a serious threat to the biotic environment. A global treaty to regulate the manufacture and release of some of the most persistent trace chemicals has been promulgated and signed. The marine environment is an important sink for many trace chemicals, some of which accumulate in the marine food chain and in particular in marine mammals. With respect to the global distribution of trace organic chemicals, the levels of organohalogen compounds in the Southern Hemisphere are comparatively lower for a given environmental compartment and latitude compared to the Northern Hemisphere. A debate is currently evolving about the toxicity of alternative halogen substitutions such as bromine instead of chlorine and also of mixed halogen substitution. Recently a series of potentially natural bioaccumulative and persistent organohalogen chemicals have been found in marine mammals and turtles at levels in excess of those of anthropogenic trace organochlorines including PCBs and DDE. Little is known about the sources, behaviour and effects of natural trace organic chemicals. This manuscript presents an overview on the occurrence of trace organic chemicals in different compartments of the aquatic environment. Important knowledge gaps with regards to trace chemicals in the marine environment are presented. Crown Copyright (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A review of animal models for the study of arsenic carcinogenesis

As inorganic arsenic is a proven human carcinogen, significant effort has been made in recent decades in an attempt to understand arsenic carcinogenesis using animal models, including rodents (rats and mice) and larger mammals such as beagles and monkeys. Transgenic animals were also used to test the carcinogenic effect of arsenicals, but until recently all models had failed to mimic satisfactorily the actual mechanism of arsenic carcinogenicity. However, within the past decade successful animal models have been developed using the most common strains of mice or rats. Thus dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), an organic arsenic compound which is the major metabolite of inorganic arsenicals in mammals, has been proven to be tumorigenic in such animals. Reports of successful cancer induction in animals by inorganic arsenic (arsenite and arsenate) have been rare, and most carcinogenetic studies have used organic arsenicals such as DMA combined with other tumor initiators. Although such experiments used high concentrations. of arsenicals for the promotion of tumors, animal models using doses of arsenicals species closed to the exposure level of humans in endemic areas are obviously the most significant. Almost all researchers have used drinking water or food as the pathway for the development of animal model test systems in order to mimic chronic arsenic poisoning in humans; such pathways seem more likely to achieve desirable results. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Outcome of stroke patients admitted to intensive care: Experience from an Australian teaching hospital

The objective of this study was to determine the mortality rate and the functional outcomes of stroke patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and to identify predictors of poor outcome in this population. The records of all patients admitted to the ICU with the diagnosis of stroke between January 1994 and December 1999 were reviewed. Patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage were excluded. Data were collected on clinical and biological variables, risk factors for stroke and the presence of comorbidities. Mortality (ICU, in-hospital and three-month) and functional outcome were used as end-points. In the six-year-period, 61 patients were admitted to the ICU with either haemorrhagic or ischaemic stroke. Medical records were available for only 58 patients. There were 23 ischaemic and 35 haemorrhagic strokes. The ICU, in-hospital and three-month mortality rates were 36%, 47% and 52% respectively. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of premorbid risk factors between survivors and non-survivors. The mean Barthel score was significantly different between the independent and dependent survivors (94 +/- 6 vs 45 +/- 26, P < 0.001). A substantial number of patients with good functional outcomes had lower Rankin scores (92% vs 11%, P < 0.001). Only 46% of those who were alive at three months were functionally independent. Intensive care admission was associated with a high mortality rate and a high likelihood of dependent lifestyle after hospital discharge. Haemorrhagic stroke, fixed dilated pupil(s) and GCS < 10 during assessment were associated with increased mortality and poor functional outcome.

Veterinary parasitology teaching in eastern Australia

There are tendencies in universities globally to change undergraduate teaching in veterinary parasitology. To be able to give considered advice to universities, faculties, governmental bodies and professional societies about a discipline and to establish how particular changes may impact on the quality of a course, is the requirement to record and review its current status. The present paper contributes toward this objective by providing a snap-shot of the veterinary parasitology courses at the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland in eastern Australia. It includes a description of the veterinary science curriculum in each institution, and provides an outline of its veterinary parasitology course, including objectives, topics covered, course delivery, student examination procedures and course evaluation. Student contact time in veterinary parasitology during the curriculum is currently higher in Melbourne (183 h) compared with Sydney and Queensland (106-110 h). In the teaching of parasitology, Melbourne adopts a taxonomic approach (in the pre-clinical period) followed by a combined disciplinary and problem-based approach in the clinical semesters, whereas both Sydney and Queensland focus more on presenting parasites on a host species-basis followed by a problem-based approach. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

The mechanism of protection of molten magnesium by cover gas mixtures containing sulphur hexafluoride

Experimental studies have been undertaken, involving in situ observations of the interaction between cover gas mixtures and molten magnesium. It has been shown that, in the presence of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), the contact angle between solid MgO and molten magnesium is reduced, resulting in the wetting of MgO by magnesium metal. In contrast, it was observed that the absence of SF6 results in a large contact angle, poor wetting of the MgO by magnesium metal and a non-adherent surface film. It is proposed that the formation of an adherent, protective surface film under a cover gas mixture containing SF6 is due to capillary forces acting within the film.

Engaging with theories of dialogue and voice: Using Bakhtin as a framework to understand teaching and learning Indigenous Australian women's performance

In this paper I explore the Indigenous Australian women's performance classroom (hereafter ANTH2120) as a dialectic and discursive space where the location of possibility is opened for female Indigenous performers to enter into a dialogue from and between both non-Indigenous and Indigenous voices. The work of Bakhtin on dialogue serves as a useful standpoint for understanding the multiple speaking positions and texts in the ANTH2120 context. Bakhtin emphasizes performance, history, actuality and the openness of dialogue to provide an important framework for analysing multiple speaking positions and ways of making meaning through dialogue between shifting and differing subjectivities. I begin by briefly critiquing Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination" and consider the application and usefulness of concepts such as dialogism, heteroglossia and the utterance to understanding the ANTH2120 classroom as a polyphonic and discursive space. I then turn to an analysis of dialogue in the ANTH2120 classroom and primarily situate my gaze on an examination of the interactions that took place between the voices of myself as family/teacher/student and senior Yanyuwa women from the r e m o t e N o r t h e r n T e r r i t o r y A b o r i g i n a l c o m m u n i t y o f B o r r o l o o l a as family/performers/teachers. The 2000 and 2001 Yanyuwa women's performance workshops will be used as examples of the way power is constantly shifting in this dialogue to allow particular voices to speak with authority, and for others to remain silent as roles and relationships between myself and the Yanyuwa women change. Conclusions will be drawn regarding how my subject positions and white race privilege affect who speaks, who listens and on whose terms, and further, the efficacy of this pedagogical platform for opening up the location of possibility for Indigenous Australian women to play a powerful part in the construction of knowledges about women's performance traditions.

Organic microcavity light-emitting diodes with metal mirrors: dependence of the emission wavelength on the viewing angle

Organic microcavity light-emitting diodes typically exhibit a blueshift of the emitting wavelength with increasing viewing angle. We have modeled the shift of the resonance wavelength for several metal mirrors. Eight metals (Al, Ag, Cr, Ti, Au, Ni, Pt, and Cu) have been considered as top or bottom mirrors, depending on their work functions. The model fully takes into account the dependence of the phase change that occurs on reflection on angle and wavelength for both s and p polarization, as well as on dispersion in the organic layers. Different contributions to the emission wavelength shift are discussed. The influence of the thickness of the bottom mirror and of the choice and thickness of the organic materials inside the cavity has been investigated. Based on the results obtained, guidelines for a choice of materials to reduce blueshift; are given. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

Impact of land-use on soil organic matter quality in south-western Australia - characterization with C-13 CP/MAS NMR spectroscopy

The influence of change in land-use from native vegetation to pasture (20-71 yr after conversion), and subsequent change from pasture to eucalypt plantation (7-10 yr after conversion) on soil organic matter quality was investigated using C-13 CP/MAS NMR spectroscopy. We studied surface soil (0-10 cm) from six sites representing a range of soil, and climate types from south-western Australia. Total C in the samples ranged from 1.6 to 5.5%, but the relative proportions of the four primary spectral regions (alkyl, O-alkyl, aromatic and carboxylic) were similar across the sites, and changes due to land-use at each site were relatively minor. Main impacts of changed land-use were higher O-alkyl (carbohydrate) material under pasture than under native vegetation and plantation (P = 0.048), and lower aromatic C under pasture than under native vegetation (P = 0.027). The decrease in aromatic C in pasture soils was related to time since clearing. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

'Vigilant Hospitality': The Online Imperative and Teaching Cultural Studies

Information technology (IT) sees information as a fluid, to be stored, regulated and exchanged. This is a profoundly economic model, whose dreams are those of the marketplace – and now, university managers. But no teacher, of course, holds that teaching can be reduced to the movement of information from one point to another. Teaching is never quite absorbed into the models of IT. Where they meet, we do not have the utopia of the virtual classroom, at last freed from the strictures of timetables and the face-to-face; we have, rather, the grinding of two radically irreducible models. This has nothing to do with Luddism; on the contrary, it is the value and necessity of IT for us at present, as teachers. At a time when the tertiary sector’s massive investment in IT is motivated in part by its own dream of the teacherless classroom, one of the pressing tasks for us may be simply to argue as rigorously as we can the structural necessity of our own position as teachers, without nostalgia or humanist sentimentality.