Bad, mad and sad : developing a methodology of inclusion and a pedagogy for researching students with intellectual disabilities

A critical question for me as a teacher/researcher in the field of inclusive education is how to reposition children with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities as participants rather than subjects in the debate. In this paper, I develop a methodology of inclusion that comprises an ethics of consent and a pedagogy for research participation that is an opportunity not only to teach, but also to create a new discursive space for six children to speak. The discussion explores a range of methodological and interpretive strategies for including children with significant intellectual disabilities in research: issues of informed consent, the negotiation of power relations and the ways in which this innovative pedagogy can be empowering beyond the research situation. The use of this methodology has provocative implications concerning what might be learned about forging a link between the struggle for change and educational policy/practice if other researchers worked towards creating spaces for these most marginalized children to speak.

Mad hatter's corporate tea party

This paper aims to provide an insight into the corporate greed and consequent corporate collapses of companies such as HIH, One.Tel and Harris Scarfe in Australia, while concurrently, Enron, WorldCom and other companies were attracting the attention of the accounting profession, the regulators and the general public in the USA. It is argued that the rise in economic rationalism and the related increased materialism of both the public and company directors and managers, fed the corporate excesses that resulted in spectacular corporate collapses, including one of the world’s largest accounting firms. The opportunistic behaviour of directors, and managers and the lack of transparency and integrity in corporations, was compounded by the failure of the corporate watch-dogs, such as auditors and regulators, to protect the public interest. If the history of bad corporate behaviour is not to be repeated, the religion of materialism needs to be recognised and addressed, to ensure any corporate governance reforms proposed for the future will be effective.

From the 'mad' poet to the 'embodied' poet: reconceptualising creativity through cognitive science paradigms

 Written by the author of three collections of poetry, this paper contests the enduring stereotype of the ‘mad’ poet, present in Romantic, psychoanalytic and psychological theories of creativity. Mobilising theories of embodied cognition, it offers a demystified and de-pathologised vision of poiesis and poetry. The paper focuses on three traits typically associated with the ‘mad’ poet in popular representations and theoretical understandings of that figure: extreme emotionality; divergent thinking; and a tortured unconscious. Using findings in the cognitive sciences, the essay demonstrates how emotional experience, divergent thinking, and the unconscious are integral parts of brain functioning, rather than traits exclusive to psychopathology. Poiesis is not informed, in any essential way, by madness but rather by the normal conditions of embodied cognition.

Decreased fatty acit Â-oxidation in riboflavin-responsive, multiple acylocoenzyme a dehydrogenase-deficient patients is associated with an increase in uncoupling protein-3

Riboflavin-responsive, multiple acylcoenzyme A dehydrogenase deficiency (RR-MAD), a lipid storage myopathy, is characterized by, among others, a decrease in fatty acid (FA) ß-oxidation capacity. Muscle uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) is up-regulated under conditions that either increase the levels of circulating free FA and/or decrease FA ß-oxidation. Using a relatively large cohort of seven RR-MAD patients, we aimed to better characterize the metabolic disturbances of this disease and to explore the possibility that it might increase UCP3 expression. A battery of biochemical and molecular tests were performed, which demonstrated decreases in FA ß-oxidation and in the activities of respiratory chain complexes I and II. These metabolic alterations were associated with increases of 3.1- and 1.7-fold in UCP3 mRNA and protein expression, respectively. All parameters were restored to control values after riboflavin treatment. We postulate that the up-regulation of UCP3 in RR-MAD is due to the accumulation of muscle FA/acylCoA. RR-MAD is an optimal model to support the hypothesis that UCP3 is involved in the outward translocation of an excess of FA from the mitochondria and to show that, in humans, the effects of FA on UCP3 expression are direct and independent of fatty acid ß-oxidation.

The room that was

Wood, sensor, found office chair, DVD player and screen, spy-hole, carpet 1.9x2.5x7m. The ghost of a mad astormonk inhabits the space the viewer sits in. The Room That Was creates a new learning space for the improvement of the unco-operative body – a mobile mnemonia room. It is a place where the subject’s memory can be rendered to suit other points of view. The subject can be indoctrinated anytime, anywhere, and by any method inside the The Room That Was – especially designed for the dimensions of the average sized human body (astromonk – an incipient being). It is a mobile asylum for the European consciousness (much like Australia).

Discourses of regeneration in early twentieth-century Britain : from Bedlam to the Imperial War Museum

This paper examines the building that presently houses the Imperial War Museum, investigating the transformation of the archetypal ‘mad space’ of the Bethlem Royal Hospital into what has been described as the ‘biggest boy’s bedroom in London’. Following recent concerns in human geography with Imperial cities, it highlights the differing ways in which this transformation embodies a number of themes of degeneration and regeneration in early twentieth-century Britain.

Souvenirs of the senses - Handdunes

This series of works "Handunes" were in response to a curatorial premise that my colleagues, Patrick West and Valerie Jeremijenko produced for a invited workshop and in tensive fabrication. The premise was to re-think the notion of the souvenir and how things are mad in a place by starting with a sensation of place and building an object (reverse engineering it) from that sensation or experience. this works against the notion of an miniature icon. these objects and documented processes were exhibited at the end of the one week intensive workshop.

Differential effects of exercise on tibial shaft marrow density in young female athletes

Context:
Increased mechanical loading can promote the preferential differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells to osteoblastogenesis, but it is not known whether long-term bone strength-enhancing exercise in humans can reduce marrow adiposity.

Objective:
Our objective was to examine whether bone marrow density (MaD), as an estimate of marrow adiposity 1) differs between young female athletes with contrasting loading histories and bone strengths and 2) is an independent predictor of bone strength at the weight-bearing tibia.

Design:
Mid-tibial MaD, cortical area (CoA), total area, medullary area, strength strain index (SSI), and cortical volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD) (total, endocortical, midcortical, and pericortical) was assessed using peripheral quantitative computed tomography in 179 female athletes involved in both impact and nonimpact loading sports and 41 controls aged 17–40 years.

Results:
As we have previously reported CoA, total area, and SSI were 16% to 24% greater in the impact group compared with the controls (all P < .001) and 12% to 18% greater than in the nonimpact group (all P < .001). The impact group also had 0.5% higher MaD than the nonimpact and control groups (both P < .05). Regression analysis further showed that midtibial MaD was significantly associated with SSI, CoA, endocortical vBMD, and pericortical vBMD (P < .05) in all women combined, after adjusting for age, bone length, loading groups, medullary area, muscle cross-sectional area, and percent fat.

Conclusion:
In young female athletes, tibial bone MaD was associated with loading history and was an independent predictor of tibial bone strength. These findings suggest that an exercise-induced increase in bone strength may be mediated via reduced bone marrow adiposity and consequently increased osteoblastogenesis.