New strings for old : the role of similarity processing in an incidental learning task

This paper reports three experiments that examine the role of similarity processing in McGeorge and Burton's (1990) incidental learning task. In the experiments subjects performed a distractor task involving four-digit number strings, all of which conformed to a simple hidden rule. They were then given a forced-choice memory test in which they were presented with pairs of strings and were led to believe that one string of each pair had appeared in the prior learning phase. Although this was not the case, one string of each pair did conform to the hidden rule. Experiment 1 showed that, as in the McGeorge and Burton study, subjects were significantly more likely to select test strings that conformed to the hidden rule. However, additional analyses suggested that rather than having implicitly abstracted the rule, subjects may have been selecting strings that were in some way similar to those seen during the learning phase. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to try to separate out effects due to similarity from those due to implicit rule abstraction. It was found that the results were more consistent with a similarity-based model than implicit rule abstraction per se.

ASSET: moving forward through feedback

Providing high quality and timely feedback to students is often a challenge for many staff in higher education as it can be both time-consuming and frustratingly repetitive. From the student perspective, feedback may sometimes be considered unhelpful, confusing and inconsistent and may not always be provided within a timeframe that is considered to be ‘useful’. The ASSET project, based at the University of Reading, addresses many of these inherent challenges by encouraging the provision of feedback that supports learning, i.e. feedback that contains elements of ‘feed-forward’, is of a high quality and is delivered in a timely manner. In particular, the project exploits the pedagogic benefits of video/audio media within a Web 2.0 context to provide a new, interactive resource, ‘ASSET’, to enhance the feedback experience for both students and staff. A preliminary analysis of both our quantitative and qualitative pedagogic data demonstrate that the ASSET project has instigated change in the ways in which both staff and students think about, deliver, and engage with feedback. For example, data from our online questionnaires and focus groups with staff and students indicate a positive response to the use of video as a medium for delivering feedback to students. In particular, the academic staff engaged in piloting the ASSET resource indicated that i) using video has made them think more, and in some cases differently, about the ways in which they deliver feedback to students and ii) they now see video as an effective means of making feedback more useful and engaging for students. Moreover, the majority of academic staff involved in the project have said they will continue to use video feedback. From the student perspective, 60% of those students whose lecturers used ASSET to provide video feedback said that “receiving video feedback encouraged me to take more notice of the feedback compared with normal methods” and 80% would like their lecturer to continue to use video as a method for providing feedback. An important aim of the project was for it to complement existing University-wide initiatives on feedback and for ASSET to become a ‘model’ resource for staff and students wishing to explore video as a medium for feedback provision. An institutional approach was therefore adopted and key members of Senior Management, academics, T&L support staff, IT support and Student Representatives were embedded within the project from the start. As with all initiatives of this kind, a major issue is the future sustainability of the ASSET resource and to have had both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ support for the project has been extremely beneficial. In association with the project team the University is currently exploring the creation of an open-source, two-tiered video supply solution and a ‘framework’ (that other HEIs can adopt and/or adapt) to support staff in using video for feedback provision. In this way students and staff will have new opportunities to explore video and to exploit the benefits of this medium for supporting learning.

Multivalency in healable supramolecular polymers: the effect of supramolecular cross-link density on the mechanical properties and healing of noncovalent polymer networks

Polymers with the ability to heal themselves could provide access to materials with extended lifetimes in a wide range of applications such as surface coatings, automotive components and aerospace composites. Here we describe the synthesis and characterisation of two novel, stimuli-responsive, supramolecular polymer blends based on π-electron-rich pyrenyl residues and π-electron-deficient, chain-folding aromatic diimides that interact through complementary π–π stacking interactions. Different degrees of supramolecular “cross-linking” were achieved by use of divalent or trivalent poly(ethylene glycol)-based polymers featuring pyrenyl end-groups, blended with a known diimide–ether copolymer. The mechanical properties of the resulting polymer blends revealed that higher degrees of supramolecular “cross-link density” yield materials with enhanced mechanical properties, such as increased tensile modulus, modulus of toughness, elasticity and yield point. After a number of break/heal cycles, these materials were found to retain the characteristics of the pristine polymer blend, and this new approach thus offers a simple route to mechanically robust yet healable materials.

Travail des enfants et droit à l’éducation au Burkina Faso: L’exemple de la carrière de Pissy

Cet article décrit et analyse le travail des enfants dans une carrière de granit d’un quartier de la ville de Ouagadougou, interroge le rapport entre l’école et le travail du point de vue des acteurs du site pour apprécier l’argument de la scolarisation comme solution alternative au travail des enfants. Les données proviennent d’une enquête réalisée dans le cadre de notre recherche doctorale au Burkina Faso, de février à avril 2009, dont la carrière de Pissy a été un des terrains d’enquête1. Les enquêtés sont constitués de parents et de leurs enfants âgés de moins de 16 ans ayant des trajectoires différentes : non scolarisés,scolarisés, déscolarisés et à la fois écoliers et travailleurs. Les personnes ont été choisies aléatoirement selon leur accord et disponibilité, en variant leur emplacement. L’approche choisie privilégie le point de vue des différents acteurs du site,l’analyse de leurs discours et l’observation de leurs pratiques de travail. La prise en compte du point de vue des enfants s’appuie sur la perspective théorique développée par James & Prout (1997), où les enfants sont des acteurs compétents dans la sphère du travail et de la vie sociale. L’article présente d’abord le processus d’institutionnalisation de l’école et la situation du travail des enfants au Burkina Faso, puis décrit les logiques autour du travail des enfants dans la carrière en montrant que celui-ci n’est pas seulement lié à la nécessité économique. Enfin, il confronte les alternatives au travaildes enfants invoquées par les enfants et leurs parents aux solutions d’éducation proposées par l’état et la société civile. This article is about a particular case of children in working situation: children crushing the granite in the quarry of Pissy. Their working conditions are considered as dangerous by national and international legal texts. This article aims to grasp the experience of children who work in this frame in order to test the hypothesis according to which schooling would be an effective tool of struggle against child labour. The fieldwork reveals that child labour in the quarry is not only guided by economic aspects. The wish of the parents (and of some children and teenagers) to find another job for working children reopen the debate on “the right to work” for children.

L’éternel retour du "travail des enfants" dans les politiques publiques au Burkina Faso : perspective historique

Dans une perspective historique, ce chapitre cherche à comprendre comment le travail des enfants a été construit comme « problème » dans les politiques publiques au Burkina Faso. En remontant aux politiques coloniales françaises dans le pays, il se propose de répondre à la question suivante : face à l’émergence et au renforcement des politiques publiques de lutte contre le travail des enfants, assiste-t-on à une disparition du modèle de l’enfant du lignage qui percevait l’enfant comme une « richesse » et une force de travail complémentaire? Le chapitre présente d’abord la construction progressive du travail des enfants en « problème » de politiques publiques pendant la colonisation. Il analyse ensuite l’évolution et la portée de l’intervention des gouvernements successifs après l’indépendance pour imposer une nouvelle vision de l’enfant (l’enfant de la Nation). Enfin, il révèle que malgré l’engouement récent pour la prise en compte du point de vue l’enfant, le statut de l’enfant travailleur comme sujet peine à être reconnu. L’analyse globale montre une tension permanente, à des degrés différents, entre les modèles de l’enfant de la nation, de l’enfant du lignage et de l’enfant sujet : ce qui traduit aussi la complexité du travail des enfants et de sa lutte au Burkina Faso contemporain. Le texte est issu d’un travail de terrain mené au Burkina Faso en 2008 et 2009 dans le cadre de notre thèse.

Configurations institutionnelles de la protection de l’enfance: regards croisés de l’Afrique, de l’Europe et de l’Amérique du Nord

Cet article porte sur l’analyse de trois configurations institutionnelles de la protection de l’enfance : celle en place au Burkina Faso, en Belgique et au Québec. Pour chaque configuration, le texte explore les transformations qui ont marqué le passage de la prise en charge exclusive de l’enfant par la famille vers la présence accrue de l’État et la manière dont la Convention internationale des droits de l’enfant de 1989 a influencé ce passage. Il montre, au travers d’une lecture historique, que l’implication de l’État dans la protection des enfants a connu des formes et des modalités variables selon le temps et l’espace. L’approche actuelle en matière de protection de l’enfance au Nord et au Sud, approche largement inspirée de la perspective des droits, représente un défi tant pour les intervenants que pour les familles, car son application dépend à fois des ressources disponibles pour aider les enfants et les familles en difficulté, de la capacité d’action des institutions publiques et de l’efficacité des interventions. This article deals with the analysis of three institutional configurations of child protection: those in Burkina Faso, in Belgium, and in Québec. With respect to each configuration, the text explores the changes from situations in which the family had sole control of the child to those where the State played a greater role, and the manner in which the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child has affected such changes. It shows, through a reading of history, that the involvement of the State in child protection has gone through different forms and stages over time and space. The current strategies as regards child protection in the North and in the South—an approach that is largely subject to a legal perspective—represent a challenge both for intervenors and for families, since their application depends on the resources available for helping children and families in difficulty, on the ability of the public institutions to intervene, and on the efficiency of such interventions.

Children’s perspectives on their working lives and on public action against child labour in Burkina Faso

The majority of children in Burkina Faso undertake work and, compared to other West African countries, it has the highest rate of children involved in hazardous work (Diallo 2008; NISD 2008), which is one working child out of two. Based on a qualitative survey, this chapter presents the perspectives of Burkinabe children working in two of the hazardous sectors: a quarry and an artisanal mine. The findings show that children acknowledge very difficult working conditions in these sites. However a variety of reasons maintain them in work, which they perceive as a solution and thus challenging action against child labour in Burkina Faso.

Mobilisations contre le travail des enfants au Burkina Faso : quelquees considérations de la dimension genre

La lutte contre le travail des enfants au Burkina Faso a resurgi dans la scène publique ces dix dernières années avec un engouement sans précédent aussi bien de la part des acteurs étatiques, des ONG que des organismes onusiens. Ce chapitre traite, dans une double perspective sociologique et anthropologique, de la dimension « genre » de cette lutte et cherche à voir dans quelle mesure celle-ci est prise en compte (ou non) dans les pratiques concrètes de retrait d’enfants des travaux considérés comme dangereux. Peut-on parler de politiques et de programmes « genrés » dans le champ de la lutte contre le travail des enfants au Burkina Faso ? Le chapitre est structuré en trois parties. Il présente d’abord les éléments caractéristiques de l’approche genre dans la lutte contre le travail des enfants. Ensuite, il aborde les politiques et les acteurs de cette lutte au Burkina Faso, en décrivant les processus de problématisation et publicisation de la question. Enfin, il traite du cas spécifique d’un projet triennal de retrait d’enfants des mines artisanales des régions du Nord et du Sahel burkinabè pour questionner la prise en compte du genre, des obstacles sociaux, culturels et d’autres contraintes possibles à l’égalité fille-garçon dans cette intervention. Il questionne par ailleurs la part des acteurs de terrain dans la (re)production des normes et des rôles sexués. Les données sont issues de quatre années de recherche menée au Burkina Faso entre 2008 et 2011, auprès d’acteurs engagés dans la production des politiques de lutte et/ou engagés dans la lutte concrète, mais également avec des enfants, parents et employeurs.

Supramolecular materials for inkjet printing: self-assembling polymer networks

Electronically complementary, low molecular weight polymers that self-assemble through tuneable π-π stacking interactions to form extended supramolecular polymer networks have been developed for inkjet printing applications and successfully deposited using three different printing techniques. Sequential overprinting of the complementary components results in supramolecular network formation through complexation of π-electron rich pyrenyl or perylenyl chain-ends in one component with π-electron deficient naphthalene diimide residues in a chain-folding polyimide. The complementary π-π stacked polymer blends generate strongly coloured materials as a result of charge-transfer absorptions in the visible spectrum, potentially negating the need for pigments or dyes in the ink formulation. Indeed, the final colour of the deposited material can be tailored by changing varying the end-groups of the π electron rich polymer component. Piezoelectric printing techniques were employed in a proof of concept study to allow characterisation of the materials deposited, and a thermal inkjet printer adapted with imaging software enabled a detailed analysis of the ink-drops as they formed, and of their physical properties. Finally, continuous inkjet printing allowed greater volumes of material to be deposited, on a variety of different substrate surfaces, and demonstrated the utility and versatility of this novel type of ink for industrial applications.

Perylene as an electron-rich moiety in healable, complementary π–π stacked, supramolecular polymer systems

A two-component, supramolecular polymer blend has been designed using a novel π-electron rich bisperylene- terminated polyether. This polymer is able to self-assemble through electronically complementary π–π stacking interactions with a π-electron-deficient chain-folding polydiimide to afford thermally healable polymer blends. Model compounds were developed to assess the suitability of the deep green complexes formed between perylene residues and chain-folding bis-diimides for use in polymer blends. The polymer blends thus synthesised were elastomeric in nature and demonstrated healable properties as demonstrated by scanning electron microscopy. Healing was observed to occur rapidly at ca. 75 degC, and excellent healing efficiencies were found by tensometric and rheometric analyses. These tuneable, stimuli-responsive, supramolecular polymer blends are compared to related healable blends featuring pyrene-terminated oligomers.

Designing care bundle documentation to support the recognition and treatment of acute kidney injury: a route to quality improvement

The chapter describes development of care bundle documentation, through an iterative, user-centred design process, to support the recognition and treatment of acute kidney injury (AKI). The chapter details stages of user and stakeholder consultation, employed to develop a design response that was sensitive to user experience and need, culminating in simulation testing of a near final prototype. The development of supplementary awareness-raising materials, relating to the main care bundle tool is also discussed. This information design response to a complex clinical decision-making process is contrasted to other approaches to promoting AKI care. The need for different but related approaches to the working tool itself and the tool’s communication are discussed. More general recommendations are made for the development of communication tools to support complex clinical processes.

Functionally conserved cis-regulatory elements of COL18A1 identified through zebrafish transgenesis

Type XVIII collagen is a component of basement membranes, and expressed prominently in the eye, blood vessels, liver, and the central nervous system. Homozygous mutations in COL18A1 lead to Knobloch Syndrome, characterized by ocular defects and occipital encephalocele. However, relatively little has been described on the role of type XVIII collagen in development, and nothing is known about the regulation of its tissue-specific expression pattern. We have used zebrafish transgenesis to identify and characterize cis-regulatory sequences controlling expression of the human gene. Candidate enhancers were selected from non-coding sequence associated with COL18A1 based on sequence conservation among mammals. Although these displayed no overt conservation with orthologous zebrafish sequences, four regions nonetheless acted as tissue-specific transcriptional enhancers in the zebrafish embryo, and together recapitulated the major aspects of col18a1 expression. Additional post-hoc computational analysis on positive enhancer sequences revealed alignments between mammalian and teleost sequences, which we hypothesize predict the corresponding zebrafish enhancers; for one of these, we demonstrate functional overlap with the orthologous human enhancer sequence. Our results provide important insight into the biological function and regulation of COL18A1, and point to additional sequences that may contribute to complex diseases involving COL18A1. More generally, we show that combining functional data with targeted analyses for phylogenetic conservation can reveal conserved cis-regulatory elements in the large number of cases where computational alignment alone falls short. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Imperial shoe palace: a collection of poems

Poems