Valuing the talk of young people: are we nearly there yet?

This paper examines reasons why young people’s talk about themselves and their educational experiences do not seem to be valued in public discourse about education. Drawing on a national dataset of student focus groups, it illustrates how students talk about themselves in educational contexts in a way that is entirely different and more complex than how they are conceptualised by an adult audience and symbolic elites. It demonstrates, contrary to dominant adult perceptions, the critical, communicative and creative use of language offered by young people when asked about their educational experiences, and highlights the potential innovation being missed by not listening.

Cities as Organisms

Since the UN report by the Brundtland Committee, sustainability in the built environment has mainly been seen from a technical focus on single buildings or products. With the energy efficiency approaching 100%, fossil resources depleting and a considerable part of the world still in need of better prosperity, the playing field of a technical focus has become very limited. It will most probably not lead to the sustainable development needed to avoid irreversible effects on climate, energy provision and, not least, society.
Cities are complex structures of independently functioning elements, all of which are nevertheless connected to different forms of infrastructure, which provide the necessary sources or solve the release of waste material. With the current ambitions regarding carbon- or energy-neutrality, retreating again to the scale of a building is likely to fail. Within an urban context a single building cannot become fully resource-independent, and need not, from our viewpoint. Cities should be considered as an organism that has the ability to intelligently exchange sources and waste flows. Especially in terms of energy, it can be made clear that the present situation in most cities are undesired: there is simultaneous demand for heat and cold, and in summer a lot of excess energy is lost, which needs to be produced again in winter. The solution for this is a system that intelligently exchanges and stores essential sources, e.g. energy, and that optimally utilises waste flows.
This new approach will be discussed and exemplified. The Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP) will be illustrated as a means for urban planning, whereas Swarm Planning will be introduced as another nature-based principle for swift changes towards sustainability

Accounts of debates in the House of Commons, March– April 1731, supplementary to the diary of the first earl of Egmont

John Perceval (1685–1748), 1st Viscount Perceval and (from 1733) 1st Earl of Egmont, was an assiduous recorder of his own life and times. His diaries, published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission from manuscripts in the British Library, are the best source for parliamentary debates at Westminster in the 1730s. For the years 1730-1733, when Perceval sat in the Commons (as an Irish peer) they are remarkably full. His practice seems to have been to prepare two versions (presumably on the basis of notes taken in the House), the first attributing speeches to individuals, and the second, entered up in the diary, which listed speakers and summarized all arguments on each side. His letterbooks for 1731 contain accounts of five debates that embody his first editing process, with speeches attributed to individuals. They were sent to an Irish correspondent, Marmaduke Coghill, and largely omitted from the diary because Perceval had already transcribed them elsewhere. They are new to historians and cast light on two main issues: the unsuccessful attempts by Perceval and the ‘Irish lobby’ to persuade the British parliament to settle the Irish woollen trade, a question bedevilling Anglo-Irish relations in this period; and an attempt by the opposition to stir up anger against perceived Spanish aggression against Gibraltar. One of the most interesting features is the insight afforded into the Commons performances of Sir Robert Walpole: his management of debates, his own style of speaking, and his sharp exchanges with opponents like William Pulteney.

A system lifeworld perspective on dying in long term care settings for older people:Contested states in contested places

In many Western countries, older people live and die in long-term institutional care settings. Habermas's concepts of lifeworld, system and communicative action are drawn upon to illuminate the experience of living and dying in this particular place. It is proposed that dying older adults, their family and care staff occupy different contested states and long term care settings are contested places, located in a wider system. This wider system, mediated through care homes, can colonise the life world experiences of dying individuals. The development of communicative space bridges the lifeworld and system and offers a way for the lifeworld of dying individuals, and those around them to be reintegrated into, and influence the wider system. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

Evaluating the effectiveness of community-based dementia care networks:The Dementia Care Networks' Study

Purpose: The Dementia Care Networks' Study examined the effectiveness of four community-based, not-for-profit dementia networks. The study involved assessing the relationship between the types of administrative and service-delivery exchanges that occurred among the networked agencies and the network members' perception of the effectiveness of these exchanges. Design and Methods: With the use of a case-study method, the evolution, structure, and processes of each network were documented. Social network analysis using a standardized questionnaire completed by member agencies identified patterns of administrative and clinical exchanges among networked agencies. Results: Differences were found between the four networks in terms of their perceptions of service-delivery effectiveness; perceptions of administrative effectiveness did not factor significantly. Exchanges between groups of agencies (cliques) within each of the four networks were found to be more critical than those between individual agencies within each network. Implications: Integration-measured by the types of exchanges within as opposed to across networks-differentiated the four networks studied. This research contributes to our understanding of the use of multiple measures to evaluate the inner workings of service delivery and their impact on elder health and elder health care. Copyright 2005 by The Gerontological Society of America.

Bystander Signalling: Exploring Clinical Relevance Through New Approaches and New Models

Classical radiation biology research has centred on nuclear DNA as the main target of radiation-induced damage. Over the past two decades, this has been challenged by a significant amount of scientific evidence clearly showing radiation-induced cell signalling effects to have important roles in mediating overall radiobiological response. These effects, generally termed radiation-induced bystander effects (RIBEs) have challenged the traditional DNA targeted theory in radiation biology and highlighted an important role for cells not directly traversed by radiation. The multiplicity of experimental systems and exposure conditions in which RIBEs have been observed has hindered precise definitions of these effects. However, RIBEs have recently been classified for different relevant human radiation exposure scenarios in an attempt to clarify their role in vivo. Despite significant research efforts in this area, there is little direct evidence for their role in clinically relevant exposure scenarios. In this review, we explore the clinical relevance of RIBEs from classical experimental approaches through to novel models that have been used to further determine their potential implications in the clinic. 

Categorizations of physical gesture in piano teaching: A preliminary enquiry

The significance of the “physicality” involved in learning to play a musical instrument and the essential role of teachers are areas in need of research. This article explores the role of gesture within teacher–student communicative interaction in one-to-one piano lessons. Three teachers were required to teach a pre-selected repertoire of two contrasting pieces to three students studying piano grade 1. The data was collected by video recordings of piano lessons and analysis based on the type and frequency of gestures employed by teachers in association to teaching behaviours specifying where gestures fit under (or evade) predefined classifications. Spontaneous co-musical gestures were observed in the process of piano tuition emerging with similar general communicative purposes as spontaneous co-verbal gestures and were essential for the process of musical communication between teachers and students. Observed frequencies of categorized gestures varied significantly between different teaching behaviours and between the three teachers. Parallels established between co-verbal and co-musical spontaneous gestures lead to an argument for extension of McNeill’s (2005) ideas of imagery–language–dialectic to imagery–music–dialectic with relevant implications for piano pedagogy and fields of study invested in musical communication.

Tutoría entre iguales recíproca y virtual para la mejora de habilidades lingüísticas en español e inglés

This paper reports data from an on-line peer tutoring project, the objective being the learning and improvement of the Spanish and English language. Pupils aged between 9 and 12 years old from Scotland and Catalonia were paired for the purpose of each pupil acting as a tutor of their own language within his or her pair. The aim was to improve the knowledge and use of their own language (by correcting their tutee) as well as the modern language (through the help of their tutor) acting as tutors and also as a tutees. The research combines a quasi-experimental design, using control groups, and in depth analysis of the process throughout the exchanges (texts and corrections) and interviews with the subjects. The results show that the degree of help offered by the tutors appears to be a very relevant factor when assessing the improvement detected in the linguistic abilities. © 2010 Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje.

Politeness and honesty contribute additively to the interpretation of scalar expressions

Scalar terms have been the focus of much recent attention. People can interpret such terms narrowly, for example, interpreting A or B to convey A or B but not both, on the grounds that a speaker would have explicitly used a more informative term (i.e., and) had he or she been in a position to do so; or they can interpret such terms broadly (A or B or both). Examined here are the effects of politeness contexts and self-rated honesty on people’s interpretation of the scalar connective or. In two experiments, it is shown that participants are less likely to adopt the narrow interpretation when the communicative context is face threatening, and that regardless of context, participants high in self-rated honesty adopt the narrow interpretation to a greater extent than those low in self-rated honesty. These results are consistent with the claim that an assumption of honesty underlies certain pragmatic inferences and suggest that personality may be an important source of individual differences in language interpretation.

Non-governmental Organizational Accountability: Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk?

Concern for NGO accountability has been intensified in recent years, following the growth in the size of NGOs and their power to influence global politics and curb the excesses of globalization. Questions have been raised about where the sector embraces the same standards of accountability that it demands from government and business. The objective of this paper is to examine one aspect of NGO accountability, its discharge through annual reporting. Using Habermas’ (1984; 1987) theory of communicative action, and specifically its validity claims, the research investigates whether NGOs use their annual reporting process to account to the host societies in which they operate or steer stakeholder actions toward their own self-interests. The results of the study indicate that efforts by organizations to account are characterized by communicative action through the provision of truthful disclosures, generally appropriate to the discharge of accountability and in a manner intended to improve their understandability. At the same time, however, some organizations exhibit strategically oriented behaviors in which the disclosure content is guided by the opportunity to present organizations in a particular light and there appears a lack of rhetor authenticity. The latter findings cast doubt on the ethical inspiration of NGOs and the values they demand from business communities, and questions arise as to why such practices exist and what lessons can be learnt from them.

Communicating musical knowledge through gesture: Piano teachers’ gestural behaviours across different levels of student proficiency

Teachers’ communication of musical knowledge through physical gesture represents a valuable pedagogical field in need of investigation. This exploratory case study compares the gestural behaviour of three piano teachers while giving individual lessons to students who differed according to piano proficiency levels. The data was collected by video recordings of one-to-one piano lessons and gestures were categorized using two gesture classifications: the spontaneous co-verbal gesture classification (McNeill, 1992; 2005) and spontaneous co-musical gesture classification (Simones, Schroeder & Rodger, 2013). Poisson regression analysis and qualitative observation suggest a relationship between teachers’ didactic intentions and the types of gesture they produced while teaching, as shown by differences in gestural category frequency between teaching students of higher and lower levels of proficiency. Such reported agreement between teachers’ gestural approach in relation to student proficiency levels indicates a teachers’ gestural scaffolding approach whereby teachers adapted gestural communicative channels to suit students’ specific conceptual skill levels.

On sea level change in the North Sea influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation: local and remote steric effects

In this study, contributions of both local steric and remote baroclinic effects (i.e., steric variations external to the region of interest) to the inter-annual variability of winter sea level in the North Sea, with respect to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), for the period of 1953–2010 are investigated. On inter-annual time scales in this period, the NAO is significantly correlated to sea level variations in the North Sea only in the winter months (December–March), while its correlation to sea temperature over much of the North Sea is only significant in January and February. The discrepancy in sea level between observations and barotropic tide and surge models forced by tides and local atmospheric forcing, i.e., local atmospheric pressure effects and winds, in the present study are found to be consistent with previous studies. In the North Sea, local thermosteric effects caused by thermal expansion play a minor role on winter-mean NAO related sea level variability compared with atmospheric forcing. This is particularly true in the southeastern North Sea where water depths are mostly less than 25 m. Our calculations demonstrate that the discrepancy can be mostly explained by remote baroclinic effects, which appear as water mass exchanges on the continental shelf and are therefore only apparent in ocean bottom pressure. In the North Sea, NAO related sea level variations seem to be a hybrid of barotropic and baroclinic processes. Hence, they can only be adequately modelled with three-dimensional baroclinic ocean models that include contributions of baroclinic effects and large-scale atmospheric forcing external to the region of interest.

Generalized Langevin equation: An efficient approach to nonequilibrium molecular dynamics of open systems

The generalized Langevin equation (GLE) has been recently suggested to simulate the time evolution of classical solid and molecular systems when considering general nonequilibrium processes. In this approach, a part of the whole system (an open system), which interacts and exchanges energy with its dissipative environment, is studied. Because the GLE is derived by projecting out exactly the harmonic environment, the coupling to it is realistic, while the equations of motion are non-Markovian. Although the GLE formalism has already found promising applications, e. g., in nanotribology and as a powerful thermostat for equilibration in classical molecular dynamics simulations, efficient algorithms to solve the GLE for realistic memory kernels are highly nontrivial, especially if the memory kernels decay nonexponentially. This is due to the fact that one has to generate a colored noise and take account of the memory effects in a consistent manner. In this paper, we present a simple, yet efficient, algorithm for solving the GLE for practical memory kernels and we demonstrate its capability for the exactly solvable case of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a Debye bath.

Introducing Students to Pre-Nineteenth-Century Poetry in the Language Classroom

We as language instructors are tasked with preparing students to transition from language to literature courses. The shorter length of many poems makes them ideal for presentation in the language classroom, where the acquisition of communicative competence is the priority. Introductory and intermediate textbooks’ poetry offerings, however, are frequently drawn from a canon of poems by only a few nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors (Verlaine, Apollinaire, Prévert) and fail to expose students to broader aspects of French literature. This article offers strategies for presenting pre-nineteenth-century poetry to first- and second-year students of French using dizains from Scève’s Délie as examples.

Reducing Child Protection Error in Social Work: Towards an Holistic-Rational Perspective

Social work in the United Kingdom remains embroiled in concerns about child protection error. The serious injury or death of vulnerable children continues to evince much consternation in the public and private spheres. Governmental responses to these concerns invariably draw on technocratic solutions involving more procedures, case management systems, information technology and bureaucratic regulation. Such solutions flow from an implicit use of instrumental rationality based on a ‘means-end’ logic. While bringing an important perspective to the problem of child protection error, instrumental rationality has been overused limiting discretion and other modes of rational inquiry. This paper argues that the social work profession should apply an enlarged form of rationality comprising not only the instrumental-rational mode but also the critical-rational, affective-rational and communicative-rational forms. It is suggested that this combined, conceptual arsenal of rational inquiry leads to a gestalt which has been termed the holistic-rational perspective. It is also argued that embracing a more rounded perspective such as this might offer greater opportunities for reducing child protection error.