A new phylogenetic group of Propionibacterium acnes

Immunofluorescence microscopy-based identification of presumptive Propionibacterium acnes isolates, using the P. acnes-specific mAb QUBPa3, revealed five organisms with an atypical cellular morphology. Unlike the coryneform morphology seen with P. acnes types I and II, these isolates exhibited long slender filaments (which formed large tangled aggregates) not previously described in P. acnes. No reaction with mAbs that label P. acnes types IA (QUBPa1) and II (QUBPa2) was observed. Nucleotide sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene (1484 bp) revealed the isolates to have between 99.8 and 99.9 % identity to the 16S rRNA gene of the P. acnes type IA, IB and II strains NCTC 737, KPA171202 and NCTC 10390, respectively. Analysis of the recA housekeeping gene (1047 bp) did reveal, however, a greater number of conserved nucleotide polymorphisms between the sequences from these isolates and those from NCTC 737 (98.9 % identity), KPA171202 (98.9 % identity) and NCTC 10390 (99.1 % identity). Phylogenetic investigations demonstrated that the isolates belong to a novel recA cluster or lineage distinct from P. acnes types I and II. We now propose this new grouping as P. acnes type III. The prevalence and clinical importance of this novel recA lineage amongst isolates of P. acnes remains to be determined.

A bridge too far? Breaching the research/learning and teaching nexus in a previously research-led university

The relationship between research and learning and teaching represents what has been described as ‘amongst the most intellectually tangled, managerially complex and politically contentious issues in mass higher education’ (Scott, 2005, p 53). Despite this, arguments that in order to achieve high quality scholarly outcomes, university teachers need to adopt an approach to teaching similar to that of research (i.e. founded upon academic rigour and evidence), has long been discussed in the literature (see for example, Elton, 2005 & Healey, 2000). However, the practicalities of promoting an empirical and evidence-based approach to teaching within a research-led institution makes dealing with the research/learning and teaching nexus a somewhat challenging proposition. Drawing upon the findings of a mixed methodological study, this paper critically analyses the pedagogical, organisational and practical issues encountered by academics and support staff working within a newly established Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice. Comprising an eclectic group of staff drawn from across the five Schools in the University, the Centre is dedicated to enhancing student learning through the development of evidence based teaching practice. Based upon the premise that the promotion of research-led teaching will act to bring teaching and research together, and in doing so enhance students learning experiences (Simmons & Elen 2007), the paper critically analyses the challenges encountered by staff responsible for developing and introducing a new learning & teaching focused organisational strategy (by reflecting on the previous 12 months work). In doing so it makes a significant contribution to current academic theory and debate in the areas of pedagogic practice and organisational management. Focusing specifically on the impact of the new policy on various aspects of university life including, pedagogic practice, student support, staff training, and organisational management, the paper critically addresses the cultural and attitudinal challenges of change management (Kotter, 1996) within a ‘grey-brick’ university. It concludes by arguing that the move towards becoming a more learning-focused university has started to develop an awareness of the positive impact the change initiative is having on the student experience and wider institution; whilst also drawing attention to the organisational challenges ahead.

An aspect-oriented and model-driven approach for managing dynamic variability

Constructing and executing distributed systems that can adapt to their operating context in order to sustain provided services and the service qualities are complex tasks. Managing adaptation of multiple, interacting services is particularly difficult since these services tend to be distributed across the system, interdependent and sometimes tangled with other services. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the number of potential system configurations derived from the variabilities of each service need to be handled. Current practices of writing low-level reconfiguration scripts as part of the system code to handle run time adaptation are both error prone and time consuming and make adaptive systems difficult to validate and evolve. In this paper, we propose to combine model driven and aspect oriented techniques to better cope with the complexities of adaptive systems construction and execution, and to handle the problem of exponential growth of the number of possible configurations. Combining these techniques allows us to use high level domain abstractions, simplify the representation of variants and limit the problem pertaining to the combinatorial explosion of possible configurations. In our approach we also use models at runtime to generate the adaptation logic by comparing the current configuration of the system to a composed model representing the configuration we want to reach. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Washashores

Washashores was a comic novel exploring the secrets and relationships in a fictional Massachusetts seaside town. Rose Waters, who'd come to Nauset after a failed relationship, encountered two women with a tangled and duplicitous history, and a young autistic savant the women had helped to raise. The boy's uncle, Simon Beadle, once the town drunk, had run away from his past for seventeen years until an event occurred which initiated his journey home. Rose and Simon's paths converged, bringing about complications both whimsical and serious, with events reaching a crisis at the town's Tri-centennial celebration. Here, all that had been hidden was revealed through Rose and Simon's collaborative efforts, and the truth led to reconciliation and the promise of romance. Chapters alternated Rose and Simon's points of view, which permitted the reader to follow their misunderstandings and misreadings of the town and each other.

Building bridges for future sustainability? Breaching the research-teaching nexus in engineering education

The relationship between research and learning and teaching represents what has been described as amongst the most intellectually tangled, managerially complex and politically contentious issues in mass higher education (Scott, 2005, p 53). Despite this, arguments that in order to achieve high quality scholarly outcomes, university teachers need to adopt an approach to teaching similar to that of research (founded upon academic rigour and evidence), has long been discussed in the literature. However, the practicalities of promoting an empirical and evidence-based approach to teaching in engineering education make dealing with the research / teaching nexus a somewhat challenging proposition. Using a phenomenographic approach, bringing together and applying the findings of a mixed methodological study, the workshop will adopt an activity based, interactive approach to encourage staff to consider the challenges and benefits of adopting an evidence-based approach to learning and teaching through the utilisation of research to inform their own practice. © 2009 Authors.

Sähkötoimisten käsiproteesien nykyteknologian taso

Työssä selvitettiin sähkötoimisten käsiproteesien nykyteknologian taso. Selvitettäviä asioita olivat keskushermoston ja proteesin välisen hermokytkennän toteutustapa, sähkötoimisten käsiproteesien keskeiset tekniset ominaisuudet sekä käsiproteesin mekaaniset toteutustavat. Tutkimus suoritettiin kirjallisuustutkimuksena. Työhön valittiin esimerkkejä kaupallisesti saatavilla olevista käsiproteeseista jotka löytyivät internetistä hakemalla kaikkein edisty-neintä käsiproteesia. Työstä rajattiin pois proteesin suora kytkeminen keskushermostoon. Liikeinformaation välitys aivoilta proteesille onnistuu mittaamalla lihassähkökäyrä erilaisilla ihon ja lihasten päälle, ihon alle lihaksien yhteyteen tai suoraan hermojen yhteyteen asete-tuilla elektrodeilla. Lihassähkökäyrän mittaamisessa ihon pinnalta on ongelmana sähkömag-neettinen säteily, hiki, joka muuttaa ihon impedanssia ja elektrodien meneminen pois paikal-taan. Ihon alle asetettavat elektrodit kapseloituvat, mikä heikentää niiden toimintaa ja nii-den ihon läpi kulkevat johdot voivat altistaa kohdan infektioille tai takertua johonkin. Her-moihin suorassa kosketuksissa olevat elektrodit aiheuttavat lisäksi hermopinteen. Kohden-netulla uudelleenhermotuksella voidaan hermosyyt johtaa lihaksiin, jolloin lihaksista saa-daan biologiset vahvistimet lihassähkökäyrää varten tai korvaavalle ihoalueelle, johon koh-distuva kosketus tuottaa tuntemuksen käteen kohdistuvasta kosketuksesta. Käden menet-tämisen myötä menetettävät hermo-ohjaustiedot voivat osittain korvautua aivojen mukau-tuvuuden ansiosta, mikä mahdollistaa tekokäden käyttämisen oppimisen samalla tavoin kuin polkupyörällä ajon. Hermotakaisinkytkentä mahdollistaa proteesin paremman hallin-nan. On mahdollista valmistaa keinoihoa johon kohdistuva paine saa aikaan muutoksen sen sähköisissä ominaisuuksissa, mitä voidaan sitten käyttää varsinaisen hermoärsytyksen luo-van laitteen, kuten tynkää ärsyttävän täryttimen, ohjaamisessa. On mahdollista valmistaa keinolihaksia joiden avulla nivelten liike voidaan toteuttaa luonnollisen kaltaisilla rakenteilla ja jotka ovat jopa kymmeniä kertoja voimakkaampia kuin aidot lihakset. Nykyteknologian avulla on mahdollista rakentaa käsiproteesi joka liikeradoiltaan, voimal-taan ja hermotakaisinkytkennän osalta vastaa lähes täydellisesti aitoa ihmiskättä. Haasteena on vielä kokeiluasteella oleva teknologian taso sekä korkea hinta.

O PARFOR na furg e os efeitos na constituição das subjetividades de professoras pedagogas

O presente estudo refere-se a uma dissertação de mestrado em Educação, a qual teve como finalidade problematizar a constituição de subjetividades docentes no âmbito do Curso PARFOR Pedagogia, ofertado pela Universidade do Rio Grande (FURG). O foco teórico que alimenta este trabalho segue alguns elementos dos estudos foucaultianos que se detêm na perspectiva da governamentalidade e, por esse viés investigativo, as problematizações foram se constituindo, basicamente, a partir de três ferramentas analíticas: discurso, governo e subjetivação. Através desta perspectiva de estudo, proponho compreender as políticas de formação docente como uma questão de governo das condutas e o PARFOR, como uma tecnologia de governo que conduz o modo como as professoras que vivenciam essa formação atuam e se pensam nessa sociedade. A partir das narrativas de algumas professoras formadoras e acadêmicas deste curso, foi possível evidenciar o currículo como um espaço de controle e produção de subjetividades. Argumentei que as professoras-acadêmicas, ao justificarem as suas escolhas pelo PARFOR, foram capturadas pelo discurso das faltas com a profissão, tendo suas condutas orientadas a buscar o ensino superior como meio de qualificação e ascensão social. Após, discuti que as práticas realizadas no projeto de formação seguem um ciclo que leva à conversão. Sustentei esta ideia mostrando que as docentes são convocadas a se confessar por meio das escritas dos memoriais e TCC’s, reconhecendo-se como sujeitos da educação - avaliando, julgando, comparando, criando resistências, produzindo verdades sobre si – e assim convertendo-se a uma nova postura que, de alguma forma, venha assegurar o sucesso do seu fazer docente. Por fim, chamo a atenção para as relações de poder imbricadas no equilíbrio dos interesses e forças que envolvem o currículo de formação e seus efeitos na constituição dos sujeitos que vivenciaram este processo. Defendo que as professoras-acadêmicas, ao não terem suas expectativas contempladas no curso, promovem, em diferentes momentos, ações ou resistências, entrando em conflito com as professoras formadoras. Os efeitos dessa forma de subjetivação vão gerando negociações, indicando rumos diferentes aos pré-estabelecidos inicialmente.

La imagen en el discurso multimodal cortazariano, una poética en movimiento

The selection and proposed cortazarian image in multimodal speech, a poetic moving as a doctoral thesis title, is the result of a process that forms several progressive stages. more than satisfy our curiosity and literary artistic concerns, the questions multiply increases our desire to bring more creative Cortazarian the colossus, that not only ruins a way of making literature , but in its revolutionary labyrinth gives a turn of the screw to the already tangled world of artistic writing , breaking in 1967 with the first of four hybrids books, La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos through which converts the traditional plastic unitextual and unimodal space in a palempsesto inexhaustible generator senses and meanings. Far from appeasing the wrath of conservative critics, caused by his narrative masterpiece, Hopscotch (1963), sparked the debate to denounce the regression of the classic molds of writing, proposing the imagination as the setting for creative freedom, it is not as arbitrary and nonsense, but as a process of higher state of consciousness in which it operates an underlying logic. Hence, our objective is to crawl into the underworld and plastics other multisígnicas border spaces, fleeting and ephemeral alliances that relate not just as complementary and similar texts which may be the same speech and can transmit the same, but quite the contrary, the oft-repeated notion of analogy is the first victim, fortunately, this kind of creative-artistic operations that raise the creative act to a sublime state capable of converting the inexhaustible multitextuales constellations in different ways: opposition, confrontation, invasion, dialogue, shadow, duplication, theft, etc. However this multiple transgression pushed to the limit by Julio Cortazar and his friend Julio Silva through four books proposed for analysis often does not translate into jobs and research in literature departments of the universities of the world, nor the critics are echoes the striking abundance and clarity of expression multimodal phenomenon as is the case with other works of Cortazar unimodal type, which makes it impassable fences mysterious worlds...