School-based experiences : developing primary science preservice teachers' practice

Reviews into teacher education emphasise the need for preservice teachers to have more school-based experiences. In this study, a school-based experience was organised within a nine-week science curriculum university unit that allowed preservice teachers’ repeated experiences in teaching primary science. This research uses a survey, questionnaire with extended written responses, and researcher observations to investigate preservice teachers’ (n=38) learning experiences in two school settings. Survey results indicated that the majority of these preservice teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that school-based experiences developed their: personal-professional skill development (100%); system requirements (range: 81-100%); teaching practices (81-100%); student behaviour management (range: 94-100%); providing student feedback (89-94%); and reflection on practice (92-100%). Qualitative data provided insights into their development particularly for science content knowledge and receiving positive reinforcement on effective teaching behaviours. According to these preservice teachers, the school-based experiences facilitated “teachable moments – having the knowledge or skills to run with students’ questions or ideas” and allowed preservice teachers to “critically reflect between groups to make the task flow better”. Embedding school-based experiences needs to be part of each and every preservice teacher education unit so preservice teachers can develop confidence, knowledge and skills within authentic school contexts.

Natural balancing of flying capacitor voltages in multicell inverter under PD carrier-based PWM

The flying capacitor multicell inverter (FCMI) possesses natural balancing property. With the phase-shifted (PS) carrier-based scheme, natural balancing can be achieved in a straightforward manner. However, to achieve natural balancing with the harmonically optimal phase-disposition (PD) carrierbased scheme, the conventional approaches require (n-1) x (n-1) trapezoidal carrier signals for an n-level inverter, which is (n-1) x (n-2) times more than that in the standard PD scheme. This paper proposes two improved natural balancing strategies for FMI under PD scheme, which use the same (n-1) carrier signals as used in the standard PD scheme. In the first scheme, on-line detection is performed of the band in which the modulation signal is located, corresponding period number of the carrier, and rising or falling half cycle of the carrier waveform to generate the switching signals based on certain rules. In the second strategy, the output voltage level selection is first processed and the switching signals are then generated according to a rule based on preferential cell selection algorithm. These methods are easy to use and can be simply implemented as compared to the other available methods. Simulation and experimental results are presented for a five-level inverter to verify these proposed schemes.

Identifying relationship between skid resistance, road characteristics and crashes using probability-based risk approach

Road accidents are of great concerns for road and transport departments around world, which cause tremendous loss and dangers for public. Reducing accident rates and crash severity are imperative goals that governments, road and transport authorities, and researchers are aimed to achieve. In Australia, road crash trauma costs the nation A$ 15 billion annually. Five people are killed, and 550 are injured every day. Each fatality costs the taxpayer A$1.7 million. Serious injury cases can cost the taxpayer many times the cost of a fatality. Crashes are in general uncontrolled events and are dependent on a number of interrelated factors such as driver behaviour, traffic conditions, travel speed, road geometry and condition, and vehicle characteristics (e.g. tyre type pressure and condition, and suspension type and condition). Skid resistance is considered one of the most important surface characteristics as it has a direct impact on traffic safety. Attempts have been made worldwide to study the relationship between skid resistance and road crashes. Most of these studies used the statistical regression and correlation methods in analysing the relationships between skid resistance and road crashes. The outcomes from these studies provided mix results and not conclusive. The objective of this paper is to present a probability-based method of an ongoing study in identifying the relationship between skid resistance and road crashes. Historical skid resistance and crash data of a road network located in the tropical east coast of Queensland were analysed using the probability-based method. Analysis methodology and results of the relationships between skid resistance, road characteristics and crashes are presented.

The mechanical heterogeneity of the hard callus influences local tissue strains during bone healing : a finite element study based on sheep experiments

During secondary fracture healing, various tissue types including new bone are formed. The local mechanical strains play an important role in tissue proliferation and differentiation. To further our mechanobiological understanding of fracture healing, a precise assessment of local strains is mandatory. Until now, static analyses using Finite Elements (FE) have assumed homogenous material properties. With the recent quantification of both the spatial tissue patterns (Vetter et al., 2010) and the development of elastic modulus of newly formed bone during healing (Manjubala et al., 2009), it is now possible to incorporate this heterogeneity. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of this heterogeneity on the strain patterns at six successive healing stages. The input data of the present work stemmed from a comprehensive cross-sectional study of sheep with a tibial osteotomy (Epari et al., 2006). In our FE model, each element containing bone was described by a bulk elastic modulus, which depended on both the local area fraction and the local elastic modulus of the bone material. The obtained strains were compared with the results of hypothetical FE models assuming homogeneous material properties. The differences in the spatial distributions of the strains between the heterogeneous and homogeneous FE models were interpreted using a current mechanobiological theory (Isakson et al., 2006). This interpretation showed that considering the heterogeneity of the hard callus is most important at the intermediate stages of healing, when cartilage transforms to bone via endochondral ossification.

A national roll out of an insufficiently evaluated practice : how evidence based are our end-of-life care policies?

There has been increasing international efforts to ensure that health care policies are evidence based. One area where there is a lack of ‘effectiveness’ evidence is in the use of end-of-life care pathways (EOLCP) (1). Despite the lack of evidence supporting the efficacy of the EOCLP, their use has been endorsed in the recent national palliative care strategy document in the UK (2). In addition, a publication endorsed by the Australian Government (titled: Supporting Australians to live well at the End of Life- National Palliative Care Strategy 2010) (3), recommended a national roll out of EOLCP across all sectors (primary, acute and aged care) in Australia. According to this document, it is a measure of “appropriateness” and “effectiveness” for promoting quality end-of-life care.

School-based strategies to address cyber bullying

Bullying and victimisation among school age children is recognised as a major public health problem. The Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Study (ACBPS) reports that just over one quarter (27%) of school students aged 8 to 14 years were bullied and 9% bullied others on a frequent basis (every few weeks or more often) (Cross et al., 2009). Bullying is associated with a host of detrimental effects, including loneliness (Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, & Ruan, 2001), low self‐esteem (Jankauskiene, Kardelis, Sukys, & Kardeliene, 2008; Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, Kaistaniemi, & Lagerspetz, 1999), anxiety, depression (Kaltiala‐Heino, Rimpela, Rantanen, & Rimpela, 2000), suicide ideation (Kaltiala‐Heino, Rimpela, Marttunen, Rimpela, & Rantanen, 1999), impaired academic achievement (Nansel et al., 2001), and poorer physical health (Wolke, Woods, Bloomfield, & Karstadt, 2001).

Arts-based research in design education

There is an urgent need in terms of changing world conditions to move beyond the dualist paradigm that has traditionally informed design research, education and practice. Rather than attempt to reduce uncertainty, novelty and complexity as is the conventional approach, an argument is presented in this article that seeks to exploit these qualities through a reconceptualisation of design in creative as well as systematic, rigorous and ethical terms. Arts-based research, which 'brings together the systematic and rigorous qualities of inquiry with the creative and imaginative qualities of the arts', is presented as being central to this reconceptualisation. This is exemplified in the application of art-informed inquiry in a research unit for graduating tertiary-level interior design students. The application is described in this article and is shown to rely substantially on the image and its capacity to open up and reveal new possibilities and meaning.

Strategy in developing cell based therapy for large bone

Regeneration of osseous defects by tissue-engineering approach provides a novel means of treatment utilizing cell biology, materials science, and molecular biology. The concept of in vitro cultured osteoblasts having an ability to induce new bone formation has been demonstrated in the critical size defects using small animal models. The bone derived cells can be incorporated into bioengineered scaffolds and synthesize bone matrix, which on implantation can induce new bone formation. In search of optimal cell delivery materials, the extracellular matrix as cell carriers for the repair and regeneration of tissues is receiving increased attention. We have investigated extracellular matrix formed by osteoblasts in vitro as a scaffold for osteoblasts transplantation and found a mineralized matrix, formed by human osteoblasts in vitro, can initiate bone formation by activating endogenous mesenchymal cells. To repair the large bone defects, osteogenic or stem cells need to be prefabricated in a large three dimensional scaffold usually made of synthetic biomaterials, which have inadequate interaction with cells and lead to in vivo foreign body reactions. The interstitial extracellular matrix has been applied to modify biomaterials surface and identified vitronectin, which binds the heparin domain and RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) sequence can modulate cell spreading, migration and matrix formation on biomaterials. We also synthesized a tri-block copolymer, methoxy-terminated poly(ethylene glycol)(MPEG)-polyL-lactide(PLLA)-polylysine(PLL) for human osteoblasts delivery. We identified osteogenic activity can be regulated by the molecular weight and composition of the triblock copolymers. Due to the sequential loss of lineage differentiation potential during the culture of bone marrow stromal cells that hinderers their potential clinical application, we have developed a clonal culture system and established several stem cell clones with fast growing and multi-differentiation properties. Using proteomics and subtractive immunization, several differential proteins have been identified and verified their potential application in stem cell characterization and tissue regeneration

Developing trust networks based on user tagging information for recommendation making

Recommender systems are one of the recent inventions to deal with ever growing information overload. Collaborative filtering seems to be the most popular technique in recommender systems. With sufficient background information of item ratings, its performance is promising enough. But research shows that it performs very poor in a cold start situation where previous rating data is sparse. As an alternative, trust can be used for neighbor formation to generate automated recommendation. User assigned explicit trust rating such as how much they trust each other is used for this purpose. However, reliable explicit trust data is not always available. In this paper we propose a new method of developing trust networks based on user’s interest similarity in the absence of explicit trust data. To identify the interest similarity, we have used user’s personalized tagging information. This trust network can be used to find the neighbors to make automated recommendations. Our experiment result shows that the proposed trust based method outperforms the traditional collaborative filtering approach which uses users rating data. Its performance improves even further when we utilize trust propagation techniques to broaden the range of neighborhood.

Hylaluronan-based heparin-incorporated hydrogels for generation of axially vascularized bioartificial bone tissues : in vitro and in vivo evaluation in a PLDLLA-TCP-PCL-composite system

Smart matrices are required in bone tissueengineered grafts that provide an optimal environment for cells and retain osteo-inductive factors for sustained biological activity. We hypothesized that a slow-degrading heparin-incorporated hyaluronan (HA) hydrogel can preserve BMP-2; while an arterio–venous (A–V) loop can support axial vascularization to provide nutrition for a bioartificial bone graft. HA was evaluated for osteoblast growth and BMP-2 release. Porous PLDLLA–TCP–PCL scaffolds were produced by rapid prototyping technology and applied in vivo along with HA-hydrogel, loaded with either primary osteoblasts or BMP-2. A microsurgically created A–V loop was placed around the scaffold, encased in an isolation chamber in Lewis rats. HA-hydrogel supported growth of osteoblasts over 8 weeks and allowed sustained release of BMP-2 over 35 days. The A–V loop provided an angiogenic stimulus with the formation of vascularized tissue in the scaffolds. Bone-specific genes were detected by real time RT-PCR after 8 weeks. However, no significant amount of bone was observed histologically. The heterotopic isolation chamber in combination with absent biomechanical stimulation might explain the insufficient bone formation despite adequate expression of bone-related genes. Optimization of the interplay of osteogenic cells and osteo-inductive factors might eventually generate sufficient amounts of axially vascularized bone grafts for reconstructive surgery.

A methodology for object identification and tracking in construction based on spatial modeling and image matching techniques

Understanding the motion characteristics of on-site objects is desirable for the analysis of construction work zones, especially in problems related to safety and productivity studies. This article presents a methodology for rapid object identification and tracking. The proposed methodology contains algorithms for spatial modeling and image matching. A high-frame-rate range sensor was utilized for spatial data acquisition. The experimental results indicated that an occupancy grid spatial modeling algorithm could quickly build a suitable work zone model from the acquired data. The results also showed that an image matching algorithm is able to find the most similar object from a model database and from spatial models obtained from previous scans. It is then possible to use the matched information to successfully identify and track objects.

Object identification based on 3D spatial models of construction sites

On obstacle-cluttered construction sites, understanding the motion characteristics of objects is important for anticipating collisions and preventing accidents. This study investigates algorithms for object identification applications that can be used by heavy equipment operators to effectively monitor congested local environment. The proposed framework contains algorithms for three-dimensional spatial modeling and image matching that are based on 3D images scanned by a high-frame rate range sensor. The preliminary results show that an occupancy grid spatial modeling algorithm can successfully build the most pertinent spatial information, and that an image matching algorithm is best able to identify which objects are in the scanned scene.

Modeling object identification and tracking errors on image-based safety assessment of earthmoving operations

Object identification and tracking have become critical for automated on-site construction safety assessment. The primary objective of this paper is to present the development of a testbed to analyze the impact of object identification and tracking errors caused by data collection devices and algorithms used for safety assessment. The testbed models workspaces for earthmoving operations and simulates safety-related violations, including speed limit violations, access violations to dangerous areas, and close proximity violations between heavy machinery. Three different cases were analyzed based on actual earthmoving operations conducted at a limestone quarry. Using the testbed, the impacts of device and algorithm errors were investigated for safety planning purposes.