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If I don't like it then I can choose what I want’: Welsh school children's accounts of preference for and control over food choice
Get PDFThe paper draws on qualitative data collected in focus groups with primary school pupils in years three and five (ages 7–11 years), carried out as part of a wider study evaluating the Primary School Free Breakfast Initiative in Wales. A total of 16 focus groups were carried out across eight schools to examine pupil's perceptions of food and food related behaviour. A key finding was the way in which control over choice of food and access to healthy/unhealthy food options differed between younger and older pupils across home, school and eating out settings. While older participants experienced and valued high levels of control over food choice in all three settings, this was not the case for younger participants. Pupils in year three had little choice, particularly at home and school, with other factors (such as security, structure and mealtime companionship) being more important to them than ability to choose what they ate. All participants in the study expressed a general preference for unhealthy as opposed to healthy food items, even when acknowledging health consequences and engaging in some compensatory strategies. The authors suggest that interventions should aim to educate and encourage food providers, such as parents/carers, schools, and food outlets, to produce a range of healthy options, and encourage informed food choice among children at a younger age
Complexity Issues in Control Software Design: A practical perspective
Get PDFThere is a tendency to overlook or play down software issues in industrial systems design. However the very best hardware will only be as effective as the programs that control it. The search for a software solution to a problem should not stop with the discovery of the first approach that works, or appears to work. Many problems support good and bad methods of solution and determining the best often requires deeper consideration. In this paper we present some rudimentary introductions and examples of common computational challenges. We aim to highlight key issues for consideration when implementing control systems which otherwise might be unintentionally overlooked
Rule Dependencies in Access Control Lists
Get PDFThis paper considers the effects of dependencies between rules in Access Control Lists (ACLs). Dependent rules may not be reordered in an ACL if the policies of the list are to be preserved. This is an obstacle to the optimisation of rule order intended to reduce the time taken matching packets against rules. In this paper, the concept of rule dependency is defined in relation to the problem of minimising processing latency. The concepts of dependence and possible dependence are introduced and the relationship between them considered. Two measures of dependency, the dependency index and the fragmented dependency index are defined and formulated and an upper bound for each is derived. Examples of real-world ACLs are studied and the implications for practical optimisation discussed
A Study of the Geographic Spread and Security of Wireless Access Points
Get PDFThe facility of having wireless access to networks and the Internet has grown significantly in recent years. The advent of Wi-Fi and Wireless Access Points (WAP s) allows huge degrees of flexibility and easy access to information and resources. To this effect, it is now common to find multiple access points in public areas, in the home, and in the working environment. The security of WAPs is now an issue of paramount importance. However, as the technology has spread throughout such a diverse market of users, the security aspects have not been so quickly adopted. This has lead to numbers of unsecured private and corporate access points being left open to abuse and given scope for ‘war driving’. In this work we investigate and establish the uptake of wireless networking facilities in a common urban area, investigate the correlations with the known societal and economic backgrounds of these areas, and establish exactly to what extent security vulnerabilities are indicated within these varied constituent environments
Writing Reflectively and Effectively: Developing the Skills of Critical Thinking, Reasoning and Argument in Higher Education
Get PDFLearning to argue is one of the central objectives in education. Whether it is conducting a formal debate, participating in a group discussion, writing an essay, a critique or a persuasive appeal, the ability of the student to employ argument and to anticipate and evaluate the arguments of others will generally be an important measure of achievement.
My purpose in this paper is to outline some key issues involved in teaching, learning and assessing critical thinking, reasoning and argument skills in higher education (HE). When examining arguments for teaching and learning such skills, with undergraduate and postgraduate students, I focus on two issues. The first concerns the view articulated by Garner (2006, p.2) that ‘… many students with top grade A-level passes… had been coached to answer the questions they would face but had little knowledge or understanding [of how] to develop an argument’.
The second issue concerns the concept of ‘indoctrination’. I argue that, to some extent, indoctrination is an essential and unavoidable part of the educational process. Having made a distinction between justifiable and unjustifiable indoctrination and offered the view that indoctrination is, in some sense, an ‘illness’ which pervades educational institutions, I suggest that teaching students the skills of thinking, reasoning and argument provides an ‘antidote’ to it
Integration Methodologies for Disparate Software Packages with an Emphasis on Usability
Get PDFThis paper describes a novel approach to program script generation. The goals are twofold: to allow a number of different software packages to be implemented together and to permit a user with little or no programming skill to produce executable code. The principles and requirements of such a system are discussed and an outline approach is suggested. A case study based on electric motor design is presented for which early results are encouraging. Future development is considered in conclusion
Attitude toward Christianity among secondary school pupils in Northern Ireland: shifts in denominational differences
No full textBackground Northern Ireland is a province that remains deeply divided between Protestants and Catholics and maintains a segregated system of schools.
Purpose The research builds on a series of studies conducted in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to monitor the attitude toward Christianity of males and females educated in Protestant and Catholic schools.
Sample A sample of 2359 16- to 18-year-old pupils attending Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland.
Design and methods A random sample of seven Protestant and nine Catholic schools invited all pupils attending their lower and upper sixth-form classes to participate in the survey and to complete the Francis scale of attitude toward Christianity.
Results The data demonstrate that, while males attending Catholic schools maintained a more positive attitude towards Christianity than males attending Protestant schools, females attending Catholic schools reported a less positive attitude toward Christianity than females attending Protestant schools. These findings are compared with studies conducted during the 1970s and 1980s when both males and females attending Catholic schools recorded a more positive attitude toward Christianity than their peers attending Protestant schools.
Conclusions Repeated cross-sectional studies of this nature help to profile the changing religious climate of Northern Ireland
Introducing the Modified Paranormal Belief Scale: Distinguishing Between Classic Paranormal Beliefs, Religious Paranormal Beliefs and Conventional Religiosity Among Undergraduates in Northern Ireland and Wales
No full textPrevious empirical studies concerned with the association between paranormal beliefs and conventional religiosity have produced conflicting evidence. Drawing on Rice’s (2003) distinction between classic paranormal beliefs and religious paranormal beliefs, the present study proposed a modified form of the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale to produce separate scores for these two forms of paranormal belief, styled ‘religious paranormal beliefs’ and ‘classic paranormal beliefs’. Data provided by a sample of 143 undergraduate students in Northern Ireland and Wales, who completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity alongside the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, demonstrated that conventional religiosity is positively correlated with religious paranormal beliefs, but independent of classic paranormal beliefs. These findings provide a clear framework within which previous conflicting evidence can be interpreted. It is recommended that future research should distinguish clearly between these two forms of paranormal beliefs and that the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Beliefs Scale should be routinely modified to detach the four religious paranormal belief items from the total scale score
Horizons and Timelines
No full textReferencing three artist practices that manage the concept of the landscape from the perspective of human experience.
This comparison of motive explores; perpetual memory/cultural time and space/landscape as a membrane between experiences; something/nothing, mass/absense, body/aura. Initially conceptual, the artworks explore the graphics of line/colour/form with the poetic relationship between human perception and cultural conditioning represented in the concept of the horizon.
Haywood is fascinated by environments and horizons that evidence obscured history and traces of colours, weathered by natural process and human interaction. His work represents a location, a time and an interaction with an environment, through chromatic ingredients that infuse the palette of the landscape, which he then edits to a limited key of colours. Currently, using lens based media, he selects colour on the horizon, which is then filtered to merge tone into an overall sense of colour, confused by distance and a lack of focus (Train/Window/Industrial Landscapes series). Heald elaborates timelines and choreography for the camera, transforming everyday movements into dance-like passages with the assistance of the slow-motion effects, reminiscent of Haywood’s Train series, which depict the dancing lines of the horizon. The slowing down of Heald’s film, references poetics and time, recognising Kristeva‘s writings, on time (1979) and the semiotic chora (1974). Liggett’s, paints surfaces with veils/layers and gestural brush marks. The depiction of geographical barriers including horizons, create, metaphors for weathering/ageing/movement/time/creative or psychological barriers.
Liggetts repetitive horizontal line paintings (Sea series, First/Second/Third Attempt) formulate a working method inducing a meditative inspirational state. Oblivious to time during creative insights, Liggett sees this as akin to losing track of western linear time and being lost in the horizon that is the body. In The Dream Space Heald slept in Japanese ‘capsule’ hotels/ryokans/Buddhist temples, accessing simultaneous timelines/zones, capturing the transient/surreal nature of dreams. These performances encapsulated, through colour and movement, an ‘in–between-ness’ that relates to the chora. Heald and Liggett will explore cyclical and monumental time through ideas relating to ‘eternity’ or ‘transcendence’ exploring the horizon of the body/aura through painting and film.
Within their presentation the artists will discuss, the differences/similarities between horizons/timelines within their work
Focusing on the Needs of the Child An evaluation of the Family Dispute Resolution Programme pilot in Private law proceedings provided by CAFCASS CYMRU
Get PDFThis is the final report of a qualitative evaluation of the CAFCASS Cymru’s Family Dispute Resolution Pilot Programme (FDRP) in North Wales. The FDRP was developed as a child centred intervention aimed at resolving disputes involving children, without recourse to the courts. When parents separate children have a right to contact with both parents. Seeking effective methods to enable parental communication and cooperation is important for the positive welfare of the child/children concerned. The process of enduring parental conflict not only marginalises the rights of the right but places children at risk of harm. There is a widespread understanding that such disputes are not always helped by engagement in the adversarial court process. The earlier and quicker that parents cooperatively engage in out-of-court dispute resolution processes the better. There are currently a diverse range of conciliation, mediation and dispute resolution schemes operating throughout Wales and England. These schemes vary in terms of philosophy, methods, focus, time, court involvement and process. The effectiveness of these schemes is generally not known as relatively few programmes have been independently evaluated. This evaluation of the CAFCASS Cymru’s Family Dispute Resolution Pilot Programme (FDRP) in North Wales comprised postal questionnaires for parents and qualitative interviews with a sample of parents, children and professionals engaging with the programme