1,721,010 research outputs found
An examination into the attitudes of staff in Higher Education towards widening participation
No full textThe expansion of Higher Education has a long history, however, the specific policy of widening participating in Higher Education to those who would not normally enter Higher Education, and in particular those from lower socio-economic groups, was emphasised by Dearing in his 1997 report. The policy and its implementation have produced much literature but little of this studies the perceptions of and responses to this policy This study does precisely that and seeks to determine the attitudes of a range of staff in Higher Education, not just academics, to the widening participation policy as it has been articulated since 1997.The study took an ethnographic methodology and focused on one group of staff within a post-1992 English university. Through an analysis of the related literature a number of themes surrounding the widening participation agenda were established. A combination of focus group, interviews, participant observation and documentary analysis were used to collect data which was subsequently analysed to determine themes arising. These themes were then compared to those that were derived from the literature review. Hence the hypotheses presented were developed from the data analysis.It is concluded that gap exists between the expectations of staff in Higher Education, particularly academics, and current Higher Education students, not necessarily from widening participation backgrounds. This gap takes a number of forms including differences in belief regarding the purpose and value of Higher Education. Taking Bourdieu’s theory on habitus and cultural capital, a hypothesis is presented which explains many of the issues emerging from the data analysis in terms of a gap in the habitus and educational capital between academics and current students.<br/
Sexual biochemistry in the deep sea – the link between phytoplankton and abyssal holothurians
No full textHolothurians play an important role in carbon cycling. They dominate the abyssal oceanic megabenthos, reworking large amounts of organic matter. Holothurians require essential organic nutrients, such as carotenoids for their reproduction. Enhanced carotenoid concentration in the ovaries of echinoderms increases reproductive output and larval survival. Carotenoids cannot be synthesised de novo by holothurians, only by phytoplankton. To examine the link between diet and reproduction in deep-sea holothurians, the pigment biochemistry of holothurians, sediment and particulate organic matter from three abyssal sites as investigated. A temporal comparison at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP), NE Atlantic, has shown 1) the supply of organic material (OM) can affect the diet of holothurians, depending on their feeding adaptations and 2) holothurian reproductive biochemistry can be affected by compositional differences in the OM reaching the seafloor, although the extent of this influence appears to differ between species. Two abyssal sites around the Crozet Islands, Southern Ocean, were investigated to compare contrasting OM supply on the diet and reproductive biochemistry of holothurians. The sites are only 460 km apart, with no topographic boundary to separate them. However, they are subject to differing overlying primary productivity regimes and therefore biochemical differences can be ascribed to the composition and amount of organic matter reaching the sea floor at each site. The results showed that 1) the quantity of OM reaching the seafloor at each site differed, mirroring the overlying primary productivity regimes. This was also reflected in the diet of some holothurian species, depending on their ability to take advantage of the fresh material. 2) The reproductive biochemistry of the holothurians sampled at both sites showed quantitative differences, mirroring the supply of OM to each benthic site.The present study has shown that changes in the composition and quantity of the supply of OM to the deep-sea floor can affect holothurian diet and ovarian biochemistry. This may lead to large community changes as seen at the PAP in the NE Atlantic, which alters the reworking rate of the sediment, ultimately affecting the sequestration of carbon
The Development of an On-Line Learning and Teaching Resource for the Socio-Centric Aspects of Sustainable Design
No full textThis paper fits into the topics of socially relevant design, design and emotion and sustainable design and explores the question how can we create a more sustainable way of life? The paper also addresses the central theme of the conference – Design Education – creating a better world.
This paper reports on the next phase in the development of a web-based learning and teaching resource specifically aimed at the socio-centric dimension of sustainable design which can be found at www.sociocenticdesign.com . A more extensive literature review was conducted, of which a summary is presented, however, the focus is on the outcomes learned from the collection of further primary data. It is confirmed that there is strong dominance by the techno and eco-centric dimensions and that there is a lack of awareness of the socio-centric dimension.
It is concluded that being sustainable in design actually is about leaving the final design to later; it means that first and foremost sustainable design is to consider the designs purpose and its effects on the user, the community and society as a whole.
An evaluation of two existing web-based resources, that focus on eco-design, was also conducted and informed the outcomes presented in this paper. The paper sets outs in some detail the content, arrangement and suggested web-interfaces for the new learning resource focused on the socio-centric dimension. The content is arranged into the following sections based upon the recommendations generated by Conrad: Past and Future; Time; People; Consumption, Design and Theories. The results of the research suggest that a high level of interactivity in the web-interface will be required
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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