bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lipopolysaccharide Lowers Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein by Activating F4/80
+
Clec4f
+
Vsig4
+
Ly6C
−
Kupffer Cell Subsets
Authors: van der Tuin Sam J. L. , Li Zhuang , Berbée Jimmy F. P. , Verkouter Inge , Ringnalda Linda E. , Neele Annette E. , van Klinken Jan B. , Rensen Sander S. , Fu Jingyuan , de Winther Menno P. J. , Groen Albert K. , Rensen Patrick C. N. , Willems van Dijk Ko , Wang Yanan
Published: March 2018

Background

Lipopolysaccharide (
LPS
) decreases hepatic CETP (cholesteryl ester transfer protein) expression albeit that the underlying mechanism is disputed. We recently showed that plasma
CETP
is mainly derived from Kupffer cells (
KC
s). In this study, we investigated the role of
KC
subsets in the mechanism by which
LPS
reduces
CETP
expression.

Methods and Results

In
CETP
‐transgenic mice,
LPS
markedly decreased hepatic
CETP
expression and plasma
CETP
concentration without affecting hepatic macrophage number. This was paralleled by decreased expression of the resting
KC
markers C‐type lectin domain family 4, member f (
Clec4f
) and V‐set and immunoglobulin domain containing 4 (
Vsig4
), while expression of the infiltrating monocyte marker lymphocyte antigen 6 complex locus C (
Ly6C
) was increased. Simultaneously, the ratio of plasma high‐density lipoprotein‐cholesterol over non–high‐density lipoprotein‐cholesterol transiently increased. After ablation hepatic macrophages via injection with liposomal clodronate, the reappearance of hepatic gene and protein expression of
CETP
coincided with Clec4f and Vsig4, but not Ly6C. Double‐immunofluorescence staining showed that
CETP
co‐localized with Clec4f
+
KC
s and not Ly6C
+
monocytes. In humans, microarray gene‐expression analysis of liver biopsies revealed that hepatic expression and plasma level of
CETP
both correlated with hepatic
VSIG4
expression.
LPS
administration decreased the plasma
CETP
concentration in humans. In vitro experiments showed that
LPS
reduced liver X receptor‐mediated
CETP
expression.

Conclusions

Hepatic expression of
CETP
is exclusively confined to the resting
KC
subset (ie, F4/80
+
Clec4f
+
Vsig4
+
Ly6C
−
).
LPS
activated resting
KC
s, leading to reduction of Clec4f and Vsig4 expression and reduction of hepatic
CETP
expression, consequently decreasing plasma
CETP
and raising high‐density lipoprotein (HDL)‐cholesterol. This sequence of events is consistent with the anti‐inflammatory role of
HDL
in the response to
LPS
and may be relevant as a defense mechanism against bacterial infections.
Predictive Value of the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score for Mortality in a Contemporary Cardiac Intensive Care Unit Population
Authors: Jentzer Jacob C. , Bennett Courtney , Wiley Brandon M. , Murphree Dennis H. , Keegan Mark T. , Gajic Ognjen , Wright R. Scott , Barsness Gregory W.
Published: March 2018

Background

Optimal methods of mortality risk stratification in patients in the cardiac intensive care unit (
CICU
) remain uncertain. We evaluated the ability of the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (
SOFA
) score to predict mortality in a large cohort of unselected patients in the CICU.

Methods and Results

Adult patients admitted to the
CICU
from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2015, at a single tertiary care hospital were retrospectively reviewed.
SOFA
scores were calculated daily, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (
APACHE
)‐
III
and
APACHE
‐
IV
scores were calculated on
CICU
day 1. Discrimination of hospital mortality was assessed using area under the receiver‐operator characteristic curve values. We included 9961 patients, with a mean age of 67.5±15.2 years; all‐cause hospital mortality was 9.0%. Day 1
SOFA
score predicted hospital mortality, with an area under the receiver‐operator characteristic curve value of 0.83; area under the receiver‐operator characteristic curve values were similar for the
APACHE
‐
III
score, and
APACHE
‐
IV
predicted mortality (
P
>0.05). Mean and maximum
SOFA
scores over multiple
CICU
days had greater discrimination for hospital mortality (
P
<0.01). Patients with an increasing
SOFA
score from day 1 and day 2 had higher mortality. Patients with day 1
SOFA
score <2 were at low risk of mortality. Increasing tertiles of day 1
SOFA
score predicted higher long‐term mortality (
P
<0.001 by log‐rank test).

Conclusions

The day 1
SOFA
score has good discrimination for short‐term mortality in unselected patients in the CICU, which is comparable to
APACHE
‐
III
and
APACHE
‐
IV
. Advantages of the
SOFA
score over
APACHE
include simplicity, improved discrimination using serial scores, and prediction of long‐term mortality.
An updated and detailed taxonomical account of the large Branchiopoda (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Anostraca, Notostraca, Spinicaudata) from the Yale North India Expedition deposited in the Yale Peabody Natural History Museum
Authors: PADHYE SAMEER M. , LAZO-WASEM ERIC A.
Published: March 2018

We present an updated taxonomic account of a few of the large branchiopod species present in the collections of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Our study shows that the Artemia species in the collections is not Artemia salina given the presence of spines at the base of the penis and its frontal knob morphology. This population cannot be assigned to any particular species due to lack of comparative material of other Artemia species and therefore, now reduces the authentic distribution record of Artemia salina to just one in the subcontinent. The morphology of eggs taken from the Streptocephalus longimanus allotype is distinct from what has been described later by having lower number of polygons on the egg surface. The gross morphology of the Triops cancriformis from Punjab, Pakistan resembles those of the Kashmir population from India except for its larger size. Based on the morphological comparison, we show that Eocyzicus deterrana is indeed synonymous to E. hutchinsoni. This work further changes the total species tally of large branchiopods from 44 of the Indian subcontinent to 45.
A simple molecular method for rapid identification of commercially used Amblyseius and Neoseiulus species (Acari: Phytoseiidae)
Authors: SYROMYATNIKOV M.Y. , KOKINA A.V. , BELYAKOVA N.A. , KOZLOVA E.G. , POPOV V.N.
Published: March 2018

Predatory mites from the Amblyseius (Neoseiulus) genus (Family Phytoseiidae, Order Parasitiformes) are widely used for protecting plants against pests, especially thrips. The differentiation of Amblyseius and Neoseiulus species by their morphological features is problematic despite the fact that they are taxonomically different genera. The Phytoseiidae family includes a lot of species that are extremely difficult to distinguish from each other. The discovery of new molecular genetic markers might considerably facilitate the express identification of commercial mite species. Despite their high morphological similarity, the three common commercial Amblyseius and Neoseiulus mite species (Neoseiulus cucumeris, Amblyseius swirskii, and Neoseiulus barkeri) differed significantly in the nucleotide sequences of DNA fragments containing the ITS1 and ITS2 internal transcribed spacers. We found that when PCR products of the amplified DNA fragments from A. swirskii, N. cucumeris, and N. barkeri were treated with a combination of AccB1I, AspLEI, and SspI endonucleases and the resulting products were separated by electrophoresis in agarose gel, the obtained picture was sufficiently specific to provide accurate identification of the analyzed mite species. The lengths of the digestion products were different enough to allow their resolution in agarose gels. The PCR-RFLP method developed by us allows the rapid and accurate identification of commercially used Amblyseius and Neoseiulus species without DNA sequencing. The combination of the three endonucleases (AccB1I, AspLEI, and SspI) and FaeI can be used for the differentiation of all other but less frequently commercially used Phytoseiidae mites.
The electoral systems of foreign countries
Authors: Федотова Юлия , Fedotova Yuliya
Published: March 2018

The textbook is devoted to the consideration of the concept, content, principles of electoral law, the Institute of elections and its types, the concept and types of electoral systems, stages of the electoral process and the procedure for financing elections, as well as the disclosure of the features of the electoral process and the electoral systems of individual foreign countries.
The textbook is intended for students, postgraduates, teachers of law schools and faculties, for training election organizers and other participants in the electoral process, as well as for a wide range of readers interested in constitutional and legal problems and problems of electoral law.
Interventions to enhance coping after traumatic brain injury: A systematic review
Authors: Mueller Christoph , Wesenberg Sandra , Nestmann Frank , Stubbs Brendon , Bebbington Paul , Raymont Vanessa
Published: March 2018

Background/Aims:

The aim of this study was to identify effective psychosocial interventions to enhance coping in people who have experienced a traumatic brain injury, in order to inform clinical practice and articulate future research directions.

Methods:

Five electronic databases (CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library) were searched. Titles and abstracts were independently screened by two of the authors and selected for inclusion. The full text of all potentially relevant studies were retrieved and assessed for eligibility, reporting and methodological quality, and risk of bias.

Findings:

Eight included studies were very heterogeneous in terms of study design, type of intervention, the population studied and instruments used to evaluate coping. All studies were judged to have a moderately high risk of bias. Six studies used cognitive behavioural therapy-based interventions. Two interventions (a peer-mentoring programme and cognitive behavioural therapy combined with motivational interviewing) showed significant treatment effects on maladaptive coping. Two cognitive behavioural therapy-based group programmes improved adaptive coping, but increases were either not sustained over time or no longer significant when compared to an active control.

Conclusions:

There is insufficient evidence to support practice recommendations strongly. Targeting specific subgroups of people who have experienced traumatic brain injury might allow the development of more effective coping interventions. Further, a more unified concept of coping in traumatic brain injury needs to be articulated allowing larger scale evaluations.
Ahola (aloha backwards): Social practice fashion Honolulu style
Authors: Navarro Delgado Henry
Published: March 2018

To non-residents, Hawaii embodies the archetypical tourist destination – erupting volcanoes, magnificent beaches, surfing lifestyle and hula dancers; a year-around place of adventure, romance and relaxation; and the perfect setting for advertisements and movie fantasies. However, the realities of contemporary life in Hawaii are quite different from those idyllic visions. The site-specific public fashion project Ahola (Aloha Backwards) mined these dichotomies by integrating fashion design, public art and collaborative teaching methodologies to engage the local community. In so doing, Ahola adapted a Social Practice Fashion framework to the cultural context of Hawaii while providing informal, community-centred professional training for aspiring local fashion entrepreneurs. Through its use of Collaborative Learning methods, this participatory fashion project expanded teaching beyond traditional academic settings, while simultaneously empowering Honolulu residents by allowing their direct input at every stage of the project. This article analyses how Ahola took advantage of standard methodologies from the fashion industry as tools for social activism and integrated them with collaborative teaching to enable informal learning opportunities. In addition to discussing the implications of the project’s methodology, as a viable approach for socially conscious fashion design practitioners. The article also examines the pedagogic significance of Collaborative Learning for both traditional high learning institutions and community-centred educational initiatives.
AMFI’s Reality School: A circular economy agenda for fashion education
Authors: Hall Nicholas , Velez-Colby Fiona
Published: March 2018

The circular economy (CE) agenda is gaining traction within the fashion industry and increasingly within fashion education. It provides a connective, interdisciplinary framework that offers a roadmap for transition towards a sustainable economy. As business eco-systems re-align to meet new standards of ethical and sustainable practice for the fashion industry, a new agenda for fashion education emerges: one of circularity. This article evaluates Amsterdam Fashion Institute’s (AMFI) Reality School concept, examining how CE education is being embedded within it and the levels of integration achieved. It argues that a CE approach to curriculum design can motivate deep learning through experimental practice, deep-dive research and systems thinking. It provides a structural framework of a CE agenda to fashion education curriculum, establishing a novel approach that could be applied to other specialist fashion education institutions.
Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Feitsma Maaike , Smith Lorraine Hamilton
Published: March 2018

Modemuze@OBA, OBA (the public library in Amsterdam), Amsterdam, 17 March–2 July 2017

Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 27 May 2017–18 February 2018
An object-based research study of archive pieces incorporating digital technology
Authors: Baldwin Susanne
Published: March 2018

This article presents a case study of a collaborative project between garment technology students and museum costume curators, centred around object-based research. The project brief was to re-produce patterns and toiles of selected archive garments, with a focus on incorporating digital pattern technology, to explore the possibilities of this technology in an exhibition context. In addition to these specified outcomes, a successful knowledge exchange was observed, with the curators advising the provenance and social history of the pieces and the students sharing their expertise in manual and digital pattern cutting and in garment construction. During the project, the personal development of the students transitioned from a position of inexperience relating to archived garments, to one of recognized expertise through their recreation of the pieces in a pattern and construction context.
Breaking the rules in pattern cutting: An interdisciplinary approach to promote creativity in pedagogy
Authors: Almond Kevin , Power Jess
Published: March 2018

The aim of this research is to explore how the discipline of pattern cutting can be taught, investigated and practiced through innovative, interdisciplinary approaches. Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic disciplines into one activity (for instance in this enquiry, pattern cutting is merged with disciplines such as health and engineering). The study discusses how interdiscipinarity can break rules, which involve going against a set of regulations that direct a practice or method within an area of activity. This mutinous concept can make pattern cutting appear more exciting and creative to the student and often leads to them exploring different concepts and approaches. The research was based on secondary sources gathered from a review of research papers presented at The Second International Conference for Creative Pattern Cutting, held at University of Huddersfield, 24 and 25 February 2016. This conference was purposively selected due to its discipline relevance and international representation and was unique to the authors because they organized and chaired the event. To date, this has been the sole global platform to disseminate research in pattern cutting and the approach is described as a methodology of conference organization, using content analysis and interviews with the individual authors of selected papers. It focuses on works that considered new ways to pattern cut by effectively implementing interdisciplinary activity into its practice. The findings discuss how the disorderly methods impacted on the student’s experiences. Ultimately this supports the development of original, novel and innovative pedagogical approaches to pattern cutting practice and has the potential to enrich the fashion industry, encouraging pattern cutters to develop essential skills to cross discipline boundaries.
Virtual reality interactive teaching for Chinese traditional Tibetan clothing
Authors: Chen Guo , Ma Fenfen , Jiang Yan , Liu Ruipu
Published: March 2018

Chinese history represents a traditional costume culture that provides a rich source of inspiration for fashion students. This article references typical Tibetan clothing as an example of Chinese traditional costume and proposes a virtual reality interactive teaching mode for use in fashion design education. This mode enables fashion students to understand in greater depth the structural features of traditional costumes through virtual garments and also provides self-learning platforms and opportunities for other non-fashion students. Virtual reality interactive teaching can fully demonstrate the characteristics of traditional Chinese clothing, increasing access to garment knowledge that is not readily available outside museum collections. These processes include using two-dimensional (2D) clothing CAD software to display the traditional clothing structure, using virtual reality technology for making three-dimensional (3D) clothing models and using the Unity 3D game development platform for interactivity. This virtual reality interactive teaching approach expands upon traditional teaching methods for fashion design and the study of traditional costume for design development. This article presents this virtual method for fashion education to enable increased access to traditional costume knowledge.
Design practice and craftsmanship: Reimagining the craft sector in India
Authors: Bhandari Vandana , Kalra Jaspal
Published: March 2018

Design practice in the craft sector of India has witnessed a paradigm shift in the last decade. There have been an increasing number of attempts to include the rural craftsperson in the creative process. Various design schools, scholars, individuals, organizations and government agencies have integrated the design process amongst the grassroots by working closely with the makers of hand-crafted products.
Hack the black box: Consumer agency in the sharing economy
Authors: Mohajer va Pesaran Daphne
Published: March 2018

Fashion design pedagogy in higher education needs to engage with emergent consumer-led consumption schemes that are problematizing the roles of producer and consumer. Traditional fashion design pedagogy does not explicitly teach students to reveal the systems of fashion production to consumers, thus distancing them from the materials and processes that animate consumer products. Consumers are at a disadvantage as they have little agency over or knowledge of how garments are produced in the global top-down fashion system – a system that could be characterized as a black box. In response to this, consumers and designers have been employing concepts from hacker culture and the sharing economy in order to participate in novel consumption schemes that focus on underlying values of openness, transparency and collaboration. This article reviews a number of these schemes, using secondary sources, and proposes that their underlying values be introduced into sustainable fashion curriculums.
Balancing the books: Creating a model of responsible fashion business education
Authors: Radclyffe-Thomas Natascha , Varley Rosemary , Roncha Ana
Published: March 2018

This research article provides an account of a series of curriculum interventions at undergraduate and postgraduate level which engage fashion business students with real world practical and ethical complexities faced by twenty-first-century fashion businesses. Fashion education has predominantly nurtured creativity in design and promotion whilst focusing on identifying efficiencies for business operations, but increasingly the negative environmental and social impact of the global fashion industry requires a new focus on how fashion business can promote ethical and sustainable practices. The authors explore how research into sustainable fashion can be integrated into the business curriculum to guide students as they develop their personal positions on engagement with the serious issues the fashion industry faces today and tomorrow. The authors applied their research into sustainable fashion with contemporary sustainability pedagogies to design teaching delivered through case studies, lectures, seminars and assessment tasks designed to engage students with a 360-degree understanding of sustainability and to promote students’ development of creative solutions to our industry’s challenges. The authors sought to develop a range of teaching resources and learning sessions in line with the United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) and in doing so used the lens of sustainability to explore every aspect of the fashion industry: production, design and promotion. Through the examples explored in this article, our exploratory research aims to understand how to design and implement a model of responsible fashion business education that responds to social and environmental needs and resonates with new generations of students who demonstrate an increased interest in concepts of shared social, environmental and economic value.
Performing arts activism for addressing climate change: Conceptualizing an intercultural choreographic practice and dance performance called Melting Ice
Authors: Burnard Pamela , Cook Peter J. , Jasilek Susanne , Bauer-Nilsen Birgitte
Published: March 2018

In this article we argue that the power and politics of the arts is a way of raising awareness and responding to the globally shared problem of climate change. We illustrate how climate change is integral to a choreographic practice that inheres in: the performing body, which moves while it thinks, feels while it imagines and senses as it understands; and the intercultural dance performance Melting Ice. At the core of this article is a view of epistemology that is embodied, artistic, practical, reflectively dynamic and adaptive to the conditions in which knowledge is created, such as our journeying into Melting Ice. This choreographic practice and performance explores the radical harmony or solubility of the body in all that we do not call the body. The impact of this practice manifested itself primarily when looking back at how the dancers were learning, becoming and being icebergs, and in the act of labelling the choreographic practice of dance-making, the process gives rise to activism.
Home imagined: Uncovering a sensuous history of people and place through eco-somatic improvisation
Authors: East Ali
Published: March 2018

This article sets out to describe an eco-somatic improvisational danced encounter with the ruins of a 150-year-old migrant dwelling in Aotearoa New Zealand. Interwoven into the description of the project are ‘author’s notes’ as she makes links with the crisis of homelessness and displacement of refugees driven from their homes by war and famine. She asks what it means to reside, dwell or take up residence in a new place; how we might perform our belonging or our alienation; what it might mean to relocate, rebuild a sense of home and what remains of this sensory world amongst the ruins that might be uncovered through improvised dance. Finally, she suggests the ways in which intuitive danced engagement with particular space/place might reveal sensuous narratives of the past, supporting current practices of site-based intuitive somatic improvisation as valid academic practice-based research methodology. The research brings together the voices of writers from performance theory; somatics; phenomenology; social geography; architecture, archaeology and visual media; and those of the author as participant observer and the dancers as inquiring artists.
Go to the woods: Choreographic scores for performing in nature
Authors: Soto Merián
Published: March 2018

Part narrative, part documentation, and part choreographic score, this article emphasizes the empathic imperative of spending time over time in nature. Choreographer Merián Soto shares her early experiences with Branch Dancing, a form that ‘came’ to her while approaching stillness, balance, and invisibility in the Wissahickon woods in Philadelphia, and branch dancing’s first major work, the One Year Wissahickon Park Project, consisting of 16 seasonal performances in nature in 2007–08.
Embodied ecology: The eco-somatics of permaculture
Authors: Nelson Matthew
Published: March 2018

Embodied ecology is a functional philosophy, a model for how we participate in the choreography of our own experience. Applying ethics and principles to the material nature of the human endeavour, embodied ecology utilizes scientific information and methodology in distinctly subjective, artful ways. In this article I explore the confluence of themes emerging from the practical discipline of permaculture as described by David Holmgren and my own practice of somatics. This didactic scholarship is guided by a unifying ecological world-view: we are living systems.
Site-specific performance and the art of not leaving
Authors: Kenney Denise , Holmes Nancy
Published: March 2018

Endings are a perennial challenge when creating any temporal art form. This article is a reflection of the nature of this problem in the context of site-specific work. We are using this term according to Mike Pearson’s definition as cited by Wilkie: a performance ‘conceived for, mounted within and conditioned by the particulars of its site and the people it finds there’, but in our case the focus is on environmentally responsive site-specific work, work that is generated with and for a site’s ecological and historical and cultural systems and patterns. We propose that the problem of the ending, in such a context, is linked to problems of place-attachment, and ironically, for us, our reflections were generated in a site far away from our own place.
Dancing with hyperobjects: Ecological Body Weather choreographies from Height of Sky to Into the Quarry
Authors: Candelario Rosemary
Published: March 2018

Timothy Morton claims that hyperobjects – things ‘massively distributed in time and space relative to humans’ such as global warming, the total sum of all the nuclear materials on earth, a weather system – have completely altered how we think and experience, forcing us into confronting the fact that we must relate to them as fellow objects. In this article I argue that Body Weather-based dance practices, developed by Japanese dancer Min Tanaka on his Hakushu farm in Japan between 1985 and 2010, attempt to form corporeal and kinaesthetic relationships with hyperobjects through training dancers to sensitize their bodies to their existence as part of what Morton calls the mesh. I discuss two Body Weather-related projects: Morleigh Steinberg’s 2004 film Height of Sky about Oguri’s two-year danced investigation of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts of Southern California, and my own work in North Texas, Into the Quarry. This work, I suggest, provides a model for how to develop a radically different relationship with our environment, one based on the mutual interconnection of interobjectivity.
Unearthing movement, urban ritual and environmental urgency: A performance album from Jill Sigman’s Weed Heart
Authors: Adewunmi Chelsea , Sigman Jill
Published: March 2018

During the summer and fall of 2016, artist Jill Sigman and dramaturg Chelsea Adewunmi engaged in a creative and dialectic process as part of the project Weed Heart. Weed Heart was a multi-faceted work that dealt with questions around what we can learn from weeds, the plants we marginalize, and how those plants are related to the histories and power dynamics of human populations and the human destruction of the planet. Their work involved conversations around the resonances between weeds and humans, studio work in which Adewunmi gave Sigman feedback on movement improvisations and choreographic structure, and analysis of an ongoing video blog that wove Sigman’s personal story together with plant histories as part of the performance. The performance album that follows contains textual and visual artifacts from this process: Adewunmi’s reflections on Weed Heart, Sigman’s thoughts about her goals for the project, as well as photos from the performances. The reader is invited to approach this album in a nonlinear way in keeping with the rhizomic nature of the process and performance.
On the way to regenerative choreography
Authors: Reeve Sandra
Published: March 2018

This paper or ‘pattern of thought’ seeks to clarify the relationship between a somatic practice that has evolved from studying movement and the process of change in nature, complexity thinking and models of sustainable performance. In this search for sustainability, choreographic practice is taken as a term applicable to daily life as well as to artistic performance and the article goes one step further to enquire how somatics and radical citizenship can come together through engaging with notions of regenerative performance.
Ancestral bodies dancing snow
Authors: Bellerose Christine
Published: March 2018

This article with artist pages is a self-reflection on danced engagements with land and lineage. In performing with elemental nature and at historical sites, I met my own broken memories of colonized land and severed ties to ancestral lands. These pages feature images of two performance series taking place in and near Montréal city, a cosmopolitan hub of the French province of Québec, Canada. Wise words from storytellers, artists and scholars in the field of Indigenous knowledge (Sto:lo and Anishinaabe nations) guide my textual narrative, and issues of ethical ethnography compel its performative embodied inquiry.
Dancing in wild places: Seaweed and ocean health
Authors: Olsen Andrea
Published: March 2018

This article explores seaweed from biological, historical and aesthetic perspectives through performance. Dancing in wild places: Seaweed and ocean health is a 40-minute project based on travels and dancing at seven seaweed sites internationally including California, France, Ireland, Iceland, Nova Scotia, Florida and the Florida Keys. Discussion about the challenges and opportunities of linking artmaking and environmental projects is interwoven. A multi-layered format combines informational narratives with performance texts, video links and visual images, amplifying the interconnectedness of ecosystems and including humans as part of nature. The process engages the ecotone between knowing and not knowing, a place of heightened possibility. Amidst current environmental challenges, seaweed reminds us that every discipline has a role to play in the restoration of ocean health. Dance helps us feel; as we feel we care – becoming caretakers of Earth, caretakers of body. Movement is primary in knowing ourselves and the world. Our bodies remember.
Theoretical investigations of ZnO/CdO material â€“ A DFT approach
Authors: Jawaher Rackesh , R Indirajith , S Krishnan , Bharani Bharanidharan , R Robert , S Jerome Das
Published: March 2018

The theoretical investigations of ZnO/CdO material were carried out by using ab initio calculations. The bond parameters such as bond lengths, bond angles and dihedral angles were calculated at DFT/B3LYP/LANL2DZ level of theory. The NLO property of the title molecule was calculated using a first order hyperpolarizability calculation. NBO study reveals that the hyperconjucative interactions between the material. Homo-Lumo analysis the charge transfer occurs within the molecule. MEP surface predicts the reactive sites of the present molecule. In addition of Mulliken atomic charges and thermodynamic parameters were also plotted and calculated.
Evaluating the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Report Card on the value-added estimates of teacher preparation programs
Authors: Gulosino Charisse
Published: March 2018

Evaluations of teacher preparation programs (TPPs) based in part on the performance of program completers have emerged as an education reform strategy in several states and have become central features of the Race to the Top (RTTT) grant competition. The objective of this policy review is to examine how the state of Tennessee measured and reported the extent to which teacher preparation programs (TPPs) explain the variation of the test score gains for public school students taught by program graduates. This review breaks down the findings by institution and certification pathway, comparing statistically significant outcomes at the state level produced by teachers from each TPP. An analysis of Tennessee's report card reveals considerable variation in the value-added estimates of beginning teachers, depending on the institution where they were trained.  These results, however, should be interpreted with caution. This review offers several technical considerations associated with the interpretation of Tennessee's report card on the effectiveness of TPPs and explains how these considerations may affect the interpretation of the findings.
Framing teacher education: Conceptions of teaching, teacher education, and justice in Chilean national policies
Authors: Fernández M. Beatriz
Published: March 2018

Chile shows high inequity and socioeconomic stratification in both K-12 education and teacher preparation. Drawing on the notion of frames, this critical policy analysis examines how teaching, teacher education, and justice were conceptualized in Chile’s teacher preparation policies between 2008-2015. It also analyzes the narrative stories implicit in these policy documents. Analysis of the documents shows that national policies emphasize a content knowledge for teaching and teacher education and conceptualize justice as an issue of access to quality teachers. These approaches to teaching, teacher education, and justice are similar to predominant discourses in countries like the US. However, Chilean national policies are promoted using a narrative of development instead of the narrative of decline or crisis usually used in developed countries. These findings contribute to the understanding of national teacher education policies and their connection to the process of policy borrowing. The paper shows both the particularities of frames and narratives used in teacher education policies in developing countries like Chile and their similarities to those in countries that implement neoliberal policies in teacher education.
Haberman Star Teacher Interview as a predictor of success in urban teacher preparation
Authors: Waddell Jennifer H. , Marszalek Jacob M.
Published: March 2018

In urban schools, along with skills for effective teaching, successful teachers must also possess values and belief systems conducive to teaching effectively in diverse settings (Becker, Kennedy, & Hundersmarck, 2003; Haberman, 2008; Metzgar & Wu, 2008). As demonstrated in CAEP standard 3, there is a critical need for EPPs to admit candidates who have both the dispositions to be effective teachers in urban schools and the propensity for success within the preparation program. The Haberman Star Teacher Interview is a commercial teacher selection instrument designed for use in selecting teachers for urban schools. This study examines the validity of the instrument as a selection instrument for teacher preparation programs. The selection instrument was administered to 109 students before entry into an urban teacher preparation program at an urban university in the U.S. Midwest. Inter-rater agreement and principle components analysis provided evidence of reliability and structural validity of the multi-part Haberman scores. Logistic regression analyses supported the validity of using the Haberman scores to predict later program attrition, but not in the manner recommended by its developers. Within this paper, the authors recommend the cautious use of the instrument in urban teacher preparation. Application of scoring and program implications are discussed.
Building a dangerous outpost in the Green Mountain State: A case study of educator preparation policymaking
Authors: McGough David J. , Bedell Claudine , Tinkler Barri
Published: March 2018

Poised at a bifurcation, the educator preparation community in Vermont faced either the adoption of a generic product for the assessment of initial educator licensure candidates or the comprehensive revision of a longstanding state-based assessment portfolio. Using a case study approach and narrative methods, specifically the Narrative Policy Framework (McBeth, Jones, & Shanahan, 2014), the authors analyze a project in which teacher educators intervened to shape the direction of educator preparation policymaking by designing an innovative assessment portfolio and a collaborative calibration system. The analysis reveals insights about the policymaking arena and demonstrates the value of education-related policymaking that includes teacher educators as active agents in collaboration with state personnel and policymakers. The case contributes to the notion of policymaking as a narrative process. In this case, a narrative of hope emerged as a guiding storyline.
Teacher preparation for emergent bilingual students: Implications of evidence for policy
Authors: Lopez Francesca , Santibanez Lucrecia
Published: March 2018

Failure to adequately prepare teachers of emergent bilingual (EB) students could have devastating consequences for student achievement, EB reclassification, and eventually, high school and college completion. To enhance the policy discourse, we explore how teacher certification requirements relate to both EB student achievement and teacher self-efficacy in three states with similar EB student populations but disparate policies on ways to meet EBs' needs: Arizona, California, and Texas. To do this we ask: (1) How well do states prepare their teachers to meet the needs of EBs? (2) What knowledge specific to meeting EBs’ needs do states require their teachers to demonstrate? (3) How are these requirements related to teacher perceptions of their preparedness to effectively teach EBs? We find that there are marked differences across the three states in terms of how well they prepare EBs, and these patterns can be discerned from their teacher preparation requirements. Although teachers’ self-efficacy does not appear to be related to teacher training in the first three years of teaching, there is an advantage to more rigorous training over time. Implications for policy are discussed.
Responding to policy challenges with research evidence: Introduction to the special issue
Authors: Aydarova Elena , Berliner David C.
Published: March 2018

In a policy climate where various actors claim to have solutions for the enduring challenges of teacher education, policy deliberations sideline certain voices and omit important perspectives. This special issue brings together scholars who attend to the voices, perspectives, and issues overlooked by teacher education policy debates dominated by market logic and accountability pressures. It highlights debates surrounding teacher performance assessments, teacher candidate selection, value-added assessments, as well as teacher preparation for linguistically diverse learners. The introduction to the special issue explores different dimensions of the relationship between research and practice urging teacher educators to become more proactive in policy debates.
Experiments on the wear characteristics of A356 MMNCs fabricated using ultrasonic cavitation
Authors: Donthamsetty Suneel , Suresh Babu Penugonda
Published: March 2018

The wear properties of nanocomposites are evaluated in the present work. Owing to its good castability, A356 has been chosen as matrix material. Since Nano silicon carbide (SiC) and A356 are close in terms of density, SiC has been selected as reinforcementmaterial. The dispersion of nano sized reinforcements in the metal matrix composite is challenging due to their higher surface to volume ratio of particles which results in agglomeration and clustering. Hence, the author had proposed an ultrasonic probeassisted stir-casting method in this work for a uniform distribution of particles in the melt. Due to the nano sized reinforcements, interaction at the phase interface becomes enhanced due to the increased surface area which leads to improved material properties, even at alow weight fraction of the reinforcement. So, Nano SiC particles of size 50nm (from 0.1 to 0.5 by wt %) were added. Through SEM microstructures, it has been observed that reinforcements were well-dispersed in the aluminium matrix. Test specimens were prepared and tested as per ASTM standard. The experiments were conducted using a pin on the disc wear tester at different loads (30N & 40N) and at constant speed. With the addition of 0.5 wt % of nanoparticles, the wear resistance of the nanocompositesimproved by 53.735% and 47.04% at 30N and 40N respectively compared to pure aluminium alloy.
Hydrodynamic performance of cylindrical floating breakwater in waves
Authors: S.F. Abdullah  , A. Fitriadhy  , M. Hairil  , A. Jusoh
Published: March 2018

Attenuating waves by simple prismatic structures are increasingly recognised for coastal protection. Yet, evaluating their performance as good attenuators inevitably requires a reliable approach to adequately capture the dynamic interaction between waves andstructure. This paper presents a prediction on hydrodynamic properties of pile-restrained cylindrical floating breakwater using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Several parameters for the effects of relative width (
Thermal performance of heat sink with fluid pockets for high power light emitting diode
Authors: Sangmesh  , Gopalakrishna Keshava Narayana  , Manjunath Shiraganhalli Honnaiah  , Krishna Venkatesh  , Keertishekar Mysore Siddalingappa
Published: March 2018

In this study, a novel heat sink which has many fluid pockets in its base was designed and fabricated. An experimental setup was built to study the heat transfer characteristics of the novel heat sink while cooling a high-power light emitting diode (LED). In this investigation, an attempt has been made to increase the heat transfer rate by adopting passive cooling. This study reports the effect of parameters such as fill ratio, orientation, type of cooling liquid, and the geometry of fluid pockets on the junction temperature ofthe LED. The fluid pockets were filled with various heat transfer fluids on % Vol basis. Parameters were optimised for the optimal thermal performance of the heat sink. To compare, the novel heat sink was found to record temperatures at least 19% lesser than aconventional heat sink of the same configurations. The experimental results indicated that the novel heat sink acts as an economical supplement for effective heat transfer and that liquid cooling is a powerful technique for heat dissipation of high power LEDs.Introducing the fluid pockets in heat sinks is feasible and useful for outdoor street light applications.
Impact of nano additives on electroless nickel phosphorous (EN-P) coating
Authors: M. Mumtaz Mirza  , Elansezhian Rasu  , Anjali Desilva
Published: March 2018

An experimental work has been carried out to identify the impact and evaluation of various Nano additives in Electroless Nickel-Phosphorous (EN-P) bath. Different coatings were developed through EN-P bath on ASTM A106 B substrate influenced withNano additives. The bath consisted of Nickel Sulphate (26 g/L), Sodium Hypo-Phosphite (30 g/L) as the reducing agent, sodium acetate (16 g/L) as the stabiliser and Ammonium Hydrogen Di Fluoride (8 g/L) as the complexing agent. Nano additives such as ZnO,Al2O3 and CuO were added at various concentrations of 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, and 2% in the EN-P bath and their influences on coating process characteristics were studied. The output parameters such as mechanical, characterisation and corrosion resistance evaluationswere measured. The investigation proved that the suggested method resulted in substantial improvement on the quality of the coatings developed. The evaluation was reported at 1 % concentration of Nano additives in the bath. The overall performance ofNano Al2O3 in the En-P bath resulted in significant improvement on the corrosion resistance and quality of the coating produced as compared to other Nano additives.
New design concept of a tank made of plastic material for firefighting vehicle
Authors: Collotta M. , Solazzi L.
Published: March 2018

Optimisation work has been increasingly directed at commercial vehicles to reduce their weight and thus enhance their performance. This optimisation, which responds to the requirements of various European standards with regard to the reduction of fuelconsumption, also involves the elements mounted on these vehicles. This work discusses the development and design of a firefighting vehicle tank made from plastic material instead of the usual structure or stainless steel, essentially to reduce the weight of thestructure. The design and construction feasibility of the components have been developed based on the specifications required. These specifications concern the tank capacity to resist at different load conditions and avoid any external vibrations. To ensure this, thetank consists of a number of internal welded plates in order to reduce the sloshing effect and secondly makes it modular and thus highly adaptable to the customer’s needs. Specific method on the production of the component is also provided. Therefore,numerical tests were conducted with linear elastic stress analysis with square brick elements. The boundary conditions applied to the numerical model provide a complete support to the panels and are determined by the load condition of fluid used. This preliminary analysis was conducted to define the thickness of the tank panels and revealed that the use of a plastic tank leads to a weight reduction of about 35% and generates cost savings of about 25-30% compared to the steel equivalent. Therefore, the use of plasticmaterials compared to the classic materials seems to be very positive and this is critical information to support the final decision in a regulated sector, where the firefighting vehicles are.
Longitudinal vehicle dynamics model for construction machines with experimental validation
Authors: Alexander A.
Published: March 2018

Construction machines represent a particular set of difficulties when modelling their system dynamics. Due to their generally low velocities and unorthodox operating conditions, the standard modelling equations used to simulate the behaviour of highwayvehicles can have a poor behaviour for these systems. This paper sets forth a vehicle model which is suitable for construction machines, which travel at low velocities and encounter significant external forces in daily operation. It then shows the work done invalidating the machine model with experimental data. First, the overall vehicle dynamics are developed, including a model for the machine behaviour when pushing against a resistive force. Then, a wheel force generation model suitable for low-velocity systems isdiscussed. Finally, pertinent experimental results are presented. Two different model validation tests were run. Both tests generated results which were matched well by the simulation model. In fact, the model matches experimental data reasonably well for bothroading and pushing conditions. This indicates that the modelling methods described in this work are appropriate for the modelling of low-velocity systems such as wheel loaders and other construction machinery.