title: Data mining as a tool for environmental scientists

authors: Spate, Jessica

subjects: data mining

abstract: Over recent years a huge library of data mining algorithms has been developed to tackle a variety of problems in fields such as medical imaging and network traffic analysis. Many of these techniques are far more flexible than more classical modelling approaches and could be usefully applied to data-rich environmental problems. Certain techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks, Clustering, Case-Based Reasoning and more recently Bayesian Decision Networks have found application in environmental modelling while other methods, for example classification and association rule extraction, have not yet been taken up on any wide scale. We propose that these and other data mining techniques could be usefully applied to difficult problems in the field. This paper introduces several data mining concepts and briefly discusses their application to environmental modelling, where data may be sparse, incomplete, or heterogenous.

text: Data mining as a tool for environmental scientists Over recent years a huge library of data mining algorithms has been developed to tackle a variety of problems in fields such as medical imaging and network traffic analysis. Many of these techniques are far more flexible than more classical modelling approaches and could be usefully applied to data-rich environmental problems. Certain techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks, Clustering, Case-Based Reasoning and more recently Bayesian Decision Networks have found application in environmental modelling while other methods, for example classification and association rule extraction, have not yet been taken up on any wide scale. We propose that these and other data mining techniques could be usefully applied to difficult problems in the field. This paper introduces several data mining concepts and briefly discusses their application to environmental modelling, where data may be sparse, incomplete, or heterogenous.

year: 2006

title: Talk yuh talk: making sense of how graduate secondary teachers in Trinidad learned to teach without pre-service teacher education

authors: De Four-Babb, Joyanne

abstract: In Trinidad and Tobago graduate secondary teachers begin teaching with subject degrees, but without pre-service teacher training. How, then, do these people come to see themselves as teachers? How do they learn how to teach? I draw on life history, constructivism and discourse analysis for my analysis of teachers’ stories of beginning to teach. These stories were collected in individual interviews with 29 experienced graduate secondary teachers in Trinidad between March and August 2000. I use discourse analysis to explore the historical and policy context and highlight the dominant ideas about teachers and teaching that have been made available to teachers in Trinidad. I argue that in spite of the historical period in which they began to teach, the 29 interviewees’ interpretations and understandings of being a graduate secondary teacher and doing what they thought secondary teachers should do, were informed by dominant discourses such as the teacher as a transmitter of knowledge, a disciplinarian, a role model and a socially responsible person. These discourses were also evident in the wider official and common-sense ideas on secondary education, teachers, and teaching, as well as the recruitment practices of secondary teachers. I theorise about the ways in which these discourses created possibilities and sometimes put limits upon the interviewees’ construction of their practical professional knowledge - that is the knowledge they gained from day-to-day experiences of teaching. I recommend that pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes for secondary teachers in Trinidad must help teachers to explore why they may see themselves in certain ways and not in others. Schools should also play a more prominent role in the preparation and on-going professional development of graduate secondary teachers by seeking to become a place of learning for all teachers.

text: Talk yuh talk: making sense of how graduate secondary teachers in Trinidad learned to teach without pre-service teacher education In Trinidad and Tobago graduate secondary teachers begin teaching with subject degrees, but without pre-service teacher training. How, then, do these people come to see themselves as teachers? How do they learn how to teach? I draw on life history, constructivism and discourse analysis for my analysis of teachers’ stories of beginning to teach. These stories were collected in individual interviews with 29 experienced graduate secondary teachers in Trinidad between March and August 2000. I use discourse analysis to explore the historical and policy context and highlight the dominant ideas about teachers and teaching that have been made available to teachers in Trinidad. I argue that in spite of the historical period in which they began to teach, the 29 interviewees’ interpretations and understandings of being a graduate secondary teacher and doing what they thought secondary teachers should do, were informed by dominant discourses such as the teacher as a transmitter of knowledge, a disciplinarian, a role model and a socially responsible person. These discourses were also evident in the wider official and common-sense ideas on secondary education, teachers, and teaching, as well as the recruitment practices of secondary teachers. I theorise about the ways in which these discourses created possibilities and sometimes put limits upon the interviewees’ construction of their practical professional knowledge - that is the knowledge they gained from day-to-day experiences of teaching. I recommend that pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes for secondary teachers in Trinidad must help teachers to explore why they may see themselves in certain ways and not in others. Schools should also play a more prominent role in the preparation and on-going professional development of graduate secondary teachers by seeking to become a place of learning for all teachers.

year: 2003

title: Nobody knows me even though I’m always there: Why Māori men do exist - in all the wrong places

authors: Stanley, Paul

subjects: Maori

abstract: In the study of psychology, Māori men are often only seen as the perpetrators of the problems. There is very little focus on finding solutions for Māori men, with Māori men. In the top eight causes of death for Māori males aged 15 to 24 are car crashes, homicide, and suicide. With respect to car crashes, there is a close link between alcohol-related car crashes and suicide. As a nation, we should be concerned with all of the above issues, as each of them is preventable. Invariably, we fail see the deaths of these young men as warning signs of much wider issues about why they wanted to die, or why they felt the need to kill someone close to themselves. The argument tendered in this paper is that the same way in which Māori as a group have been researched, as being “the problem”, equally applies to the way in which Māori men have continued to be have been researched: Māori men are only ever portrayed as “the problem” and are never portrayed as part of a solution subjected to this process as well. The lyrics of a well known song by UB40, One in Ten, exemplify this notion of being unknown, even though Māori men do exist in Aotearoa.

text: Nobody knows me even though I’m always there: Why Māori men do exist - in all the wrong places In the study of psychology, Māori men are often only seen as the perpetrators of the problems. There is very little focus on finding solutions for Māori men, with Māori men. In the top eight causes of death for Māori males aged 15 to 24 are car crashes, homicide, and suicide. With respect to car crashes, there is a close link between alcohol-related car crashes and suicide. As a nation, we should be concerned with all of the above issues, as each of them is preventable. Invariably, we fail see the deaths of these young men as warning signs of much wider issues about why they wanted to die, or why they felt the need to kill someone close to themselves. The argument tendered in this paper is that the same way in which Māori as a group have been researched, as being “the problem”, equally applies to the way in which Māori men have continued to be have been researched: Māori men are only ever portrayed as “the problem” and are never portrayed as part of a solution subjected to this process as well. The lyrics of a well known song by UB40, One in Ten, exemplify this notion of being unknown, even though Māori men do exist in Aotearoa.

year: 2003