Specimen Litterarium Inaugurale--Utrecht. / "Stellingen": leaf, inserted. "Libri saepius laudati": p. [141].

Zugl.: Marburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

Since 1998 there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of paid, additional, support staff, employed in Scottish primary schools as successive Scottish governments have attempted to raise standards by freeing teachers from administrative and ‘housekeeping’ duties and allowing them to teach. Of these additional staff, currently just over 4000 are classroom assistants, with a remit to provide general class learning and teaching support, including social inclusion and pupil discipline, under the direction of a fully registered teacher. Classroom assistants in Scotland are almost exclusively White women, typically aged 31-50, but concentrated in the 41-50 age range, partnered and with children of school age. These women exist on the margins of school hierarchies as witnessed by short-term contracts, low pay, limited access to formal training and low status. Nevertheless, many classroom assistants seem willing to accept poor working conditions as a trade off for family friendly working hours. Given these working conditions the study sought to consider several key questions: • Why are classroom assistants willing to undertake work that has low status, low pay and insecurity? • How do classroom assistants create and maintain a sense of integrity and commitment to their work? • How do classroom assistants create and sustain positive social and professional identities in this context? • Why do classroom assistants appear to be complicit, to some extent, in their own oppression? To achieve this the study used a critical ethnographic methods to explore the lived experiences of 13 classroom assistants as they supported pupils in two Scottish primary schools. The key insights were firstly that a Bourdieuian account of class, combined with an understanding of patriarchy, provided an explanation of these women’s labour market decisions. In addition, ‘preference theory’, was rejected in favour of a range of constraints, particularly having children and the associated childcare costs, that were considered much more important factors. Secondly, classroom assistants performed versions of ‘emphasised femininity’ as part of their identity as ‘classroom assistants’. Thirdly, the notion of ‘respectability’ was a crucial analytical tool in explaining not only these women’s constant struggle for recognition, but also their continuing oppression. And finally, classroom assistants told a particular type of talk, the ‘atrocity story’, which contributed to the social production of occupational boundaries. The study concluded that from their position of insecure and poorly paid employment, classroom assistants justified and reconciled their position by drawing on talk of moral superiority associated with mothering and caring to construct and perform identities that created the spaces and boundaries from which they positioned themselves as superior to both parents and teachers. As a result they were able to negotiate their roles within the micro-political world of the school.

The Ras superfamily of GTPases are important regulators of morphogenesis involved in control of cytoskeletal dynamics, intracellular trafficking, apical-basal polarity and cell migration. Mis-regulation of GTPase signaling interferes with development and is linked to pathogenesis. Traditionally, GTPase signaling has been depicted as a series of independent linear pathways. However, recently it has become apparent that multiple GTPases can interact to regulate a single cellular process, functioning in poorly understood networks of cross talk between pathways during development. Jim Fristrom (unpublished data) identified a mutation (18-5) that interacts with components of the GTPases Rho1, Rala, and Cdc42 signaling in multiple developmental contexts. Genetic analysis, physical mapping studies, and sequencing of the mutant allele have indicated that the gene was an allele of GEFmeso (CG30115), which encodes guanine nucleotide exchange factor. To show that 18-5 is an allele of GEFmeso, I demonstrated that a GEFmeso transgene could functionally rescue developmental defects associated with the 18-5 mutation. I also investigated cross talk and network variation in signaling interactions between GEFmeso and other GTPase signaling components in the Drosophila wing. My data provide evidence for microenvironment-dependent variation in GTPase signaling networks in specific domains of the wing, and reveal intercellular variation in GTPase signaling within an otherwise uniform epithelium.

This study examined the relationship between parental negative talk, child aggression, and child assertiveness. Disruptive behaviors, such as aggression, have been studied multiple times, however, there is still more to learn about aggression. Few studies have examined assertive and aggressive behavior together with preschool children. Additionally, parenting is a substantial component of a child’s development and can impact their health and behaviors. One form of parenting is negative parenting. The current study focuses on a concept similar to negative parenting called parental negative talk. Currently, there is a lack of studies that examine parental negative talk. The current study included a twin sample of 290 5-year-old children and their parents from the Southern Illinois Twins/Triplets and Siblings Study (SITSS). The children and their parents participated in a 10-minute interactive puzzle task that was taped and later used to assess parental negative talk and observed child aggression. Additional measures used were personality and behavior assessments. No sex differences were found between parental negative talk, child aggression, and child assertiveness. There were no direct relationships between child aggression and parental negative talk or between parental negative talk and child assertive behavior. However, within family differences between parental behaviors and child behaviors revealed a significant positive correlation between parental negative talk and child aggression. Within a family, there was no relationship found between parental negative talk and child assertive behavior. The results from the current study indicated assertiveness was not significantly heritable. Overall, the results from the present study can assist in augmenting the current parent management training resources.

No description available.

The current study identified the factors related to exercisers' self-talk and exercise adherence. Hardy (2006) defined self-talk as "(a) verbalizations or statements addressed to the self; (b) multidimensional in nature; (c) having interpretive elements associate[d] with the content of statements employed; (d) is somewhat dynamic; and (e) serving at least two functions; instructional and motivational, for the athlete," or in this case, the exerciser (p. 84). The purpose was to discover an individual's exercise self-talk and what thoughts may be preventing, or encouraging, him or her to regularly exercise. Specifically, the participants were asked questions about their exercise participation, their use of and frequency of self-talk during exercise, their beliefs about the perceived benefits and barriers to exercise, and their confidence levels related to exercising. Participants from three fitness locations volunteered to complete an online survey. There were 146 participants who completed the questionnaires. There were 91 defined adherers and 55 non-adherers. The results indicated that the adherers perceived more benefits to exercise, as well as had higher exercise self-efficacy. The results of the open-ended responses indicated that the most important factors appeared to be the type of self-talk that was used during the exercise (positive/motivational was the most common response across both adherers and non-adherers), and at what point during the exercise session the self-talk was used (20% of adherers reported using during difficult points in the session). The conclusions from the study can also be used to provide an indication of how self-talk could be use to encourage initiation and maintenance of exercise. / Kinesiology

As 3G handset manufacturers add more and more features such as multimedia applications, color displays, video cameras, web browsing, gaming, WLAN, and MP3 players, the current consumption of a handset is ever increasing. Of the many components, the RF power amplifiers receive the most attention as they draw significant battery current and continue to represent the largest power load on the battery. In order to improve the overall efficiency of a power amplifier, it is important to know the operating uplink transmit power levels of a mobile phone in the WCDMA network. The work in this thesis makes two major contributions. First is the characterization of uplink transmit power in WCDMA networks based on current network data (collected in AT&T's WCDMA network) and realistic usage scenarios. Second is an investigation of the relationship between the battery life and the probability distribution function of the transmit power. Another important finding is that the talk time estimates using field tests, lab testing and theoretical expressions all give results to within 5%. Based on these data, design goals for WCDMA power amplifiers (in order to improve the talk times significantly) are suggested. The output power levels where the PA efficiencies have to be improved in order to significantly increase the battery life of WCDMA handsets are presented. / Master of Science

Yes / O-GlcNAcylation is an abundant post-translational modification in the nervous system, linked to both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease. However, the mechanistic links between these phenotypes and site-specific O-GlcNAcylation remain largely unexplored. Here, we show that Ser517 O-GlcNAcylation of the microtubule-binding protein Collapsin Response Mediator Protein-2 (CRMP2) increases with age. By generating and characterizing a Crmp2S517A knock-in mouse model, we demonstrate that loss of O-GlcNAcylation leads to a small decrease in body weight and mild memory impairment, suggesting that Ser517 O-GlcNAcylation has a small but detectable impact on mouse physiology and cognitive function. / a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (WT087590MA) to D.M.F.v.A., an ARUK Pilot Project grant to R.W., and support from Tenovus Scotland to V.M. The phosphoproteomics mass spectrometry work was supported by the Horizon 2020 program INFRAIA project Epic-XS (project 823839) to A.J.R.H.

This thesis is the outcome of a PhD CASE Studentship funded by the ESRC and British Telecom. It presents an exploration into the teaching of collaborative talk. The study was conducted in three phases: exploratory, development and implementation. During the exploratory phase, observations and interviews were conducted in authentic workplace settings to gain an understanding of workplace collaboration and collaborative talk. During the development phase, a teaching unit for the teaching of collaborative talk at GCSE was devised, informed by understandings gleaned during the preceding phase. During the implementation phase, the teaching unit was taught by two teachers in their secondary English classrooms. Both participating classes were arranged into groups of 4: 8 groups in School 1 and 7 in School 2. For the duration of the 3 week teaching unit, groups were recorded via camera and audio recorder, and the data later synchronised. Both teachers wore an audio recorder to capture interactions with groups and the whole class. To complement the core data set, students were interviewed for their views on their learning. Student booklets provided a means of collecting both group and individual reflections and evaluative comments. The data was analysed to explore the development of students’ collaborative talk. The role of the teacher in implementing the teaching unit and supporting students’ development was also examined. The findings provide an insight into the realities of implementing successful collaborative talk in the ‘real’ secondary classroom. It contributes to conceptualisations of collaborative talk and its development. It makes links between the role of emotional engagement and dialogic interactions in supporting that development. It proposes teaching strategies which challenge perceived notions of ‘good’ talk and encourages the development of meta-language to support self-evaluation and the development of collaborative talk.