Academic literature on the topic 'Spowers'

This essay discusses the colour linocuts of the Melbourne-born artist and illustrator Ethel Spowers. Although Spowers was a key figure in modern art and design in Australia during the 1920s and 1930s, to date her linocuts have received little critical attention and are appraised only briefly and collectively as part and parcel of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London, where she studied for several months under the guidance of Iain Macnab and Claude Flight. This essay argues that her modernism provides an important contrast and supplement to accounts of modern everyday life offered by her British and European colleagues at the School, and canonical British and Anglo-American modernism more generally. Rejecting a view of modern life defined in terms of homogenisation, social alienation and adult experience, I discuss how Spowers's rhythmic compositions express choreographies of community and positive affect, and focus on the experience of children.

In the kitchen record books of the L'Estrange family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there are references to a bird, widely shot on the Norfolk coast, called a Spowe. On the basis of the similarity to the Icelandic name, J. H. Gurney (sen.) and Fisher (in their “An account of birds found in Norfolk” published in 1846) assumed this to be the Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) as have all ornithological texts ever since. Internal evidence from the kitchen records strongly suggest that the Spowe was a winter visitor, not a passage migrant, thus throwing considerable doubt on Gurney and Fisher's ascription. We suggest that it is much more likely that the Spowe was the Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica).

: Combined regional and general anaesthesia for laparoscopic appendicectomy offers better intraoperative haemodynamic stability. Buprenorphine is a long acting opioid which can be administered intrathecally and provides excellent analgesia intraoperatively and post operatively while allowing early ambulation without prolonged motor block. The study aimed to compare the haemodynamic response during laparoscopic appendicectomy using combined general anaesthesia with intrathecal buprenorphine and general anaesthesia alone. In this observational study 80 patients who underwent laparoscopic appendicectomy were divided into two groups of 40 each by random sampling. The patients in the GA group received general anaesthesia whereas patients in the GA+SAB group received intrathecal buprenorphine along with general anaesthesia. The heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures and SpOwere noted after induction of general anaesthesia, immediately after endotracheal intubation, after creating pneumoperitonium and post extubation. Student’s t test was used for comparing the haemodynamic variables There were no statistically significant differences between GA and GA+SAB group in the heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure after pneumoperitonium was created. When compared to general anaesthesia alone, addition of intrathecal burenorphine provides little advantage in preventing stress response during laparoscopic appendicectomy.

Stabilizing elemental mercury using elemental sulfur has been a laboratory standard method but the studies in gas system are still growing. This study aims to explore the effect of different type immobilized sulfurs toward the mercury vapor uptake in a mini gas reactor. Sulfur powder, sulfur dissolved in carbon disulfide and colloidal sulfur from sodium thiosulfate-hydrochloric acid were immobilized on mini rice-husk-ash pellets that were previously coated with chitosan film. The average thinness of chitosan film was 58 µm covered the each pellet surface with dimension of 3 mm Ø x 4 mm. The trends of the mercury uptake and the rate of absorption were described as follow; Pellet-Scolloid > Pellet-SCS2 > Pellet-Spowder. The mean percentages of mercury uptake after 1 h running at 70oC were 99.36; 89.09 and 75.00 respectively. The reverse trends were observed for the size of S-particle aggregation and the amount of S found on the pellet surface.

Myostatin is a negative regulator of muscle mass. The impact of myostatin deficiency on the contractile properties of healthy muscles has not been determined. We hypothesized that myostatin deficiency would increase the maximum tetanic force (Po), but decrease the specific Po(sPo) of muscles and increase the susceptibility to contraction-induced injury. The in vitro contractile properties of extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and soleus muscles from wild-type ( MSTN+/+), heterozygous-null ( MSTN+/−), and homozygous-null ( MSTN−/−) adult male mice were determined. For EDL muscles, the Poof both MSTN+/−and MSTN−/−mice were greater than the Poof MSTN+/+mice. For soleus muscles, the Poof MSTN−/−mice was greater than that of MSTN+/+mice. The sPoof EDL muscles of MSTN−/−mice was less than that of MSTN+/+mice. For soleus muscles, however, no difference in sPowas observed. Following two lengthening contractions, EDL muscles from MSTN−/−mice had a greater force deficit than that of MSTN+/+or MSTN+/−mice, whereas no differences were observed for the force deficits of soleus muscles. Myostatin-deficient EDL muscles had less hydroxyproline, and myostatin directly increased type I collagen mRNA expression and protein content. The difference in the response of EDL and soleus muscles to myostatin may arise from differences in the levels of a myostatin receptor, activin type IIB. Compared with the soleus, the amount of activin type IIB receptor was approximately twofold greater in EDL muscles. The results support a significant role for myostatin not only in the mass of muscles but also in the contractility and the composition of the extracellular matrix of muscles.

It is broadly recognised that professional development (PD) to enhance academic practice amongst those who teach in Higher Education (HE) encompasses a range of approaches; while there is an established culture of accredited PD provision – particularly for early-career academics – literature points to a preference among more established faculty for non-accredited or informal PD activities such as workshops, projects, conferences, professional dialogue, experimental approaches or activities related to the scholarship of teaching and learning (Ashgar and Pilkington 2018; Kálmán et al. 2019; Spowart et al. 2017). The provision of accredited PD is now commonplace in the Irish context and many Irish HE Institutions offer programmes in academic practice at Graduate Certificate, Diploma or Masters Level (Maguire et al. 2017; Maguire et al. 2015). However, evidence also points to a long-standing culture of engagement in in- and non-formal PD activities among Irish HE teachers (Kenny et al. 2015). This has been recognised in the Irish National Professional Development Framework which is underpinned by an ‘acknowledgement of the spectrum of activities that could be considered under the umbrella of PD’ (National Forum 2016a; National Forum 2016b). Thus, a considerable amount of the professional learning that is undertaken to enhance academic practice takes place through experiential or work-based practices including communities of practice, conversations with colleagues and practice-based innovations (Knight et al. 2006; Nerantzi 2015; Warhurst 2008). Furthermore, there is a growing body of literature highlighting the use of portfolios to support academic professional learning activities and reflective practice in Higher Education (Costelloe et al. 2019; Hamilton 2018; Hoekstra and Crocker 2015; O'Farrell 2007; Pelger and Larsson 2018). Described as ‘a purposeful collection of evidence, consisting of descriptions, documents and examples of what is good teaching for the teacher’ (de Rijdt et al. 2006, p.1086), portfolios are being used in multiple ways to support PD: to provide evidence of a quality approach to professional development, to document teaching practices for the purposes of promotion, to showcase and reflect on academic practice and to provide evidence of engagement with PD activities. An eportfolio adds an extra dimension to the affordances of a more traditional portfolio through the potential inclusion of multimedia artefacts such as audio, video and text to capture, share and reflect on academic practice. Bearing in mind the Irish HE context and the recent introduction of the National Professional Development Framework, this paper will explore the potential of eportfolios – and specifically digital teaching or professional practice portfolios – to support, document and evidence the wealth of non-accredited and in/non-formal professional learning undertaken by HE teachers to enhance academic practice. Drawing on semi-structured interviews carried out with Irish HE teachers in three institutions in the Mid-West region, this paper will consider how digital teaching portfolios offer a space to capture, evidence, reflect on and share the wealth of practice-based and in/non-formal PD in which HE teachers engage.

The inventor of the positive/negative process for photography, 19th century polymath Henry Fox Talbot, was so enthusiastic about the potential for his discovery that he made a prediction for a future where, 'Every man [would be] his own printer and publisher' (Talbot 1839:HS/17/289). Now, 170 years on, Fox Talbot's prediction is being realised. From the beginning of the process the value of the photographic image as a form of communication was instantly recognised, and photographs became a necessary and popular addition to books. The design and production of these books was usually overseen by the entrepreneurial and editorial control of a publisher. Book publishing required a raft of specialist tasks to be carried out under the control of production teams. This complicated structure usually alienated photographers from engaging in their own publishing ventures. Over time the book, consisting mainly of photographs, became known as the photobook and developed into an institutionalised form that was suited to the publisher's production methods, design styles, workflows and the niche clientele that they sought to satisfy. With the arrival of the digital age the gate-keeping bureaucracy of these publishing and printing industries have been swept aside. Now the photographer can totally selfpublish their own books as they have access and control over a host of digital technologies that have simplified the process. These include: digital capture, computer-based software for image enhancement and book design, inkjet printers and double-sided printing papers, online print-on-demand services that include design, marketing and sales capabilities. This exegesis seeks to address the limited scholarship on the discipline and to review the conceptualisation, design and production of the photobook as a communicative device in the digital age. This discussion is focused on the opportunity provided by users of these emergent technologies to break from the design and narrative norms of the traditional photobook. Of particular interest in this research is the role that the artists’ book discipline can play in informing the photographer as author, publisher and printer in the creation of contemporary photobooks. This research melds emergent digital technologies with the artists' book discipline and the author's concepts and workflows to establish the idea of a hybrid photobook. In doing so this exegesis creates a space for photographers to fulfill the Fox Talbot prediction of 'Every man [being] his own printer and publisher'.