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Arts education can be an important part of the elementary child's experience. However, keeping the arts in schools is often a challenge because of funding concerns and competing academic priorities. An important strategy in arts education advocacy and policy is arts integration. Arts integration creates a rationale for the arts based on the enhancement of the educational experience for all students and the potential to engage underserved or less engaged students with academic disciplines through the arts. This article examines teacher experiences within a statewide program that funds arts specialists in elementary schools with the requirement that they integrate the arts with other subjects. The researchers describe how the program works with particular focus on collaboration between arts specialists and classroom teachers. This is a multifaceted study across four school districts with 640 participants including classroom teachers and arts specialists. An understanding of both arts integration and how collaboration happens between elementary teachers and arts specialists was gained through interviews, classroom visits, and surveys. The data suggest that effective integration and collaboration can enhance teachers' professional growth but require structural and policy support as well as the creativity and energy of individual teachers. The professional life of arts specialists, teacher knowledge, and professional development emerged as important issues for teachers, school leaders, and arts advocates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spiritual dimensions of art and education have been explored for their potential to offer different ways of understanding or representing knowledge and their potential to inspire transcendence or cultivate wholeness. This article examines connections between transcendent or sacred territories of human existence, teaching, and contemporary art. Experiences of walking in the Himalayan mountains with Tibetan Buddhist monks, conversing with rabbis in Jerusalem, and teaching in state school classrooms are used to illustrate connections between education, spirituality, religion, and contemporary art. We seek to understand how the spiritual dimensions of education and contemporary art could be understood through the lenses of different spiritual traditions and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview and continuation of a study investigating how artist awareness and critical response might provide a better understanding of mindfulness and its practice within art education. While there are distinct advantages to mindfulness practices in education, these practices might also have problematic aspects, such as helping people conform to oppressive structures in education rather than questioning them. The pandemic of 2020–2021 accentuated student concerns with social, emotional, and mental health and illuminated possible benefits of mindfulness practice. Results show that preservice art education students used mindfulness and data visualization to connect art and self-inquiry. Important findings included the positive impact mindfulness practices had on students' social–emotional learning and a refined distinction between mindfulness as a therapeutic educational intervention versus mindfulness an art educational experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of evidence had demonstrated that increased student exposure and commitment to evidence-based teaching (EBT) leads to improved academic performance, greater persistence, and higher buy-in to instructional methods. Despite the increasing number of teaching development opportunities available to STEM instructors, which often encourage the use of EBT, implementation is still highly variable across instructors. The frequency with which students are exposed to EBT across multiple courses in a department or university has not been studied in relation to students' success in a given course or their ultimate persistence in STEM. This study shows that there is a cumulative benefit of exposure to EBT across multiple courses. Students who are frequently exposed to EBT also find these practices to be more valuable and report a higher intention to persist in STEM. If students demonstrate higher commitment after multiple EBT exposures, this may increase the likelihood that faculty will incorporate these teaching practices into their courses. The findings are useful for instructors, faculty, department chairs, and administrators who are attempting to support a more unified, evidence-based approach to teaching in their department or institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability disclosures are frequently included within integrated reports, in order to provide disclosures relating to the capitals identified in the International Framework (the Framework). South Africa has been at the forefront of integrated reporting, following the guidance of King III and subsequently the Framework. This study draws on data previously presented by the authors, and identifies the relationships and correlation between the application of principles from the Framework, such as materiality and conciseness, as well as the total number of sustainability disclosures and the industry classification, age and size of the companies, through the lens of legitimacy theory. The study uses data collected through interpretive content analysis of the integrated reports of South African companies in 2011 and 2015, as well as company metrics, which are analysed using Spearman's rank correlation and a k-means cluster analysis. The results reveal that companies tend to consistently apply the principles from the Framework, and the size of the company was not consistently correlated. However, the age of the company was correlated to the materiality of disclosures provided. The findings are consistent with legitimacy theory and add to the legitimacy theory literature by identifying the sustainability reporting behaviour displayed by companies of various sizes, ages and industry classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of the Arts Education Policy Review editorial board have collaborated to update the 2002 article "Writing for Arts Education Policy Review." Authors interested in submitting to the journal will find this information helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triple combination FCR (fludarabine, cyclophosphamide and rituximab) is often used as front-line treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Results from our laboratory indicate that 2-FaraAMP (fludarabine) has multiple mechanisms of cytotoxicity that include accumulation of isoforms and phosphorylated derivatives of p53, and induction of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Using protein pull-downs with Dynabeads coated with p53 antibody, we have found that 2-FaraA (fludarabine nucleoside) induces major changes in the p53 interactome in human Raji lymphoma and IM9 multiple myeloma cells. These changes are likely driven by DNA strand breaks induced by 2-FaraA that activate protein kinases such as ATM, ATR and Chk1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on arts education being a vital part of the elementary child's learning experience. Topics include provide arts education to elementary-age students through a collaboration between art specialists and classroom teachers; illustrating some of the exciting possibilities of integrating the visual arts into teaching and learning.

Growth of gig work – short-term tasks organized and mediated by digital labor platforms such as Uber and Upwork – is the focus for an increasing body of research. Yet there has been a lack of systematic frameworks that could evaluate this type of labor against decent work standards, and inform consumers and others about relative adherence to those standards across platforms and sectors. In this article we report the development of the "Fairwork framework", based on five decent work principles of fair pay, conditions, contracts, management, and representation. The framework and its associated methodology were first field-tested in South Africa and we report on its use to rate seven gig economy platforms. A league table of platforms was widely publicized and one platform was persuaded to improve working conditions. We reflect on the use and content of the framework, and its role in future action research on decent gig work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital economy, innovation processes increasingly rely on highly specialised know-how and open-source software shared on digital platforms on collaborative programming. The information that feeds into the content on these platforms is provided voluntarily by a vast crowd of knowledgeable users from all over the world. In contributing to the platforms, users invest their time and share knowledge with strangers to add to the rising body of digital knowledge. This requires an open mindset and trust. In this study, we argue that such a mindset is not just an individual asset but determined by the local communities the users are embedded in. We, therefore, hypothesise that places with higher levels of trust should contribute more to Stack Overflow, the world's largest question-and-answer platform for programming questions. In relating the city-level contributions of 266 OECD metropolitan areas to infrastructure, economic, and trust measures, we find support for this hypothesis. In contrast, click rates to the platform are solely driven by infrastructure and economic variables, but not by trust. These findings highlight the importance of societal values in the twenty-first-century knowledge economy: if policymakers want to develop a lively local digital economy, it is not enough to provide fast Internet access and business opportunities. Instead, it is equally important to establish a trust-building environment that fosters sharing of innovative ideas, collaborations, and knowledge spillovers. Code and Data: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a qualitative study of pre-service art education students that was designed to explore relationships between mindfulness, self-inquiry, and artistic practices. The researchers, who are art educators, were curious about how mindfulness practices might connect, overlap or influence the personal artistic practice of the participants. Although mindfulness is often used as an intervention to counter the stresses of school and teaching, mindfulness can also be thought of as a counter cultural phenomenon that explores possibilities of a critical pedagogy. While mindfulness and self-care practices can have important positive benefits and may lead to deeper personal understanding, these practices might also have more problematic purposes such as helping teachers and students adapt to oppressive social, political, or cultural positionings in education. The study explored mindfulness as a form of education through the practice of art-making. Artistic applications of data visualization emerged as a significant connection between art and self-inquiry. The study investigated how the critical responsiveness and awareness of the artist might contribute to an understanding of mindfulness and create an awareness of how mindfulness might be practiced within existing social and cultural structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital labour platforms do not attempt to build trust between worker, client, and platform on the basis of strong and durable ties. Instead, platforms utilize a double articulation of algorithmic power to govern spatially dispersed workforces in both material and discursive ways. However, algorithms do not have hegemonic outcomes, and they do not entirely strip away agency from platform workers. Through manipulation, subversion, and disruption, workers bring fissures in algorithmic power into being. Fissures in algorithmic power are moments in which algorithms do not govern as intended. While these moments do not simply result in positive outcomes for workers, they show that algorithmic power is inherently only ever partial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arts education advocates sometimes point to extrinsic benefits of arts learning, including Social Emotional Learning (SEL). This study considers if and how the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) in dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual art may align with SEL standards adopted by the state of Illinois, upon which other SEL standards have been modeled. A team of arts education experts coded 15,500 intersections of arts standards & SEL goals. They found a great deal of indirect alignment between the NCAS and SEL objectives, but direct alignment was rare. As the types and degrees of alignment varied by discipline, broad discussions of "arts education" that assume similar types of SEL happens in similar ways in all arts disciplines are problematic. Given the generally indirect alignment of the NCAS and SEL goals, the authors recommend that educators who wish to pursue both arts learning and SEL goals engage in conscious planning to ensure both types of learning occur. From a theoretical, standards-based perspective it seems unlikely that SEL will automatically take place in arts learning scenarios without deliberate planning. While recognizing the potential for deliberately structured lessons to promote both arts learning and SEL, the authors caution against advocating for arts education programs primarily on the basis of presumed extrinsic benefits such as SEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of integrated reporting, organisations are now encouraged to integrate sustainability disclosures within their integrated reports, in addition to traditional sustainability reporting practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the International < IR > Framework (the Framework) led to a change in how South African listed companies included sustainability disclosures in their integrated reports, looking specifically at the degree of integration of sustainability disclosures, the use of sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs), and the materiality and balance of sustainability disclosures included, which are all based on principles in the Framework. Interpretive content analysis is used to compare the integrated reports in 2011, when integrated reporting became mandatory in South Africa, and 2015, when the Framework was adopted. The results show that there was a significant change in the level of integration and materiality of sustainability disclosures, but there was no significant change in the use of KPIs and the balance of disclosures. This study does not seek to measure the quality of the sustainability disclosures included in the integrated reports beyond the level of the application of Framework principles. This study provides unique insight into how South African companies adapted their sustainability disclosures within their integrated reports in response to the Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wikipedia is an information geography made up of millions of geotagged articles, which augment places with digital layers. These layers shape how people understand, move through, and interact with the world. As such, it is crucial to interrogate how places are augmented with digital layers and by whom. This article builds on the digital geography literature with a novel methodology that can be used to understand the digital representations of cities on Wikipedia, their provenance, as well as the scope and scale of "edit wars" that have shaped such layers. This methodology is demonstrated through a case study on Berlin, Germany. Cartographic analysis of about 8,000 geotagged articles reveals that these articles cluster in the city center, whereas outer districts are largely unrepresented on Wikipedia. Ten articles have had "edit wars" and nine of these are about contentious historical periods. Cartographic analysis of the locations of the editors of these articles reveals that the edit wars were mostly waged outside of Germany, raising questions about whose voices prevail in the digital representation of local places. The article concludes with a discussion of the results and directions for future work on the development of the methodology and the analysis of further cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Fairwork project in South Africa, in which lawyers and social scientists work to create labour standards for digital platform workers. Also cited are the proposed public ranking system to enhance the working conditions of said workers, the growing popularity of gig economy, and the employment rights of said employees like fair pay, fair contract, and fair management.

The extensive array of bHLH transcription factors and their combinations as dimers underpin the diversity of molecular function required for cell type specification during embryogenesis. The bHLH factor TWIST1 plays pleiotropic roles during development. However, which combinations of TWIST1 dimers are involved and what impact each dimer imposes on the gene regulation network controlled by TWIST1 remain elusive. In this work, proteomic profiling of human-TWIST1 expressing cell lines and transcriptome analysis of mouse cranial mesenchyme have revealed that TWIST1 homodimer and heterodimers with TCF3, TCF4, and TCF12 E-proteins are the predominant dimer combinations. Disease-causing mutations in TWIST1 can impact on dimer formation or shift the balance of different types of TWIST1- dimers in the cell, which may underpin the defective differentiation of the craniofacial mesenchyme. Functional analyses of the loss and gain of TWIST1-E-protein dimer activity have revealed previously unappreciated roles in guiding lineage differentiation of embryonic stem cells: TWIST1-E-protein heterodimers activate the differentiation of mesoderm and neural crest cells, which is accompanied by the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. At the same time, TWIST1 homodimers maintain the stem cells in a progenitor state and block entry to the endoderm lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the efforts to integrate arts within the school curriculum through science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM), and Design Thinking as one approach to implement STEAM. Also cited are how STEAM education and Design Thinking can foster economic innovation, promote entrepreneurial literacy, and train students to be able to work within capitalist designer economy.

We propose the construction of a Digital Knowledge Economy Index, quantified by way of measuring content creation and participation through digital platforms, namely the code sharing platform GitHub, the crowdsourced encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and Internet domain registrations and estimating a fifth sub-index for the World Bank Knowledge Economy Index for year 2012. This approach complements conventional data sources such as national statistics and expert surveys and helps reflect the underlying digital content creation, capacities, and skills of the population. An index that combines traditional and novel data sources can provide a more revealing view of the status of the world's digital knowledge economy and highlight where the (un)availability of digital resources may actually reinforce inequalities in the age of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is seen by the South African government as key to employment generation. BPO operations are reasonably footloose and the industry's immense focus on workplace control and high levels of attrition means that the development potential of the BPO industry on workers in South Africa is a matter of critical concern. This article uses the global production network (GPN) framework to understand the developmental potentials of contact center jobs for workers in South Africa. The key argument is that economic upgrading among contact center firms can lead to both social upgrading and downgrading among workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment in art is notoriously difficult and is probably best approached with skepticism. Artistry is notoriously difficult to assess. Yet measures of student learning in art are needed for both advocacy and art education policy. Assessments, particularly large-scale assessments, influence funding and educational policy at all levels. This article explores some of the challenges of assessment in the visual arts and critically examines the Advanced Placement Studio Art Portfolio to illustrate how a product-oriented assessment might influence teaching and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metriorhynchids are an extinct group of Jurassic-Cretaceous crocodylomorphs secondarily adapted to a marine lifestyle. A new metriorhynchid crocodylomorph from the Oxford Clay Formation (Callovian, Middle Jurassic) of England is described. The specimen is a large, fragmentary skull and associated single ramus of a lower jaw uniquely preserved in a septarian concretion. The description of the specimen reveals a series of autapomorphies (apicobasal flutings on the middle labial surface of the tooth crowns, greatly enlarged basoccipital tuberosities) and a unique combination of characters that warrant the creation of a new genus and species: Ieldraan melkshamensis gen. et sp. nov. This taxon shares numerous characters with the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous genus Geosaurus: tooth crowns that have three apicobasal facets on their labial surface, subtly ornamented skull and lower jaws elements, and reception pits along the lateral margin of the dentary (maxillary overbite). Phylogenetic analysis places this new species as the sister taxon to Geosaurus. The new taxon adds valuable information on the time of origin of the macrophagous subclade Geosaurini, which was initially thought to have evolved and radiated during the Late Jurassic. The presence of Ieldraan melkshamensis, the phylogenetic re-evaluation of Suchodus durobrivensis as a Plesiosuchus sister taxon and recently identified Callovian Dakosaurus-like specimens in the Oxford Clay Formation, indicate that all major Geosaurini lineages originated earlier than previously supposed. This has major implications for the evolution of macropredation in the group. Specifically, we can now demonstrate that the four different forms of true ziphodonty observed in derived geosaurins independently evolved from a single non-functional microziphodont common ancestor. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7A400670-A339-463F-8CD4-8704745CB312 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The macroautophagy/autophagy-inducing disaccharide, trehalose, has been proposed to be a promising therapeutic agent against neurodegenerative and cardiometabolic diseases. We recently showed that trehalose attenuates hepatic steatosis in part by blocking hepatocyte glucose transport to induce hepatocyte autophagic flux. However, although every major demonstration of trehalose action invokes activating autophagic flux as its primary function, the mechanism of action of trehalose in whole-body energy metabolism remains poorly defined. Here, we demonstrate that trehalose induces hepatocyte TFEB (transcription factor EB)-dependent thermogenesis in vivo, concomitant with upregulation of hepatic and white adipose expression of UCP1 (uncoupling protein 1 [mitochondrial, protein carrier]). Mechanistically, we provide evidence that hepatocyte fasting transcriptional and metabolic responses depend upon PPARGC1A (peroxisome proliferative activated receptor, gamma, coactivator 1 alpha), TFEB, and FGF21 (fibroblast growth factor 21) signaling. Strikingly, hepatocyte-selective TFEB knockdown abrogated trehalose induction of thermogenesis and white adipose tissue UCP1 upregulation in vivo. In contrast, we found that trehalose action on thermogenesis was independent of LEP (leptin) and the autophagy pathway, as there was robust thermogenic induction in trehalose-treated ob/ob, Becn1, Atg16l1, and Epg5 mutant mice. We conclude that trehalose induces metabolically favorable effects on whole-body thermogenesis in part via hepatocyte-centered fasting-like mechanisms that appear to be independent of autophagic flux. Our findings elucidate a novel mechanism by which trehalose acts as a metabolic therapeutic agent by activating hepatic fasting responses. More broadly, the hepatic glucose fasting response may be of clinical utility against overnutrition-driven disease, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the dynamics of the digital knowledge economy, it is crucial to reveal the geography of global flows of knowledge on digital platforms. This article visualizes a key form of knowledge production in the digital economy: mapping the joint collaborations of users from different cities on Stack Overflow, the world's most popular question-and-answer website for programming questions. The network map reveals that users from only a limited number of places are actively taking part in the exchange of programming knowledge. While Stack Overflow access and participation are theoretically unrestricted, contributions are clustered in metropolitan regions in North America, Western Europe, and South Asia. CODE AND DATA [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the elementary art education at the John Philips Sousa School in Port Washington, New York. It describes how the school decorates its walls by students' artwork and discusses student's engagement in school's art room and Steve Moore's art class. It discusses education innovation with improvisation and collaboration and the process of Darwin's Paradox.

The author shares her experiences with connecting place to her own artistic identity and to her work as an elementary art teacher in the U.S. She explains the importance of developing deeper understandings of the creative process to both students and teachers. She also discusses her observation that art educators ignore the ways artists work by asking students to create work based on the subject used by the artists.

In recent years, Internet connectivity has greatly improved across the African continent. This article examines the consequences that this shift has had for East African firms that are part of global value chains (GVCs). Prior work yielded contradictory expectations: firms might benefit from connectivity through increased efficiencies and improved access to markets, although they might also be further marginalized through increasing control of lead firms. Drawing on extensive qualitative research in Kenya and Rwanda, including 264 interviews, we examine 3 sectors (tea, tourism, and business process outsourcing) exploring overarching, cross-cutting themes. The findings support more pessimistic expectations: small African producers are only thinly digitally integrated in GVCs. Moreover, shifting modes of value chain governance, supported by lead firms and facilitated by digital information platforms and data standards are leading to new challenges for firms looking to digitally integrate. Nevertheless, we also find examples in these sectors of opportunities where small firms are able to cater to emerging niche customers, and local or regional markets. Overall, the study shows that improving connectivity does not inherently benefit African firms in GVCs without support for complementary capacity and competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every day, billions of Internet users rely on search engines to find information about places to make decisions about tourism, shopping, and countless other economic activities. In an opaque process, search engines assemble digital content produced in a variety of locations around the world and make it available to large cohorts of consumers. Although these representations of place are increasingly important and consequential, little is known about their characteristics and possible biases. Analyzing a corpus of Google search results generated for 188 capital cities, this article investigates the geographic dimension of search results, focusing on searches such as “Lagos” and “Rome” on different localized versions of the engine. This study answers these questions: To what degree is this city-related information locally produced and diverse? Which countries are producing their own representations and which are represented by others? Through a new indicator of localness of search results, we identify the factors that contribute to shape this uneven digital geography, combining several development indicators. The development of the publishing industry and scientific production appears as a fairly strong predictor of localness of results. This empirical knowledge will support efforts to curb the digital divide, promoting a more inclusive, democratic information society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After observing the growth of the Indian and Filipino Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sectors, Kenyan policy-makers and managers made substantial investments in international internet infrastructure and BPO marketing campaigns. While observers continue to discuss the sector in terms of its international work opportunities, in recent years the sector has increasingly focused on contracts sourced from Kenyan and other East African clients. The government has also refocused efforts on attracting international BPO companies. This domestic turn signals both the difficulties of gaining access to overseas work due to the power of incumbents and the increasing use of the internet and ICT-enabled automation within Kenyan organisations. In effect, better connectivity has enabled a two-way globalisation of services: Kenyan BPO companies can access international work opportunities but connectivity has also contributed to the inflow of international business practices into Kenya. The conclusion examines what these shifts might entail for the sector and its workers in future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Information about the roundtable discussion presented at the European Association of Social Anthropologists' biennial conference held in Tallinn, Estonia on July 31 through August 3, 2014 is presented. The aim of the discussion explores the meaning of anthropology for LGBT people and its contribution to the discipline after its emergence in the academia. The discussion was participated by several anthropologists including Paul Boyce, Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, and EJ Gonzalez-Polledo.

There are now more than 3 billion Internet users on our planet. The connections afforded to all of those people, in theory, allow for an unprecedented amount of communication and public participation. The goal of this article is to examine how those potentials match up to actual patterns of participation. By focusing on Wikipedia, the world's largest and most used repository of user-generated content, we are able to gain important insights into the geographies of voice and participation. This article shows that the relative democratization of the Internet has not brought about a concurrent democratization of voice and participation. Despite the fact that it is widely used around the world, Wikipedia is characterized by highly uneven geographies of participation. The goal of highlighting these inequalities is not to suggest that they are insurmountable. Our regression analysis shows that the availability of broadband is a clear factor in the propensity of people to participate on Wikipedia. The relationship is not a linear one, though. As a country approaches levels of connectivity above about 450,000 broadband Internet connections, the ability of broadband access to positively affect participation keeps increasing. Complicating this issue is the fact that participation from the world's economic peripheries tends to focus on editing about the world's cores rather than their own local regions. These results ultimately point to an informational magnetism that is cast by the world's economic cores, virtuous and vicious cycles that make it difficult to reconfigure networks and hierarchies of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hypertriglyceridemia is a common feature of many metabolic disorders and has been identified as risk factor for cardiovascular disease. ApoC-III is commonly associated with triglyceride rich lipoproteins and has been identified as a potent modulator of plasma TG levels. The purpose of this review is to provide background on apoC-III and its role in the regulation of plasma TG and lipoprotein metabolism and to highlight preclinical and genetic evidence supporting apoC-III as a central target in cardiovascular disease progression. Finally, recent results from clinical trials evaluating a second generation antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) inhibitor of apoC-III will be summarized and the potential impact such a drug could have in the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia and associated comorbidities will be highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The movements of ideas and content between locations and languages are unquestionably crucial concerns to researchers of the information age, and Twitter has emerged as a central, global platform on which hundreds of millions of people share knowledge and information. A variety of research has attempted to harvest locational and linguistic metadata from tweets to understand important questions related to the 300 million tweets that flow through the platform each day. Much of this work is carried out with only limited understandings of how best to work with the spatial and linguistic contexts in which the information was produced, however. Furthermore, standard, well-accepted practices have yet to emerge. As such, this article studies the reliability of key methods used to determine language and location of content in Twitter. It compares three automated language identification packages to Twitter's user interface language setting and to a human coding of languages to identify common sources of disagreement. The article also demonstrates that in many cases user-entered profile locations differ from the physical locations from which users are actually tweeting. As such, these open-ended, user-generated profile locations cannot be used as useful proxies for the physical locations from which information is published to Twitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many people, internet access is an essential part of everyday economic, social, and political activities (c.f. Graham and Dutton 2014). Yet access to the internet is, and has always been, geographically concentrated (Graham, Hale, and Stephens 2012, 2011). As such, it is important to focus on the people and places that are largely left out of digital connectivity. This visualisation looks at these in terms of internet penetration (i.e. the share of their population that have “used the Internet (from any location) in the last 12 months” (source: UN 2015)). The map highlights all territories that either have internet penetration below 10%, or for which no data from the World Bank exists. A lack of data can exist for several reasons, for example: some of these territories are statistically grouped together with bigger entities, no data have been collected or inferred, or the territories lack widespread recognised statehood. The map ultimately highlights an archipelago of land whose population is mostly cut off from the internet. This Archipelago of Disconnection has its centre of gravity in Sub-Saharan Africa where 28 countries have internet penetration rates beneath the 10% threshold we applied. As the internet becomes ever more embedded into global economic flows (Malecki and Morisset 2011), to the inhabitation of urban spaces (Graham 2013), and to other facets of everyday life, those living in the Archipelago of Disconnection are largely barred from participating in the cultural, educational, political, and economic activities that it affords. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Geographies of codified knowledge have always been characterized by stark core–periphery patterns, with some parts of the world at the center of global voice and representation and many others invisible or unheard. Many have pointed to the potential for radical change, however, as digital divides are bridged and 2.5 billion people are now online. With a focus on Wikipedia, which is one of the world's most visible, most used, and most powerful repositories of user-generated content, we investigate whether we are now seeing fundamentally different patterns of knowledge production. Even though Wikipedia consists of a massive cloud of geographic information about millions of events and places around the globe put together by millions of hours of human labor, the encyclopedia remains characterized by uneven and clustered geographies: There is simply not a lot of content about much of the world. The article then moves to describe the factors that explain these patterns, showing that although just a few conditions can explain much of the variance in geographies of information, some parts of the world remain well below their expected values. These findings indicate that better connectivity is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the presence of volunteered geographic information about a place. We conclude by discussing the remaining social, economic, political, regulatory, and infrastructural barriers that continue to disadvantage many of the world's informational peripheries. The article ultimately shows that, despite many hopes that a democratization of connectivity will spur a concomitant democratization of information production, Internet connectivity is not a panacea and can only ever be one part of a broader strategy to deepen the informational layers of places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of the television series "Art in the Twenty-First Century," developed by the non-profit organization Art21, by high school art teachers in their classrooms. The authors suggest that the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" programs are an excellent resource for introducing students to the work of contemporary artists. Particular focus is paid to a 10th-grade classroom that employed the television show to study the work of artist Mark Bradford. The authors note that Bradford's art, particularly the way in which he transforms found materials and texts into collages, installations and sculptures, exemplifies some of the ways in which contemporary artists go about their work.

A visual artist and teaching artist considers teaching as performative, conceptual arts practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of silk occupies a unique place in Thai cultural and economic practices. However, the practice is rarely passed on to the younger generation and is widely considered to be a dying craft. In response, influential organizations have proposed use of the internet as a way to reinvigorate the industry and attract new customers. This paper looks at the discourses used to sell silk and the ways in which sellers are either framing Thai silk as a traditional craft in need of saving or as an enterprise that efficiently engages with the commercial needs of the global economy. The paper reviews the range of, often problematic, emotions, images, and associations used to sell a dying craft. Ultimately, it argues that, in contrast to many of the theorized effects of the internet, it seems to be neither encouraging mass homogenization nor pushing sellers to effectively integrate themselves into global markets. La producción de la seda ocupa un lugar único en la cultura y las prácticas económicas tailandesas. Sin embargo, la práctica pasa muy raramente a la generación más joven y está ampliamente considerada como una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Como respuesta, organizaciones influyentes han propuesto el uso de internet como una vía para reforzar la industria y atraer nuevos clientes. Este artículo examina las discusiones que se usaron para vender la seda y las maneras en que los vendedores están ya sea conceptualizando a la seda tailandesa como una artesanía tradicional que hay que salvar, o como una empresa que se compromete eficientemente con las necesidades comerciales de la economía global. El artículo revisa la serie de asociaciones, imágenes y emociones frecuentemente problemáticas, usadas para vender una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Finalmente, sostiene que en contraste con muchos de los efectos teorizados de internet, parece ser que no está animando a una homogenización de masa ni empujando a los vendedores a integrarse efectivamente a los mercados globales. 丝绸生产在泰国经济与文化的各行业中占据独特地位。然而，此行业却鲜能薪火相传，且被广泛认为是一门挣扎在死亡线上的工艺。为了挽救该行业，有影响力的组织已经提议使用因特网重振该产业，并吸引新的消费者。本文审视用来出售丝绸的话语体系，以及（丝绸）卖家的方式，他们或者定位泰国丝绸为一门需要拯救的传统工艺，或者为一个可以有效地与全球经济的商业需求相联系的企业。本文评估了用来营销一个濒于灭绝行业的做法，尽管它们都是有问题的，例如，动之以情、树立形象和建立联络。最后，与因特网的许多理论化效应做了对比，本文认为，这种做法激励大规模的同质化，有助于卖家有效地融入全球市场。 يحتل إنتاج الحرير مكانةً متفردةً في الممارسات الثقافية والاقتصادية في تايلند. ومع ذلك، فنادراً ما تُنقل هذه الممارسات إلى الأجيال الأصغر، كما يُنظر إليها على نطاق واسع باعتبارها صنعة منقرضة. ورداً على ذلك، اقترحت بعض المنظمات ذات النفوذ استخدام الإنترنت لإعادة إحياء تلك الصناعة واكتساب عملاء جدد. وتتناول هذه الدراسة أنواع الخطاب المستخدمة لبيع الحرير، والطرق التي يلجأ إليها البائعون لتصوير الحرير التايلندي إما باعتباره صنعة تقليدية تتطلب الحفاظ عليها وإما باعتباره استثماراً يدخل بجدارة في المتطلبات التجارية للاقتصاد العالمي. وتتناقش الدراسة أنماط المشاعر والصور والارتباطات المستخدمة لترويج صنعة منقرضة، وهي أنماط كثيراً ما تنطوي على إشكاليات. وتخلص الد&#x63 비단 생산은 타이 문화와 경제에서 독특한 위치를 차지하고 있다. 그렇지만, 비단생산은 젊은 세대에게 거의 전수되지 않고 사라져 가는 수공업으로 간주된다. 대응해서 영향력 있는 조직들이 산업을 다시 부흥시키고 새로운 고객을 유치하기 위하여 인터넷 사용을 제안하였다. 이 논문은 비단을 팔기 위해 사용된 담론과 판매자들이 타이 비단을 보호가 필요한 전통 산업으로 프레이밍하거나 혹은 세계 경제의 상업적 필요에 효율적으로 개입하는 기업으로서 프레이밍하는 방식을 살펴본다. 이 글은 죽어가는 공예품을 팔기 위해 사용되는 때로는 문제가 되는 감정, 이미지와 단체들을 살펴본다. 궁극적으로 이론적으로 다루어진 많은 인터넷 효과와는 대조적으로 인터넷은 대량 동질화를 촉진시키기도 않았고, 판매자들을 세계 시장으로 통합시키지도 않았다는 것을 주장한다. Производство шелка занимает уникальное место в тайской культурной и экономической практиках. Однако, практику ремесла редко передают молодому поколению и, как широко полагают, оно является умирающим. В ответ влиятельные организации предложили использование Интернета как способа вдохнуть новую жизнь в отрасль и привлечь новых клиентов. Эта статья рассматривает дискурс, который используется для продажи шелка и способы, которыми продавцы преподносят тайский шелк в качестве традиционного ремесла, нуждающегося в сохранении или как предприятия, которое эффективно взаимодействует с коммерческими потребностями мировой экономики. В статье рассматрив&#x4 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Despite the availability of statins and other lipid-lowering drugs, cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in the USA and all industrialized nations, highlighting the need for additional therapeutic modalities. Antisense oligonucleotides, which are designed to alter the metabolism of RNA, are a new class of therapeutic agents that shows great promise for the treatment of dyslipidemias. A key advantage of the technology is the ability to selectively inhibit targets that cannot be modulated by traditional therapeutics such as structural proteins, transcription factors, lipoproteins, miRNAs and emerging factors that may influence lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. This review will describe the antisense technology platform, highlight preclinical data of antisense oligonucleotides targeting several risk factors that contribute to dyslipidemia and finally summarize the preclinical and clinical results relating to mipomersen, the most advanced cardiovascular antisense therapeutic agent, a second-generation 2' methoxyethyl gapmer inhibitor of human ApoB-100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As future physicians, questions about when medical students realize they will have to teach remain under-explored. Aim: To understand when students serving in pre-clinical teaching roles make the connection between teaching and being a physician. Methods: Medical students involved in a peer instruction program included: (1) archived first-year student interview candidate data ( n == 60/150); (2) focus groups of first-year students selected as instructors ( n == 16/60); and (3) focus groups of second-year students ( n == 16/24) who taught for the program. A modified extended-term mixed-method research design involved data from the pre-hire interviews and post-hire focus group. Results: Prior to teaching, none of the first year interviewees made an explicit connection between teaching and being a physician. The new instructors selected to teach minimally made a connection and only after prompting. The majority of the experienced instructors did make the connection; however, and did so spontaneously. Conclusion: It was only after they taught medicine-related material that students saw the benefits of teaching as a way of preparing for becoming a physician and not merely as a way to review or help their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the representation of physical places on the Internet or what we term cyberscape. While there is a wide range of online place-related information available, this project uses the metric of the number of user-generated Google Maps placemarks containing specific keywords in locations worldwide. After setting out the methods behind this research, this article provides a cartographic analysis of these cyberscapes and examines how they inform us about the material world. Visibility and invisibility in material space are increasingly being defined by prominence, ranking, and presence on the Internet, and Google has positioned itself as a highly authoritative source of online spatial information. As such, any distinct spatial patterns within uploaded information have the potential to become real and reinforced as Google is relied upon as a mirror of the offline world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many K-12 art teachers have rich artistic backgrounds and continue to be active as artists in spite of the challenges of time, energy, and stereotypes that insist a real artist would not teach. This article describes a research project that examined the educational dynamic engendered by teachers who are also artists. We interviewed and observed teachers to explore how teachers' personal artistry and artistic activities beyond school contributed to their teaching in school. It was clear that some teaching artists changed the educational dynamic of the classroom in ways that invigorated both the content and practice of teaching and learning. They cultivated complex learning environments that disrupted predictable approaches to schooling by creating unstructured and hospitable spaces characterized by play, conversation, and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums and their roles as cultural institutions have evolved rapidly in the last 50 years. A growing trend toward broadened mandates and other factors have created resource challenges that encourage new opportunities. Although this paper focuses on natural history museums, similar arguments for co-staffing could be formulated for other museums. For natural history museums, the resource challenge extends to a dwindling number of systematics experts who are essential in acquiring specimens for the collection, creating new knowledge about them through research, and in providing information that is valuable to the full range of other museum programs. This paper reviews existing models for maintaining scientific expertise at museums, and details a new model to acquire and maintain scientific expertise through a case study at one of Canada's national museums and a local university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of education reform policy and misconceptions about artistry and artistic assessment, visual art education remains in the margins of high school education. One response to the lack of supportive arts education policy is the Advanced Placement (AP) Studio Art Program, a visual arts assessment at the high school level that engages large numbers of students in rigorous art experiences. This article reviews the structure and characteristics of the AP portfolio assessment as a basis for critique and policy analysis. At issue are the reliability of this assessment's measurements and its level of credibility with key constituencies. These concerns are especially relevant in a testing culture in which objective evaluations are highly regarded and art education programs are often threatened. The authors suggest possibilities for future research and policy recommendations for secondary art education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy ventures more frequently into the sphere of environmental ethics and makes pronouncements on large-scale environmental problems, its effectiveness will consistently be undercut by its commitment to what is traditionally called "Catholic act analysis," which when used to evaluate a host of commonplace actions leads Catholics to believe that they are morally unproblematic. Yet when these same actions are performed day after day and year after year, they contribute to many large-scale environmental problems that are unquestionably harmful—and are often viewed negatively by the Catholic hierarchy. At some point, this pattern of approving morally of certain actions the cumulative, corporate side effects of which cause pernicious environmental problems will strain the Catholic Church's credibility on environmental matters—and until the hierarchy reexamines its commitment to Catholic act analysis, this dilemma will be unavoidable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the Advanced Placement (AP) Studio Art program. The author believes that the program creates an enabling constraint on students' work. He argues that this constraint arises due to the nature of the portfolio that students must put together. He believes that students are aware of how these portfolios are assessed and this shapes the way they approach producing and selecting works to comprise their portfolio.