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Social media has provided challenges and opportunities for education for democracy. There have always been structural elements of communication that are hidden and perpetuate inequalities. Social media has accelerated and empowered these hidden structures through algorithms. In this argumentative essay, we examine how critical media literacy can uncover hidden power structures and support education for democracy. Critical media literacy can help students identify exclusionary, inaccurate, missing, and polarizing elements of social media while examining and discussing issues and events. Seen through this lens, social media provides opportunities for education for democracy. Critical media literacy and education for democracy provide opportunities for increasing civic engagement and renewal.

In drag-based swimming, individual propulsors operating at low Reynolds numbers (where viscous forces dominate over inertial forces) must execute a spatially asymmetric stroke to produce net fluid displacement. Temporal asymmetry (that is, differing duration between the power vs. recovery stroke) does not affect the overall generated thrust in this time-reversible regime. Metachronal rowing, in which multiple appendages beat sequentially, is used by a wide variety of organisms from low to intermediate Reynolds numbers. At the upper end of this range, inertia becomes important, and increasing temporal asymmetry can be an effective way to increase thrust. However, the combined effects of spatial and temporal asymmetry are not fully understood in the context of metachronal rowing. To explore the role of spatiotemporal asymmetry in metachronal rowing, we combine laboratory experiments and reduced-order analytical modeling. We measure beat kinematics and generated flows in two species of lobate ctenophores across a range of body sizes, from 7 to 40 mm in length. We observe characteristically different flows in ctenophores of differing body size and Reynolds number, and a general decrease in spatial asymmetry and increase in temporal asymmetry with increasing Reynolds number. We also construct a one-dimensional mathematical model consisting of a row of oscillating flat plates whose flow-normal areas change with time, and use it to explore the propulsive forces generated across a range of Reynolds numbers and kinematic parameters. The model results show that while both types of asymmetry increase force production, they have different effects in different regions of the parameter space. These results may have strong biological implications, as temporal asymmetry can be actively controlled while spatial asymmetry is likely to be partially or entirely driven by passive fluid-structure interaction.

Full paper presented at the Association of Fashion & Textile Courses (FTC) conference Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice, University of Bolton, UK, 23rd-24th January 2019.Futurescan 4: Valuing PracticeEdited by: Helena Britt, Kevin Almond, Laura MorganISBN: 978-1-5272-4969-1

The culture of pelagic marine invertebrates, especially the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, has been demonstrated in past studies dating back to the 1960s; however, the mass culture of delicate pelagic invertebrates has remained elusive. By using a pair of acrylic tubes and enabling water diffusion between them, we have been able to reliably and cost effectively mass culture several genera of ctenophores (Pleurobrachia, Hormiphora, Bolinopsis, Mnemiopsis and Leucothea), one species of siphonophore (Nanomia) and one species of larvacean (Oikopleura). The simple, compact method is effective enough to support two permanent exhibits of ctenophores at the Monterey Bay Aquarium while minimizing live food culture requirements with the potential to support further investigation of pelagic marine invertebrate ontogeny, ecology and genomics.

Background Detailed knowledge of the dimensions and shape of the main arteries of the body and how they change with age and disease is important for understanding arterial pathophysiology and improving minimally invasive devices to treat arterial diseases. Our goal was to describe and compare geometric remodeling of the aorta and peripheral arteries in the context of patient demographics and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods Three-dimensional reconstructions of computed tomography angiography scans were performed in 122 subjects 5–93 years of age (mean 47 ± 24 years, 64 M/58 F). Best-fit arterial diameters, lengths, and tortuosity for the principle named arteries in the chest, abdomen, pelvis, and upper thigh were measured, and multiple linear regression analysis was performed to examine how these morphologic parameters associate with patient demographics and risk factors. Results Large elastic arteries increased their diameter, length, and tortuosity with age, whereas muscular arteries primarily became more tortuous. Demographics and risk factors explained >70% of the variation in diameters of the abdominal aorta, paravisceral aorta, and the aortic arch; and >75% of variation in tortuosity from the profunda femoris to the brachiocephalic artery. Male sex, larger body mass index, and hypertension contributed to larger diameters, whereas the presence of diabetes was associated with somewhat-straighter arteries. Overall, the effects of cardiovascular risk factors on geometric remodeling were small compared with those of demographics. Conclusion The geometry of the vascular tree is greatly affected by aging, demographics, and some risk factors. Elastic and muscular arteries remodel differently, possibly as the result of differences in their microstructure.

Jellyfish have become a topic of interest of many marine scientists and managers alike due to their conspicuous socio-economic and environmental impacts. However, our knowledge about their "everyday life" remains limited. While electronic tags (transmitters and loggers) have been extensively used to study marine vertebrates for the past 50 years, tagging is still in its infancy for marine invertebrates and jellyfish in particular. Progress has been hampered by the difficulty and limited knowledge of attaching tags to soft-bodied animals. We argue that there is huge potential to use tagging to gather basic information on the ecology and behaviour of these species. Here, we give an overview of what has been learned so far by deploying tags on jellyfish, and why tagging is an appropriate method to study their behaviour and ecology. We then describe different tagging techniques, their advantages, disadvantages and challenges, and the steps to ensure future successful jellyfish tagging studies.

Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) practitioners and developers are typically also users of their own systems: as a result, traditional software engineering (SE) processes (e.g., the requirements and design phases), take less time to articulate and negotiate among FLOSS developers. Design and requirements are kept more as informal knowledge, rather than formally described and assessed. This paper attempts to recover the SE concepts of software design and architectures from three FLOSS case studies, sharing the same application domain (i.e., Instant Messaging). Its first objective is to determine whether a common architecture emerges from the three systems, which can be used as shared knowledge for future applications. The second objective is to determine whether these architectures evolve or decay during the evolution of these systems. The results of this study are encouraging: albeit no explicit effort was done by FLOSS developers to define a high-level view of the architecture, a common shared architecture could be distilled for the Instant Messaging application domain. It was also found that, for two of the three systems, the architecture becomes better organised, and the components better specified, as long as the system evolves in time.

Using Open Source Software (OSS) in undergraduate teaching in universities is now commonplace. Students use OSS applications and systems in their courses on programming, operating systems, DBMS, web development to name but a few. Studying OSS projects from both a product and a process view also forms part of the software engineering curriculum at various universities. Many students have taken part in OSS projects as well as developers. At the University of Lincoln, under the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme (UROS), undergraduate student researchers have the chance to work over the summer embedded within an existing research centre on a UROS project. Here two such projects within the Centre for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) are described: Collaborative Development for the XO Laptop (CODEX) and Software Modularity in Open Source Software (SoMOSS). The CODEX project focused on creating resources to support students undertaking software application development for the XO laptop, and the SoMOSS project focused on architectural studies of OSS instant messaging software. Both projects achieved successful research outcomes; more importantly, both student researchers benefited directly from the encouragement and concrete assistance that they received through interaction with the wider OSS research community. Both projects are ongoing and present further research opportunities for students.