Enabling transdisciplinary research: Suggestions for avoiding `road-blocks' based on a case study

In this brief plain language report we introduce a novel diagrammatic way of thinking about interactions in transdisciplinary teams. This representation is designed to provoke debate about how teams which do not share a common world view can make progress, but not necessarily direct progress, towards common goals. We further identify a range of possible problems -- which we refer to as road-blocks -- which can limit progress and reduce the effectiveness of such projects. Finally we make short suggestions about how road-blocks might be lifted. The diagrammatic representation was developed as part of the plain language notes which were kept to document the progress of a work package -- part of the Blue-Action project -- dealing with Arctic Tourism. But the report draws on wider experience of transdisciplinary working in the team and attempts an easily readable summary of some aspects of how such projects do, and do not, work. We propose that interactions between members of a team that have little in common, with respect to experience and expertise, will rarely lead to outputs that meet the goals of the project unless supplementary activities first 'recast' their views towards a common frame of reference.

Mapping pre-service teachers’ faulty reasoning in geometric translations to the design of Van Hiele phase-based instruction

Background: Pre-service teachers (PSTs) training does not equip students with adequate skills and knowledge of geometry to enable them to teach this section of mathematics competently. Inadequate teacher knowledge of transformation geometry, in particular, requires intervention that targets PSTs’ faulty reasoning displayed in errors they make.Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the use of Bachelor of Education (BEd) students’ faulty reasoning in geometric translations, in designing a Van Hiele phase-based instructional programme that could address such faulty reasoning.Setting: The setting for the study was a newly established rural university in South Africa.Methods: Tests on geometric translations were administered to BEd Foundation Phase students, followed up by interviews to explore errors made when responding to the test items. The errors were then mapped to the design of a Van Hiele phase-based instructional programme.Results: The results revealed that the students had several misconceptions with geometric translations. The misconceptions were delineated into the errors that the students displayed and these were classified under two themes. The first theme was incorrect properties of transformation and under this theme, the errors were coded as confusing translation with rotation, wrong translation method, incorrect interpretation of coordinates and confusing the x and y axis. The second theme was errors involving basic mathematics operations including wrong diagrammatic representation of coordinates and incorrect calculations.Conclusion: The study showed that if the students’ misconceptions and the resulting errors are mapped to specific instructional approaches, their faulty reasoning in geometric transformations is addressed and effective learning is enhanced.

Prosthetics for Lower Limb Amputation

The Chapter will include a brief note on Amputation, Particularly Lower Limb Amputation (LLA), Levels and Causes of LLA. Importance of Prosthetics for LLA are explained in detail. The types of Prosthesis, Application (Donning & Doffing) of prosthesis are included in this chapter. Diagrammatic representation of the prosthesis are added too. Bio mechanical component is explained in detail within this chapter. The advantages and disadvantages of each and every Lower limb Prosthesis are clearly mentioned. Moreover, the Gait analysis & Training after the application of prosthesis are discussed. The reader will get a complete picture of Prosthetics for Lower limb Amputation by going through this chapter for lower limb prosthesis.

Toward an Integrated History and Philosophy of Diagrammatic Practices

This article offers an overview of current approaches to the study of diagrams and their roles in scientific knowledge making. The discussion develops in three parts. The first investigates and questions historical and philosophical analyses of the suppression of diagrams in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It attempts to sketch an alternative historiography of diagrammatic practices in which the insights of advocates of diagrammatic reasoning in a time of “objectivity without images” take center stage. The second part turns to the American philosopher, scientist, and logician Charles Sanders Peirce as a representative defender of diagrammatic reasoning and diagrammatic representation in the late nineteenth century, and it investigates his legacy on current approaches to diagrams. The final part exposes a puzzling paradox in the literature, characterizing it as a false dichotomy between “the representational view” and the “object-based view” of diagrams. The article concludes that this dichotomy reveals more about the identities of scholars embracing particular disciplinary traditions than about diagrams themselves, and it suggests that this can be overcome by attending to diagramming as a practice at the intersections of representation, manipulation, and experimentation.