A moral conundrum for philosophy of coaching is the noticeable parallel between the growth of the coaching industry and the unprecedented growth of mental health issues in western societies. Even if wellbeing of employees is not the only purpose of coaching interventions, they should at least not in any way be responsible for its undermining. Unfortunately, a number of ‘beautiful ideas’ which have become thematic in the coaching industry may be playing a detrimental role at both the personal level and for wellbeing of society as a whole. In this paper we focus on three: ‘Positive Psychology’, ‘Mindfulness’, and ‘Transformational Coaching’. On the face of it these ‘beautiful ideas’ appear to be unquestionably beneficial. However, they have been largely accepted into the mainstream thinking of coaches without too much critical consideration. The aim of this paper is to explore the shadow side of these beautiful ideas for the wellbeing of people in organisations and the role of coaching in relation to them. Our …
In 1966 Foucault bradcast a talk on French radio about ‘heterotopia’. These, he claimed, were institutional spaces which could be identified as being part of society, but at the same time outside contemporary social and political norms in their structure, discourses and iconography. The discourses and enactments of ‘playwork’ frequently occur in shared spaces, in which they come up against powerful conter-discourses, particularly those generated by educational institutions. A (re)turning to data collected in three primary schools and their partner nursery and out of school provision, revealed tensions and opportunities for playwork and playworkers during school playtimes and before and after school activities.
It is widely assumed that by identifying spelling errors and suggesting replacement words, spellcheck allows writers to revise spelling errors even if they do not have the necessary spelling knowledge. However, there have been no studies evaluating the efficacy of modern spellcheck tools for students with spelling difficulties, such as dyslexia. In fact, the very limited and dated research into use of spellcheck by writers with dyslexia indicated that, even when using spellcheck to revise spelling errors, this group left many misspellings in their texts. The current study is the first to investigate whether a modern spellcheck program allows college students with dyslexia to produce texts that are as free from misspellings as texts by their peers, and whether this affects the quality of the text in other ways. College students with dyslexia (n=18) and a control group of peers (n=18) wrote two short essays using Microsoft Word, one with spellcheck active and one without spellcheck active. Spelling accuracy an…
Neuromorphic computing is gaining momentum as an alternative hardware platform for large-scale neural simulation. However, with several major devices and systems available and planned, often with very different characteristics, it is not always clear which platform is suitable for which application. Simulating the platform on conventional computers is typically too slow to be of use, but an alternative approach is to implement an ‘emulation’ of the hardware in FPGAs which can execute at near-hardware speeds but does not commit to a specific hardware architecture. We present an overlay model - a method which superimposes bespoke features on top of a standard template - in both hardware and software to implement neuromorphic architectures using the POETS (Partially Ordered Event Triggered Systems) system. This combination of overlays permits very large-scale simulations to be performed in real time for hardware exploration or application verification, while retaining the flexibility to redefine either the hardw…
Eukaryotic flagella are complex microtubule based organelles and in many organisms there are extra axonemal structures present, including the outer dense fibres of mammalian sperm and the paraflagellar rod (PFR) of trypanosomes. Flagellum assembly is a complex process occurring across three main compartments, the cytoplasm, the transition fibre-transition zone, and the flagellum. It begins with translation of protein components, followed by their sorting and trafficking into the flagellum, transport to the assembly site and then incorporation. Flagella are formed from over 500 proteins; the principles governing axonemal component assembly are relatively clear. However, the coordination and sites of extra-axonemal structure assembly processes are less clear. We have discovered two cytoplasmic proteins in T. brucei that are required for PFR formation, PFR assembly factors 1 and 2. Deletion of either PFR-AF1 or PFR-AF2 dramatically disrupted PFR formation and caused a reduction in the amount of major PFR protein…
This article is about online hate speech propagated via platforms operated by social media companies (SMCs). It examines the options open to states in forcing SMCs to take responsibility for the hateful content that appears on their sites. It examines the technological and legal context for imposing legal obligations on SMCs, and analyses initiatives in Germany, the UK, the EU and elsewhere. It argues that whilst SMCs can play a role in controlling online hate speech, there are limitations to what they can achieve.