Royal School Research Articles

A Study to Assess the Level of Academic Procrastination among B.Sc. Nursing Students, Royal School of Nursing, the Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam

A Study to Assess the Level of Academic Procrastination among B.Sc. Nursing Students, Royal School of Nursing, the Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam

Vicente Alanís, un pintor sevillano en la Baja Extremadura. Revisión a su catálogo de obras.

Vicente Alanís was the Sevillian painter who most openly derived from late baroque aesthetics into the most typical academicism advocated by the Royal School of the Three Noble Arts, a board in which he held several positions and in which his professional career ended. In 1795 he executed the painting Animas in the parish of Santa María de la Encina and San Juan Bautista, in the town of Burguillos del Cerro, Badajoz. The canvas testifies the aroma of historical thought in a place other than a heart of power at the end of the Old Regime, and shows the importance of the of art ideas and influence trafficking. As a result of this discovery, I have been able to add some other works to his oeuvre.

Classical dance and Mediterranean imaginaries: Jia Ruskaja in Fascist Italy

Abstract Russian dancer and film actress Jia Ruskaja (Evgeniya Borisenko, 1902–70) forged a rapidly rising career in Italy as a dancer, teacher and company director during the thirties. The author of La danza come un modo di essere (1927) was a female education reformer, whose Milan dance schools were subsidized by the Fascist Regime. In 1940, she was entrusted with the directorship of the newly founded Royal School for Classical Dance. Though inspired by Isadora Duncan, in the early thirties, Ruskaja added ballet to her modern dance since she considered it crucial for the sound training of the body. According to her, the century-old codified system of ballet, once mingled with the ability to make artfully crafted movements inspired by classical imagery (‘plastique’) and rhythmic gymnastics, could transform into a new and organic physical practice, able to create a new beginning in dance. Was this so? Could her modernized ballet, imbued with the Mediterranean myth that inspired a number of artists in the twenties and thirties, convey such a modernist futural thrust, or was it rather held captive by centuries-old balletic values and culture?

Photography and electroplate in 1840s Birmingham

Industrial improvements to silver plating through the work of electroplating firms such as Elkington, Mason and Co are an important part of our industrial heritage, bridging art, science and industry to form a significant portion of museum collections. However, the impact of this development of silverplating technology upon photography has not previously been explored. This article details the improvements that electroplated silver brought to the daguerreotype photographic process and to the manufacture of daguerreotype plates in Birmingham, offering a material reappraisal of the inventive qualities of the daguerreotype within a wider narrative of industrial manufacture. Chemists in 1840s Birmingham were developing photographic techniques and silverplating processes at the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, later Queens College on Paradise Street. These scientists – George Shaw (1818–1904) and John Percy (1817–1889) – had detailed, tactile knowledge of the convergent chemistry and processes in both arenas. Developments in the industrial manufacture of silverplate in 1840s Birmingham created significant improvements to the materials used in the daguerreotype photographic process, making photography more viable as a commercial venture. Shaw planned an early portrait studio and worked with early innovators in electroplating techniques the Marrian brothers (Francis (1802–1893) and Benjamin James Pratt Marrian (1811–1891)) using magneto-plate technology developed by another Birmingham industrial entrepreneur John Woolrich (c. 1791–1843). This potential studio did not emerge due to restrictive patenting and licensing restrictions around the practice of daguerreotype photography, yet extant daguerreotypes tell a story of improvements stemming from technical innovation. These daguerreotypes situate industrial Birmingham as a place of innovation and invention and place the daguerreotype photographic process within narratives of industrial improvements and radically inventive manufacturing practices. Key to the analysis presented here is the role of the recreation of historic techniques in historical research and the value of acquiring tactile knowledge of the behaviour of materials during the processes explored. Here practical experiments allowed the author to look beyond the surviving daguerreotypes via material knowledge to the circumstances and social environment of production. This approach revealed new knowledge which offers an alternative reading of the history of objects through their materials.

Survey of students' learning experience using a virtual slaughterhouse simulator in three UK veterinary schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although visiting an abattoir is mandatory for all UK veterinary students, this was challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual simulators were temporarily approved by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Subsequently, the virtual slaughterhouse simulator (VSS) was used by the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, the University of Liverpool School of Veterinary Science and the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh. This study aimed to evaluate the student learning experience using the VSS. An online survey containing satisfaction and assessment questions was distributed to all final-year students who used the VSS from September 2020 to August 2021. A total of 207 students completed the survey (n = 207/488, 42%). Students were mostly highly satisfied and found the VSS very useful for their learning (n = 164/207,79%); however, anxiety levels to visit a real abattoir lowered for less than half of the students (n = 97/207, 46%). Most students obtained an overall mark over 50% in the assessment questions (n = 197/207, 95%). Although the findings were very positive, extrapolation to other veterinary schools and postgraduate curricula should be done cautiously. The VSS is a valid tool for training veterinary students. However, more research is advised to compare virtual and real experiences and assess students' long-term performance.

The Royal Dental Hospital of London and School (1858-1985) - First to open - First to close.

The Royal Dental Hospital and School were founded in 1858/59 as the UK's first dental school. Despite being a leading school, because of government strictures it closed its doors in 1985. The building was taken over by a hotel. Not to be forgotten, however, a group of alumni ensured its memory by obtaining a Green Plaque to be placed on its walls.

Royal ballet school

royal ballet school

The Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh: improving livestock genetics to enhance animal welfare and production for African smallholder farmers

"The Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh: improving livestock genetics to enhance animal welfare and production for African smallholder farmers" published on 01 Jan 2023 by American Veterinary Medical Association.

Research

New graduate Dr Georgia Wilson and study supervisor Dr Tim Nuttall, at the University of Edinburgh Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, are asking for your help to further their atopic dermatitis study, which is focusing on knowledge and confidence around using the different treatment options for this condition.

The The «tortuous path» of literacy in post-unitary Sardinia. The case of primary education in the province of Cagliari through the quantitative analysis of the statistics offered by the R. School Inspector Giovanni Scrivante (1861-1864)

The essay reconstructs the state of primary education in the province of Cagliari, including, the districts of Oristano, Iglesias, Lanusei and the capital, in the aftermath of the Unification of Italy. The analysis starts from the years 1861-1864, through a comparison with primary education statistics in the school year 1853-1854, when the Island was still part of the Regnum Sardiniae, exactly one lustre before the approval of the Casati Law. This comparison, in the largest and most populous province of Sardinia (13,415.22 sq. km. and 372,097 inhabitants at the 1861 census), is made through the study, re-presentation and re-elaboration of the statistical summaries presented and published by the Timon Typography of Cagliari in 1864 at the behest of the Royal School Inspector ff. di Provveditore, Giovanni Scrivante, who made use not only of his work for the years 1863 and 1864, but also of the work on the initiation and dissemination of elementary schools, carried out by his predecessor, Cav. Alberto De Gioannis, in the two-year period 1861-1862. The article addresses the status and diffusion of public and private elementary schools for both boys and girls, as well as mixed schools and evening and holiday schools for adults.
 The essay reconstructs the state of primary education in the province of Cagliari, in the aftermath of the Unification of Italy. The analysis starts from the years 1861-1864, through a comparison with primary education statistics in the school year 1853-1854. This comparison, in the largest and most populous province of Sardinia, is made through the study, re-presentation and re-elaboration of the statistical summaries presented and published in 1864 by the School Inspector Giovanni Scrivante.

Kyphosis (humpy back) in growing pigs.

This focus article has been prepared by Jill Thomson of SRUC Veterinary Services and Paul Wood and Carola Daniel of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies.

Historicizing an Ocularnormative Future for Art Education

The future of art education is shaped by its past, yet the history of art education in special or segregated schools is largely absent from authorized histories of the subject. Previous historical accounts of educational policy and practice establish art and disability as parallel concerns. However, the emergence of educational institutions to promote the visual arts and the contemporaneous establishment of segregated education for disabled children and young people indicate the significance of capitalist industrialization on the production of both. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the article examines parallel histories and the futurity they imagine via an exploration of two key texts: Arthur Efland’s A History of Art Education (1990) and Michael Royden’s history of the Royal School for the Blind in Liverpool, Pioneers and Perseverence (1991). An increased emphasis on observation and drawing as a means of enhancing quality in British design prescribed an ocularnormative future for art education at this time while education at the Royal School for the Blind shifted its emphasis from technical, craft, and arts-based training to a literacy-based education. The article discusses the relevance of these parallel concerns and the apparent inevitability of an ocularnormative future for art education.

Capacity building for wildlife health professionals: the Wildlife Health Bridge

The Wildlife Health Bridge was established in 2009 with the aim of improving the expertise and knowledge base of wildlife health professionals in biodiverse low- and middle-income countries. The Wildlife Health Bridge centres around partnerships among educational institutions: the Zoological Society of London, the Royal Veterinary College, the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, the Wildlife Institute of India, and the University of Melbourne Veterinary School. The Wildlife Health Bridge provides quality education in wildlife health, ecosystem health, and wildlife biology, facilitates the interchange of students between collaborating countries for research studies and provides a global graduate network of wildlife health professionals. In addition to established Masters’ level wildlife health training programmes run by the partner organisations, the Wildlife Health Bridge has developed a collaborative field-based course, Interventions in Wild Animal Health, provided annually in India since 2016, which has trained 138 veterinarians to date, enhancing local and international capacity in managing emerging wildlife health issues and building global professional linkages. The Wildlife Health Bridge’s Wild Animal Alumni network facilitates networking and exchange between Wildlife Health Bridge institutions and graduates, with over 701 members from 67 countries, half of which are biodiverse low- and middle-income countries. Collaboration between educational institutions has enabled new ideas and ongoing developments in the delivery of materials and learning outcomes. The Wildlife Health Bridge is building global capacity in trained wildlife health professionals, through educational programmes and a synergised network, with the aim of impacting conservation practice to benefit human, domestic animal and wildlife health.

Wiatr z Północy. Dyskursywne konstruowanie Heimat na przykładzie gmachu dawnej Królewskiej Szkoły Rzemiosł Budowlanych w Katowicach i jego wystroju

Wind from the North: The Discursive Construction of Heimat Exemplified by the Edifice of the Former Royal School of Building Crafts (Königliche Baugerwerkschule) in Katowice and its Decoration The paper examines the edifice of the former school of building crafts (Baugewerkschule) in Katowice, Upper Silesia, which opened in 1901, and its decoration. The works of architecture, painting and sculpture were interpreted as carriers of a discourse calculated to construct Heimat, located within the borders of the Prussian Silesian Province. The building’s forms, reminiscent of the brick Gothic of northern Germany, were characteristic of the milieu of the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, where the designers of the edifice were educated. The city’s coat of arms was depicted on the facade, the vaulted ceiling of the auditorium was decorated with dragon and gryphon motifs of Scandinavian origin, and its walls painted with images of St. Hedwig ‒ the patron saint of Silesia, viewed here as a deconfessionalized personification of the land ‒ the Prussian eagle, and four iconic monuments of historic Silesian architecture. Thus, references were made to various levels of identity ‒ local, regional, national, and the mythologised Germanic North. The narrative constructed in this way fits into the cultural nationalism of the educated German bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum), which grows out of the Romantic tradition. At the same time, the emphasis on the opposition of the North and South can be seen as a strategy for overcoming the peripheral status of Silesia in a world organised by the West-East axis. The school’s building in Katowice exemplifies how the elites of the German Empire used visual means to construct modern imagined communities.

PetSavers research

Gavin Paterson is currently Senior Lecturer in Molecular and Applied Microbiology at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh. He was awarded PetSaversfunding to supervise a Master’s Degree by Research project entitled Exploiting the healthy microflora to develop new treatments for Staphylococcus pseudintermedius infection in canine atopic dermatitis.

Notes on…

Abstract Tim Nuttall, Senior Lecturer in Dermatology at The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, summarizes the EMA categorization of antibiotics for use in animals for prudent and responsible use.

PRACTICAL STEPS FOR RENOVATING THE ARCHITECTURAL AND PLANNING ORGANIZATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARY BUILDINGS

The article considers the current process of implementing the concept of four spaces in the Ukrainian libraries, which was developed by experts from the Center for Cultural Policy Studies of the Royal School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Copenhagen (2006) in terms of architectural and planning reorganization of public libraries. The main results of the project-experimental work, which included the development of project documentation for the pilot project of the renovation of the public library in Odesa and a comparison of the stages of work with the information presented in the manual "Four library spaces: innovative model" (2020). The principles on which any project of renovation of library premises should be based were revealed: 1) libraries are places of professional and social development; 2) libraries should become accessible; 3) libraries are inclusive spaces; 4) libraries should be secure; 5) libraries should become convenient. It was found that the manual has a number of shortcomings and does not provide librarians with enough information to reorganize library spaces without the involvement of an architect, namely: 1) the manual does not pay enough attention to the development of universal examples of architectural and planning solutions; 2) there are no recommendations for providing transformative spaces with structures and furniture; 3) there is no emphasis on the need to implement the principles of universal design and barrier-free library spaces; 4) there are no recommendations for improving the insolation of the premises and the lighting design of individual spaces. A plan of alternative measures that need to be worked out to ensure the rapid transformation of libraries is proposed. An effective methodology should be based on the principles of universality of spaces and combinatorics of room equipment, as well as be flexible and able to scale both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Practising Chemistry in the British Empire: George Christian Hoffmann (1837-1917) and the Geological Survey of Canada

George Christian Hoffmann, of German extraction, was born in London. After studying at the Royal School of Mines and working in London as a chemical analyst, he set out on a career that took him to Natal, in south-east Africa, to Melbourne in the Australian colony of Victoria, and to Canada where he had a long career with the Geological Survey, becoming Deputy Director in 1880 and retiring in 1907. In his work with the Geological Survey, he determined the chemical composition and identity of mineral samples collected by and submitted to the Survey, assessing their economic potential.

THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF MINES: HENRY DE LA BECHE’S CONVERGENCE OF PROFESSIONALIZATION AND PUBLIC ADVOCACY

ABSTRACT Several European countries instituted mining schools in the late 1700s, including France, Germany, Hungary, and Russia. However, since England’s mining industry was privatized with little government involvement, Great Britain was decades behind with the creation of a school of mines. In 1835, Henry De la Beche (1796–1855) became the first director of the Ordnance Geological Survey, precursor to the British Geological Survey. De la Beche used this position to advance geology’s professionalization, which would include the establishment of an applied geology museum, mining records storehouse, and a school of mines. The Museum of Economic Geology, displaying the country’s mineral resources and geology, was De la Beche’s first success. Founded in 1835, it opened to the public in 1841. The Mining Records Office opened in 1840 as a repository for plans of working and abandoned mines. An early public advocate for workers’ safety, De la Beche lobbied for government inspections of collieries, immediate reporting of mining accidents, and proper plans of mines. The School of Mines was De la Beche’s third accomplishment in geology’s professionalization. As an outgrowth of the museum, it was formally opened in 1851 along with the larger Museum of Practical Geology, the Museum of Economic Geology’s successor. De la Beche’s intent for the School of Mines—instruction as a combination of science and practice—seems modern in its approach. In 1843, funding was allocated for lectures on the practical applications of geology, but these were not implemented until the School of Mines opened in 1851. In his effort to educate everyone—from miner to mine owner—De la Beche transcended social boundaries and supported open, public lectures. As a result, some considered him a class traitor. De la Beche used his position to advocate for advancement of the mining industry to include miner safety and public education. Therefore, while the Royal School of Mines emerged later than many of its European counterparts, it was part of a systematic professionalization of geology, coupled with education and a public advocacy for mining participants.

Gender Responsive Pedagogy Awareness and Practices

The discussion on gender in education is not new in Bhutan. The policies, program and political will for years aimed to achieve gender equality. Despite numerous program, strategies and policies in various forms, there is less studies done to examine its effectiveness. The main aim of this study was to find out how teachers are aware and adopt gender responsive pedagogy in their day to day teaching learning process. This study was carried out in one higher secondary school under Thimphu Thromde with mixed method by adopting non-probability convenient sampling techniques. Data was collected through test, observation and face to face interview with teachers. SPSS version 22 was used to analyze test score via mean, standard deviation and one sample t-test. The findings revealed that teachers do not know much on gender and gender responsive pedagogy. There was also less attention paid to language use, class room set up, classroom interactions and use of text books. This study recommended the Royal University of Bhutan, Ministry of Education, Royal Education Council and school to conduct professional development, training and sensitize all education stakeholders on gender responsive school and pedagogy. The Ministry of Education and schools should carry out capacity development for teachers and education officials to enable them to adopt gender responsive skills in their day to day teaching learning process and to promote positive mind set on gender equity with a bottom up approach.