Sustainability of Organizational Change in the Newsroom: A Case Study of Australian Newspapers

This article examines the sustainability of newsroom change through the lens of an ambitious change project called “Readers First” at a group of Australian regional newspapers. Survey data were gathered over 3 consecutive years from rank-and-file newsworkers who participated in the program. It was found that, contrary to the problems usually associated with support for change programs, Readers First received sustained attitudinal support from newsworkers. Agreeing with the goals for change, feeling involved in change, and believing that managers managed change well were the best predictors of their support for change. Training in change had no discernible effect on support. Professionalism had its limits as a predictor of support.     

A distance education contribution to a social strategy to combat poverty: Open University Community Education courses in Glasgow

Attacking widespread under‐education with limited resources in the scattered, oppressed adult population of South Africa is a formidable challenge. One way of meeting this challenge could be to develop adults’ critical thinking skills, using their own experience as their main educational resource. Experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, could provide a means of achieving this aim. Research carried out at a conference on experiential learning at Natal University, Durban, provided an opportunity to assess the viability, desirability and usefulness of this educational method and aim. Participants’ responses indicate that the method is promising, although further experiment and development are necessary, particularly with different groups.

Three issues are discussed in this paper: the nature of the South African educational context, the promotion of critical thinking skills as an adult education aim, and the potential of employing experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, as a method of developing critical thinking skills.     

加强金融监管防范金融风险

随着东南亚金融危机的全面爆发,人们在对其进行诊治的同时,也在深思如何构建一套较为完整而科学的、具有普遍指导意义的、特别适合我国国情的金融监管体系.本文从目前我国金融监管体系中存在的问题出发,对金融监管体系的构建及具体运作进行了初步探讨.     

Parallel lines or divergent trajectories? A response to the other contributions

ABSTRACT

This article provides a response to the other contributions in this special issue and explores the range and scale of the opportunities for policy learning across the four UK nations. It addresses the importance of locating FE and skills policy within wider national policy contexts, national choices between markets and systems and the wider implications of these choices, and the vexed role of employers. Behind these lie three over-arching questions that are then interrogated – have we arrived at a moment when we can conceive of the UK as a policy learning laboratory, is this laboratory open for expansive policy learning, and who might be working in it?     

Truth is in the eye of the beholder: Perception of the Müller-Lyer illusion in dogs

Visual illusions are objects that are made up of elements that are arranged in such a way as to result in erroneous perception of the objects’ physical properties. Visual illusions are used to study visual perception in humans and nonhuman animals, since they provide insight into the psychological and cognitive processes underlying the perceptual system. In a set of three experiments, we examined whether dogs were able to learn a relational discrimination and to perceive the Müller-Lyer illusion. In Experiment 1, dogs were trained to discriminate line lengths using a two-alternative forced choice procedure on a touchscreen. Upon learning the discrimination, dogs’ generalization to novel exemplars and the threshold of their abilities were tested. In the second experiment, dogs were presented with the Müller-Lyer illusion as test trials, alongside additional test trials that controlled for overall stimulus size. Dogs appeared to perceive the illusion; however, control trials revealed that they were using global size to solve the task. Experiment 3 presented modified stimuli that have been known to enhance perception of the illusion in other species. However, the dogs’ performance remained the same. These findings reveal evidence of relational learning in dogs. However, their failure to perceive the illusion emphasizes the importance of using a full array of control trials when examining these paradigms, and it suggests that visual acuity may play a crucial role in this perceptual phenomenon.     

Achievement Outcomes Among High School Graduates in College and Career Readiness Programs of Study

This study investigated the relationships between completing the high school portion of a college- and career-preparatory program of study and high school achievement outcomes in a large urban district in the West. Programs of study are secondary-to-postsecondary educational programs mandated by the federal legislation (Perkins IV) governing career and technical education (CTE) in the United States. At graduation, 49.5% of students in the sample who began a program of study had completed their programs. Using multiple regression models, we compared graduates who completed a program of study (hereafter POS completers) to graduates who completed a number of CTE courses in a specific occupational area (CTE concentrators), and to graduates who may have taken a CTE course or two during high school but were neither POS completers nor CTE concentrators (All Others). POS completers were more likely to (a) have a higher overall GPA, (b) have a higher CTE GPA, and (c) earn more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) credits than All Other students. Compared with CTE concentrators, POS completers were more likely to (a) have a higher overall GPA and (b) earn more STEM credits. Qualitative data describe contextual elements of programs of study as offered in West District that could explain these results. Study results suggest that districts should consider implementing career-themed programs such as programs of study that enhance their existing college- and career-readiness initiatives. We also call for further study of the postsecondary and labor market outcomes associated with programs of study in order to generate a clearer picture of their potential to increase academic and technical achievement and promote successful student transitions to higher education and the workplace.     

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Using micro-mechanical modelling to predict short-fibre composite properties in computer-aided design of sporting equipment

Computer-aided design (CAD) of sporting equipment requires knowledge of the mechanical properties of proposed materials. The mechanical properties of composite materials are often not as simple to obtain as those of conventional materials, in which case micro-mechanical modelling could be used in conjunction with CAD software. A micro-mechanical model was used to predict the flexural modulus of composite materials, based on the assumption of partial interfacial adhesion between composite components. It was found that the partial adhesion model was both practical and consistently accurate. The partial adhesion model accounted for adhesion between components by considering an ‘effective shear value’ at the interface. The model was compared to experimental data for glass, wood and carbon-fibre reinforced polyethylene. It was shown that the adhesion coefficient ranged between 0.1 for carbon fibre, 0.5 for glass fibre and 0.8 for the wood fibre composites. It was shown that using micro-mechanical modelling to predict composite mechanical properties, as opposed to simulating the comprehensive composites structure, computer processing time and file size can be reduced with little compromise in simulation accuracy.