Foreign patent flows to and from the United Kingdom

A substantial part of the stock of technological knowhow in any given country is determined by foreign companies. Flows of technology are reflected in part by the international pattern of patenting behaviour. This paper examines both the patent applications in the UK by foreign countries and UK patent applications abroad. It concludes that each country is exposed to a subset of world-wide technology determined by the profitability of transfer of new knowhow. Profitability is affected by the size of potential supply of new inventions in donor countries, by the attractiveness of markets for knowhow in recipient countries and by the costs of transfer.     

紧生成l—群的一个结构定理

l-群G称为紧生成的，如果对于G的任意子集{αλ|λ∈Λ}且α=∨λ∈Λαλ存在，必存在{αλ|λ∈Λ}的有限子集a1、a2……an，使得a=∨ni=1ai。主要结果是：G∈F，则G是紧生成的当且仅当G的任一个l-子群是闭的，且Г（G）满足极小条件。     

Procedures for Evaluating the Impact of Complex Educational Interventions

The application of information and computer technology (ICT) to education, particularly when ICT is a component of a major school reform, raises difficult issues for program evaluation. In many cases even defining the program goal is difficult because so many different changes are often instituted at the same time: installation of a local area network, development of technical support, staff development for integrating ICT into the curriculum and for new teaching methods, and so on. To assist program developers and evaluators in gaining control of such complex interventions in education, two basic procedures are described: the history of the future and program logic mapping. The former is a goals and methods clarification scheme, built around a press release that describes at the projected end of the project what was achieved and how. The latter procedure draws on the goals defined in the history of the future, along with the project strategy, to make explicit all of the major links between project inputs and project outputs. This map then serves as a guide for planning an evaluation that would verify causal linkages as well as outcomes. For each type of node in such a diagram, appropriate evaluation techniques are defined.     

Adopting Bilingual Education: An Australian School Community's Journey

This article describes a case study of an Australian deaf facility and its changes in language policy. The study documents the process of change in a school community as the researcher worked collaboratively with teachers and parents to investigate the place of Auslan and bilingual pedagogy in deaf education. Teachers' dissatisfaction with educational outcomes and current practices propelled the discussion about language policy. Gaining the support of parents is a key feature of this study. Beliefs about language policy and practices are explored and the implications for change investigated. This is part of a larger study of deaf education and the politics of language practices (see Komesaroff, 1998).     

Are mathematics disabilities due to a domain-general or a domain-specific working memory deficit?

The relationship between verbal and visual-spatial working memory and mathematical computation skill was examined in children and adults with and without disabilities in mathematics. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that, when partialing for the influence of reading ability, age, and gender, mathematical computation was better predicted by verbal than by visual-spatial working memory. Furthermore, the results showed that the relationship between mathematics ability and working memory were not significantly moderated by age but were stable across a broad age span. We concluded that, regardless of age, deficits in mathematics are mediated by both a domain-general and a domain-specific working memory system.     

Resilience in higher education students: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The health, wellbeing and employability of university students are key considerations within higher education. In response, interest in student resilience is on the rise. Reviews of contemporary resilience literature highlight both conceptual and methodological weaknesses, issues which hamper attempts to design effective resilience interventions. To inform the design of a student resilience program, to be piloted at three Australian universities, a scoping review of resilience specific to the higher education context was undertaken. Searches of three electronic databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL and ProQuest) were conducted. Seventy-two peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 were included in the review. While the review reaffirms the conceptual and methodological issues found in previous resilience research, it provides a useful critique of key issues in relation to university student resilience and interventions to enhance students’ resilience. Recommendations for educators and researchers are provided.     

A theory of instruction for introductory programming skills

ABSTRACT

Background and Context: Current introductory instruction fails to identify, structure, and sequence the many skills involved in programming.

Objective: We proposed a theory which identifies four distinct skills that novices learn incrementally. These skills are tracing, writing syntax, comprehending templates (reusable abstractions of programming knowledge), and writing code with templates. We theorized that explicit instruction of these skills decreases cognitive demand.

Method: We conducted an exploratory mixed-methods study and compared students’ exercise completion rates, error rates, ability to explain code, and engagement when learning to program. We compared material that reflects this theory to more traditional material that does not distinguish between skills.

Findings: Teaching skills incrementally resulted in improved completion rate on practice exercises, and decreased error rate and improved understanding of the post-test.

Implications: By structuring programming skills such that they can be taught explicitly and incrementally, we can inform instructional design and improve future research on understanding how novice programmers develop understanding.