Bureaucratic response to policy change: implementation of adult education policy in Norway

Our main concern was to investigate the implementation of the new Education Act, giving adults the statutory right to complete upper secondary education. Referring to a ‘top‐down’ and a ‘bottom‐up’ perspective we have investigated how the representatives of the county authorities (the bureaucrats) interpret and practise the specific section of the Act in relation to their definition, moral evaluation and economic view. The interpretation of the section in the Act and the practice varied. Two counties were proactive, result‐oriented and generous, while four counties were passive, act‐oriented and restrictive in their implementation. The implementation was influenced by the bureaucrats’ attitudes, decisions and actions. They had their own agenda, moral standard, interest and so on, which influenced their interpretation and practice. Our study indicates that it is not enough just to formulate a right. How it is formulated, and how it is interpreted and perceived may affect the implementation process.     

Public policy, community colleges, and the path to globalization

This study addresses the nature of governmentpolicy toward community colleges in the 1990sand the responses of institutions to thesepolicies. This is an examination of Canadianand U.S. community colleges in two Canadianprovinces and three U.S. states as well asanalysis of government policy in two countries,at the federal, state and provincial levels.Government policies are viewed as directingcommunity colleges toward economic goals,emphasizing workforce training and stateeconomic competitiveness as outcomes,compelling colleges to improve efficiencies,increase productivity, and to becomeaccountable to government and responsive tobusiness and industry. Government responses toeconomic concerns at the provincial and statelevels resulted in economic developmentpolicies applicable to community colleges. Institutional responses among communitycolleges, evident in behaviors such asmarketization and productivity and efficiency,altered college missions, resulting in thepursuit of economic ends by theseinstitutions.     

Seawater desalination by reverse osmosis

Until comparatively recently the purification of sea or brackish water depended largely on some form of distillation. In recent years, however, a number of industrial concerns have directed increasing attention to processes depending on reverse osmosis. A number of large plants have been installed and this article reviews the present state of reverse osmosis technology and the factors determining its efficiency. Its advantages include its relatively low fuel consumption, and in this respect further substantial savings are in prospect.     

“Areas of Instruction”—A Tool for Assessing the Quality of Instructional Situations

A model for analysing the nature of the dyadic teacher–student interplay in instructional situations including one teacher and one student is described. The “teacher” may be a regular teacher, a parent, or any other person who is in the position of teacher. The “student” may be a student of any age. The model may discern (a) if the teacher merely asks for information preknown to the teacher and the teacher evaluates the student's answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, (b) if the teacher asks for information preknown to the teacher, the teacher then scaffolds the student's learning by giving clues to the correct answer and then evaluates the answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, or (c) the teacher asks for information not preknown to her/him and the teacher is genuinely interested in the student's answer. This last scenario (c) is thought to give optimal conditions for cognitive development for the student.     

Can Summer Vacation Be Detrimental To Learning? An Empirical Look

This study examined the performance of four autistic boys each trained to a criterion of 80 percent correct on two sets of noun labels. After training, one set of labels was reviewed twice a week for nine weeks (summer vacation); the other set received no additional training. Performance on both sets was then retested. Each boy showed greater retention of the rehearsed compared with the unrehearsed material; one, placed on a VR3 schedule of reinforcement during the final stages of training, showed slightly better retention of the unrehearsed material than two trained exclusively with a CRF schedule. The authors argue that these data provide beginning support for the contention that seriously developmentally disabled children need to be in a program which offers year‐round schooling rather than an 180‐day school year.     

Pre and post analytical errors in lipid determination

A number of pre analytical variables affect lipid determinations. These include posture during blood sampling, the duration of tourniquet application and fasting, the time of day when blood is collected, the concentration and type of anticoagulant used for blood collection to name just a few. Effect of life style such as diet, alcohol and caffeine consumption, smoking, and exercise influence lipid determinations. Disease states such as infection, diabetes, nephrotic syndrome and heart disease culminating in myocardial infarction and conditions such as obesity and pregnancy influence lipid profiles. A variety of drugs ranging from diuretics to oral contraceptives to immunosuppressive drugs induce alterations in the patient's lipid profile. Post analytical variables impacting on the interpretation of laboratory data such as in the determination of the true mean of a lipid constituent would depend on the number of specimens analyzed, the analytical variability of the method and approaches to handling data such as the use of relative range to estimate the effect of biological variability on the computed mean value.