Keeping Our Customers Happy: Myths and Management Issues in “Client-Led” Student Software Projects

In this paper we seek to dispel some of the myths and to address some of the real managerial issues which we believe may have deterred academics from involving commercial and industrial partners as customers in students' software project work. We contend that students know when a project is phoney, when requirements are dreamt up by academics and when the deliverables are of no practical use once a project mark has been assigned. The involvement of an external customer materially affects students' motivation, the quality of work that they produce and their sense of achievement. Put simply, authenticity is the key to a rich, challenging and meaningful educational project experience.     

Male youth and Voluntary Counseling and HIV-Testing: the case of Malawi and Uganda

There is limited research addressing the beliefs of adolescents related to Voluntary Counseling and HIV-Testing (VCT). This paper analyzes qualitative data on such beliefs elicited from male youth in Uganda and Malawi. Although study participants understood the mainstream public health rhetoric on VCT, much of their narratives framed going for HIV testing in terms of danger, as a sign of lack of self-confidence, and as an acknowledgment of vulnerability. This tendency, we contend, is strongly rooted in the inclination of male youth to perform and validate their identities in gestures of self-certitude, imperviousness, invulnerability, and invincibility. Further, the idea of ‘not wanting to die alone’ from AIDS also featured prominently in the narratives, with many respondents declaring that they would deliberately infect others with HIV should they test positive. Key to freeing young people from the shackles of consternation and misconceptions about VCT and HIV is comprehensive HIV education.     

Computational fluid dynamics simulation of the wind flow over an airport terminal building

Turbulence in the wake generated by wind flow over buildings or obstacles may produce complex flow patterns in downstream areas. Examples include the recirculating flow and wind deficit areas behind an airport terminal building and their potential impacts on the aircraft landing on nearby runways. A computational fluid dynamics （CFD） simulation of the wind flow over an airport terminal building was performed in this study of the effect of the building wake on landing aircraft. Under normal meteorological conditions, the studied airport terminal building causes limited effects on landing aircraft because most of the aircraft have already landed before entering the turbulent wake region. By simulating the approach of a tropical cyclone, additional CFD sensitivity tests were performed to study the impacts of building wake under extreme meteorological conditions. It was found that, in a narrow range of prevalent wind directions with wind speeds larger than a certain threshold value, a substantial drop in wind speed （〉3.6 m/s） along the glide path of aircraft was observed in the building wake. Our CFD results also showed that under the most critical situation, a drop in wind speed as large as 6.4 m/s occurred right at the touchdown point of landing aircraft on the runway, an effect which may have a significant impact on aircraft operations. This study indicated that a comprehensive analysis of the potential impacts of building wake on aircraft operations should be carried out for airport terminals and associated buildings in airfields to ensure safe aviation operation under all meteorological conditions and to facilitate implementation of precautionary measures.     

Mothers' Cognitive References to 2‐Year‐Olds Predict Theory of Mind at Ages 6 and 10

Mothers' mental‐state references predict individual differences in preschoolers' false‐belief (FB) understanding; less is known about the origins of corresponding variation in school‐age children. To address this gap, 105 children completed observations with their mothers at child ages 2 and 6, three FB tasks and a verbal comprehension test at age 3, and five FB tasks at age 6. Seventy‐seven of these children completed five Strange Stories at age 10. Individual differences in mothers' cognitive references at child age 2 predicted variation in children's FB understanding at age 6 and Strange Stories scores at age 10 (controlling for number of mothers' turns and children's mental‐state references, verbal comprehension and FB understanding at age 3, and mothers' cognitive references at child age 6).     

KNOWLEDGE THAT DOESN'T JUST SIT THERE: CONSIDERING A RECONCEPTION OF THE CURRICULUM INTEGRATION OF JEWISH AND GENERAL STUDIES

Since the onset of modernity, Jewish all-day schools have widely aspired to the curriculum integration of Jewish and general studies. This article surveys some of the most significant reasons why this ideal has largely remained unrealized. It argues that schools committed to an integrative ideal might benefit from reconceiving of integration in a manner which involves grounding it within constructivist/cognitivist assumptions about teaching and learning. A working model is offered for what the integration of Jewish and general studies might look like when conceived in this way. The article draws evidence from the curriculum of a recently established Jewish day school in Britain, suggesting that the instances displayed by this case, while constituting a weak form of integration, strongly embody a fertile notion of how students might be initiated into making sense of their world in an integrated fashion.