The private problem with public service: rural teachers in educational markets

Staffing rural and remote schools is an important policy issue for the public good. This paper examines the private issues it also poses for teachers with families working in these communities, as they seek to reconcile careers with educational choices for children. The paper first considers historical responses to staffing rural and remote schools in Australia, and the emergence of neoliberal policy encouraging marketisation of the education sector. We report on interviews about considerations motivating household mobility with 11 teachers across regional, rural and remote communities in Queensland. Like other middle-class parents, these teachers prioritised their children's educational opportunities over career opportunities. The analysis demonstrates how teachers in rural and remote communities constitute a special group of educational consumers with insider knowledge and unique dilemmas around school choice. Their heightened anxieties around school choice under neoliberal policy are shown to contribute to the public issue of staffing rural and remote schools.     

Examination of a Group Counseling Model of Career Decision Making With College Students

The authors examined the effectiveness of a group career counseling model (Pyle, 2007 ) on college students’ career decision‐making abilities. They used a Solomon 4‐group design and found that students who participated in the career counseling groups had significantly greater increases in career decision‐making abilities than those who did not participate in the groups. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.     

Development and validation of the Perceived Game-Specific Soccer Competence Scale

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to create a valid, self-reported, game-specific soccer competence scale. A structural model of perceived competence, performance measures and motivation was tested as the basis for the scale. A total of 1321 soccer players (261 females, 1060 males) ranging from 12 to 15 years (13.4 ± 1.0 years) participated in the study. They completed the Perceived Game-Specific Soccer Competence Scale (PGSSCS), self-assessments of tactical skills and motivation, as well as technical and speed and agility tests. Results of factor analyses, tests of internal consistency and correlations between PGSSCS subscales, performance measures and motivation supported the reliability and validity of the PGSSCS. The scale can be considered a suitable instrument to assess perceived game-specific competence among young soccer players.     

Information-governing dynamics of attacker–defender interactions in youth rugby union

Abstract

Previous work on dynamics of interpersonal interactions in 1 vs. 1 sub-phases of basketball has identified changes in interpersonal distance between an attacker and defender as a potential control parameter for influencing organizational states of attacker–defender dyads. Other studies have reported the constraining effect of relative velocity between an attacker and defender in 1 vs. 1 dyads. To evaluate the relationship between these candidate control parameters, we compared the impact of both interpersonal distance and relative velocity on the pattern-forming dynamics of attacker–defender dyads in the sport of rugby union. Results revealed that when interpersonal distance achieved a critical value of less than 4 m, and relative velocity values increased or were maintained above 1 m · s^?1, a successful outcome (i.e. clean attempt) for an attacker was predicted. Alternatively, when values of relative velocity suddenly decreased below this threshold, at the same critical value of interpersonal distance, a successful outcome for the defender was predicted. Data demonstrated how the coupling of these two potential, nested control parameters moved the dyadic system to phase transitions, characterized as a try or a tackle. Observations suggested that relative velocity increased its influence on the organization of attacker–defender dyads in rugby union over time as spatial proximity to the try line increased.     

The construction of an interfacial valve-based microfluidic chip for thermotaxis evaluation of human sperm

Thermotaxis has been demonstrated to be an important criterion for sperm evaluation, yet clinical assessment of thermotaxis capacity is currently lacking. In this article, the on-chip thermotaxis evaluation of human sperm is presented for the first time using an interfacial valve-facilitated microfluidic device. The temperature gradient was established and accurately controlled by an external temperature gradient control system. The temperature gradient responsive sperm population was enriched into one of the branch channels with higher temperature setting and the non-responsive ones were evenly distributed into the two branch channels. We employed air-liquid interfacial valves to ensure stable isolation of the two branches, facilitating convenient manipulation of the entrapped sperm. With this device, thermotactic responses were observed in 5.7%-10.6% of the motile sperm moving through four temperature ranges (34.0-35.3 °C, 35.0-36.3 °C, 36.0-37.3 °C, and 37.0-38.3 °C, respectively). In conclusion, we have developed a new method for high throughput clinical evaluation of sperm thermotaxis and this method may allow other researchers to derive better IVF procedure.     

4. TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

THE END OF NEWS by Roger Bird (Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1997—$24.95 paper, ISBN 0–7725–2285–5, 165pp., notes, index)

CANADIAN INTERNET HANDBOOK, 1998 edition by Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead (Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Canada, 1997—$24.95, paper, ISBN 0–13–897554‐X, 365pp., charts, tables, index)

THE JOURNALIST'S LEGAL GUIDE by Michael G. Crawford (Scarborough, ON: Carswell Thomson Professional Publishing, 1996 [3rd ed]—40.00 paper, ISBN 0–459–25425–1, 380pp., charts, notes, glossary, index)

GUIDE TO CANADIAN ENGLISH USAGE by Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997—$50.00, ISBN 0–19–540841–1, 549pp., glossary, bibliography, index)

A CANADIAN WRITER'S POCKET GUIDE by Jack Finnbogason and Al Valleau (Toronto: ITP Nelson, 1998—$20.00 spiral‐bound paper, ISBN 0–17–616618–1, 180pp., index)

SUSTAINING DEMOCRACY? JOURNALISM AND THE POLITICS OF OBJECTIVITY by Robert A. Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao (Toronto: Garamond Press “Culture and Communication in Canada Series,”; 1998—$24.95 paper, ISBN 1–55193–013–7, 284 pp., notes, index)

CYBERLAW: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DOING BUSINESS ONLINE by David Johnston, Sunny Handa, and Charles Morgan (Toronto: Stoddart, 1997—U.S.$17.97 paper, no ISBN given, 282pp., notes, glossary, bibliography, index)

MASS COMMUNICATION IN CANADA edited by Rowland Lorimer and Jean McNulty (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996 [3rd ed]—$34.95 paper, ISBN 0–19–541208–7, 398pp., glossary, bibliography, index)

MEDIA LAW by Robert Martin (Concord, ON: Irwin Law “Essentials of Canadian Law,”; 1997—$34.95 paper, ISBN 1–55221–004–9, 193pp., charts, notes, index)

THE INTERNET HANDBOOK FOR WRITERS, RESEARCHERS, AND JOURNALISTS by Mary McGuire, Linda Stilborne, Melinda McAdams, and Laurel Hyatt (Toronto: Trifolium Books, 1997—$29.95 paper, ISBN 1–895579–17–1, 242pp., glossary, index)

THE CANADIAN REPORTER: NEWS WRITING AND REPORTING by Catherine McKercher and Carman Cumming (Toronto: HarcourtBrace Canada, 1998 [2d ed]—$47.95 paper, ISBN 0–7747–3562–7, 456pp., glossary, index)

ELECTRIC LANGUAGE: UNDERSTANDING THE MESSAGE by Eric McLuhan (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998—$29.95 paper, ISBN 0–7737–5972–7, 192 pp., color notes)

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW: COPYRIGHT, PATENT, TRADEMARKS by David Vaver (Concord, ON: Irwin Law, 1997—$39.95 paper, ISBN 1–55221–007–3, 345pp., notes, bibliography, glossary, table of cases, index)     

Young Travellers and the Children's Fund: some practical notes on an experimental image-based research project

The paper reflects on how photography was used during a small piece of mixed methods qualitative research with some young Travellers and their families. The context for the study was 'Every Child Matters' and the accompanying push aimed to include groups considered as marginalised, such as young Travellers, in mainstream educational provision, as well as to listen to children and involve them in decision-making about service provision and its evaluation. Photography was used experimentally as a kind of participatory methodology to engage young Travellers in the formative evaluation of a Children's Fund project that aimed to increase their participation in formal and informal learning activities. The account discusses some of the outcomes of using the image-based methodology, as well as some of the limitations and dilemmas that emerged.     

Power and energy in linearized physical systems

Although no truly linear physical systems exist, linearized system models are very often used in practice to study the dynamics of real systems and components. Here, the relations between the power and energy in a non-linear physical system and the analogous quantities associated with variables representing small deviations from steady-state values are studied. Sometimes a linearized system is energetically similar to the non-linear system from which it was derived, and in other cases, new types of energy elements appear which were not present in the original system. In order to show the structure of the systems, the results are presented in both equation form and in the form of bond graphs which are unique in exhibiting the power and energy structure of system models.