Intrinsic Factors for Continued ERP Learning: A Precursor to Interdisciplinary ERP Curriculum Design

Unilateral enterprise resource planning (ERP) curriculum improvements from the instructor's perspective are likely to generate only limited success. Understanding student motivations and beliefs with ERP systems is the missing link to effective ERP education. Relatively little attention in the ERP literature has been given to student learning associated with ERP experience, and almost none to factors influencing current and expected student beliefs and behaviors relative to ERP. The complexity of ERP systems demands that beliefs and behaviors be considered when planning ERP curricula. In the present study, the Theory of Planned Behavior was extended to examine students’ intentions to explore additional aspects of ERP after their class exercises. When considering all students, attitude and subjective norm had positive and significant effects on intentions to continue ERP learning. Subjective norm also affected attitude, and availability of support materials had a positive effect on subjective norm. Distinctive patterns are found for the construct relationships between student groups who valued ERP education (the engaged) and those who placed little or no value on ERP education (the undecided). Results from competing model analyses indicate that support materials influenced the engaged and undecided groups differently. Strategies for ERP curriculum design are provided.     

Bioconversion of low quality lignocellulosic agricultural waste into edible protein by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pleurotus sajor-caju</Emphasis> (Fr.) singer

Pleurotus sajor-caju (Fr.) Singer was cultivated on selected agro wastes viz. cotton stalks, groundnut haulms, soybean straw, pigeon pea stalks and leaves and wheat straw, alone or in combinations. Cotton stalks, pigeon pea stalks and wheat straw alone or in combination were found to be more suitable than groundnut haulms and soybean straw for the cultivation. Organic supplements such as groundnut oilseed cake, gram powder and rice bran not only affected growth parameters but also increased yields. Thus bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass by P. sajor-caju offers a promising way to convert low quality biomass into an improved human food.     

Service learning in higher education: a systematic literature review

Asia Pacific Education Review - In the last few years, adoption of service learning in higher educational institutions has emerged as a modern teaching and learning strategy. This study is aimed to...     

Personal Review： Sources of sulfide in waste streams and current biotechnologies for its removal

Sulfide-containing waste streams are generated by a number of industries. It is emitted into the environment as dis- solved sulfide (S2- and HS-) in wastewaters and as H2S in waste gases. Due to its corrosive nature, biological hydrogen sulfide removal processes are being investigated to overcome the chemical and disposal costs associated with existing chemically based removal processes. The nitrogen and sulfur metabolism interacts at various levels of the wastewater treatment process. Hence, the sulfur cycle offers possibilities to integrate nitrogen removal in the treatment process, which needs to be further optimized by appropriate design of the reactor configuration, optimization of performance parameters, retention of biomass and optimization of biomass growth. The present paper reviews the biotechnological advances to remove sulfides from various environments.     

Identity exploration,identity confusion,and openness as predictors of multicultural ideology

Research has indicated benefits to individuals and society of holding a multicultural versus colorblind ideology. This cross-sectional study tested the association of endorsement of multiculturalism with the individual difference constructs of identity exploration, identity confusion, and openness. Participants were 188 college students who completed a survey. Multiple regression analyses indicated that identity exploration, identity confusion, and openness independently predicted multicultural ideology. Additionally, identity exploration and identity confusion interacted such that identity exploration was associated with multiculturalism when identity confusion was low, but not when identity confusion was high. These findings indicate that general individual differences in personality and identity are predictive of cultural-related attitudes, and have implications for the design of interventions aimed at increasing multiculturalism.     

The ‘Non‐dit’ in the Zenana: representations of Muslim women in Islamic canonical texts,the neo‐colonial imagination and a feminist response from Bangladesh

Abstract

This essay recognizes that representations of the ‘Muslim woman’ as the Othered ‘object’ of the ‘Western’ gaze and the domesticated ‘object’ which the Islamic apologists strive hard to defend, are both constructions and false antitheses of each other. It seeks not the ‘truth’ regarding the Muslim women in the world of social reality but to examine how various representations of the women are constructed and to what effects and consequences these representations are mobilized. The essay proceeds in three stages. The first stage shows how the patriarchy mobilizes the Qur’an and the Hadith in order to construct the woman as the negative, the inessential and the abnormal of the man so as to exert complete subordination over her. However, the very act of attempting to mute the woman in Islam is the most strident proof that she is engaged in resistance against patriarchal control and the degree of resistance must be judged by the degree of patriarchal control. The second stage demonstrates how patriarchy operates in colonial and neo‐imperial landscape: it legitimizes the appropriation of Muslim woman ‘possessed’ by the Other (as exemplified by the orientalist seduction fantasy in William Dalrymple’s The White Mughals), but, haunted by the fear of rape and anxieties regarding the sexuality of the White woman possessed by the Self, it attempts to maintain strict control over her (as in the cases of Miss Wheeler in the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 and Private Jessica Lynch in the Iraq War). This struggle over the feminine body is perfectly in line with Islam’s hyper‐anxiousness to hide the female body and rigorously ensure monopolic possession over her. The third stage shows how Taslima Nasreen, a late‐20th century feminist from Bangladesh, speaks the unspoken and thereby attempts to subvert the normative representation of the muted women in her autobiographical novella, entitled āmār Meyebelā. In thus examining the representations of the Muslim women, this essay seeks an alternative ‘third space of enunciation’ and takes a distinct political stand located outside of the axis of the dichotomy of the ‘Western’ gaze and the construction of the Islamic theologians.     

Transforming public schools: Impact of the CRI program on child learning in Pakistan

This paper evaluates the impact of teaching innovations, introduced in public primary schools under the Children Resources International (CRI) Program, on student outcomes. We estimate students’ learning based on their scores on standardized tests. We match schools and children within the treatment and comparison group and find that the CRI Program has been effective in raising learning achievement. Moreover, the results are robust to unobserved selection bias. The average gain for a CRI student represents an improvement of 0.40 standard deviations. The results stay unchanged when we use alternative estimators for the treatment effect including the bias-corrected estimator proposed by Abadie and Imbens (2006).