Organic and acquisitive employment growth : re-examining,testing and extending Penrose's Growth Theory.

Edith Penrose’s theory of firm growth postulates that a firm’s current growth rate will be influenced by the adjustment costs of, and changes to a firm’s productive opportunity set arising from, previous growth. Although she explicitly considered the impact of previous organic growth on current organic growth, she was largely silent about the impact of previous acquisitive growth. In this paper we extend Penrose’s work to examine that the relative impact of organic and acquisitive growth on the adjustment costs and productive opportunity set of the firm. Employing a panel of commercially active enterprises in Sweden over a 10 year period our results suggest the following. First, previous organic growth acts as a constraint on current organic growth. Second, previous acquisitive growth has a positive effect on current organic growth. We conclude that organic growth and acquisitive growth constitute two distinct strategic options facing the firm, which have a differential impact on the future organic growth of the firm.

The “Iranian ART Revolution”: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and third-party donation in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. Th is has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-à-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we first examine the “Iranian ART revolution” that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Then we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women’s socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Thus, the benefits of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome their infertility through ARTs, not all women’s lives are improved by these technologies.

A reflective model for colour studies learning

In a university context how should colour be taught in order to engage students? Entwistle states, ‘What we learn depends on how we learn, and why we have to learn it.’ Therefore, there is a need to address the accumulating evidence that highlights the effects of learning environments on the quality of student learning when considering colour education. It is necessary to embrace the contextual demands while ensuring that the student knowledge of colour and the joy of discovering its characteristics in practice are enhanced. Institutional policy is forcing educators to re-evaluate traditional studio’s effectiveness and the intensive 'hands-on' interactive approach that is embedded in such an approach. As curriculum development involves not only theory and project work, the classroom culture and physical environment also need to be addressed. The increase in student numbers impacting the number of academic staff/student ratio, availability of teaching support as well as increasing variety of student age, work commitments, learning styles and attitudes have called for positive changes to how we teach. The Queensland University of Technology’s restructure in 2005 was a great opportunity to re-evaluate and redesign the approach to teaching within the design units of Interior Design undergraduate program –including colour. The resultant approach “encapsulates a mode of delivery, studio structure, as well as the learning context in which students and staff interact to facilitate learning”1 with a potential “to be integrated into a range of Interior Design units as it provides an adaptive educational framework rather than a prescriptive set of rules”.

Adaptive load shedding and regional protection

The requirement for improved efficiency whilst maintaining system security necessitates the development of improved system analysis approaches and the development of advanced emergency control technologies. Load shedding is a type of emergency control that is designed to ensure system stability by curtailing system load to match generation supply. This paper presents a new adaptive load shedding scheme that provides emergency protection against excess frequency decline, whilst minimizing the risk of line overloading. The proposed load shedding scheme uses the local frequency rate information to adapt the load shedding behaviour to suit the size and location of the experienced disturbance. The proposed scheme is tested in simulation on a 3-region, 10-generator sample system and shows good performance.

Adaptive unsupervised learning of human actions

Automatic detection of suspicious activities in CCTV camera feeds is crucial to the success of video surveillance systems. Such a capability can help transform the dumb CCTV cameras into smart surveillance tools for fighting crime and terror. Learning and classification of basic human actions is a precursor to detecting suspicious activities. Most of the current approaches rely on a non-realistic assumption that a complete dataset of normal human actions is available. This paper presents a different approach to deal with the problem of understanding human actions in video when no prior information is available. This is achieved by working with an incomplete dataset of basic actions which are continuously updated. Initially, all video segments are represented by Bags-Of-Words (BOW) method using only Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) features. Then, a data-stream clustering algorithm is applied for updating the system's knowledge from the incoming video feeds. Finally, all the actions are classified into different sets. Experiments and comparisons are conducted on the well known Weizmann and KTH datasets to show the efficacy of the proposed approach.

Dynamics of multi-articular coordination in neurobiological systems

Although previous work in nonlinear dynamics on neurobiological coordination and control has provided valuable insights from studies of single joint movements in humans, researchers have shown increasing interest in coordination of multi-articular actions. Multi-articular movement models have provided valuable insights on neurobiological systems conceptualised as degenerate, adaptive complex systems satisfying the constraints of dynamic environments. In this paper, we overview empirical evidence illustrating the dynamics of adaptive movement behavior in a range of multi-articular actions including kicking, throwing, hitting and balancing. We model the emergence of creativity and the diversity of neurobiological action in the meta-stable region of self organising criticality. We examine the influence on multi-articular actions of decaying and emerging constraints in the context of skill acquisition. We demonstrate how, in this context, transitions between preferred movement patterns exemplify the search for and adaptation of attractor states within the perceptual motor workspace as a function of practice. We conclude by showing how empirical analyses of neurobiological coordination and control have been used to establish a nonlinear pedagogical framework for enhancing acquisition of multi-articular actions.

Tests of the elaborated intrusion theory of craving and desire : features of alcohol craving during treatment for an alcohol disorder

Objectives. We tested predictions from the elaborated intrusion (EI) theory of desire, which distinguishes intrusive thoughts and elaborations, and emphasizes the importance of imagery. Secondarily, we undertook preliminary evaluations of the Alcohol Craving Experience (ACE) questionnaire, a new measure based on EI Theory. Methods. Participants (N ¼ 232) were in correspondence-based treatment trials for alcohol abuse or dependence. The study used retrospective reports obtained early in treatment using the ACE, and daily self-monitoring of urges, craving, mood and alcohol consumption. Results. The ACE displayed high internal consistency and test – retest reliability and sound relationships with self-monitored craving, and was related to Baseline alcohol dependence, but not to consumption. Imagery during craving was experienced by 81%,with 2.3 senses involved on average. More frequent imagery was associated with longer episode durations and stronger craving. Transient intrusive thoughts were reported by 87% of respondents, and were more common if they frequently attempted to stop alcohol cognitions. Associations between average daily craving and weekly consumption were seen. Depression and negative mood were associated with more frequent, stronger and longer lasting desires for alcohol. Conclusions. Results supported the distinction of automatic and controlled processes in craving, together with the importance of craving imagery. They were also consistent with prediction of consumption from cross-situational averages of craving, and with positive associations between craving and negative mood. However, this study’s retrospective reporting and correlational design require that its results be interpreted cautiously. Research using ecological momentary measures and laboratory manipulations is needed before confident inferences about causality can be made.

A surface plasmon resonance-based solution affinity assay for heparan sulfate-binding proteins

A surface plasmon resonance-based solution affinity assay is described for measuring the Kd of binding of heparin/heparan sulfate-binding proteins with a variety of ligands. The assay involves the passage of a pre-equilibrated solution of protein and ligand over a sensor chip onto which heparin has been immobilised. Heparin sensor chips prepared by four different methods, including biotin–streptavidin affinity capture and direct covalent attachment to the chip surface, were successfully used in the assay and gave similar Kd values. The assay is applicable to a wide variety of heparin/HS-binding proteins of diverse structure and function (e.g., FGF-1, FGF-2, VEGF, IL-8, MCP-2, ATIII, PF4) and to ligands of varying molecular weight and degree of sulfation (e.g., heparin, PI-88, sucrose octasulfate, naphthalene trisulfonate) and is thus well suited for the rapid screening of ligands in drug discovery applications.

Theory and its role in mathematics education

The increased recognition of the theory in mathematics education is evident in numerous handbooks, journal articles, and other publications. For example, Silver and Herbst (2007) examined ―Theory in Mathematics Education Scholarship‖ in the Second Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Lester, 2007) while Cobb (2007) addressed ―Putting Philosophy to Work: Coping with Multiple Theoretical Perspectives‖ in the same handbook. And a central component of both the first and second editions of the Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education (English, 2002; 2008) was ―advances in theory development.‖ Needless to say, the comprehensive second edition of the Handbook of Educational Psychology (Alexander & Winne, 2006) abounds with analyses of theoretical developments across a variety of disciplines and contexts. Numerous definitions of ―theory‖ appear in the literature (e.g., see Silver & Herbst, in Lester, 2007). It is not our intention to provide a ―one-size-fits-all‖ definition of theory per se as applied to our discipline; rather we consider multiple perspectives on theory and its many roles in improving the teaching and learning of mathematics in varied contexts.

Interpersonal pattern dynamics and adaptive behavior in multiagent neurobiological systems : conceptual model and data

Ecological dynamics characterizes adaptive behavior as an emergent, self-organizing property of interpersonal interactions in complex social systems. The authors conceptualize and investigate constraints on dynamics of decisions and actions in the multiagent system of team sports. They studied coadaptive interpersonal dynamics in rugby union to model potential control parameter and collective variable relations in attacker–defender dyads. A videogrammetry analysis revealed how some agents generated fluctuations by adapting displacement velocity to create phase transitions and destabilize dyadic subsystems near the try line. Agent interpersonal dynamics exhibited characteristics of chaotic attractors and informational constraints of rugby union boxed dyadic systems into a low dimensional attractor. Data suggests that decisions and actions of agents in sports teams may be characterized as emergent, self-organizing properties, governed by laws of dynamical systems at the ecological scale. Further research needs to generalize this conceptual model of adaptive behavior in performance to other multiagent populations.

Adaptive and phase transition behavior in performance of discrete multi-articular actions by degenerate neurobiological systems

The identification of attractors is one of the key tasks in studies of neurobiological coordination from a dynamical systems perspective, with a considerable body of literature resulting from this task. However, with regards to typical movement models investigated, the overwhelming majority of actions studied previously belong to the class of continuous, rhythmical movements. In contrast, very few studies have investigated coordination of discrete movements, particularly multi-articular discrete movements. In the present study, we investigated phase transition behavior in a basketball throwing task where participants were instructed to shoot at the basket from different distances. Adopting the ubiquitous scaling paradigm, throwing distance was manipulated as a candidate control parameter. Using a cluster analysis approach, clear phase transitions between different movement patterns were observed in performance of only two of eight participants. The remaining participants used a single movement pattern and varied it according to throwing distance, thereby exhibiting hysteresis effects. Results suggested that, in movement models involving many biomechanical degrees of freedom in degenerate systems, greater movement variation across individuals is available for exploitation. This observation stands in contrast to movement variation typically observed in studies using more constrained bi-manual movement models. This degenerate system behavior provides new insights and poses fresh challenges to the dynamical systems theoretical approach, requiring further research beyond conventional movement models.

Imaginary relish and exquisite torture : the elaborated intrusion theory of desire

The authors argue that human desire involves conscious cognition that has strong affective connotation and is potentially involved in the determination of appetitive behavior rather than being epiphenomenal to it. Intrusive thoughts about appetitive targets are triggered automatically by external or physiological cues and by cognitive associates. When intrusions elicit significant pleasure or relief, cognitive elaboration usually ensues. Elaboration competes with concurrent cognitive tasks through retrieval of target related information and its retention in working memory. Sensory images are especially important products of intrusion and elaboration because they simulate the sensory and emotional qualities of target acquisition. Desire images are momentarily rewarding but amplify awareness of somatic and emotional deficits. Effects of desires on behavior are moderated by competing incentives, target availability, and skills. The theory provides a coherent account of existing data and suggests new directions for research and treatment.

Toward a fuzzy domain ontology extraction method for adaptive e-learning

With the widespread applications of electronic learning (e-Learning) technologies to education at all levels, increasing number of online educational resources and messages are generated from the corresponding e-Learning environments. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult, if not totally impossible, for instructors to read through and analyze the online messages to predict the progress of their students on the fly. The main contribution of this paper is the illustration of a novel concept map generation mechanism which is underpinned by a fuzzy domain ontology extraction algorithm. The proposed mechanism can automatically construct concept maps based on the messages posted to online discussion forums. By browsing the concept maps, instructors can quickly identify the progress of their students and adjust the pedagogical sequence on the fly. Our initial experimental results reveal that the accuracy and the quality of the automatically generated concept maps are promising. Our research work opens the door to the development and application of intelligent software tools to enhance e-Learning.

Critical Systems Theory: A Political Economy of Language, Thought, and Technology

An emergent form of political economy, facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICTs), is widely propagated as the apotheosis of unmitigated social, economic, and technological progress. Meanwhile, throughout the world, social degradation and economic inequality are increasing logarithmically. Valued categories of thought are, axiomatically, the basic commodities of the “knowledge economy”. Language is its means of exchange. This paper proposes a sociolinguistic method with which to critically engage the hyperbole of the “Information Age”. The method is grounded in a systemic social theory that synthesises aspects of autopoiesis and Marxist political economy. A trade policy statement is analysed to exemplify the sociolinguistically created aberrations that are today most often construed as social and political determinants.

Choreographing research : supervising the dancing thesis

The dancing doctorate is an interrogative endeavour which can but nurture the art form and forge a beneficial dynamism between those who seek and those who assess the emerging knowledges of dance’. (Vincs, 2009) From 2006-2008 three dance academics from Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne undertook a research project entitled Dancing between Diversity and Consistency: Refining Assessment in Postgraduate Degrees in Dance, funded by the ALTC Priority Projects Program. Although assessment rather than supervision was the primary focus of this research, interviews with 40 examiner/supervisors, 7 research deans and 32 candidates across Australia and across the creative arts, primarily in dance, provide an insight into what might be considered best practice in preparing students for higher research degrees, and the challenges that embodied and experiential knowledges present for supervision. The study also gained the industry perspectives of dance professionals in a series of national forums in 5 cities, based around the value of higher degrees in dance. The qualitative data gathered from these two primary sources was coded and analysed using the NVivo system. Further perspectives were drawn from international consultant and dance researcher Susan Melrose, as well as recent publications in the field. Dance is a young addition to academia and consequently there tends to be a close liaison between the academy and the industry, with a relational fluidity that is both beneficial and problematic. This partially explains why dance research higher degrees are predominantly practice-led (or multi-modal, referring to those theses where practice comprises the substantial examinable component). As a physical, embodied art form, dance engages with the contested territory of legitimising alternative forms of knowledge that do not sit comfortably with accepted norms of research. In supporting research students engaged with dance practice, supervisors traverse the tricky terrain of balancing university academic requirements with studies that are emergent, not only in the practice and attendant theory but in their methodologies and open-ended outcomes; and in an art form in which originality and new knowledge also arises from collaborative creative processes. Formal supervisor accreditation through training is now mandatory in most Australian universities, but it tends to be generic and not address supervisory specificity. This paper offers the kind of alternative proposed by Edwards (2002) that improving postgraduate supervision will be effective if supervisors are empowered to generate their own standards and share best practice; in this case, in ways appropriate to the needs of their discipline and alternative modes of thesis presentation. In order to frame the qualities and processes conducive to this goal, this paper will draw on both the experiences of interviewees and on philosophical premises which underpin the research findings of our study. These include the ongoing challenge of dissolving the binary oppositions of theory and practice, especially in creative arts practice where theory resides in and emerges from the doing as much as in articulating reflection about the doing through what Melrose (2003) terms ‘mixed mode disciplinary practices’. In guiding practitioners through research higher degrees, how do supervisors deal with not only different forms of knowledge but indeed differing modes of knowledge? How can they navigate tensions that occur between the ‘incompatible competencies’ (Candlin, 2000) of the ‘spectating’ academic experts with their ‘irrepressible drive ... to inscribe, interpret, and hence to practise temporal closure’, and practitioner experts who create emergent works of ‘residual unfinishedness’ (Melrose 2006) which are not only embodied but ephemeral, as in the case of live performance?