Statistical investigations - drawing it all together

The author's approach to teaching an integrative unit to a small group of master’s level Applied Statistics students in 2000-2001 is described. Details of the various activities such as data analysis, reading and discussion of papers, and training in consultancy skills are given, as also are details of the assessment. The students’ and lecturer’s views of the unit are discussed.

Identification and doing without it, V: A formal mathematical analysis for a case of mix-up of individuals, and of recovery from failure to attain identification

Identification, when sought, is not necessarily obtained. Operational guidance that is normatively acceptable may be necessary for such cases. We proceed to formalize and illustrate modes of exchanges of individual identity, and provide procedures of recovery strategies in specific prescriptions from an ancient body of law for such situations when, for given types of purposes, individuals of some relevant kind had become intermixed and were undistinguishable. Rules were devised, in a variety of domains, for coping with situations that occur if and when the goal of identification was frustrated. We propose or discuss mathematical representations of such recovery procedures.

Chattels: I have bought it all for you

Outlines the ways by which personal property can be acquired through the gift of chattels, referring to case law including the Court of Appeal rulings in Re Cole (A Bankrupt) and Re Kirkland, and through the declaration of trust, with reference to the Chancery Division ruling in Rowe v Prance. Compares this to the use of constructive trusts or proprietary estoppel to secure assets and considers the need to prove detrimental reliance.

Giving credit where it's due

Discusses the entitlement to occupation rent where one party to a relationship no longer lives in the matrimonial or family home in which he/she has an interest and a right of occupation. Describes the case law illustrating that forceful exclusion of the non-occupying party is not a prerequisite to entitlement to an occupation rent. Considers the calculation of the parties' respective credits where the occupying party has made mortgage repayments since the separation and the other is entitled to an occupation rent.

Tourism is it the ‘new’ driver for regeneration?

Article explores how tourism might be the key driver to urban regeneration in towns and cities as economic crisis deepens.

When deterrence works - and when it doesn't: a comparison of Sweden's prostitution law and UK's Dangerous Dogs Act

Many pieces of legislation have been implemented with the anticipation - or justification - that they will have a deterrent effect. Deterrence was clearly argued in the debate preceding the Swedish prostitution law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services, but less so regarding the Dangerous Dogs Act, which was a very rapid response to a particular moral panic. As it turned out, the Swedish law has had a deterrent effect on street prostitution in that 'respectable' buyers were deterred. It will be argued that it is this very 'respectability' that makes deterrence work in this case. Regarding the Dangerous Dogs Act, the owners of Pit Bulls and other banned breeds are not considered 'respectable' and the banning might have had the reversed effect - increasing the attraction of these dogs, rather than deterring the ownership. Apart from deterrence and its consequences, the rendering invisible of key actors - buyers and owners respectively - and the use of symbolic legislation to promote moral messages will also be considered. [From the Author]

Models of advertising standardisation and adaptation: it's time to move the debate forward

Advertising standardisation versus adaptation has been discussed in some detail in the marketing literature. Despite previous attempts, there is still no widely-used decision-making model available that has been accepted by marketing practitioners and academics. This paper examines the development of this important area by reviewing six prominent models in the advertising standardisation/adaptation literature. It shows why there has been a lack of development in the current literature and why it is crucial to address this problem. Important areas for future research are suggested in order to find a solution

The effect of bonds on loyalty towards auditors: the mediating role of commitment

The study examines the impact of knowledge and social bonds on commitment and behavioural loyalty in auditor-client relationships. A model is proposed and tested using data collected from stock exchange company executives in the UK. The results show the significant effects of the knowledge and social bonds on commitment. Commitment is shown to be a mediating variable, which influences word-of-mouth and continuance but not the purchase of non-audit services. In the light of these findings, suggestions are provided to auditors in developing relationship bonds and managing the relationship at the firm level.

Keeping it together: a guide for support staff working with people whose behaviour is challenging

This guide has been written for support staff, working with people with learning disabilities, who are new to challenging behaviour or facing it for the first time. It is a self-help guide and provides practical and realistic information on how direct care staff can develop strageties to support people whose behaviour is challenging and develop their skills in this area.

The varieties of student experience - an open research question and some ways to answer it

Based on meetings of the Society for Research into Higher Education’s Student Experience Network over the past three years, the genuinely open research question is posed whether there is one or more undergraduate student experience within English higher education. Answering this question depends on whether what is taught or what is learnt is examined. If the latter, then a unitary student experience can be said to exist only in the narrowest of normative senses. What undergraduates actually learn – defined in the widest sense – is the $64,000 question of research on the student experience. Various ways to answer this question are proposed, including using students to research students. Conceptual tools to apply to findings can be developed from youth studies and cognate disciplines, particularly in relation to student identities and aspirations. Lastly, these proposals are placed in the wider context of comparative models of the varieties of student experience, including those emerging in the UK’s national regions.

What Education Studies is and what it might be

Education Studies at the University of Greenwich is presented as an example of what Education Studies is – at least at one Higher Education Institution. As a field of practice to which a body of knowledge can be applied, Education Studies shares common features with other disciplinary fields of study. It is also unique in that its field – learning, is also what its students do – learn. What Education Studies isn’t is then discussed in relation to studies of schooling, the psychology of learning, sociology of education, traditional education degrees and teacher training. Lastly, what Education Studies could become is presented with reference to Ranson’s (1993) argument for the centrality of education as the common focus of all HE study. It is suggested that the subject could then contribute to expanding critical space in (higher) education through making research/ scholarship and creation an integral part of the Independent Study of all students at all levels of learning. This would be a necessary complement to the wider democratic transformation now demanded for human survival. It would also accord with what Marx called humanity’s “species being” as a “learning animal” (Morris). Such a social theory of learning can discriminate between information and competence at one level of learning and (corresponding terms) knowledge and skill at another more generalised level in relation to new divisions of knowledge and labour. Potentially these levels can be combined to create a new form of polytechnic learning, relating theory to practice, education to training and further to higher education.