School effectiveness: new managerialism, quality and the Japanisation of education

School effectiveness is a microtechnology of change. It is a relay device, which transfers macro policy into everyday processes and priorities in schools. It is part of the growing apparatus of performance evaluation. Change is brought about by a focus on the school as a site-based system to be managed. There has been corporate restructuring in response to the changing political economy of education. There are now new work regimes and radical changes in organizational cultures. Education, like other public services, is now characterized by a range of structural realignments, new relationships between purchasers and providers and new coalitions between management and politics. In this article, we will argue that the school effectiveness movement is an example of new managerialism in education. It is part of an ideological and technological process to industrialize educational productivity. That is to say, the emphasis on standards and standardization is evocative of production regimes drawn from industry. There is a belief that education, like other public services can be managed to ensure optimal outputs and zero defects in the educational product.

Planning at the neighbourhood scale: localism, dialogic politics and the modulation of community action

This paper builds upon literature examining the foreclosing of community interventions to show how a resident-led anti-road-noise campaign in South-Eastern England has been framed, managed and modulated by authorities. We situate the case within wider debates considering dialogical politics. For advocates, this offers the potential for empowerment through non-traditional forums (Beck, 1994; Giddens, 1994). Others view such trends, most recently expressed as part of the localism agenda, with suspicion (Haughton et al, 2013; Mouffe, 2005). The paper brings together these literatures to analyse the points at which modulation occurs in the community planning process. We describe the types of counter-tactics residents deployed to deflect the modulation of their demands, and the events that led to the outcome. We find that community planning offers a space - albeit one that is tightly circumscribed - within which (select) groups can effect change. The paper argues that the detail of neighbourhood-scale actions warrant further attention, especially as governmental enthusiasm for dialogical modes of politics shows no sign of abating.

Materiality, subjectification, and government: the geographies of Britain's Motorway Code

In this paper I provide a critical discussion of Foucault's work on government and governmentality. I argue that geographers have tended to overlook the ways in which practices of self-government and subjectification are performed in relation to programmes of government, and suggest that they should examine the technical devices which are embedded in networks of government. Drawing upon these observations I suggest how geographers might proceed, tracing the geographies of a specific artefact: the British government's 1958 Motorway Code. I examine how the code was designed to serve as a technology of government that could shape the conduct of fairly mobile and distant subjects, enabling them to govern their conduct and the movements of their vehicles.

Modelling impacts of pollution in river systems: a new dispersion model and a case study of mine discharges in the Abrud, Aries and Mures river system in Transylvania, Romania

A new model of dispersion has been developed to simulate the impact of pollutant discharges on river systems. The model accounts for the main dispersion processes operating in rivers as well as the dilution from incoming tributaries and first-order kinetic decay processes. The model is dynamic and simulates the hourly behaviour of river flow and pollutants along river systems. The model has been applied to the Aries and Mures River System in Romania and has been used to assess the impacts of potential dam releases from the Roia Montan Mine in Transylvania, Romania. The question of mine water release is investigated under a range of scenarios. The impacts on pollution levels downstream at key sites and at the border with Hungary are investigated.

New dioxadiaza-, trioxadiaza- and hexaaza-macrocycles containing dibenzofuran units

New dioxadiaza-, trioxadiaza-, and hexaaza-macrocycles containing rigid dibenzofuran groups (DBF) were prepared by a convenient synthetic route in high yields. The structures of the macrocycles were unequivocally established by electrospray mass spectrometry (ESIMS) studies together with NMR spectroscopy, with the exception of [14](DBF)N-3. The structures of the copper complex of [14](DBF)N-3 and of the diprotonated form of [22](DBF)N2O3 were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Conformational analyses on the free macrocycles [14](DBF)N-3 and [22](DBF)N2O3 as well as on their larger counterparts containing two DBF units were undertaken in order to understand the synthetic findings. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Synthesis and cytotoxicity studies of new dimethylamino-functionalised and hetero aryl-substituted titanocene anti-cancer drugs

From the carbolithiation of N,N-dimethylamino fulvene (3a) and different ortho-lithiated heterocycles (furan, thiophene and N-methylpyrrole), the corresponding lithium cyclopentadienide intermediate (4a-c) was formed. These three lithiated intermediates underwent a transmetallation reaction with TiCl4 resulting in dimethylamino-functionalised titanocenes 5a-c. When these titanocenes were tested against LLC-PK cells, the IC50 values obtained were of 240, and 28 mu M for titanocenes 5a and 5b, respectively. The most cytotoxic titanocene 5c with an IC50 value of 5.5 mu M is found to be almost as cytotoxic as cis-platin, which showed an IC50 value of 3.3 mu M, when tested on the LLC-PK cell line, and titanocene 5c is approximately 400 times better than titanocene dichloride itself. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.