Cooperation, interaction and learning in local production systems: Evidence in Brazilian firms

In a local production system (LPS), besides external economies, the interaction, cooperation, and learning are indicated by the literature as complementary ways of enhancing the LPS's competitiveness and gains. In Brazil, the greater part of LPSs, mostly composed by small enterprises, displays incipient relationships and low levels of interaction and cooperation among their actors. The size of the participating enterprises itself for specificities that engender organizational constraints, which, in turn, can have a considerable impact on their relationships and learning dynamics. For that reason, it is the purpose of this article to present an analysis of interaction, cooperation, and learning relationships among several types of actors pertaining to an LPS in the farming equipment and machinery sector, bearing in mind the specificities of small enterprises. To this end, the fieldwork carried out in this study aimed at: (i) investigating external and internal knowledge sources conducive to learning and (ii) identifying and analyzing motivating and inhibiting factors related to specificities of small enterprises in order to bring the LPS members closer together and increase their cooperation and interaction. Empirical evidence shows that internal aspects of the enterprises, related to management and infrastructure, can have a strong bearing on their joint actions, interaction and learning processes.

Fundamental Skills in Physics: Embedded Learning

Student attitudes towards a subject affect their learning. For students in physics service courses, relevance is emphasised by vocational applications. A similar strategy is being used for students who aspire to continued study of physics, in an introduction to fundamental skills in experimental physics – the concepts, computational tools and practical skills involved in appropriately obtaining and interpreting measurement data. An educational module is being developed that aims to enhance the student experience by embedding learning of these skills in the practicing physicist’s activity of doing an experiment (gravity estimation using a rolling pendulum). The group concentrates on particular skills prompted by challenges such as: • How can we get an answer to our question? • How good is our answer? • How can it be improved? This explicitly provides students the opportunity to consider and construct their own ideas. It gives them time to discuss, digest and practise without undue stress, thereby assisting them to internalise core skills. Design of the learning activity is approached in an iterative manner, via theoretical and practical considerations, with input from a range of teaching staff, and subject to trials of prototypes.

Impact of Commercial Search Engines and International Databases on Engineering Teaching and Research

For the last three decades, the engineering higher education and professional environments have been completely transformed by the "electronic/digital information revolution" that has included the introduction of personal computer, the development of email and world wide web, and broadband Internet connections at home. Herein the writer compares the performances of several digital tools with traditional library resources. While new specialised search engines and open access digital repositories may fill a gap between conventional search engines and traditional references, these should be not be confused with real libraries and international scientific databases that encompass textbooks and peer-reviewed scholarly works. An absence of listing in some Internet search listings, databases and repositories is not an indication of standing. Researchers, engineers and academics should remember these key differences in assessing the quality of bibliographic "research" based solely upon Internet searches.

Adopting turtle excluder devices in Australia and the United States: What are the differences in technology transfer, promotion, and acceptance?

Turtle excluder devices (TEDs) are being trialed on a voluntary basis in many Australian prawn (shrimp) trawl fisheries to reduce sea turtle captures. Analysis of TED introductions into shrimp trawl fisheries of the United States provided major insights into why conflicts occurred between shrimpers, conservationists, and government agencies. A conflict over the introduction and subsequent regulation of TEDs occurred because the problem and the solution were perceived differently by the various stakeholders. Attempts to negotiate and mediate the conflict broke down, resulting in litigation against the U.S. government by conservationists and shrimpers. Litigation was not an efficient resolution to the sea turtle-TED-trawl conflict but it appears that litigation was the only remaining path of resolution once the issue became polarized. We review two major Australian trawl fisheries to identify any significant differences in circumstances that may affect TED acceptance. Australian trawl fisheries are structured differently and good communication occurs between industry and researchers. TEDs are being introduced as mature technology. Furthermore, bycatch issues are of increasing concern to all stakeholders. These factors, combined with insights derived from previous conflicts concerning TEDs in the United Stares, increase the possibilities that TEDs will be introduced to Australian fishers with better acceptance.

Special issue on methods and learning in functional MRI: Introductory remarks

This special issue represents a further exploration of some issues raised at a symposium entitled “Functional magnetic resonance imaging: From methods to madness” presented during the 15th annual Theoretical and Experimental Neuropsychology (TENNET XV) meeting in Montreal, Canada in June, 2004. The special issue’s theme is methods and learning in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and it comprises 6 articles (3 reviews and 3 empirical studies). The first (Amaro and Barker) provides a beginners guide to fMRI and the BOLD effect (perhaps an alternative title might have been “fMRI for dummies”). While fMRI is now commonplace, there are still researchers who have yet to employ it as an experimental method and need some basic questions answered before they venture into new territory. This article should serve them well. A key issue of interest at the symposium was how fMRI could be used to elucidate cerebral mechanisms responsible for new learning. The next 4 articles address this directly, with the first (Little and Thulborn) an overview of data from fMRI studies of category-learning, and the second from the same laboratory (Little, Shin, Siscol, and Thulborn) an empirical investigation of changes in brain activity occurring across different stages of learning. While a role for medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures in episodic memory encoding has been acknowledged for some time, the different experimental tasks and stimuli employed across neuroimaging studies have not surprisingly produced conflicting data in terms of the precise subregion(s) involved. The next paper (Parsons, Haut, Lemieux, Moran, and Leach) addresses this by examining effects of stimulus modality during verbal memory encoding. Typically, BOLD fMRI studies of learning are conducted over short time scales, however, the fourth paper in this series (Olson, Rao, Moore, Wang, Detre, and Aguirre) describes an empirical investigation of learning occurring over a longer than usual period, achieving this by employing a relatively novel technique called perfusion fMRI. This technique shows considerable promise for future studies. The final article in this special issue (de Zubicaray) represents a departure from the more familiar cognitive neuroscience applications of fMRI, instead describing how neuroimaging studies might be conducted to both inform and constrain information processing models of cognition.

Beyond the middle: A report about literacy and numeracy development of target group students in the middle years of schooling: Volume 1

The report was commissioned by the Department of Education, Science and Training to investigate the perceived efficacy of middle years programmes in all States and Territories in improving the quality of teaching, learning and student outcomes, especially in literacy and numeracy and for student members of particular target groups. These target groups included students from lower socio-economic communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, students with a language background other than English, rural and remote students, and students struggling with the transition from middle/upper primary to the junior secondary years. The project involved large scale national and international literature reviews on Australian and international middle years approaches as well as an analysis of key literacy and numeracy teaching and learning strategies being used. In the report, there is emergent evidence of the relative efficacy of a combination of explicit state policy, dedicated funding and curriculum and professional development frameworks that are focused on the improvement of classroom pedagogy in the middle years. The programs that evidenced the greatest current and potential value for target group students tended to have developed in state policy environments that encouraged a structural rather than adjunct approach to middle years innovations. The authors conclude that in order to translate the gains made into sustainable improvement of educational results in literacy and numeracy for target groups, there is a need for a second generation of middle years theorising, research, development and practice.

Stimulus competition in affective and relational learning

Evaluative learning theory states that affective learning, the acquisition of likes and dislikes, is qualitatively different from relational learning, the learning of predictive relationships among stimuli. Three experiments tested the prediction derived from evaluative learning theory that relational learning, but not affective learning, is affected by stimulus competition by comparing performance during two conditional stimuli, one trained in a superconditioning procedure and the other in a blocking procedure. Ratings of unconditional stimulus expectancy and electrodermal responses indicated stimulus competition in relational learning. Evidence for stimulus competition in affective learning was provided by verbal ratings of conditional stimulus pleasantness and by measures of blink startle modulation. Taken together, the present experiments demonstrate stimulus competition in relational and affective learning, a result inconsistent with evaluative learning theory. (C) 2001 Academic Press.

Extending Learning Opportunities through a virtual faculty

This paper presents the notion of a virtual faculty as a viable alternative to extending and maintaining learner opportunities for students in regional universities or at universities where specialisations in which they are interested may not be offered. Staff from a number of Australian Universities participated in a CUTSD project to explore the viability of establishing a virtual faculty using videoconferencing as the medium of delivery. The success of this project was the result of close collaboration at a number of levels within the participating institutions and a willingness to explore effective approaches to teaching and learning for a videoconference environment.

Innovation and adoption of mobile technology in public organizations: the IBGE case

The use of Mobile and Wireless Information Technologies (MWIT) for provisioning public services by a government is a relatively recent phenomenon. This paper evaluates the results of MWIT adoption by IBGE (The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) through a case study. In 2007, IBGE applied 82,000 mobile devices (PDAs) for data gathering in a census operation in Brazil. A set of challenges for a large scale application of MWIT required intensive work involving innovative working practices and service goals. The case reveals a set of outputs of this process, such as time and cost reductions in service provision, improved information quality, staff training and increased organizational effectiveness and agility.