Global citizenship education: a sociological critique

This paper considers the recent focus on citizenship within education by taking curricular reform within Scottish secondary schooling as a case study. In Scotland the Curriculum for Excellence reform places citizenship as one of four main capacities that pupils must work towards as part of their education. A central theme in this reform is the need for students to take a global perspective and work across different disciplines. In this model of citizenship education learners are enabled to develop their sense of citizenship identity in response to a fast-paced world of innovation and change. Citizenship is therefore linked to a futurist agenda, where the learner-citizen is positioned as an ongoing project, as something to be worked at or perhaps worked on. However, this kind of notion of agency is an expression of an ideological construction of the citizen as a flexible resource for society. Such citizens are active in the sense of being adaptive to change through utilizing intellectual skills but without a sense of identity grounded in one's commitments or reflexive engagement with different forms of understanding. The paper offers a critical assessment of this learner-citizen discourse as focusing on ratiocination rather than relational identity.

Women and work-life balance: a case of austerity and authenticity

Recent evidence suggests that support for gender equality appears to be declining amid concern that women who play a full role in the work force do so at the expense of family life. Although this has been exacerbated by the economic downturn there were pre-recessionary signs of concerns that the welfare of children was being compromised when women find themselves with the double burden of employment and family care. These work-life balance issues are examined from the point of view of looking at how this characterised for women as a problem of authentic self-realisation in terms of working towards and achieving an optimum balance. This kind of dichotomisation allows for different aspects of the self to be pitted against each other: the professional career-orientated aspect and the personal relationship aspect. The paper argues that work-life balance discourse is counter-productive in that it reinforces the inequalities for women that it seeks to redress.

The flexible citizen: education and citizenship

This paper considers the recent focus on citizenship within education by taking curricular reform within Scottish secondary schooling and its linkage with higher education as a case study. In Scotland the Curriculum for Excellence reform places citizenship as one of the four main capacities that pupils must work towards as part of their education. This is echoed to some extent within higher education through the Enhancement Theme reforms and the focus on graduate attributes. A unifying theme in these reforms is the need for students to work across different disciplines, to develop a cross-disciplinary perspective on the world by, for example, considering issues of sustainability in relation to scientific or technological developments. In this model of curriculum development teaching staff are considered as agents of change, enabling learners to develop their sense of citizenship in response to a fast-paced world of innovation and change. This kind of change is objectified as a need that must be responded to and met if tomorrow’s citizens are to be able to not only cope, but thrive in the world in which they inhabit. As such, the citizen is positioned as an ongoing project, as something to be worked at and worked on. However, this kind of notion of agency cloaks an neoliberal ideological construction of the citizen as a flexible resource for society, and usually in relation to economic output. The paper seeks to subject this construction of the citizen to critical scrutiny in relation to the idea that, in education, learners are developing their ability to be creative and enquiring in order to be adaptive to change.

Setting up a network of agrometeorological stations in East Timor

A developed and sustainable agriculture requires a permanent and reliable monitoring of climatic/ meteorological elements in (agro) meteorological stations which should be located close to agricultural, silvicultural or pastoral activities. An adequate network of meteorological stations is then a necessary condition to support innovation and development in any country. Developing countries, mainly those with a history of frequent conflicts, presents deficient number of weather stations, often poorly composed and improperly distributed within their territories, and without a regular operation that allows continuity of records for a sufficiently long period of time. The objective of this work was to build a network of meteorological and agro-meteorological stations in East Timor. To achieve this goal, the number and location of pre-existing stations, their structure and composition (number and type of sensors, communication system,… ), the administrative division of the country and the available agro-ecological zoning, the agricultural and forestry practices in the country, the existing centres for the agricultural research and the history of the weathers records were taken into account. Several troubles were found (some of the automatic stations were assembled incorrectly, others stations duplicated information regarding the same agricultural area, vast areas with relevant agro-ecological representativeness were not monitored …). It was proposed the elimination of 11 existing stations, the relocation of 7 new stations in places not covered until then, the automation of 3 manual meteorological stations. Two networks were then purposed, a major with 15 agro-meteorological stations (all automatized) and one other secondary composed by 32 weather stations (only two were manual). The set of the 47 stations corresponded to a density of 329 km2/station. The flexibility in the composition of each of the networks was safeguarded and intends to respond effectively to any substantive change in the conditions in a country in constant change. It was also discussed the national coverage by these networks under a “management concept for weather stations”.

InP-based optoelectronic devices for optical fiber communications

In this contribution we report the research and development of 1.55 mu m InGaAsP/InP gain-coupled DFB laser with an improved injection-carrier induced grating and of high performance 1.3 mu m and 1.55 mu m InGaAsP/InP FP and DFB lasers for communications. Long wavelength strained MQW laser diodes with a very low threshold current (7-10 mA) have been fabricated. Low pressure MOVPE technology has been employed for the preparation of the layered structure. A novel gain-coupled DFB laser structure with an improved injection-carrier modulated grating has been proposed and fabricated. The laser structures have been prepared by hybrid growth of MOVPE and LPE techniques and reasonably good characteristics have been achieved for resultant lasers. High performance 1.3 mu m and 1.55 mu m InGaAsP/InP DFB lasers have successfully been developed for CATV and trunk line optical fiber communication.

AlGaInP visible quantum well lasers for information technology

650 nm-range AlGaInP multi-quantum well (MQW) laser diodes grown by low pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD) have been studied and the results are presented in this paper. Threshold current density of broad area contact laser diodes can be as low as 350 A/cm(2). Laser diodes with buried-ridge strip waveguide structures were made, threshold currents and differential efficiencies are (22-40) mA and (0.2-0.7) mW/mA, respectively. Typical output power for the laser diodes is 5 mW, maximum output power of 15 mW has been obtained. Their operation temperature can be up to 90 degrees C under power of 5 mW. After operating under 90 degrees C and 5 mW for 72 hrs, the average increments for the threshold currents of the lasers at 25 degrees C and the operation currents at 5 mW (at 25 degrees C) are (2-3) mA and (3-5) mA, respectively. Reliability tests showed that no obvious degradation was observed after 1400 hours of CW operation under 50 degrees C and 2.5 mW.

Si-based optoelectronic devices and their attractive applications

The semiconductor photonics and optoelectronics which have a great significance in the development of advanced high technology of information systems will be discussed in this paper. The emphasis will be put on the recent research carried out in our laboratory in enhanced luminescence from low dimensional materials such as SiGe/Si and Er-doped Si-rich SiO2/Si and Er-doped SixNy/Si. A ring shape waveguide structure, used to promote the effective absorption coefficient in PIN photodetector for 1.3 mu m wavelength and a resonant cavity enhanced structure, used to improve the quantum efficiency and response in heterostructure photo-transistor (HPT), are also proposed in this paper.

El papel de la Revolución de Terciopelo en la redefinición de la identidad checoslovaca en términos de política exterior con respecto a Rusia

Este trabajo responde la pregunta ¿Cuál es el papel de la Revolución de Terciopelo en la redefinición de la identidad checoslovaca en términos de política exterior?. Defenderá que, conforme al constructivismo, la identidad de los Estados así como sus intereses no están dados y menos se explican por sus capacidades, explicando la conducta y la forma cómo construyeron socialmente su identidad. La Revolución de Terciopelo tuvo lugar en Checoslovaquia, en un momento definitivo en la historia del país, influyendo en la creación de una nueva identidad colectiva que generó consecuencias en el ámbito internacional, ya que a partir de este hecho concreto se evidencia un cambio en la formulación de la política exterior de este país. Para responder a esta pregunta se hará una recolección de información en donde se utilizará la técnica de análisis de documentos, recolectando la bibliografía y consultando en bibliotecas, bases de datos y portales de internet.

Advanced functionality for radio analysis in the Offline software framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The advent of the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) necessitates the development of a powerful framework for the analysis of radio measurements of cosmic ray air showers. As AERA performs ""radio-hybrid"" measurements of air shower radio emission in coincidence with the surface particle detectors and fluorescence telescopes of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the radio analysis functionality had to be incorporated in the existing hybrid analysis solutions for fluorescence and surface detector data. This goal has been achieved in a natural way by extending the existing Auger Offline software framework with radio functionality. In this article, we lay out the design, highlights and features of the radio extension implemented in the Auger Offline framework. Its functionality has achieved a high degree of sophistication and offers advanced features such as vectorial reconstruction of the electric field, advanced signal processing algorithms, a transparent and efficient handling of FFTs, a very detailed simulation of detector effects, and the read-in of multiple data formats including data from various radio simulation codes. The source code of this radio functionality can be made available to interested parties on request. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An investigation of the mode characteristics of SOI submicron rib waveguides using the film mode matching method

The mode characteristics of SOI (silicon-on-insulator) submicron rib waveguides are very different from those of micrometer-sized ones. Using the full-vector film mode matching method, we propose a simple criterion to determine whether a waveguide mode is guided or not. The single-mode condition for deep-etched waveguides is obtained using this criterion. We also obtain the inherent TM mode leakage and sharp cancelation effects due to TE-TM mode coupling in shallow-etched rib waveguides from numerical simulations, which agree well with the analytical results based on total internal reflection and interference theories.

The influence of alkali metal chlorides on the loss of water from glass-ionomer dental cements

The water loss behaviour of a clinical glass-ionomer dental cement has been studied with and without the addition of alkali metal chlorides. Dehydrating conditions were provided by placing specimens in a desiccator over concentrated sulphuric acid. Cements were prepared using either pure water or an aqueous solution of metal chloride (LiCl, NaCl, KCl) at 1.0 mol/dm(3). In addition, NaCl at 0.5 mol/dm(3) was also used to fabricate cements. Disc-shaped specimens of size 6 mm diameter x 2 mm thickness were made, six performulation, and cured at 37 degrees C for 1 hour They were then exposed to desiccating conditions, and the mass measured at regular intervals. All formulations were found to lose water in a diffusion process that equilibrated after approximately 3 weeks. Diffusion coefficients ranged from 2.27 (0.13) x 10(9) with no additive to 1.85 (0.07) x 10(9) m(2)/s with 1.0 mol/dm(3) KCl. For the salts, diffusion coefficients decreased in the order LiCl > NaCl > KCl. There was no statistically significant difference between the diffusion coefficients for 1.0 and 0.5 mol/dm(3) NaCl. For all salts at 1.0 mol/dm(3) and also additive-free cements, equilibrium losses were, with statistical limits, the same, ranging from 6.23 to 6.34%. On the other hand, 0.5 mol/dm(3) NaCl lost significantly more water 7.05%.

Textural and structural properties of bioactive glasses in the system CaO-SiO2

Gel-derived CaO-SiO2 binary glasses of CaO mole fractions 0. 2, 0.3 and 0. 4 have been prepared and characterised. Pore diameter specific pore volume, skeletal density and porosity were found to increase with increasing CaO-content, whereas a concomitant decrease in specific surface area was observed. Si-29 NMR indicated that the 0.2 CaO mole fraction glass consisted of higly polymerized Q(4) and Q(3) silicate species, with some Q(2) units. With increasing CaO mole fraction, these silicate species became progressively depolymerised such that isolated SiO4 tetrahedra were detected within the 0.4 CaO glass matrix. Unusually, the glasses retained a proportion of Q(4) and Q(3) species as the CaO mole fraction was increased. All glass formulations exhibited in vitro bioactivity. The rate of hydroxyapatite precipitation followed the order 0.2 CaO > 0.4 CaO > > 0.3 CaO, an effect that is attributed to differences in the rate of dissolution of calcium from these glasses. This, in turn, appears to be dependent upon the proportion of Ca 21 participating in the formation of the glassy network.

Water transport in zinc oxy-chloride cements

The water uptake and water loss behaviour in three different formulations of zinc oxy-chloride cement have been studied in detail. Specimens of each material were subjected to a high humidity atmosphere (93% RH) over saturated aqueous sodium sulfate, and a low humidity desiccating atmosphere over concentrated sulfuric acid. In high humidity, the cement formulated from the nominal 75% ZnCl2 solutions gained mass, eventually becoming too sticky to weigh further. The specimens at 25% and 50% ZnCl2 by contrast lost mass by a diffusion process, though by 1 week the 50% cement had stated to gain mass and was also too sticky to weigh. In low humidity, all three cements lost mass, again by a diffusion process. Both water gain and water loss followed Fick's law for a considerable time. In the case of water loss under desiccating conditions, this corresponded to values of Mt/MĄ well above 0.5. However, plots did not go through the origin, showing that there was an induction period before true diffusion began. Diffusion coefficients varied from 1.56 x 10-5 (75% ZnCl2) to 2.75 x 10-5 cm2/s (50% ZnCl2), and appeared to be influenced not simply by composition. The drying of the 25% and 50% ZnCl2 cements in high humidity conditions occurred at a much lower rate, with a value of D of 2.5 x 10-8 cm2/s for the 25% ZnCl2 cement. This cement was found to equilibrate slowly, but total water loss did not differ significantly from that of the cements stored under desiccating conditions. Equilibration times for water loss in desiccating conditions were of the order of 2-4 hours, depending on ZnCl2 content; equilibrium water losses were respectively 28.8 [25% ZnCl2], 16.2 [50%] and 12.4 [75%] which followed the order of ZnCl2 content. It is concluded that the water transport processes are strongly influenced by the ZnCl2 content of the cement.