Caught in the act of collaboration: Students’ experiences of collective learning within a real-world design studio context

This study is an evaluation of design students’ perceptions of the benefits of collective learning in a real-world collaborative design studio. Third year students worked in inter-disciplinary teams representing architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and industrial design. Responding to a real-world brief and in consultation with an industry partner client and early childhood education pre-service teachers, the teams were required to collectively propose a design response for a community-based child and family centre, on an iconic koala sanctuary site. Data were collected using several methods including a participatory action research method, through the form of a large analogue, collaborative jigsaw puzzle. Using a grounded theory methodology, qualitative data were thematically analysed to reveal six distinct aspects of collaboration, which positively impacted the students’ learning experience. The results of this study include recommendations for improving real world collaboration in the design studio in preparation for students’ transition into professional practice.

A Comparison of the Implementation of the Employment Provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) in the United States and the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 in the United Kingdom

This summarizes the results of recently conducted surveys in the United States and Britain to assess employer response in each of these countries to their respective employment disability nondiscrimination legislation.

Traditionally Protected Forests and Sacred Forests of Zigua and Gweno Ethnic Groups in Tanzania

In Tanzania, indigenous forests can still be found whose existence is based on the management systems of precolonial society. This study covers material from over 900 forests. There are similar types of forests elsewhere in Africa, and similar forests can also be found in indigenous cultures on every continent. In this study they are called traditionally protected forests (TPFs). They have a high level of endemism and a rich biodiversity. The field study was carried out during the years 1997-2003 using participatory methods. An active debate is going on concerning the capacity of local communities to manage their environment. The role of indigenous people and their institutions in the development of the physical environment is a central issue in the debate. This study discusses the opportunities that the local people have had to decide on how to conserve, maintain, utilise, and manage their environment during different political periods. The study explains what kinds of changes have taken place in these forests and institutions in northeastern Tanzania among the matrilinear Zigua and patrilinear Gweno ethnic groups. About 2% of the land area of the communities was still protected by the precolonial structures. The communities have established their protection systems for different reasons, not only because of their beliefs but also because of different secular and clearly environmentally motivated reasons. There are different TPF types. Less than half of them are directly related to spirituality, and more than half are not. In earlier research elsewhere, it has been commonly understood that spiritual reasons played the main role in the protection of these environments. This study is also part of the postcolonial geographical discussion on the precolonial landscape and environmental management which was started by Carl Sauer. In the Zigua case study villages, only two out of five first comer clans have performed rain rituals in the past 30 years. Many of the most respected sacred sites do not have a ritual maker or even a person who knows how to perform rituals any longer. The same is happening with male initiation rites. In all case study villages there have been illegal cuts in the TPFs, but variations can be seen between the communities. The number of those who neither respect indigenous regulations nor accept indigenous penalties is growing. Positive developments have also taken place. Nowadays, the Forest Act of 2002 is in effect, which works as a cornerstone of community-based land ownership and also allows elders to protect TPFs, and by-laws are created with the support of different projects. Moreover, during the field study it was found that many young people are ignorant about their village's TPF sites, but interested in learning about their history and values.

Rhode Island Act of Disability [copy]

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Science-based restoration monitoring of coastal habitats, Volume One: A framework for monitoring plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000 (Public Law 160-457)

Executive Summary: The Estuary Restoration Act of 2000 (ERA), Title I of the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, was created to promote the restoration of habitats along the coast of the United States (including the US protectorates and the Great Lakes). The NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science was charged with the development of a guidance manual for monitoring plans under this Act. This guidance manual, titled Science-Based Restoration Monitoring of Coastal Habitats, is written in two volumes. It provides technical assistance, outlines necessary steps, and provides useful tools for the development and implementation of sound scientific monitoring of coastal restoration efforts. In addition, this manual offers a means to detect early warnings that the restoration is on track or not, to gauge how well a restoration site is functioning, to coordinate projects and efforts for consistent and successful restoration, and to evaluate the ecological health of specific coastal habitats both before and after project completion (Galatowitsch et al. 1998). The following habitats have been selected for discussion in this manual: water column, rock bottom, coral reefs, oyster reefs, soft bottom, kelp and other macroalgae, rocky shoreline, soft shoreline, submerged aquatic vegetation, marshes, mangrove swamps, deepwater swamps, and riverine forests. The classification of habitats used in this document is generally based on that of Cowardin et al. (1979) in their Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States, as called for in the ERA Estuary Habitat Restoration Strategy. This manual is not intended to be a restoration monitoring “cookbook” that provides templates of monitoring plans for specific habitats. The interdependence of a large number of site-specific factors causes habitat types to vary in physical and biological structure within and between regions and geographic locations (Kusler and Kentula 1990). Monitoring approaches used should be tailored to these differences. However, even with the diversity of habitats that may need to be restored and the extreme geographic range across which these habitats occur, there are consistent principles and approaches that form a common basis for effective monitoring. Volume One, titled A Framework for Monitoring Plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, begins with definitions and background information. Topics such as restoration, restoration monitoring, estuaries, and the role of socioeconomics in restoration are discussed. In addition, the habitats selected for discussion in this manual are briefly described. (PDF contains 116 pages)

El fraude empresarial: perspectiva internacional

Este trabajo analiza el fraude empresarial desde una perspectiva internacional. En los últimos años, ha estado muy presente en casos como el de Enron, WorldCom, Royal Ahold o PARMALAT, en los que se ven afectados la propia empresa, los trabajadores, el gobierno y, especialmente, los inversores, con pérdidas que pueden alcanzar millones de dólares. El fraude también afecta a la imagen de las empresas y en la motivación de los trabajadores, y además a menudo es causa de denuncias y penas de prisión. En función del tamaño de la empresa y del sector, la frecuencia con la que se cometen los actos fraudulentos y las pérdidas causadas varían. Asimismo, estos fraudes afectan a todas las regiones del mundo, aunque de manera desigual. Pero es en aquellas regiones más desarrolladas donde se le presta más atención al tema, y donde se han tomado numerosas medidas para intentar impedir estos actos ilícitos. Algunas de las más importantes son las propuestas por las Naciones Unidas: El Pacto Mundial y la Convención contra la Corrupción. También cabe destacar la Oficina Europea de Lucha Contra el Fraude, a nivel europeo, o la Foreign Corrupt Practices Act y la Ley Sarbanes-Oxley, en Estados Unidos. A pesar de estas medidas, en los últimos años el nivel de fraude ha aumentado.

The Great Whales: History and Status of Six Species Listed as Endangered Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973

In the history of whaling from prehistoric to modern times, the large whales, sometimes called the “great whales,” were hunted most heavily owing in part to their corresponding value in oil, meat, and baleen. Regional populations of North Atlantic right whales, Eubalaena glacialis glacialis, were already decimated by 1700, and the North Atlantic gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, was hunted to extinction by the early 1700’s (Mitchell and Mead1).

The NIPAS Act of 1992

Republic Act 7586 (Philippines) provides for the establishment and management of a National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS).

Cut down by some cowardly miscreants’: Plant maiming, or the Malicious Cutting of Plants as an Act of Protest in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Rural England

Since the publication of Hobsbawm and Rudé's Captain Swing our understanding of the role(s) of covert protests in Hanoverian rural England has advanced considerably. Whilst we now know much about the dramatic practices of incendiarism and animal maiming and the voices of resistance in seemingly straightforward acquisitive acts, one major gap remains. Despite the fact that almost thirty years have passed since E. P. Thompson brought to our attention that under the notorious ‘Black Act’ the malicious cutting of trees was a capital offence, no subsequent research has been published. This paper seeks to address this major lacuna by systematically analysing the practices and patterns of malicious attacks on plants (‘plant maiming’) in the context of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century southern England. It is shown that not only did plant maiming take many different forms, attacking every conceivable type of flora, but also that it was universally understood and practised. In some communities plant maiming was the protestors' weapon of choice. As a social practice it therefore embodied wider community beliefs regarding the defence of plebeian livelihoods and identities.

Tullis Rennie's Muscle Memory: Listening to the Act of Listening

This paper explores a recent, broadly 'electroacoustic', fixed medium composition by Tullis Rennie, which uses his background in ethnographic fieldwork to explore (in this case through auto-ethnography) modes of listening, and the role of technologies in mediating this listening. Muscle Memory: A conversation about jazz, with Graham South (trumpet) (2014) begins to answer questions about how one work can comment on and analyse or critique another through its own agency as music, bringing composition and ethnography together in fruitful collision, and illuminating the human capacity to manipulate and be manipulated by musical activity. The paper uses the piece to test the extent to which four functions, identified by Simon Frith (1987. Towards an aesthetic of popular music. In R. Leppert & S. McClary (Eds.), Music and society (pp. 133-49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) as crucial to the meaningfulness of popular music may, in the context of ubiquitously technologised music, have broader application than he originally intended.