In Perpetual Motion: Theories of Power, Educational History, and the Child

"In Perpetual Motion is an "historical choreography" of power, pedagogy, and the child from the 1600s to the early 1900s. It breaks new ground by historicizing the analytics of power and motion that have interpenetrated renditions of the young. Through a detailed examination of the works of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Herbart, and G. Stanley Hall, this book maps the discursive shifts through which the child was given a unique nature, inscribed in relation to reason, imbued with an effectible interiority, and subjected to theories of power and motion. The book illustrates how developmentalist visions took hold in U.S. public school debates. It documents how particular theories of power became submerged and taken for granted as essences inside the human subject. In Perpetual Motion studiously challenges views of power as in or of the gaze, tracing how different analytics of power have been used to theorize what gazing could notice."--BOOK JACKET.

The Link Between Medicaid and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): Recent History and Current Issues

[From Summary] As a condition of accepting funds under IDEA, public schools must provide special education and related services necessary for children with disabilities to benefit from a public education. Generally, states can finance only a portion of these costs with federal IDEA funds. Medicaid, the federal-state program that finances medical and health services for the poor, can cover IDEA required health-related services for enrolled children as well as related administrative activities (e.g., outreach for Medicaid enrollment purposes, medical care coordination/monitoring). However, the link between IDEA and Medicaid has not been seamless. Despite written federal guidance, schools have a difficult time meeting the myriad complex reimbursement rules applicable to all Medicaid participating providers. According to federal investigations and congressional hearings, Medicaid payments to schools have sometimes been improper. The President’s FY2007 budget proposal would prohibit federal Medicaid reimbursement for IDEA-related school-based administration and transportation costs. This report will be updated.

Teacher Education, School Effectiveness and Improvement : A Study of Academic and Professional Qualification on Teachers' Job Effectiveness in Nigerian Secondary Schools

This academic work begins with a compact presentation of the general background to the study, which also includes an autobiography for the interest in this research. The presentation provides readers who know little of the topic of this research and of the structure of the educational system as well as of the value given to education in Nigeria. It further concentrates on the dynamic interplay of the effect of academic and professional qualification and teachers' job effectiveness in secondary schools in Nigeria in particular, and in Africa in general. The aim of this study is to produce a systematic analysis and rich theoretical and empirical description of teachers' teaching competencies. The theoretical part comprises a comprehensive literature review that focuses on research conducted in the areas of academic and professional qualification and teachers' job effectiveness, teaching competencies, and the role of teacher education with particular emphasis on school effectiveness and improvement. This research benefits greatly from the functionalist conception of education, which is built upon two emphases: the application of the scientific method to the objective social world, and the use of an analogy between the individual 'organism' and 'society'. To this end, it offers us an opportunity to define terms systematically and to view problems as always being interrelated with other components of society. The empirical part involves describing and interpreting what educational objectives can be achieved with the help of teachers' teaching competencies in close connection to educational planning, teacher training and development, and achieving them without waste. The data used in this study were collected between 2002 and 2003 from teachers, principals, supervisors of education from the Ministry of Education and Post Primary Schools Board in the Rivers State of Nigeria (N=300). The data were collected from interviews, documents, observation, and questionnaires and were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods to strengthen the validity of the findings. The data collected were analyzed to answer the specific research questions and hypotheses posited in this study. The data analysis involved the use of multiple statistical procedures: Percentages Mean Point Value, T-test of Significance, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and Cross Tabulation. The results obtained from the data analysis show that teachers require professional knowledge and professional teaching skills, as well as a broad base of general knowledge (e.g., morality, service, cultural capital, institutional survey). Above all, in order to carry out instructional processes effectively, teachers should be both academically and professionally trained. This study revealed that teachers are not however expected to have an extraordinary memory, but rather looked upon as persons capable of thinking in the right direction. This study may provide a solution to the problem of teacher education and school effectiveness in Nigeria. For this reason, I offer this treatise to anyone seriously committed in improving schools in developing countries in general and in Nigeria in particular to improve the lives of all its citizens. In particular, I write this to encourage educational planners, education policy makers, curriculum developers, principals, teachers, and students of education interested in empirical information and methods to conceptualize the issue this study has raised and to provide them with useful suggestions to help them improve secondary schooling in Nigeria. Though, multiple audiences exist for any text. For this reason, I trust that the academic community will find this piece of work a useful addition to the existing literature on school effectiveness and school improvement. Through integrating concepts from a number of disciplines, I aim to describe as holistic a representation as space could allow of the components of school effectiveness and quality improvement. A new perspective on teachers' professional competencies, which not only take into consideration the unique characteristics of the variables used in this study, but also recommend their environmental and cultural derivation. In addition, researchers should focus their attention on the ways in which both professional and non-professional teachers construct and apply their methodological competencies, such as their grouping procedures and behaviors to the schooling of students. Keywords: Professional Training, Academic Training, Professionally Qualified, Academically Qualified, Professional Qualification, Academic Qualification, Job Effectiveness, Job Efficiency, Educational Planning, Teacher Training and Development, Nigeria.

Integrated Information and Communication Technology Strategies for Competitive Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific

Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific are rapidly reaching middle income economic status. Their competitive advantage is shifting from labor-intensive industries and natural resource-based economies to knowledge-based economies that innovate and create new products and services. Early adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) can allow countries to leapfrog over the traditional development pathway into production of knowledge-based products and services. Since higher education institutions (HEIs) are considered a primary engine of economic growth, adoption of ICT is imperative for securing competitive advantage. ICT is thought to be one of the fastest growing industries and is frequently heralded as a transforming influence on higher education systems globally and, consequently, is enhancing the competitive advantage of countries. It is increasingly becoming evident that an institution-wide ICT strategy covering all evolving functions of competitive HEIs is necessary. Such a system may be designed as an integrated platform but implemented in phases.

Life history and host range of Alagoasa extrema (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae), a potential biological control agent of Lantana spp. (Verbenaceae) in Australia

The life history and host range of the lantana beetle, Alagoasa extrema, a potential biocontrol agent for Lantana spp. were investigated in a quarantine unit at the Alan Fletcher Research Station, Brisbane, Australia. Adults feed on leaves and females lay batches of about 17 eggs on the soil surface around the stems of plants. The eggs take 16 days to hatch and newly emerged larvae move up the stem to feed on young leaves. Larvae feed for about 23 days and there are three instars. There is a prepupal non-feeding stage that lasts about 12 days and the pupal stage, which occurs in a cocoon in the soil, lasts 16 days. Teneral adults remain in the cocoon for 3 days to harden prior to emergence. Males live for about 151 days while females live for about 127 days. The pre-oviposition period is 19 days. In no-choice larval feeding trials, nine plant species, representing three families, supported development to adult. Three species, Aloysia triphylla, Citharexylum spinosum and Pandorea pandorana were able to support at least two successive generations. These results confirm those reported in South Africa and suggest that A. extrema is not sufficiently specific for release in Australia. Furthermore, it is not recommended for release in any other country which is considering biological control of lantana.

On the Geometry of Infinite-Dimensional Grassmannian Manifolds and Gauge Theory

This PhD Thesis is about certain infinite-dimensional Grassmannian manifolds that arise naturally in geometry, representation theory and mathematical physics. From the physics point of view one encounters these infinite-dimensional manifolds when trying to understand the second quantization of fermions. The many particle Hilbert space of the second quantized fermions is called the fermionic Fock space. A typical element of the fermionic Fock space can be thought to be a linear combination of the configurations m particles and n anti-particles . Geometrically the fermionic Fock space can be constructed as holomorphic sections of a certain (dual)determinant line bundle lying over the so called restricted Grassmannian manifold, which is a typical example of an infinite-dimensional Grassmannian manifold one encounters in QFT. The construction should be compared with its well-known finite-dimensional analogue, where one realizes an exterior power of a finite-dimensional vector space as the space of holomorphic sections of a determinant line bundle lying over a finite-dimensional Grassmannian manifold. The connection with infinite-dimensional representation theory stems from the fact that the restricted Grassmannian manifold is an infinite-dimensional homogeneous (Kähler) manifold, i.e. it is of the form G/H where G is a certain infinite-dimensional Lie group and H its subgroup. A central extension of G acts on the total space of the dual determinant line bundle and also on the space its holomorphic sections; thus G admits a (projective) representation on the fermionic Fock space. This construction also induces the so called basic representation for loop groups (of compact groups), which in turn are vitally important in string theory / conformal field theory. The Thesis consists of three chapters: the first chapter is an introduction to the backround material and the other two chapters are individually written research articles. The first article deals in a new way with the well-known question in Yang-Mills theory, when can one lift the action of the gauge transformation group on the space of connection one forms to the total space of the Fock bundle in a compatible way with the second quantized Dirac operator. In general there is an obstruction to this (called the Mickelsson-Faddeev anomaly) and various geometric interpretations for this anomaly, using such things as group extensions and bundle gerbes, have been given earlier. In this work we give a new geometric interpretation for the Faddeev-Mickelsson anomaly in terms of differentiable gerbes (certain sheaves of categories) and central extensions of Lie groupoids. The second research article deals with the question how to define a Dirac-like operator on the restricted Grassmannian manifold, which is an infinite-dimensional space and hence not in the landscape of standard Dirac operator theory. The construction relies heavily on infinite-dimensional representation theory and one of the most technically demanding challenges is to be able to introduce proper normal orderings for certain infinite sums of operators in such a way that all divergences will disappear and the infinite sum will make sense as a well-defined operator acting on a suitable Hilbert space of spinors. This research article was motivated by a more extensive ongoing project to construct twisted K-theory classes in Yang-Mills theory via a Dirac-like operator on the restricted Grassmannian manifold.

Human genetic variation in the Baltic Sea region: Features of population history and natural selection

In this thesis, the genetic variation of human populations from the Baltic Sea region was studied in order to elucidate population history as well as evolutionary adaptation in this region. The study provided novel understanding of how the complex population level processes of migration, genetic drift, and natural selection have shaped genetic variation in North European populations. Results from genome-wide, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal analyses suggested that the genetic background of the populations of the Baltic Sea region lies predominantly in Continental Europe, which is consistent with earlier studies and archaeological evidence. The late settlement of Fennoscandia after the Ice Age and the subsequent small population size have led to pronounced genetic drift, especially in Finland and Karelia but also in Sweden, evident especially in genome-wide and Y-chromosomal analyses. Consequently, these populations show striking genetic differentiation, as opposed to much more homogeneous pattern of variation in Central European populations. Additionally, the eastern side of the Baltic Sea was observed to have experienced eastern influence in the genome-wide data as well as in mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal variation – consistent with linguistic connections. However, Slavic influence in the Baltic Sea populations appears minor on genetic level. While the genetic diversity of the Finnish population overall was low, genome-wide and Y-chromosomal results showed pronounced regional differences. The genetic distance between Western and Eastern Finland was larger than for many geographically distant population pairs, and provinces also showed genetic differences. This is probably mainly due to the late settlement of Eastern Finland and local isolation, although differences in ancestral migration waves may contribute to this, too. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal analyses of the contemporary Swedish population revealed a much less pronounced population structure and a fusion of the traces of ancient admixture, genetic drift, and recent immigration. Genome-wide datasets also provide a resource for studying the adaptive evolution of human populations. This study revealed tens of loci with strong signs of recent positive selection in Northern Europe. These results provide interesting targets for future research on evolutionary adaptation, and may be important for understanding the background of disease-causing variants in human populations.

Superoperator formalism and chemisorption theory

It is pointed out that the superoperator formalism, developed for the calculation of ionization potentials in molecular physics, is a very powerful tool in chemisorption theory. This is demonstrated by applying the formalism to the Anderson-Newns model and by showing how the different approximate solutions can be obtained by elegant and systematic procedures. It is also pointed out that using the formalism, solutions for more complicated hamiltonians can easily be obtained.

History and development of public health

This chapter and the others that follow have the study of population health as their focus, as opposed to a focus on individual care and treatment. Clearly, however, we are concerned with the way in which population health is influenced by biomedical theories and practices, and the way population health is funded, and is influenced by the importance placed on therapeutic medicine. The discussions that follow include a brief overview of the ancient history of public health, and the modern history of Western public health dating from 1850. This date signifies the beginnings of a more organised, collective effort to protect the public’s health. These discussions will help you further expand your definition of public health. You will have an entertaining journey through public health achievements, and less successful outcomes, by examining the historical developments that have led us to a modern understanding of public health. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, had public health measures to ensure the safety and health of their populations, for a range of social and economic reasons. Convicts arrived in Australia with many health problems, and were put to work to satisfy the needs of a fledgling colony. It is important to understand the historical journey of public health and the way it is critically analysed, as it provides a looking-glass onto the present and the future.

Climate change and agriculture: theory and application of mitigation policies

Agriculture’s contribution to climate change is controversial as it is a significant source of greenhouse gases but also a sink of carbon. Hence its economic and technological potential to mitigate climate change have been argued to be noteworthy. However, social profitability of emission mitigation is a result from factors among emission reductions such as surface water quality impact or profit from production. Consequently, to value comprehensive results of agricultural climate emission mitigation practices, these co-effects to environment and economics should be taken into account. The objective of this thesis was to develop an integrated economic and ecological model to analyse the social welfare of crop cultivation in Finland on distinctive cultivation technologies, conventional tillage and conservation tillage (no-till). Further, we ask whether it would be privately or socially profitable to allocate some of barley cultivation for alternative land use, such as green set-aside or afforestation, when production costs, GHG’s and water quality impacts are taken into account. In the theoretical framework we depict the optimal input use and land allocation choices in terms of environmental impacts and profit from production and derive the optimal tax and payment policies for climate and water quality friendly land allocation. The empirical application of the model uses Finnish data about production cost and profit structure and environmental impacts. According to our results, given emission mitigation practices are not self-evidently beneficial for farmers or society. On the contrary, in some cases alternative land allocation could even reduce social welfare, profiting conventional crop cultivation. This is the case regarding mineral soils such as clay and silt soils. On organic agricultural soils, climate mitigation practices, in this case afforestation and green fallow give more promising results, decreasing climate emissions and nutrient runoff to water systems. No-till technology does not seem to profit climate mitigation although it does decrease other environmental impacts. Nevertheless, the data behind climate emission mitigation practices impact to production and climate is limited and partly contradictory. More specific experiment studies on interaction of emission mitigation practices and environment would be needed. Further study would be important. Particularly area specific production and environmental factors and also food security and safety and socio-economic impacts should be taken into account.