Neo-positivist or neo-kantian? Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle.

This paper re-contextualises Popper within a Kantian tradition by examining his interaction with the Vienna Circle. The complexity of Popper’s relationship to the Vienna Circle is often a point of confusion as some view him as a member of the Vienna Circle while others minimise his association with this group. This paper argues that Popper was not a member of the Vienna Circle or a positivist but shared many neo-Kantian philosophical tendencies with the members of the Circle as well as many of their philosophical problems and interests. By better understanding the influence of the Circle’s members upon Popper, we not only remove the myths surrounding Popper’s positivism, but also place the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle within its proper philosophical context. This paper further argues that it was Popper’s friend during his formative philosophical years in Vienna, Julius Kraft (1921–1960) who was responsible for the way in which Popper approached Kant. Through Kraft, Popper was introduced to the thought of Leonard Nelson (1882–1927) and Jakob Fries (1773–1843) as well as a tradition of critical rationalism which Popper would continue both in his methodological orientation as well as through his late German Enlightenment intellectual values.

Novel B-site ordered double perovskite Ba2Bi0.1Sc0.2Co1.7O6-x for highly efficient oxygen reduction reaction

Double perovskite Ba₂Bi_0.1Sc_0.2Co_1.7O_6-x (BBSC) demonstrates low polarization resistance between 600 and 750 °C due to the high oxygen reduction rate of BBSC as reflected by its large D_V and k values, which are derived from the face centered cubic structure and high cobalt content.

Accounting education at a crossroad in 2010 and challenges facing accounting education in Australia

Of the various reports released in 2010, two purport to examine the state of accounting education in Australia. These are Accounting Education at a Crossroad in 2010 and Challenges Facing Accounting Education in Australia. Both were released as collaborations of the leading academic organisation, the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) or professional accounting bodies in Australia including the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA), the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA),1 and Certified Practising Accountants of Australia (CPA Australia). As their titles imply, the main thrust of these reports is to examine the challenges facing accounting education in Australian universities and, as such, they act as the input for this AE Briefing. The main challenges articulated in these reports portray a sector suffering from the combined pressure of a large international student enrolment, high student-to-staff ratios, an inadequate funding model, and an ageing academic staff profile. By way of commentary, we suggest that, if these gloomy circumstances continue to develop unabated, then the future for the sector will play out as a ‘perfect storm’2 with the sector suffering on-going troubled development.

Application of Swales' model in research papers by non-native authors

This paper reports the investigation of the organisational structure of introductory sections of research papers written by Polish authors in English and Polish. The aim of the study was to test whether in view of cultural differences, reflected in the Anglo-American and Polish intellectual styles, the rhetorical pattern of research papers would vary between the two cultures. The selected texts were analysed in terms of Swales' Creating a Research Space (CARS) model (Swales 1990). On application of the model in the analysis of articles from the English corpus, it was found that it could only be employed in very generic terms. The analysis of the Polish corpus revealed that the Variation between Anglo-American and Polish schematic patterns was too significant to justify the implementation of the same investigative tool.

Deactivation and regeneration of oxygen reduction reactivity on double perovskite Ba2Bi0.1Sc0.2Co1.7O6−x cathode for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells

in situ high-temperature X-ray diffraction and thermal gravimetric- differential thermal analysis on room-temperature powder, as well as X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy on quenched powder, were applied to study crystal structure and phase transformations in Ba₂Bi_0.1Sc_0.2Co _1.7O_6-x (BBSC). Heating BBSC in air to over 800 °C produces a pure cubic phase with space group Fm3m (no. 225), and cooling down below 800 °C leads to a mixture of three noncubic phases including an unknown phase between 200 and 650 °C, a 2H hexagonal BaCoO3 with space group P63/mmc (no. 194) between 600 and 800 °C, and an intermediate phase at 800 °C. These three phases exist concurrently with the major cubic phase. The weight gain and loss between 300 and 900 °C suggest the occurrence of cobalt reduction, oxidation, and disproportion reactions with dominant reduction reaction at above 600 °C. The thermal expansion of BBSC was also examined by dilatometry. BBSC has a highly temperature-dependent thermal expansion coefficient which relates well with its structure evolution. Furthermore, the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) of BBSC was probed by symmetrical cell and three-electrode configurations. The presence of hexagonal phase at 700 °C rarely affects the ORR performance of BBSC as evidenced by a slight increase of its area-specific resistance (ASR) value following 48 h of testing in this three-electrode configuration. This observation is in contrast to the commonly held point of view that noncubic phase deteriorates performance of perovskite compounds (especially in oxygen transport applications). Moreover, cathodic polarization treatment, for example, current discharge from BBSC (tested in three-electrode configuration), can be utilized to recover the original ORR performance. The cubic structure seems to be retained on the cathodic polarization - the normal cathode operating mode in fuel cells. Stable 72-h performance of BBSC in cathodic polarization mode further confirms that despite the presence of phase impurities, BBSC still demonstrates good performance between 500 and 700 °C, the desired intermediate operating temperature in solid oxide fuel cells.

The fog of flexibility : the riskiness of flexible post-secondary education in Australia

This chapter considers the political, social and technological features contributing to the rise of distance education in 20th Century Australia and to its dissolution in the early 21st Century. The discussion considers both international trends and influences, and particularly the Australian experiences that created the foggy mélange: external studies, extension studies, off-campus studies, open campus, open learning, flexible learning, flexible delivery, distance learning, distance education, correspondence learning, online learning, e-learning etc. The fogginess of the terminology reflects the ‘buzz-word’ politics of the turn-of-the-century governments, their bureaucracies and bureaucratese, and of the commercial world, its marketers and advertising slogans.

Recording Australian animation history

Animation has been practised in Australia from a relatively early stage in the worldwide history of cinematic animation, as evidenced by quite mature examples of cutout animation by cartoonist Harry Julius beginning in 1912. It may therefore seem odd that there is comparatively little written of its history. In America and Europe established histories of animation have been recorded. The growth of the medium in these other countries led to the comparatively early establishment of institutions teaching its history and practice.

Accounting students' feedback on feedback in Australian universities: they're are less than impressed

Undergraduate accounting students in Australian universities are dissatisfied with the feedback that they currently receive. Recent evidence from the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ, a national survey of Australian university graduates) suggests that the accounting discipline ranks poorly on assessment feedback when compared to other disciplines. This finding aligns with the results of local university data, which also shows that students appear dissatisfied with feedback. Similar results can be found in other jurisdictions, as noted by the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Given the importance of feedback to enhancing students' learning, these results are of concern to accounting academics and other stakeholders, including professional accounting bodies and graduate employers. To date, few studies have sought to understand in a comprehensive manner the relatively poor performance in feedback scores in the discipline of accounting. This exploratory study seeks to address this gap by investigating the reasons underlying students' dissatisfaction. We report on students' perceptions obtained from a large survey of Australian undergraduate accounting students across 12 universities. Over 2600 students responded to the survey. Our findings indicate that accounting students value feedback that is individualised, detailed, constructive and timely, and that currently they are not receiving feedback with these attributes.

Social moderation, assessment and assuring standards for accounting graduates

Evidencing student achievement of standards is a growing imperative worldwide. Key stakeholders (including current and prospective students, government, regulators and employers) want confidence that threshold learning standards in an accounting degree have been assured. Australia’s new higher education regulatory environment requires that student achievements are benchmarked against intended programme learning outcomes, guided by published disciplinary standards and a national qualifications framework, and against other higher education providers. Here, we report on a process involving academics from 10 universities, aided by professional practitioners, to establish and equip assessors to reliably assure threshold learning standards in accounting that are nationally comparable. Importantly, we are learning more about how standards are interpreted. Based on the premise that meaning is constructed from tacit experiences, social interactions and intentional reflection on explicit information, we report outcomes of three multi-part calibration interventions, situated around judgements of the quality of the written communication skills exhibited in student work and their related assessment tasks. Qualitative data from 30 participants in the calibration process suggest that they perceive that the process both assists them both in developing a shared understanding of the accounting threshold learning standards and in the redesign of assessment tasks to more validly assess the threshold learning standards.

Does calibration reduce variability in the assessment of accounting learning outcomes?

Reliable, consistent assessment process that produces comparable assessment grades between assessors and institutions is a core activity and an ongoing challenge with which universities have failed to come to terms. In this paper, we report results from an experiment that tests the impact of an intervention designed to reduce grader variability and develop a shared understanding of national threshold learning standards by a cohort of reviewers. The intervention involved consensus moderation of samples of accounting students’ work, with a focus on three research questions. First, what is the quantifiable difference in grader variability on the assessment of learning outcomes in ‘application skills’ and ‘judgement’? Second, does participation in the workshops lead to reduced disparity in the assessment of the students’ learning outcomes in ‘application skills’ and ‘judgement’? Third, does participation in the workshops lead to greater confidence by reviewers in their ability to assess students’ skills in application skills and judgement? Our findings suggest consensus moderation does reduce variability across graders and also builds grader confidence.