Our west China mission : being a somewhat extensive summary by the missionaries on the field of the work during the first twenty-five years of the Canadian Methodist mission in the province of Szechwan, western China.

http://www.archive.org/details/westchinamiss00unknuoft

OPEN DOORS AND OPEN MINDS: WHAT FACULTY AUTHORS CAN DO TO ENSURE OPEN ACCESS TO THEIR WORK THROUGH THEIR INSTITUTION

The Internet has brought unparalleled opportunities for expanding availability of research by bringing down economic and physical barriers to sharing. The digitally networked environment promises to democratize access, carry knowledge beyond traditional research niches, accelerate discovery, encourage new and interdisciplinary approaches to ever more complex research challenges, and enable new computational research strategies. However, despite these opportunities for increasing access to knowledge, the prices of scholarly journals have risen sharply over the past two decades, often forcing libraries to cancel subscriptions. Today even the wealthiest institutions cannot afford to sustain all of the journals needed by their faculties and students. To take advantage of the opportunities created by the Internet and to further their mission of creating, preserving, and disseminating knowledge, many academic institutions are taking steps to capture the benefits of more open research sharing. Colleges and universities have built digital repositories to preserve and distribute faculty scholarly articles and other research outputs. Many individual authors have taken steps to retain the rights they need, under copyright law, to allow their work to be made freely available on the Internet and in their institutionâ s repository. And, faculties at some institutions have adopted resolutions endorsing more open access to scholarly articles. Most recently, on February 12, 2008, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University took a landmark step. The faculty voted to adopt a policy requiring that faculty authors send an electronic copy of their scholarly articles to the universityâ s digital repository and that faculty authors automatically grant copyright permission to the university to archive and to distribute these articles unless a faculty member has waived the policy for a particular article. Essentially, the faculty voted to make open access to the results of their published journal articles the default policy for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University. As of March 2008, a proposal is also under consideration in the University of California system by which faculty authors would commit routinely to grant copyright permission to the university to make copies of the facultyâ s scholarly work openly accessible over the Internet. Inspired by the example set by the Harvard faculty, this White Paper is addressed to the faculty and administrators of academic institutions who support equitable access to scholarly research and knowledge, and who believe that the institution can play an important role as steward of the scholarly literature produced by its faculty. This paper discusses both the motivation and the process for establishing a binding institutional policy that automatically grants a copyright license from each faculty member to permit deposit of his or her peer-reviewed scholarly articles in institutional repositories, from which the works become available for others to read and cite.

How Does the Cerebral Cortex Work? Developement, Learning, Attention, and 3D Vision by Laminar Circuits of Visual Cortex

A key goal of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience is to link brain mechanisms to behavioral functions. The present article describes recent progress towards explaining how the visual cortex sees. Visual cortex, like many parts of perceptual and cognitive neocortex, is organized into six main layers of cells, as well as characteristic sub-lamina. Here it is proposed how these layered circuits help to realize the processes of developement, learning, perceptual grouping, attention, and 3D vision through a combination of bottom-up, horizontal, and top-down interactions. A key theme is that the mechanisms which enable developement and learning to occur in a stable way imply properties of adult behavior. These results thus begin to unify three fields: infant cortical developement, adult cortical neurophysiology and anatomy, and adult visual perception. The identified cortical mechanisms promise to generalize to explain how other perceptual and cognitive processes work.

Negotiating the boundaries between home and work practices: The case of home-workers

When people work from home, the domains of home and work are co-located, often under one roof. Home-workers have to cope with the meeting of two practices that have traditionally been physically separated. In light of this, we need to understand: how do people who work from home negotiate the boundaries between their home and work practices? What kinds of boundaries do people construct? How do boundaries affect the relationship between home and work as domains? What kinds of boundaries are available to home-workers? Are home-workers in charge of their boundaries or do they co-create them with others? How does this position home-workers in their domains? In order to address these questions, I analysed a variety of data, including newspaper columns, online forum discussions, interviews, and personal diary entries, using a discourse analytic approach that lends itself to issues of positioning. Current literature clashes over whether home-workers are in control of their boundaries, and over the relationship between home and work that arises out of boundary negotiations, i.e. whether home and work are dichotomous or layered. I seek to contribute to boundary theory by adopting a practice theory stance (Wenger, 1998) to guide my analysis. By viewing home and work as practices, I show that boundary negotiations depend on how home-workers are positioned, e.g. if they are positioned as peripheral in a domain, they lack influence over boundaries. I demonstrate that home and work constitute a number of different practices, rather than a rigid dichotomy, and that the way home and work are related are not the same for all home-workers. The application of practice concepts further shows how relationships between practices are created. The contribution of this work is a reconceptualisation of current boundary theory away from individual and cognitive notions (Nippert-Eng, 1996) into the realm of positioning.

Work experience in transition year: a mixed methods study of subject and career choices

Transition Year (TY) has been a feature of the Irish Education landscape for 39 years. Work experience (WE) has become a key component of TY. WE is defined as a module of between five and fifteen days duration where students engage in a work placement in the broader community. It places a major emphasis on building relationships between schools and their external communities and concomitantly between students and their potential future employers. Yet, the idea that participation in a TY work experience programme could facilitate an increased awareness of potential careers has drawn little attention from the research community. This research examines the influence WE has on the subsequent subjects choices made by students along with the effects of that experience on the students’ identities and emerging vocational identities. Socio-cultural Learning Theory and Occupational Choice Theory frame the overall study. A mixed methods approach to data collection was adopted through the administration of 323 quantitative questionnaires and 32 individual semi-structured interviews in three secondary schools. The analysis of the data was conducted using a grounded theory approach. The findings from the research show that WE makes a significant contribution to the students’ sense of agency in their own lives. It facilitates the otherwise complex process of subject choice, motivates students to work harder in their senior cycle, introduces them to the concepts of active, experience-based and self-directed learning, while boosting their self-confidence and nurturing the emergence of their personal and vocational identities. This research is a gateway to further study in this field. It also has wide reaching implications for students, teachers, school authorities, parents and policy makers regarding teaching and learning in our schools and the value of learning beyond the walls of the classroom.

Health of the older worker in Ireland - occupational physical and psychosocial factors in the autumn of work life

Introduction: Worldwide, governments are striving to keep people in work to an older age. However, little is known about the effects of work on an older workforce. This thesis aims to investigate the importance of job characteristics to the antecedents and evolution of cardiovascular disease and functional limitations for the older worker (50+ years). Methods: Three studies were used in this thesis. The 5C (Cork Coronary Care Case- Control) Study investigated the association between job strain and a coronary event in males (n=208) 35-74 years old. The Mitchelstown Study examined the association between job characteristics and positive lifestyle behaviours and further, job characteristics and blood pressure for males and females 50-69 years (n=2,047). Finally, the Cork & Kerry Study investigated the physical effects of manual work and reported functional limitations/disabilities in a sample of 60-80 year olds (n=362). Results: Results from the 5C Study show a clear difference between younger (<50 years) and older (≥50 years) workers, with older workers who had a coronary event more likely to have high job strain and low job control. Data from the Mitchelstown Study showed workers with intermediate possibility for development or high quantitative demands (versus low) at work significantly more likely to have co-occurrence of positive lifestyle behaviours. Further, those who had high possibility for development were more likely to have high systolic blood pressure with no indication of recovery from this activation at night. Physically demanding work as reported by the participants of the Cork & Kerry Study was associated with functional limitations and activities of daily living disability for both the paid and unpaid worker. Discussion: The findings from this piece of work highlight the necessity to examine job characteristics and health outcomes in isolation for the over fifties. The challenge is to get this information into the workplace.

Child work and labour among orphaned and abandoned children in five low and middle income countries.

BACKGROUND: The care and protection of the estimated 143,000,000 orphaned and abandoned children (OAC) worldwide is of great importance to global policy makers and child service providers in low and middle income countries (LMICs), yet little is known about rates of child labour among OAC, what child and caregiver characteristics predict child engagement in work and labour, or when such work infers with schooling. This study examines rates and correlates of child labour among OAC and associations of child labour with schooling in a cohort of OAC in 5 LMICs. METHODS: The Positive Outcomes for Orphans (POFO) study employed a two-stage random sampling survey methodology to identify 1480 single and double orphans and children abandoned by both parents ages 6-12 living in family settings in five LMICs: Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Tanzania. Regression models examined child and caregiver associations with: any work versus no work; and with working <21, 21-27, and 28+ hours during the past week, and child labour (UNICEF definition). RESULTS: The majority of OAC (60.7%) engaged in work during the past week, and of those who worked, 17.8% (10.5% of the total sample) worked 28 or more hours. More than one-fifth (21.9%; 13% of the total sample) met UNICEF's child labour definition. Female OAC and those in good health had increased odds of working. OAC living in rural areas, lower household wealth and caregivers not earning an income were associated with increased child labour. Child labour, but not working fewer than 28 hours per week, was associated with decreased school attendance. CONCLUSIONS: One in seven OAC in this study were reported to be engaged in child labour. Policy makers and social service providers need to pay close attention to the demands being placed on female OAC, particularly in rural areas and poor households with limited income sources. Programs to promote OAC school attendance may need to focus on the needs of families as well as the OAC.

Revising Justice: Punitory Thought and Action in the Work of Atwood, Jordan, and Oates

*Designated as an exemplary master's project for 2015-16*

Analysis of the utility of QuantiFERON-TB gold in tube and measurement of IFNgamma release by peripheral mononuclear cells in response to different mycobacterium antigen in the work-up of patients with uveitis.

Evaluation Studies

[Conference report] Magic and mathematics: The life and work of John Dee. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 13-14 June 2003

Tony Mann provides a report of a two-day meeting "Magic and mathematics: The life and work of John Dee" held from 13-14 June 2003 at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

A price worth paying?: Women and work – choice, constraint or satisficing

Purpose – Are women held back or holding back? Do women choose their jobs/careers or are they structurally or normatively constrained? The purpose of this paper is to shed fresh light on these questions and contribute to an on-going debate that has essentially focused on the extent to which part-time work is women’s choice, the role of structural and organisational constraints and the role of men in excluding women. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses data from interviews with 80 working women – both full-time and part-time – performing diverse work roles in a range of organisations in the south east of England. Findings – It was found that many women do not make strategic job choices, rather they often ‘‘fall into’’ jobs that happen to be available to them. Some would not have aspired to their present jobs without male encouragement; many report incidents of male exclusion; and virtually all either know or suspect that they are paid less than comparable men. Those working reduced hours enjoy that facility, yet they are aware that reduced hours and senior roles are seen as incompatible. In short, they recognise both the positive and negative aspects of their jobs, whether they work full or part-time, whether they work in male-dominated or female-dominated occupations, and whatever their position in the organisational hierarchy. Accordingly, the paper argues that the concept of ‘‘satisficing’’, i.e. a decision which is good enough but not optimal, is a more appropriate way to view women’s working lives than are either choice or constraint theories. Originality/value – There is an ongoing, and often polarised, debate between those who maintain that women choose whether to give preference to work or home/family and others who maintain that women, far from being self-determining actors, are constrained structurally and normatively. Rather than supporting these choice or constraint theories, this paper argues that ‘‘satisficing’’ is a more appropriate and nuanced concept to explain women’s working lives.

'Bowing from the heart': an investigation into discourses of professionalism and the work of caring for students in further education

Since their incorporation in 1993, further education (FE) colleges in England have been responsible for their own staffing and, faced with funding constraints as well as recruitment and retention targets, some have introduced a new category of staff referred to here as 'learning support workers' (LSWs). Though their employment conditions and specific duties vary considerably, LSWs' work often includes providing individual care for students. In this small-scale study, using semi-structured interviews, the perceptions of some teachers and LSWs about the nature of their relationships with each other and with students are investigated. The study is set broadly in the context of debates about the impact of public sector reform on FE colleges and teachers. A discourse analysis approach is adopted in discussion of the data. The authors conclude that although they are differently positioned in relation to traditional discourses of professionalism, both teachers and LSWs are perceived to be carrying out what Hochschild termed 'emotional labour'. The contradictory nature of emotional labour is also highlighted. Some of the implications of employing a new group of workers in FE are discussed.