Shaping literacy in the secondary school: policy, practice and agency in the age of the national literacy strategy

This article examines the definitions of literacy in operation in secondary schools, and the relationship between official literacy policy and the practices of the agents responsible for implementing this policy. We trace the history of national policy back to the Language Across the Curriculum movement of the 1970s as it provides an illustrative point of comparison with the first five years of the National Literacy Strategy. Drawing on empirical data which illuminate the views, perceptions and practices of key agents on a number of levels, we critically review the concept of 'school literacy' promoted in government policy, defining it as 'school-centric literacy' and question its ability to facilitate participation in the practices associated with the media and technological literacies which are increasingly a feature of school life. There is evidence of some unplanned effects of the current national policy but also that levels of agency, for literacy teachers in particular, may be rapidly diminishing.

Language learning in the public eye: an analysis of newspapers and official documents in England

This article considers the issue of low levels of motivation for foreign language learning in England by exploring how language learning is conceptualised by different key voices in that country through the examination of written data: policy documents and reports on the UK's language needs, curriculum documents, and press articles. The extent to which this conceptualisation has changed over time is explored, through the consideration of documents from two time points, before and after a change in government in the UK. The study uses corpus analysis methods in this exploration. The picture that emerges is a complex one regarding how the 'problems' and 'solutions' surrounding language learning in that context are presented in public discourse. This, we conclude, has implications for the likely success of measures adopted to increase language learning uptake in that context.

Two Faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: Culture and the Construction of the `AIDS Celebrity'

Since the first reported case of HIV infection in Hong Kong in 1985, only two HIV-positive individuals in the territory have voluntarily made public their seropositivity: a British dentist named Mike Sinclair, who disclosed his condition to the media in 1992 and died in 1995, and J.J. Chan, a local Chinese disc-jockey, who came forward in 1995 and died just a few months later. When they made their revelations, both became instant media personalities and were invited by the Hong Kong Government to act as spokespeople for AIDS awareness and prevention. Mike Sinclair worked as an education officer for the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, and J.J. Chan appeared in Government television commercials about AIDS. This article explores how the public identities of these two figures were constructed in the cultural context of Hong Kong where both Eastern and Western values exist side by side and interact. It argues that the construction of `AIDS celebrities' is a kind of `identity project' negotiated among the players involved: the media, the Government, the public, and the person with AIDS (PWA) himself, each bringing to the construction their own `theories' regarding the self and communication. When the players in the construction hold shared assumptions about the nature of the self and the role of communication in enacting it, harmonious discourses arise, but when cultural models among the players differ, contradictory or ambiguous constructions result. The effect of culture on the way `AIDS celebrities' are constructed has implications for the way societies view the issue of AIDS and treat those who have it. It also helps reveal possible sites of difficulty when individuals of different cultures communicate about the issue.

Fiscal multipliers in an incomplete markets economy

This paper studies the behavior of fiscal multipliers in two different economic environments: complete markets and incomplete markets. Based on steady state analysis, output multipliers are found within a range between 0.49 and 0.66, when the markets are complete. Under incomplete markets, output multiplier was found in an interval between 0.75 and 0.94. These results indicates that the market structure, which reflects the degree of risk sharing and the intensity of the precautionary motive faced by individuals, plays a key role in determining the fiscal multipliers. In the second part of the paper, was performed an exercise to analyze the dynamic response of macroeconomic aggregates to an exogenous and unexpected rise in government spending financed by lump-sum taxes. In this case, impact output multipliers varies in a range between 0.64 and 0.68, under complete markets, and within 1.05 and 1.20 when markets are incomplete. The results found under incomplete markets are very close to that found on related literature which usually uses an econometric approach or calibrated/estimated New Keynesian models. These results shows that taking into account the deficiencies in the insurance mechanisms can be an interesting way to reconcile theoretical models with the results found on related current literature, without the need of ad-hoc assumptions relative to price stickness.

The effects of government deficit on equilibrium real exchange rates and stock prices

This paper studies the effect of government deficits on equilibrium real exchange rates and stock prices. The theoretical part modifies a two-country cash-in-advance model like used in Lucas(1982) and Sargent(1987) in order to accommodate an exchange rate market and a government that pursues fiscal and monetary policy targets. The implied result is that unanticipated shocks in government deficits raise expectations of both taxes and inflation and, therefore, are associated with real exchange rate devaluations and lower stock prices. This finding is strongly supported by empirical evidence for a group of 19 countries, representing 76% of world production

Does ISO 14001 work in Brazil?

As a result of increasing global awareness about the importance of the environment, depletion of natural resources and legal pressures for companies to manage their processes in a sustainable manner, ISO 14001 systems have been gaining increasingly more importance in the organizational scenario. These elements are even more critical in emerging nations due to less awareness and fewer demands by governments and the population in relation to environmental issues. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to verify the benefits and difficulties of Environmental Management Systems based on ISO 14001 at industries in the state of São Paulo - Brazil (an emerging country) by conducting a survey to subsidize the proposal for actions in the public, academic and private sectors to promote the use of this standard of reference and strengthen its results in Brazil. A questionnaire was sent to 194 companies from the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality database. 69 answered, representing a return rate of 35.36%. The main benefits identified are related to the development of preventive environmental actions, reduction in the consumption of power, water, gas and fuel oil, and a positive influence on other internal management processes. The main difficulties are related to cost increases from ISO 14001 management systems and the constant changes in environmental legislation in Brazil. Some actions are proposed at the end of the analyses to intensify the use and improve the results of this standard, such as changes in government legislation and its collective development and implementation in industries. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Highlights from the I international symposium of thrombosis and anticoagulation in internal medicine, October 23-25, 2008, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The importance of thrombosis and anticoagulation in clinical practice is rooted firmly in several fundamental constructs that can be applied both broadly and globally. Awareness and the appropriate use of anticoagulant therapy remain the keys to prevention and treatment. However, to assure maximal efficacy and safety, the clinician must, according to the available evidence, choose the right drug, at the right dose, for the right patient, under the right indication, and for the right duration of time. The first International Symposium of Thrombosis and Anticoagulation in Internal Medicine was a scientific program developed by clinicians for clinicians. The primary objective of the meeting was to educate, motivate and inspire internists, cardiologists and hematologists by convening national and international visionaries, thought-leaders and dedicated clinician-scientists in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This article is a focused summary of the symposium proceedings. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009.

Decentralization and reform in Latin America: improving intergovernmental relations

Includes bibliography

Structural changes and productivity in Latin American industry, 1970-1996

Includes bibliography

Women's political participation and gender parity in decision-making at all levels in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Curaçao

The current energy systems within Curaçao depend primarily on high cost, imported fossil fuels, and typically constitute power sectors that are characterized by small, inefficient generation plants which result in high energy prices. As a consequence of its dependence on external fuel supplies, Curaçao is extremely vulnerable to international oil price shocks, which can impact on economic planning and foreign direct investment within their industrial sectors. The ability of the successive governments to source capital for economic stimulation and social investment is therefore significantly challenging. Additionally, there is over-dependence on two of the most climate-sensitive economic sectors, namely the tourism and fisheries sectors, but the vulnerabilities of the country to the effects of climate change make adaptation difficult and costly. It is within this context that this report focuses on identification of the fiscal and regulatory barriers to implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Curaçao with a view of making recommendations for removal of these barriers. Consultations with key Government officials, the private sector as well as civil society were conducted to obtain information and data on the energy sector in the country. Desktop research was also conducted to supplement the information gathered from the consultations. The major result of the assessment is that Curaçao is at an early stage in the definition of its energy sector. Despite some infrastructural legacies of the pre-independence era, as well as a number of recent developments including the modernization and expansion of its windfarms and completion of a modern Electricity Policy, there are still a number of important institutional and policy gaps within the energy sector in Curaçao. The most significant deficiency is the absence of a ministry or Government agency with portfolio responsibility for the energy sector as a whole; this has: limited the degree to which the activities of energy sector stakeholders are coordinated and retarded the development and implementation of a comprehensive national energy policy. The absence of an energy policy, which provides the framework for energy planning, increases investor risk. Also, the lack of political continuity that has emanated from the frequent changes in Government administrations is a concern among stakeholders and has served to reduce investor confidence in particular, and market confidence in general.

Universality in bibliometrics

Many discussions have enlarged the literature in Bibliometrics since the Hirsch proposal, the so called h-index. Ranking papers according to their citations, this index quantifies a researcher only by its greatest possible number of papers that are cited at least h times. A closed formula for h-index distribution that can be applied for distinct databases is not yet known. In fact, to obtain such distribution, the knowledge of citation distribution of the authors and its specificities are required. Instead of dealing with researchers randomly chosen, here we address different groups based on distinct databases. The first group is composed of physicists and biologists, with data extracted from Institute of Scientific Information (IS!). The second group is composed of computer scientists, in which data were extracted from Google-Scholar system. In this paper, we obtain a general formula for the h-index probability density function (pdf) for groups of authors by using generalized exponentials in the context of escort probability. Our analysis includes the use of several statistical methods to estimate the necessary parameters. Also an exhaustive comparison among the possible candidate distributions are used to describe the way the citations are distributed among authors. The h-index pdf should be used to classify groups of researchers from a quantitative point of view, which is meaningfully interesting to eliminate obscure qualitative methods. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Regionalization and access to healthcare in Brazilian states: historical and political-institutional conditioning factors

This article examines the healthcare regionalization process in the Brazilian states in the period from 2007 to 2010, seeking to identify the conditions that favor or impede this process. Referential analysis of public policies and especially of historical institutionalism was used. Three dimensions sum up the conditioning factors of regionalization: context (historical-structural, political-institutional and conjunctural), directionality (ideology, object, actors, strategies and instruments) and regionalization features (institutionality and governance). The empirical research relied mainly on the analysis of official documents and interviews with key actors in 24 states. Distinct patterns of influence in the states were observed, with regionalization being marked by important gains in institutionality and governance in the period. Nevertheless, inherent difficulties of the contexts prejudice greater advances. There is a pressing need to broaden the territorial focus in government planning and to integrate sectorial policies for medium and long-term regional development in order to empower regionalization and to overcome obstacles to the access to healthcare services in Brazil.

Modeling physiological processes in plankton on enzyme kinetic principles

[EN] Many ecologically important chemical transformations in the ocean are controlled by biochemical enzyme reactions in plankton. Nitrogenase regulates the transformation of N2 to ammonium in some cyanobacteria and serves as the entryway for N2 into the ocean biosphere. Nitrate reductase controls the reduction of NO3 to NO2 and hence new production in phytoplankton. The respiratory electron transfer system in all organisms links the carbon oxidation reactions of intermediary metabolism with the reduction of oxygen in respiration. Rubisco controls the fixation of CO2 into organic matter in phytoplankton and thus is the major entry point of carbon into the oceanic biosphere. In addition to these, there are the enzymes that control CO2 production, NH4 excretion and the fluxes of phosphate. Some of these enzymes have been recognized and researched by marine scientists in the last thirty years. However, until recently the kinetic principles of enzyme control have not been exploited to formulate accurate mathematical equations of the controlling physiological expressions. Were such expressions available they would increase our power to predict the rates of chemical transformations in the extracellular environment of microbial populations whether this extracellular environment is culture media or the ocean. Here we formulate from the principles of bisubstrate enzyme kinetics, mathematical expressions for the processes of NO3 reduction, O2 consumption, N2 fixation, total nitrogen uptake.

Welfare provision in Sweden and the dominant position of the Sap

There have been almost fifty years since Harry Eckstein' s classic monograph, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton, 1961), where he sketched out the basic tenets of the “congruence theory”, which was to become one of the most important and innovative contributions to understanding democratic rule. His next work, Division and Cohesion in Democracy, (Princeton University Press: 1966) is designed to serve as a plausibility probe for this 'theory' (ftn.) and is a case study of a Northern democratic system, Norway. What is more, this line of his work best exemplifies the contribution Eckstein brought to the methodology of comparative politics through his seminal article, “ “Case Study and Theory in Political Science” ” (in Greenstein and Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, 1975), on the importance of the case study as an approach to empirical theory. This article demonstrates the special utility of “crucial case studies” in testing theory, thereby undermining the accepted wisdom in comparative research that the larger the number of cases the better. Although not along the same lines, but shifting the case study unit of research, I intend to take up here the challenge and build upon an equally unique political system, the Swedish one. Bearing in mind the peculiarities of the Swedish political system, my unit of analysis is going to be further restricted to the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Svenska Arbetare Partiet. However, my research stays within the methodological framework of the case study theory inasmuch as it focuses on a single political system and party. The Swedish SAP endurance in government office and its electoral success throughout half a century (ftn. As of the 1991 election, there were about 56 years - more than half century - of interrupted social democratic "reign" in Sweden.) are undeniably a performance no other Social Democrat party has yet achieved in democratic conditions. Therefore, it is legitimate to inquire about the exceptionality of this unique political power combination. Which were the different components of this dominance power position, which made possible for SAP's governmental office stamina? I will argue here that it was the end-product of a combination of multifarious factors such as a key position in the party system, strong party leadership and organization, a carefully designed strategy regarding class politics and welfare policy. My research is divided into three main parts, the historical incursion, the 'welfare' part and the 'environment' part. The first part is a historical account of the main political events and issues, which are relevant for my case study. Chapter 2 is devoted to the historical events unfolding in the 1920-1960 period: the Saltsjoebaden Agreement, the series of workers' strikes in the 1920s and SAP's inception. It exposes SAP's ascent to power in the mid 1930s and the party's ensuing strategies for winning and keeping political office, that is its economic program and key economic goals. The following chapter - chapter 3 - explores the next period, i.e. the period from 1960s to 1990s and covers the party's troubled political times, its peak and the beginnings of the decline. The 1960s are relevant for SAP's planning of a long term economic strategy - the Rehn Meidner model, a new way of macroeconomic steering, based on the Keynesian model, but adapted to the new economic realities of welfare capitalist societies. The second and third parts of this study develop several hypotheses related to SAP's 'dominant position' (endurance in politics and in office) and test them afterwards. Mainly, the twin issues of economics and environment are raised and their political relevance for the party analyzed. On one hand, globalization and its spillover effects over the Swedish welfare system are important causal factors in explaining the transformative social-economic challenges the party had to put up with. On the other hand, Europeanization and environmental change influenced to a great deal SAP's foreign policy choices and its domestic electoral strategies. The implications of globalization on the Swedish welfare system will make the subject of two chapters - chapters four and five, respectively, whereupon the Europeanization consequences will be treated at length in the third part of this work - chapters six and seven, respectively. Apparently, at first sight, the link between foreign policy and electoral strategy is difficult to prove and uncanny, in the least. However, in the SAP's case there is a bulk of literature and public opinion statistical data able to show that governmental domestic policy and party politics are in a tight dependence to foreign policy decisions and sovereignty issues. Again, these country characteristics and peculiar causal relationships are outlined in the first chapters and explained in the second and third parts. The sixth chapter explores the presupposed relationship between Europeanization and environmental policy, on one hand, and SAP's environmental policy formulation and simultaneous agenda-setting at the international level, on the other hand. This chapter describes Swedish leadership in environmental policy formulation on two simultaneous fronts and across two different time spans. The last chapter, chapter eight - while trying to develop a conclusion, explores the alternative theories plausible in explaining the outlined hypotheses and points out the reasons why these theories do not fit as valid alternative explanation to my systemic corporatism thesis as the main causal factor determining SAP's 'dominant position'. Among the alternative theories, I would consider Traedgaardh L. and Bo Rothstein's historical exceptionalism thesis and the public opinion thesis, which alone are not able to explain the half century social democratic endurance in government in the Swedish case.