Critical attributes of public-private partnerships : a case study in vocational education

The term ‘partnership’ is increasingly used by governments, industry, community organisations and schools in supporting their daily businesses. Similar to the terms ‘ICT’ and ‘learning’, ‘partnerships’ are now ubiquitous in policy discourse. Yet, the term remains ill-defined and ambiguous. This study reviews and reflects on a government led industry-school partnership initiative in the state of Queensland, Australia, to understand how the term is used in this initiative. Given the frequent use of Public Private Partnership (PPP) language, PPP was used as a framework to review this initiative. The methodology of this qualitative case study involved consultations with stakeholders and an analysis of Gateway schools documents, policy documents, and literature. The review suggests that despite the use of terminology akin to PPP projects in Gateway school and policy documents, the implicit suggestion that this initiative is a public-private partnership is untenable. The majority of principles shaping a PPP have not been considered to a significant extent in the Gateway project. Although the review recognises the legitimate and sincere purpose of the Gateway schools initiative, the adoption of a PPP framework during the design, monitoring, or evaluation stages could have strengthened the initiative in terms of outcomes, benefits, and sustainability.

On the amplitudes for non-critical N=2 superstrings

We compute correlation functions in N=2 non-critical superstrings on the sphere. Our calculations are restrained to the (s=0) bulk amplitudes. We show that the four-point function factorizes as a consequence of the non-critical kinematics, but differently from the N=0, 1 cases no extra discrete state appears in the ĉ→1- limit.

Limit Theorems for Non-Critical Branching Processes with Continuous State Space

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 60J80, Secondary 60G99.

Conhecimento dos alunos sobre geometria no início do 3.º ciclo

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Educação Matemática na Educação Pré-Escolar e nos 1.º e 2.º Ciclos do Ensino Básico

The Development of Competency Standards for Specialist Critical Care Nurses

In defining the contemporary role of the specialist nurse it is necessary to challenge the concept of nursing as merely a combination of skills and knowledge. Nursing must be demonstrated and defined in the context of client care and include the broader notions of professional development and competence. This qualitative study sought to identify the competency standards for nurse specialists in critical care and to articulate the differences between entry-to-practice standards and the advanced practice of specialist nurses. Over 800 hours of specialist critical care nursing practice were observed and grouped into 'domains' or major themes of specialist practice using a constant comparison qualitative technique. These domains were further refined to describe attributes of the registered nurses which resulted in effective and/or superior performance (competency standards) and to provide examples of performance (performance criteria) which met the defined standard. Constant comparison of the emerging domains, competency standards and performance criteria to observations of specialist critical care practice, ensured the results provided a true reflection of the specialist nursing role. Data analysis resulted in 20 competency standards grouped into six domains: professional practice, reflective practice, enabling, clinical problem solving, teamwork, and leadership. Each of these domains is comprised of between two and seven competency standards. Each standard is further divided into component parts or 'elements' and the elements are illustrated with performance criteria. The competency standards are currently being used in several Australian critical care educational programmes and are the foundation for an emerging critical care credentialling process. They have been viewed with interest by a variety of non-critical care specialty groups and may form a common precursor from which further specialist nursing practice assessment will evolve.

Impurity effects on the critical behaviour of the electrical resistance of binary liquid mixtures

The electrical resistance of the binary liquid system cyclohexane + acetic anhydride is measured, in the critical region, both in the pure mixture and when the mixture is doped with small amounts (≈ 100 ppm) of H2O/D2O impurities.T c was approached to aboutt=3×10−6 wheret=(T −T c )/T c . The critical exponentb ≈ 0.35 in the fit of the resistance data to the equationdR/dT ∼t −b does not seem to be affected appreciably by the impurities. There is a sign reversal ofdR/dt in the non-critical region. Binary liquid systems seem to violate the universality of the critical resistivity.

DYNAMIC SCALING OF THE STRUCTURE-FUNCTION FOR SPINODAL DECOMPOSITION IN CRITICAL AND NONCRITICAL MIXTURES OF POLY(VINYL ACETATE) POLY(METHYL METHACRYLATE)

The dynamics of phase separation in a binary polymer blend of poly(vinyl acetate) with poly(methyl methacrylate) was investigated by using a time-resolved light-scattering technique. In the later stages of spinodal decomposition, a simple dynamic scaling law was found for the scattering function S(q, t)(S(q, t) approximately I(q, t)): S(q, t)q(m)-3 S approximately (q/q(m)). The scaling function determined experimentally was in good agreement with that predicted by Furukawa, S approximately (X) approximately X2/(3 + X8) for critical concentration, and approximately in agreement with that predicted by Furukawa, S approximately (X) approximately X2/(3 + X6) for non-critical mixtures. The light-scattering invariant shows that the later stages of the spinodal decomposition were undergoing domain ripening.

Re-searching ethics : towards a more reflexive critical management studies

Fournier and Grey (2000) suggest that those inhabiting the contested terrain of Critical Management Studies (CMS) share a commitment to identifying inequality and subordination in organizations and to the associated possibility of emancipation, however this is conceived. Despite their additional claim that one crucial distinction between critical and non-critical management studies is the ‘philosophical and methodological reflexivity’ of the former (Fournier and Grey 2000: 19), our review indicates limits to this reflexivity in CMS’s empirical practices – indeed, we argue these may even be counter-productive with regard to its political allegiances. To encourage wider discussion of these issues, we provide a tripartite framework of understandings of research ethics drawn from within and outside the management academy, and interrogate the opportunities and limitations of each for enriching CMS research.

A concepção de paisagem de professores de geografia em escolas do município de Parnamirim (RN)

This work is an exploratory study based on the principles of qualitative research aiming at the conception of landscape by Geography teachers in the city of Parnamirim (RN), as well as the pedagogical implications originated from such conceptions on the formation of students. In order to start our investigative process, we used, as theoretical and methodological reference, some principles of historical and dialectical materialism by Triviños (2007) and historical cultural approach of education by Freire (1987; 1996) e Vygotsky (1993; 2001; 2007), as well as the meaning of conception by Morin (1996) and Ferreira (2007) and the critical approach of geography by Moraes (2005), Santos (1988; 2004; 2006) and Silva (1989; 2010). Also, we used oral history as a research technique such as Moraes (2004), Bertaux (2010), Ferraroti (2010) and Nóvoa (2010) and semi-structured interviews as data collection tools. Our empirical reference is made of four teachers working in four different public schools in the city mentioned above, providing the needed data to start our research. The objective of such interviews is not the verification of the teachers‟ practice in class or outside them, but it highlights the transitoriness of the evidences mentioned in the research. Thus, we conclude that the conception of landscape mostly accepted by the teachers, once it is a process built along their lives and surrounded by their pedagogical practice, prioritizes the visual and morphological aspects and the sentimental livings related to the conception which is situated in a descriptive level of conception. Effectively, the pedagogical implications of these conceptions at school point to a materialization of geography teaching centered on the non-critical reproduction of school subjects which very little instigate the learners to process, via dialogicity, the re-significations of their essential and multiple attributes despite the several attempts and possibilities of some theoretical and methodological renovations on the application of geographical knowledge about landscape, expressed on the report of the interviewees