Optimization of the subject matter of profile training disciplines for bachelors' vocational education on the basis of occupational standards

Applicability of the issue under study is conditioned by the need in development of principal educational programs by higher education institutions with accounting for requirements of appropriate occupational standards and necessity in reviewing of the requirements of occupational standards and reflecting them within the scope of competences formed. The paper is aimed at substantiation of the subject matter of profile training disciplines for vocational education of bachelors within the context of competence and process approaches and with accounting for occupational standards. The leading method of study of this issue is modeling which allows considering the issue under study as a process of recognized accounting of requirements of appropriate occupational standards wherein employers' opinions are fixed in the regulatory mode. The structural-functional model of selection of the subject matter of profile disciplines for the training program is developed; the following algorithms are developed: 1) of analysis of occupational standards; 2) of comparing of occupational standards with curriculum disciplines; 3) of analysis of the subject matter of labour functions, labour actions, knowledge and skills when developing working programs and assessment resources funds; the model has been successfully tested on the example of profile training of vocational education bachelors. The paper presents the structure-functional model of selection of the subject matter of profile disciplines of the educational program with taking into account of occupational standards requirements which define competences acquired by a graduate, i.e. his/her ability to use knowledge, skills and personal qualities in accordance with the occupational activity; the process approach to implementation of this model is applied. © Authors

Sandford Fleming and Universal Time

In 1884, consensus was reached to extend the system of time zones based on Greenwich that been adopted a year before in North America. The event has not been explained well in other accounts. This article shows how and why agreement came about; it was the result of efforts made by key individuals, among whom was Sandford Fleming, using professional and scientific organizations new to North America.En 1884, un consensus fut établi pour généraliser l’utilisation des fuseaux horaires définis à partir de Greenwich, lesquels avaient été adoptés en Amérique du Nord un an auparavant. L’événement n’a jusqu’à présent jamais été expliqué de façon adéquate. Le présent article montre pourquoi et comment, l’accord est intervenu grâce au rôle capital joué par certains individus, parmi lesquels figure Sandford Fleming

Remeasuring China: the Global and Local Dimensions of Nanjing Metrological Reform

Diese Dissertation untersucht die Geschichte von Meter, Liter und Gramm im republikanischen China. Es versucht, den historischen Übergang der chinesischen Metrologie von einheimischen Maßen zum globalen metrischen System und seine globalen Verflechtungen zu verstehen. Die metrologische Reform in Nanjing in den 1930er Jahren war ein Ergebnis historischer Vorläufer der Pekinger Regierungszeit und des späten Qing. Chinesische Gewohnheitsmaßregeln wurden damals von ausländischen und einheimischen Reformisten als chaotisch und unwissenschaftlich gebrandmarkt. Inspiriert von globalen Standardisierungstrends seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert wollte die KMT-Regierung ihr Monopol auf metrologische Angelegenheiten stärken, um die politische Einheit des neuen Nationalstaates zu gewährleisten und ein metrisches modernes Regime der Genauigkeit aufzubauen. Die Reform löste komplizierte Reaktionen aus allen Gesellschaftsschichten aus, von kleinen Verkäufern, Straßenhändlern, Hausfrauen, Handelszünften und Kommunalverwaltungen bis hin zu Wissenschaftlern und anderen hochgebildeten Intellektuellen. Aus unterschiedlichen Motiven und Gründen entschieden sich unterschiedliche gesellschaftliche Akteure für die Kooperation oder den Widerstand gegen die Reform und entwickelten ihre eigenen Wege, unter dem Radar der staatlichen Aufsicht zu fliegen. Während diese Dissertation eine lokale Geschichte aufzeichnet, enthüllt sie auch die globale Dimension der metrologischen Geschichte Chinas. Chinas umkämpfte und pluralistische Landschaft der Metrologie fiel zu dieser Zeit mit der breiteren transatlantischen Debatte über Metrik zusammen. Die Metrologie wurde zu einem Forum, in dem Neues und Altes, Globales und Lokales, Universelles und Traditionelles ständig diskutiert wurden. Der Wunsch, die chinesische metrologische Tradition wiederzubeleben, erstarb während der Regierungszeit von Nanjing nie, und einige Gelehrte schlugen sogar vor, der Welt chinesische Metrologie als Alternative zum metrischen System anzubieten. Die Polemik führte schließlich 1935 zu einer öffentlichen Konfrontation zwischen dem Staat und Wissenschaftlern. In den 1930er Jahren weiteten sich Nanjings Ambitionen von der metrologischen Vereinheitlichung auf die vollständige Standardisierung der kulturellen, landwirtschaftlichen und industriellen Sektoren aus, die auch von der transnationalen Verurteilung chinesischer Merkmale inspiriert waren, zirkulierendes westliches soziologisches Wissen und die europäische Erfahrung nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Darüber hinaus kollidierte Nanjings Akzeptanz des französischen metrologischen Ansatzes, einen Nationalstaat durch die Vereinheitlichung von Maßnahmen aufzubauen, mit der benthamitischen Tradition der Kolonialmächte Shanghais, die dazu neigten, Maßnahmen nicht einzugreifen. Zusammenfassend beleuchtet diese Dissertation anhand von Maßen als analytisches Prisma die verschiedenen sozialen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Auswirkungen dieses bisher vernachlässigten historischen Wandels.This dissertation examines the history of meter, liter, and gram in republican China. It seeks to understand the historical transition of Chinese metrology from indigenous measures to the global metric system and its global entanglements. Nanjing's metrological reform in the 1930s was a result of historical precursors of the Beijing government period and the Late Qing. Chinese customary measures were stigmatized as chaotic and unscientific by foreign and domestic reformists at the time. Inspired by global trends of standardization since the late 19th century, the KMT government aimed to strengthen its monopoly on metrological affairs as an inroad to ensure the political unity of the new nation-state and to build a metricized modern regime of accuracy. The reform incurred complicated responses either from all echelons of society, ranging from small vendors, hawkers, housewives, commercial guilds, and local governments to scientists and other highly educated intellectuals. Out of drastically different motives and grounds, different social players chose to cooperate or resist the reform and developed their own ways to fly under the radar of state supervision. While charting a local story, this dissertation also reveals the global dimension of China's metrological history. China's contested and pluralistic landscape of metrology coincided with the wider trans-Atlantic debate of metrication at the time. Metrology became a forum where new and old, global and local, universal and traditional were constantly debated. The desire to revive Chinese metrological tradition never died throughout Nanjing's reign, and some scholars even proposed to offer Chinese metrology to the world as an alternative to the metric system. The polemic eventually resulted in a public confrontation between the state and scientists in 1935. Throughout the 1930s, Nanjing's ambition expanded from metrological unification to full standardization of cultural, agricultural, and industrial sectors, which were also inspired by the transnational condemnation of Chinese characteristics, circulating western sociological knowledge, and the European experience after WWI. Moreover, Nanjing's acceptance of the French metrological approach of building a nation-state via the unification of measures clashed with the Benthamite tradition of Shanghai’s colonial powers who tended to have a non-intervention attitude toward measures. In sum, using measures as an analytical prism, this dissertation sheds light on various social, economic, and political ramifications brought by this hitherto neglected historical change.2022-12-2

Becoming coca: A materiality approach to a commodity chain analysis of hoja de coca in Colombia

Coca is a controversial plant, existing on the boundary between legality and illegality. This study aims at providing an analytical technique for discussing the problematic of coca in Colombia. Using new theoretical propositions in human geography, a more‐than‐human approach is adopted to encounter coca holistically. The results are a narrative account of coca's social life as experienced by the researcher following its network of non‐cocaine derivatives. An analytical section invokes the Foucauldian dispositif to the drug trade and utilizes concepts of informed materials and technological zones to describe coca outside a political economy discourse. The research finds that coca's dynamic materiality complicates it as a commodity and that these conventional approaches do not fully encapsulate this complexity. By grappling with the messiness of coca's materiality, this paper reveals the multiplicity and interplay of coca's definitions, which lie at the heart of many conflicts

Growing apple (Malus domestica) under tropical mountain climate conditions in Northern Ethiopia

Lack of effective chilling during the dormant season is one of the major problems when apples are growing under a tropical climate. We evaluated the response of different apple cultivars (Golden Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith and Jonagold) grown on M9 rootstock with different dormancy-management practices. The trials were carried out between 2004 and 2006 in a tropical mountain area (Tigray, Ethiopia), where chilling conditions are poor with the aim of improving and synchronizing the bud break and the blossoming period of these apple cultivars. Two-year-old well-feathered trees were planted in two experimental trial sites in it randomized complete block design. Trees were subjected to the following treatments in two sets of experiments: one defoliation per year only; two defoliations per year, one defoliation followed by 1% hydrogen cyanamide (Dormex) treatment; one defoliation followed by 2% Dormex treatment; one defoliation followed by 40% winter oil; one defoliation followed by 0.5% Dormex and 2% winter oil; and a control with no defoliation or dormancy breaking treatments. The result show positive effects of the dormancy breaking agents oil the productivity of the trees after defoliation, with comparable results for the effectiveness of both Dormex and winter oil. There were On statistically significant differences between the Dormex closes. The defoliation treatment alone Was not sufficient to break dormancy for the cultivars Golden Delicious, Granny Smith or Gala but showed promising results with dormancy breaking Jonagold. Yields increased as a result of better flowering time synchronization within a tree but even with the dormancy treatments the length of the flowering period was still spread over five weeks, where under it more temperate climate it lasted two to three weeks. The average fruit weight of Jonagold and Granny Smith can be considered as it good fruit quality while the fruit of other diploid cultivars like Golden, Gala and Fuji were rather small, which indicates chat fruit thinning by hand will be it necessity For these cultivars. Red colouration of the apples oil the cultivars Gala and Jonagold was excellent and meets the standards necessary for commercialization of these fruits. The sugar concentration of the fruits and the fruit firmness at harvest was high. The results of these first trials indicate that it is possible to develop new apple production in the mountain region of Tigray, Ethiopia

Wittgenstein's Thought Experiments and Relativity Theory

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise