Peripatetic electronic teachers in higher education

This paper explores the idea of information and communications technology providing a medium enabling higher education teachers to act as freelance agents. The notion of a ‘Peripatetic Electronic Teacher’ (PET) is introduced to encapsulate this idea. PETs would exist as multiple telepresences (pedagogical, professional, managerial and commercial) in PET‐worlds; global networked environments which support advanced multimedia features. The central defining rationale of a pedagogical presence is described in detail and some implications for the adoption of the PET‐world paradigm are discussed. The ideas described in this paper were developed by the author during a recently completed Short‐Term British Telecom Research Fellowship, based at the BT Adastral Park

Faunal change in Cretaceous endemic shallow-marine bivalve genera/subgenera of the northeast Pacific

Endemic shallow-marine Cretaceous bivalves in the northeast Pacific region (NEP), extending from southwestern Alaska to the northern part of Baja California Sur, Mexico, are tabulated and discussed in detail for the first time. Twenty-three genera/subgenera are recognized. Their first appearance was in the Valanginian, and their biodiversity continued to be very low during the rest of the Early Cretaceous. The bivalves of the middle Albian Alisitos Formation in northern Baja California are excluded because they did not live in the NEP. The highest number (13) of NEP endemic bivalve genera/subgenera occurred during the Turonian, which was the warmest time of the Cretaceous. At the Turonian/Coniacian boundary, when cooler waters migrated southward, there was a moderate dropoff in endemics that persisted until an origination event near the beginning of the early Maastrichtian, when 11 were present. Five of the 11 were present also during the Turonian, but the others were newcomers. Only three survived the turnover associated with the “Middle Maastrichtian Event” (MME), and none survived the K/Pg boundary mass-extinction event

The U.S. Health System in Perspective: A Comparison of Twelve Industrialized Nations

Compares the U.S. health system to those of twelve OECD countries based on measures of spending; physician supply and visits; utilization, supply, and prices of drugs and diagnostic imaging; and performance. Examines the causes of high U.S. spending

Explaining High Health Care Spending in the United States: An International Comparison of Supply, Utilization, Prices, and Quality

Compares healthcare spending, supply, utilization, prices, and quality in thirteen industrialized nations and examines the factors behind high U.S. spending, including higher prices and obesity rates, and low spending in Japan, including price regulation

Effective pseudo-potentials of hydrodynamic origin

It is shown that low Reynolds number fluid flows can cause suspended particles to respond as though they were in an equilibrium system with an effective potential. This general result follows naturally from the fact that different methods of moving particles in viscous fluids give rise to very different long-range flows. Two examples are discussed: electrophoretic `levitation' of a heavy charged sphere, for which a hydrodynamic `pseudo-potential' can be written in closed form, and quasi-two dimensional crystals of like-charged colloidal spheres which form near charged walls, whose apparent attraction arises not from a force but from persistent fluid flows.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitted to J. Fluid Mec

An investigation of the lower atmosphere of Venus

Clouds of lower Venusian atmospher