Functional Skills Support Programme: Developing functional skills in geography

This booklet is part of "... a series of 11 booklets which helps schools to implement functional skills across the curriculum. The booklets illustrate how functional skills can be applied and developed in different subjects and contexts, supporting achievement at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Each booklet contains an introduction to functional skills for subject teachers, three practical planning examples with links to related websites and resources, a process for planning and a list of additional resources to support the teaching and learning of functional skills." - The National Strategies website

Corporate Social Performance of Indonesian State-Owned and Private Companies

The objectives of this study are to analyze the difference of corporate social performance between State-owned and private companies in Indonesia, and also to analyze the correlation between the corporate social performance (CSP) and the corporate financial performance by using company size, and institutional ownership as control variables. The population of this study is Indonesian state owned and private companies in the year of 2001-2004. Purposive sampling was used in this study, and final samples are 461 companies. The CSP or CSR (Corporate social responsibility) score is measured by content analysis of corporate annual report using seven item developed by Michael Research Jantzi Research Associate, Inc. The data is tested by independent t-test to determine the mean difference and by using partial correlation test to know the correlation between the corporate social performance and financial performance. The results of this study are that there is no significant difference mean of corporate social performance between state-owned and private owned companies in Indonesia. In addition, the correlation test indicates that there is no association between corporation social performance and financial performance both in SOCs and POCs

Lifelong science learning

The author discusses the incorporation of lifelong learning in the study of science in New Zealand. He explains two preliminary thoughts related to the creation of a setting for lifelong learning in the field of science including the sustained enrichment necessary to enhance school science experiences of students. He also explores three major capabilities such as the understanding of the nature of science and engaging in socio-scientific issues that lifelong learning might entail

Applying refinement to the use of mice and rats in rheumatoid arthritis research

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a painful, chronic disorder and there is currently an unmet need for effective therapies that will benefit a wide range of patients. The research and development process for therapies and treatments currently involves in vivo studies, which have the potential to cause discomfort, pain or distress. This Working Group report focuses on identifying causes of suffering within commonly used mouse and rat ‘models’ of RA, describing practical refinements to help reduce suffering and improve welfare without compromising the scientific objectives. The report also discusses other, relevant topics including identifying and minimising sources of variation within in vivo RA studies, the potential to provide pain relief including analgesia, welfare assessment, humane endpoints, reporting standards and the potential to replace animals in RA research

Going beyond Western dualism: towards corporate nature responsibility reporting

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an ecofeminist lens for the analysis of accounting, which is applied to: first, the critique of corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR); second, the elaboration of elements of a framework for a new accounting – corporate nature responsibility reporting (CNRR) – as a response to the critique of CSRR; and, third, the consideration of elements of an enabling and emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a critical application of aspects of the ecofeminist critique of Western dualism and its emphasis on wholeness, interconnectedness and relatedness, including its particular delineation of nature, to the critique and design of accounting. Findings: Insights from the application of an ecofeminist lens to the critique of CSRR raise questions about the suitability of the western notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its associated accounting currently in use. In order to go beyond critique, the paper introduces the notions of corporate nature responsibility (CNR) and CNRR and offers an outline of key elements of CNRR and an emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda. The author’s elaborations suggest that in order to overcome the limitations of CSR and CSRR, a corporation ought to be concerned about its broader and holistic CNR. And, it should provide a CNR report, as part of a holistic CNRR concerned with the performance of the company in the context of CNR. Social implications: Through creating new visibilities, CNRR has the potential to enhance the well-being of people and nature more generally. Originality/value: Ecofeminism’s critique of western dichotomous thinking has been given little consideration in prior studies of accounting. The paper thus draws attention to the relevance of an ecofeminist theoretical lens for the critique and design of accounting by focussing on CSRR. The paper introduces the concepts of CNR and CNRR to address the limitations of CSRR as currently practiced

‘Probing with the prototype’:using a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth engagement with the environment

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation plat-form as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environ-mental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strat-egies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interac-tion and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelli-gence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people

Teaching and learning of performance measurement in OR/MS degrees

A review of existing UK MS/OR undergraduate programmes was completed to assess the extent and nature of performance measurement teaching. In addition, a survey of performance measurement practitioners was undertaken to obtain views on what should be taught in relation to performance measurement. A survey of 23 undergraduate MS/OR degrees in the UK revealed that all the academic respondents supported the inclusion of PM teaching. However, only four distinct PM classes could be found amongst these degrees. The PM techniques taught were broadly similar although the wider context of PM was taught in only 2 of the classes. A survey of a small number of PM practitioners revealed that the Balanced Scorecard and Benchmarking were the two most commonly applied PM techniques with the majority of respondents learning about PM from personal experience and reading rather than through formal education. It appears that there is an opportunity for MS/OR teaching to make a major contribution to the development of PM as a discipline. However, academic respondents whose MS/OR degree course did not teach PM indicated that lack of staff expertise in PM combined with an already full syllabus were the main barriers to introducing a PM class

Numerical simulation of the flowfield over ice accretion shapes

The primary goals are directed toward the development of a numerical method for computing flow about ice accretion shapes and determining the influence of these shapes on flow degradation. It is expedient to investigate various aspects of icing independently in order to assess their contribution to the overall icing phenomena. The specific aspects to be examined include the water droplet trajectories with collection efficiencies and phase change on the surface, the flowfield about specified shapes including lift, drag, and heat transfer distribution, and surface roughness effects. The configurations computed were models of ice accretion shapes formed on a circular cylinder in the NASA Lewis Icing Research Tunnel. An existing Navier-Stokes program was modified to compute the flowfield over four shapes (2, 5, and 15 minute models of glaze ice, and a 15 minute accumulation of rime ice)

Editorial: Federal developments

On 10 May 2011, Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan MP delivered the Federal Budget for the 2011–2012 financial year. The Budget contains a number of new initiatives, financial redistributions and reductions that relate to Australia's current regulatory framework governing the environment, climate change and renewable energy. These are set out below..