Synergy between Direct and Representative Forms of Employee Voice: Evidence from the European Car Components Industry

This paper analyses the implications of combining direct and representative forms of worker participation for business performance. Direct participation refers to such things as quality control circles, continuous improvement teams and other problem-solving groups, while representatwe participation refers to joint consultation committees,including those between works councils and management. Using a 1994 survey of first-tier automotive parts plants in Europe, this paper finds evidence that better quality and information sharing result born having both forms of worker participation than having one or the other. The survey also shows that in the fist half of the 1990s, there has been a rapid diffusion of direct participation (together with a commitment to employment security) and a moderate diffusion of indirect participation mechanisms in the UK. While not ruling out legislation, the paper concludes by drawing implications of this finding for a further discussion of these practices through voluntary means

PP licensing in nominalizations

In this paper we compare the distribution of PPs introducing external arguments in nominalizations with PPs introducing external arguments in the verbal domain. We show that several mismatches exist between the behavior of PPs in nominalizations and PPs in the verbal domain. This leads us to suggest that while PPs in the verbal domain are licensed by functional structure alone, within the nominal domain, PPs can also be licensed via an interplay of the encyclopaedic meaning of the root involved and the properties of the preposition itself. This second mechanism kicks in in the absence of functional structure

Education for sustainable development and global citizenship: analysis of self-assessment reports for work-based learning (information document)

Under the Quality and Effectiveness Framework for post-16 learning in Wales, Work Based Learning (WBL) providers are required to submit an education for sustainable development and global citizenship (ESDGC) self-assessment report and action plan to DCELLS. This report provides an analysis of these reports and highlights emerging themes and developmental needs at a sector level, and identifies good and innovative practice to help providers continue to embed ESDGC

Weight of evidence: a framework for the appraisal of the quality and relevance of evidence

Knowledge use and production is complex and so also are attempts to judge its quality. Research synthesis is a set of formal processes to determine what is known from research in relation to different research questions and this process requires judgements of the quality and relevance of the research evidence considered. Such judgement can be according to generic standards or be specific to the review question. The judgements interact with other judgements in the review process such as inclusion criteria and search strategies and can be absolute or weighted judgements combined in a weight of evidence framework. Judgments also vary depending upon the type of review that can range from statistical meta analysis to meta ethnography. Empirical study of the ways that quality and relevance judgements are made can illuminate the nature of such decisions and their impact on epistemic and other domains of knowledge. Greater clarity about such ideological and theoretical differences can enable greater participative debates about such differences

Education decentralization and accountability relationships in Latin America

The author analyzes decentralization reforms in the education sector in Latin America (their status, impact, and ongoing challenges) by making use of the accountability framework developed by the World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People. She starts by identifying three main groups of models according to the subnational actors involved, the pattern adopted in the distribution of functions across subnational actors, and the accountability system central to the model. She then reviews the impact of these models according to the available empirical evidence, and explores determinants of this impact, extracting lessons useful to the design of future reforms. The author concludes that the single most important factor in ensuring the success or failure of a reform is the way the accountability relationships are set to work within each of the models and provides some lessons on how to get these relationships to work effectively. She also provides three main general lessons for selecting"successful"models: (1) avoid complicated models; (2) increase school autonomy and the scope for"client power,"maintaining a clear role for the other accountability relationships; and (3) place more emphasis on the"management"accountability relationship and the sustainability of the models.Teaching and Learning,Decentralization,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Primary Education,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Primary Education,Banks&Banking Reform,Teaching and Learning,National Governance

Child L2 development: a longitudinal case study on voice onset times in word-initial stops

This paper reports the results of a longitudinal case study examining the acquisition of the English voice system by a three-year-old native speaker of Dutch. The Study aims to examine whether the child develops two different phonetic systems or uses just one system for both languages, and compares the early L2 acquisition process with L1, simultaneous bilingual and late L2 acquisition. The results reveal that the child successfully acquires the English contrast between short-lag and long-lag stops, but gradually changes the Dutch system, which contrasts prevoiced with short-lag stops, into the direction of the English system

Sociological Knowledge and Transformation at ‘Diversity University’, UK

This chapter is based on a case study of one UK university sociology department and shows how sociology knowledge can transform the lives of ‘non-traditional’ students. The research from which the case is drawn focused on four departments teaching sociology-related subjects in universities positioned differently in UK league tables. It explored the question of the relationship between university reputation, pedagogic quality and curriculum knowledge, challenging taken-for-granted judgements about ‘quality’ and in conceptualising ‘just’ university pedagogy by taking Basil Bernstein’s ideas about how ‘powerful’ knowledge is distributed in society to illuminate pedagogy and curriculum. The project took the view that ‘power’ lies in the acquisition of specific (inter)disciplinary knowledges which allows the formation of disciplinary identities by way of developing the means to think about and act in the world in specific ways. We chose to focus on sociology because (1) university sociology is taken up by all socio-economic classes in the UK and is increasingly taught in courses in which the discipline is applied to practice; (2) it is a discipline that historically pursues social and moral ambition which assists exploration of the contribution of pedagogic quality to individuals and society beyond economic goals; (3) the researchers teach and research sociology or sociology of education - an understanding of the subjects under discussion is essential to make judgements about quality. ‘Diversity’ was one of four case study universities. It ranks low in university league tables; is located in a large, multi-cultural English inner city; and, its students are likely to come from lower socio-economic and/or ethnic minority groups, as well as being the first in their families to attend university. To make a case for transformative teaching at Diversity, the chapter draws on longitudinal interviews with students, interviews with tutors, curriculum documents, recordings of teaching, examples of student work, and a survey. It establishes what we can learn from the case of sociology at Diversity, arguing that equality, quality and transformation for individuals and society are served by a university curriculum which is research led and challenging combined with pedagogical practices which give access to difficult-to-acquire and powerful knowledge

Voice parameters predict sex-specific body morphology in men and women

Studies of several mammalian species confirm that formant frequencies (vocal tract resonances) predict height and weight better than does fundamental frequency (F0, perceived as pitch) in same-sex adults due to differential anatomical constraints. However, our recent meta-analysis (Pisanski et al., 2014, Animal Behaviour, 95, 89–99) indicated that formants and F0 could explain no more than 10% and 2% of the variance in human height, respectively, controlling for sex and age. Here, we examined whether other voice parameters, many of which are affected by sex hormones, can indicate additional variance in human body size or shape, and whether these relationships differ between the sexes. Using a cross-cultural sample of 700 men and women, we examined relationships among 19 voice parameters (minimum–maximum F0, mean F0, F0 variability, formant-based vocal tract length estimates, shimmer, jitter, harmonics-to-noise ratio) and eight indices of body size or shape (height, weight, body mass index, hip, waist and chest circumferences, waist-to-hip ratio, chest-to-hip ratio). Our results confirm that formant measures explain the most variance in heights and weights of men and women, whereas shimmer, jitter and harmonics-to-noise ratio do not indicate height, weight or body mass index in either sex. In contrast, these perturbation and noise parameters, in addition to F0 range and variability, explained more variance in body shape than did formants or mean F0, particularly among men. Shimmer or jitter explained the most variance in men's hip circumferences (12%) and chest-to-hip ratios (6%), whereas harmonics-to-noise ratio and formants explained the most variance in women's waist-to-hip ratios (11%), and significantly more than in men's waist-to-hip ratios. Our study represents the most comprehensive analysis of vocal indicators of human body size to date and offers a foundation for future research examining the hormonal mechanisms of voice production in humans and perceptual playback experiments

What is the relevant population? Considerations for the computation of likelihood ratios in forensic voice comparison

In forensic voice comparison, it is essential to consider not only the similarity between samples, but also the typicality of the evidence in the relevant population. This is explicit within the likelihood ratio (LR) framework. A significant issue, however, is the definition of the relevant population. This paper explores the complexity of population selection for voice evidence. We evaluate the effects of population specificity in terms of regional background on LR output using combinations of the F1, F2, and F3 trajectories of the diphthong /aɪ/. LRs were computed using development and reference data which were regionally matched (Standard Southern British English) and mixed (general British English) relative to the test data. These conditions reflect the paradox that without knowing who the offender is, it is not possible to know the population of which he is a member. Results show that the more specific population produced stronger evidence and better system validity than the more general definition. However, as region-specific voice features (lower formants) were removed, the difference in the output from the matched and mixed systems was reduced. This shows that the effects of population selection are dependent on the sociolinguistic constraints on the feature analysed