Cultural justice, ethics and practice: Summary of presentation

The following cases and remarks are based on the author’s employment over six years in the Department of Social Welfare in Rotorua Specialist Services. The author discusses definitions that relate to the topic of cultural justice, ethics, and practice and our awareness and understanding of the issues; and presents three case studies from practitioner experience

Improving the Success Rate in Statistics.

First year statistics is one of the 'problem' subjects in many institutions. At the University of Queensland in the School of Economics it is a compulsory course with a large enrolment, offered in both first and second semesters, and also across two campuses in semester one. Even though the course content, lecturing staff, mode of delivery, tutorials, PASS and online assessment are essentially the same in the two semesters, the outcomes to 2007 have been different. At the St Lucia campus the failure rate in semester 2 was over 10% higher than in semester 1. This paper explores some possible explanations for the difference as well as assessing the success of some of the changes that were implemented from 2007 to 2009.

Bringing the Outside World In: Using Mixed Panel Assessment of Oral Presentations with Electrical and Electronic Engineering Students

Engineering students have been portrayed as having poor oral communication skills despite oral communication competence being a key factor in future career success. With the aim of equipping students with attributes identified as important for Engineering graduates this paper presents a research project carried out at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in the Division of Science & Engineering with Electrical and Electronic with undergraduate students, focusing on the use of a mixed specialist and non-specialist audience for students’ end of semester oral presentations assessment. It is known that oral presentations are an important academic genre developing communication skills and confidence in students but it is an area which has been found to be lacking in traditional engineering courses. The innovation of the mixed panel was to help prepare students for life after university by giving them experience of pitching technical material appropriate to the knowledge of the audience, which is something they will have to do when working in companies or on projects. This paper outlines the experience from the perspective of the assessors from different disciplines who were interviewed to determine what they were looking for in the presentations. It will also review the experience of the students themselves, based on a survey which considered the impact the mixed audience had on their presentation preparation in terms of language, presenting skills and content. This innovation in assessment encourages multi-disciplinary thinking in students and the impact of audience on presentation content and delivery is something which could be explored across different academic fields

Chelmsford Borough Council: A designated International Safe Community

This article provides some background to the Safe Communities concept and sets out the criteria to be satisfied as an International Safe Community (ISC). It concludes with reflections about Chelmsford Borough Council’s responsibilities as a Demonstration Site within the UK, and how Council has contributed within an International Network.There are currently over 200 communities across the world that have been designated as International Safe Communities by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and in June 2010, the Chelmsford Borough Council became the first local authority area to achieve this recognition in the UK. International Safe Communities is a World Health Organisation initiative that recognises safety as a ‘universal concern and a responsibility for all’. 1 It is an approach to community safety that encourages greater cooperation and collaboration between a range of non-government organisations, the business sector and local and government agencies. In order to be designated as an ISC, communities are required to meet six criteria developed by the WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety. The ISC accreditation process provides support for communities and indicates a level of achievement by an organisation within the field of community safety

Correcting for multiple destination trips in recreational use values using a mean-value approach; An application to Bellenden Ker National Park, Australia

This paper focuses on an empirical application of the travel cost method, to estimate the recreational use value of Bellenden Ker National Park, part of the Wet tropics World Heritage Area Queensland, Australia. Walking appears to be one of the main activities associated with recreational experiences in the region. Substantial socio-economic as well as environmental benefits are expected to be gained if the areas was to be developed further, with regard to walking tracks, provided that this would be done in an environmentally sustainable way. Two overnight tracks within the park have been selected to obtain information about visitors’ experiences with the tracks in the past, to address specific needs for possible future developments. A standard assumption for interpreting travel costs as a valid proxy for the price of a trip is that the travel cost be incurred exclusively to visit that particular site. However, this assumption often proves to be invalid as people tend to combine destinations. We propose a method commonly used in multi-criteria decision-making to correct for multiple trip bias. A value of $AUS 15.2 mln has been estimated as the net present value of recreational use in 2001 values at about six percent real rate of interest in perpetuity. This value appears to be rather small compared to other TCM studies undertaken in the area, for national parks that were similar in size and visitor numbers.multi-criteria analysis, multiple trip bias, travel cost method, Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Placental Development in Ongoing Pregnancy and Miscarriage

__Abstract__ In this thesis three-dimensional ultrasound, three-dimensional power Doppler ultrasound, virtual reality and histologic examination of the chorionic villous vascularization were used to investigate early placental development in normal ongoing pregnancy as well as miscarriage. The research objectives were: 1. To establish the reproducibility of trophoblast volume measurements using 3D ultrasound and to investigate a possible difference in trophoblast volume and growth between ongoing pregnancies and pregnancies ending in a miscarriage (chapter 2). 2. To establish the reproducibility of a new placental bed volumetric measurement using 3D power Doppler and virtual reality and to investigate a possible difference in placental bed vascular volume between spontaneously conceived pregnancies and pregnancies brought about by artificial reproductive technology (chapter 3). 3. To study the correlation between chorionic villous vascularization, ultrasound findings and corresponding chromosomal analyses in early miscarriage specimens from a cohort of recurrent pregnancy loss patients (chapter 4). 4. To investigate the relationship between the severity of Chronic Histiocytic InterVillositis (CHIV) and the outcome of pregnancy, and to compare the immune response between CHIV patients and controls to explore an immunological origin of CHIV (chapter 5)

The role of Eag and HERG channels in cell proliferation and apoptotic cell death in SK-OV-3 ovarian cancer cell line.

The voltage gated potassium (K+) channels Eag and HERG have been implicated in the pathogenesis of various cancers, through association with cell cycle changes and programmed cell death. The role of these channels in the onset and progression of ovarian cancer is unknown. An understanding of mechanism by which Eag and HERG channels affect cell proliferation in ovarian cancer cells is required and therefore we investigated their role in cell proliferation and their effect on the cell cycle and apoptosis of ovarian cancer cells

Biodiversity and the tourism value of Changbai Mountain Biosphere Reserve, China: a Travel Cost Approach

The recreational value of an outdoor site is reflected in a visitor's willingness to pay for the visit. This can sometimes be estimated using the Travel Cost Methodology (TCM) as the consumer surplus under the site demand curve. Based on a case study of Changbai Mountain Biosphere Reserve (CMBR) located in Northeast China, this paper focuses on the recreational values of tourism using the TCM and speculates on the extent to which this value depends on the biodiversity present in CMBR