Augmented Homotopical Algebraic Geometry

We develop the framework for augmented homotopical algebraic geometry. This is an extension of homotopical algebraic geometry, which itself is a homotopification of classical algebraic geometry. To do so, we define the notion of augmentation categories, which are a special class of generalised Reedy categories. For an augmentation category, we prove the existence of a closed Quillen model structure on the presheaf category which is compatible with the Kan-Quillen model structure on simplicial sets. Moreover, we use the concept of augmented hypercovers to define a local model structure on the category of augmented presheaves. We prove that crossed simplicial groups, and the planar rooted tree category are examples of augmentation categories. Finally, we introduce a method for generating new examples from old via a categorical pushout construction.Comment: 36 pages, comments welcom

Religion and Development: A Practitioner's Perspective on Instrumentalisation

Some international development agencies from Europe and North America, as well as some multilateral agencies, have played a critical role in instrumentalising religion in their development policy and practice. This article, written from the perspective of an activist?scholar, reflects on how religion has featured in these donor policies and the implications for advancing rights?based gender agendas in various contexts. It argues that development policy towards religion takes three broad approaches which are neither mutually exclusive nor do they unfold in a particular linear path. These approaches are to see religion as the main developmental obstacle, the only developmental issue to the exclusion of all others, and the primary solution to developmental problems. All three approaches are problematised in this article and are bound by their essentialisation of ‘Muslim women’ as a homogeneous group, as if bound by a common identity and a common set of needs

Trade related business climate and manufacturing export performance in Africa: A firm-level analysis

Africa continues to be marginalised in world trade of manufactured goods, despite reductions in tariffs and non-tariff barriers. This paper investigates whether high business and trade costs associated with Africa’s trade-related infrastructure, trade institutions and the regulatory environment have contributed towards its mediocre trade performance. The paper focuses on eight African countries - Egypt, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia - using the World Bank’s investment climate surveys. The results of the study suggest that the business climate, as measured using principal components for micro-level supply constraints, macroeconomic conditions and the legal environment, is closely associated with firm-level export propensity. Improvements in domestic policy may therefore have a considerable positive impact on manufacturing export performance in Africa

Local perspectives through distant eyes: an exploration of English language teaching in Kerala in Southern India

This thesis examines professionalism of English language teaching (ELT) in one particular setting, the state of Kerala in southern India. It reveals that there is an independent and unrecognised professionalism amongst ELT professionals in the setting. This includes a lack of recognition of the efficacy of methods and approaches traditionally used in the setting and a lack of recognition of the informal professional development that is happening in the setting. This professionalism is unrecognised by local ELT professionals because of their belief in ‘Western TESOL’. I am only able recognise it when I learn, through an autoethnography of my own professionalism, to put aside my own preoccupations with ‘Western TESOL’. The initial objective of this study was to attempt to gain insights into local perspectives surrounding ELT methodology and teacher education, set against a background of a perceived need for methodological change in the setting. However, once the study had begun, it became clear that my own professional background and experiences, my ‘Western TESOL’ ‘professional baggage’, combined with the fact that I was coming into the setting as an outsider, seeing it through distant eyes, was affecting the ways in which I was viewing the setting and interpreting the events happening within it. As I began to offload some of this ‘professional baggage’, realising that my ‘Western TESOL’ understanding of the setting did not necessarily match local participants’ understandings of it, I began to question and re-evaluate the data I had collected. For example, I realised that I was focusing on what I saw as the negative aspects of what I was observing and being told about ELT in the setting, and comparing these to approaches to ELT in ‘Western TESOL’ settings that I was more familiar with. Over time, I began to look at these same aspects in a more positive light, seeing different perspectives and valuing what I was seeing or being told in different ways. My re-evaluations of the data from the setting over time also thus became a focus of the study. The study as a whole is therefore ethnographic in terms of attempting to understand local perspectives, using open-ended questionnaire, classroom observation, interview and field note data, with an autoethnographic dimension to acknowledge the influence of my own distant eyes perspective in understanding these local perspectives. It brings into focus how I, as a researcher, through re-evaluating my own data and as a result gaining greater insight into my own positioning, was able to give credit to different perspectives on the data collected, particularly the data from classroom observations and teacher accounts of practice, and in the light of this to offer possible ways forward for ELT in the setting. It has implications for local ELT professionals in terms of understanding and appreciating their own professionalism. It also has implications for TESOL professionals in unfamiliar settings in terms of the need to understand the complexity of these settings, rather than make hasty judgments about local practices, particularly in the case of ‘Western TESOL’ professionals working in ‘non-Western TESOL’ settings. It may therefore be of interest both to ‘Western’ teachers, teacher trainers and academics working or researching, or intending to work or carry out research, in settings with which they are not familiar, particularly ‘non-Western TESOL’ settings, and to local TESOL professionals and academics in the setting for the study

The analysis and design of some windings for linear induction machines

Imperial Users onl

Expanding the vision: a study of trainee teachers’ beliefs about using technology in the English language classroom

This study investigates the beliefs of a group of English language teacher trainees from Malaysia with regard to the use of technology for teaching and learning English. The Malaysian school system, like many schools systems, is strongly committed to the implementation and integration of technology across the curriculum in order to equip its next generation of citizens to compete globally in the technological age. Teacher trainees today, who have often grown up with technology and might be considered as digital natives (Prensky, 2001) or second generation users of technology, appear ideally placed to expedite this aim. In this study, three instruments are used for investigating teacher trainees’ beliefs: questionnaires, discussion boards and reflective writing. Findings suggest that whilst some traditional concerns relating to technology use remain, a number of additional concerns have arisen, such as the perceived need for a wide knowledge of technological tools and a feeling of pressure to keep up to date. The study also highlights several negative influences on participants’ perceptions of technology and its use in the classroom, such as the effect of their own classroom experiences as learners or ‘apprentice of observation’ (Lortie, 1975). Based on the findings, a framework for incorporating a more appropriate technology component into language teacher education programmes emerges which might help second generation users in developing appropriate skills for an ever-changing digital environment