The implications of the French presence in the South Pacific for interstate relations in the region

This sub-thesis examines the implications of the French presence in the South Pacific for interstate relations in the region. As such it is concerned with the condition and evolution of France’s relations with the South Pacific countries from the 1960s, when most were still not independent, until the present day and with the effects that the French presence in the South Pacific has had both on relations between Forum members and on regional stability and unity in general. The South Pacific regional system is a relative newcomer to the world political scene. The South Pacific Forum, the organisation which groups together the independent states of the region, was not established until 1971 and even then it was rather limited in scope with only four of the twenty-three colonial temtories in the South Pacific having achieved independence. Indeed, it was not until the end of the 1970s, by which time membership of the Forum included three of the four Melanesian entities and two other Micronesian states, that the Forum could be said to have achieved the dimensions of a regional system. Only on becoming independent were the South Pacific Island states free to determine their own foreign policy and the nature of their relations with other states from both within the region and outside it.2 Yet at the same time these states, in order to guarantee their economic survival, were seeking additional sources and, in certain cases where traditional donors had been estranged, even alternative sources of economic aid. This study then undertakes to examine the effect of the French presence not only on interstate relations in the region but on the stability of the regional system at a time when traditional economic and political ties were being questioned and new ones being forged

Attitudes to the rights and rewards for author contributions to repositories for teaching and learning

In the United Kingdom over the past few years there has been a dramatic growth of national and regional repositories to collect and disseminate resources related to teaching and learning. Most notable of these are the Joint Information Systems Committee’s Online Repository for [Learning and Teaching] Materials as well as the Higher Education Academy’s subject specific resource databases. Repositories in general can hold a range of materials not only related to teaching and learning, but more recently the term ‘institutional repository’ is being used to describe a repository that has been established to support open access to a university’s research output. This paper reports on a survey conducted to gather the views of academics, support staff and managers on their past experiences and future expectations of the use of repositories for teaching and learning. The survey explored the rights and rewards associated with the deposit of materials into such repositories. The findings suggest what could be considered to be an ‘ideal’ repository from the contributors’ perspective and also outlines many of the concerns expressed by respondents in the survey

Students’ understanding of computational thinking with a focus on decomposition in building network simulations

This paper reports a study into students’ understanding of decomposition when building network simulations. Students were asked to complete three problem-solving tasks involving designing and troubleshooting computer networks using simulation software. Through online surveys, interviews and focus groups the students’ understanding of computational thinking was interrogated. The results show that students were not conscious that they were applying computational thinking concepts when designing and troubleshooting networks on simulation software. It appears their interest were to simply get problems solved but not necessarily with the understanding of the application of the concepts of computational thinking

The role of intellectual virtues in the development of the science teacher: an initial provocation

Initial, informal observations of work with pre-service Chemistry and other science teachers suggests that a number of intellectual virtues are required, alongside a shift in identity, in order to help secondary school science students negotiate the pathway from “science learner” to “scientist”. This article explores both these virtues, the ontological shift that accompanies them and pedagogical suggestions for how these attributes might be promoted in a programme of pre-service training, along with suggestions for further empirical research which might form the basis of further investigation into these initial observation

Everyone loves select committees these days, but have they really changed?

The Wright reforms have been widely credited with reinvigorating select committees. Stephen Bates, Mark Goodwin (University of Birmingham) and Steve McKay (University of Lincoln) take issue with this assumption. They found the reforms have made little or no difference to MP turnover and attendance, which are driven by the parliamentary cycle. When MPs are jostling for payroll vote positions and trying to keep up with constituency duties and votes in the Chamber, select committees are likely to suffer

Parliamentary select committees: are elected chairs the key to their success?

Analysis of changes to House of Commons Select Committees

Elected chairs do not seem to have brought a new kind of parliamentarian to select committees

The Wright reforms have been widely credited with revitalising Parliamentary Select Committees. However, drawing on their research, Mark Goodwin, Stephen Bates and Steve McKay question whether the reforms have improved rates of turnover, attendance or gender balance. They write that commentators and MPs should avoid complacency in assuming that the reforms are a sufficiently powerful mechanism to drive improvement

Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4

Maximum likelihood or restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimates of the parameters in linear mixed-effects models can be determined using the lmer function in the lme4 package for R. As for most model-fitting functions in R, the model is described in an lmer call by a formula, in this case including both fixed- and random-effects terms. The formula and data together determine a numerical representation of the model from which the profiled deviance or the profiled REML criterion can be evaluated as a function of some of the model parameters. The appropriate criterion is optimized, using one of the constrained optimization functions in R, to provide the parameter estimates. We describe the structure of the model, the steps in evaluating the profiled deviance or REML criterion, and the structure of classes or types that represents such a model. Sufficient detail is included to allow specialization of these structures by users who wish to write functions to fit specialized linear mixed models, such as models incorporating pedigrees or smoothing splines, that are not easily expressible in the formula language used by lmer

Vibronic interactions in the visible and near-infrared spectra of C60− anions

Electron-phonon coupling is an important factor in understanding many properties of the C60 fullerides. However, there has been little success in quantifying the strength of the vibronic coupling in C60 ions, with considerable disagreement between experimental and theoretical results. We will show that neglect of quadratic coupling in previous models for C60- ions results in a significant overestimate of the linear coupling constants. Including quadratic coupling allows a coherent interpretation to be made of earlier experimental and theoretical results which at first sight are incompatible