The development and application of the Explanatory Model of School Dysfunctions

This article develops the Explanatory Model of School Dysfunctions based on 80 essays of school principals and their representatives in Gauteng. It reveals the degree and kinds of school dysfunctions, as well as their interconnectedness with actors, networks, and domains. The model provides a basis for theory-based analyses of specific dysfunctions, and for context and culture-sensitive interventions. The main dysfunctions relate to rules (dysfunctional rules, rule bending, and rule breaking), competences (management, finances, and conflict resolution), and roles (role confusion and conflict, abuse of power). The model was developed to invite researchers to explore these and other dysfunctions in relation to their antecedents, motivations, and consequences, as well as to formulate evidence-based interventions and policies.Keywords: dysfunctions; organizational behaviour; school principals; underperforming schools“As the managers of our schools and key delivery agents in our education system, school principals are the most important partners in education. The biggest driver of better education outcomes is the school manager, the principal. School academic performance is highly correlated with the abilities and commitment of the principal.”(Department of Basic Education, 2011a

The development and application of the Explanatory Model of School Dysfunctions

This article develops the Explanatory Model of School Dysfunctions based on 80 essays of school principals and their representatives in Gauteng. It reveals the degree and kinds of school dysfunctions, as well as their interconnectedness with actors, networks, and domains. The model provides a basis for theory-based analyses of specific dysfunctions, and for context and culture-sensitive interventions. The main dysfunctions relate to rules (dysfunctional rules, rule bending, and rule breaking), competences (management, finances, and conflict resolution), and roles (role confusion and conflict, abuse of power). The model was developed to invite researchers to explore these and other dysfunctions in relation to their antecedents, motivations, and consequences, as well as to formulate evidence-based interventions and policies

Functional Evolution of a cis-Regulatory Module

Lack of knowledge about how regulatory regions evolve in relation to their structure–function may limit the utility of comparative sequence analysis in deciphering cis-regulatory sequences. To address this we applied reverse genetics to carry out a functional genetic complementation analysis of a eukaryotic cis-regulatory module—the even-skipped stripe 2 enhancer—from four Drosophila species. The evolution of this enhancer is non-clock-like, with important functional differences between closely related species and functional convergence between distantly related species. Functional divergence is attributable to differences in activation levels rather than spatiotemporal control of gene expression. Our findings have implications for understanding enhancer structure–function, mechanisms of speciation and computational identification of regulatory modules

New Method to Calculate Electrical Forces Acting on a Sphere in an Electrorheological Fluid

We describe a method to calculate the electrical force acting on a sphere in a suspension of dielectric spheres in a host with a different dielectric constant, under the assumption that a spatially uniform electric field is applied. The method uses a spectral representation for the total electrostatic energy of the composite. The force is expressed as a certain gradient of this energy, which can be expressed in a closed analytic form rather than evaluated as a numerical derivative. The method is applicable even when both the spheres and the host have frequency-dependent dielectric functions and nonzero conductivities, provided the system is in the quasistatic regime. In principle, it includes all multipolar contributions to the force, and it can be used to calculate multi-body as well as pairwise forces. We also present several numerical examples, including host fluids with finite conductivities. The force between spheres approaches the dipole-dipole limit, as expected, at large separations, but departs drastically from that limit when the spheres are nearly in contact. The force may also change sign as a function of frequency when the host is a slightly conducting fluid.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for Publication in Physical Review

Nonrelativistic Limit of the Scalar Chern-Simons Theory and the Aharonov-Bohm Scattering

We study the nonrelativistic limit of the quantum theory of a Chern-Simons field minimally coupled to a scalar field with quartic self-interaction. The renormalization of the relativistic model, in the Coulomb gauge, is discussed. We employ a procedure to calculate scattering amplitudes for low momenta that generates their $|p|/m$ expansion and separates the contributions coming from high and low energy intermediary states. The two body scattering amplitude is calculated up to order $p^2/m^2$. It is shown that the existence of a critical value of the self-interaction parameter for which the 2-particle scattering amplitude reduces to the Aharonov-Bohm one is a strictly nonrelativistic feature. The subdominant terms correspond to relativistic corrections to the Aharonov-Bohm scattering. A nonrelativistic reduction scheme and an effective nonrelativistic Lagrangian to account for the relativistic corrections are proposed.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, revtex, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Cinematic and aesthetic cartographies of subjective mutation

This article exmaines the use of cinema as a mapping of subjective mutation in the work of Deleuze, Gauttari and Berardi. Drawing on Deleuze's distinciton between the reduction of the art-work to the symptom and the idea of art as symptomatology, the article focuses on Berardi's use of cinematic examples, posing the quesiton in each case of to what extent they function as symptomatologies or mere symptoms of cultural and subjective mutations in examples ranging from Bergman's Persona to Van Sant's Elephant to finish on speculations about Fincher's The Social Network as a cirtical engagement with subjective mutation in the 21st Century

Dissipationless Anomalous Hall Current in Fe100−x(SiO2)xFe_{100-x}(SiO_2)_x Films

The observation of dissipationless anomalous Hall current is one of the experimental evidences to confirm the intrinsic origin of anomalous Hall effect. To study the origin of anomalous Hall effect in iron, Fe$_{100-x}$(SiO$_{2}$)$_{x}$ granular films with volume fraction of SiO$_{2}$ 0\le x \le 40.51 were fabricated using co-sputtering. Hall and longitudinal resistivities were measured in the temperature range 5 to 350 K with magnetic fields up to 5 Tesla. As x increased from 0 to 40.51, the anomalous Hall resistivity and longitudinal resistivity increased about 4 and 3 orders in magnitude, respectively. Analysis of the results revealed that the normalized anomalous Hall conductivity is a constant for all the samples, the evidence of dissipationless anomalous Hall current in Fe.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures; http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.20531