EPICS: Service Learning by Design, Engineering Projects in Community Service

Engineering Projects in Community Service - EPICS - is a service learning program that was initiated at Purdue University in the Fall of 1995. Under this program, undergraduate students in engineering earn academic credit for long-term team projects that solve technology based problems for local community service organizations. The service goals of the EPICS Program include: developing and delivering systems which address the organizations\u27 current technical problems; working closely with the organizations to determine how to best utilize technology to improve their services or enable new services; and providing reliable, long­ term technical assistance for community service organizations. The educational goals of the EPICS Program include: providing students with multi-year, team-based project experience; teaching students, by direct experience, how to interact with each other and with customers to specify, design, develop and deploy systems that solve real problems; and showing engineering students how their expertise can directly benefit even the most disadvantaged members of their community

Beyond Reciprocity: A Conservation of Resources View on the Effects of Psychological Contract Violation on Third Parties

Building on conservation of resources theory, we cast resource depletion as a novel explanatory mechanism to explain why employees’ experience of psychological contract violation results in harm to third parties outside the employee-organization exchange dyad. This resource-based perspective extends and complements the dominant social exchange perspective which views employee reactions to psychological contract violation as targeting the source of the violation—the organization. The present article reports on 3 studies. Study 1 conducted an experiment with 109 participants and established the main effect of psychological contract violation on resource depletion. Study 2, using survey data from 315 medical employees and their immediate supervisors, found that after controlling for the social exchange mechanism (i.e., revenge cognitions toward the organization), resource depletion mediated the indirect effects of psychological contract violation on supervisory reports of employees’ interpersonal harming toward coworkers and decision-making vigilance for clients. Further, we found that organizational and professional identification played opposing moderating roles in the effects of violation on resource depletion and consequently behavioral outcomes, such that these mediated relationships were stronger when organizational identification was high, and weaker when professional identification was high. Study 3 replicated all the results obtained in Studies 1 and 2 with time-lagged data from 229 medical employees across 3 measurement points. The findings confirm that resource depletion is a more effective explanation of the consequences of violation on third parties than revenge cognitions, although both are useful in predicting organization-directed outcomes (i.e., civic virtue and organizational rule compliance)

Long-Term Community Service Projects in the Purdue Engineering Curriculum

Purdue University\u27s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has initiated a new program called EPlCS:Engineering Projects in Community Service 2. Under the EPICS program, students earn academic credit for long-term, team projects that solve technology-based problems for local community service agencies. Each EPICS project team consists of seven to ten engineering students. The teams are vertically integrated - each is a mix of sophomores, juniors and seniors - and a student can participate in a project for up to three years. The continuity provided by this structure allows projects to last for many years. Projects of significant size and impact are thus possible. The goals of the EPICS program include: providing students with multi-year, team-based, design and development experience; teaching students, by direct experience, how to interact with each other and with customers to specify, design, develop and deploy systems that solve real problems; and showing engineering students how their expertise can benefit even the most disadvantaged members of their community

Operation of EMEP ‘supersites’ in the United Kingdom. Annual report for 2008.

As part of its commitment to the UN-ECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution the United Kingdom operates two ‘supersites’ reporting data to the Co-operative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (EMEP). This report provides the annual summary for 2008, the second full calendar year of operation of the first EMEP ‘supersite’ to be established in the United Kingdom. Detailed operational reports have been submitted to Defra every 3 months, with unratified data. This annual report contains a summary of the ratified data for 2008. The EMEP ‘supersite’ is located in central southern Scotland at Auchencorth (3.2oW, 55.8oN), a remote rural moorland site ~20 km south-west of Edinburgh. Monitoring operations started formally on 1 June 2006. In addition to measurements made specifically under this contract, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology also acts as local site operator for measurements made under other UK monitoring networks: the Automated Urban and Rural Network (AURN), the UK Eutrophication and Acidification Network (UKEAP), the UK Hydrocarbons Network, and the UK Heavy Metals Rural Network. Some measurements were also made under the auspices of the ‘Air Pollution Deposition Processes’ contract. All these associated networks are funded by Defra. This report summarises the measurements made between January and December 2008, and presents summary statistics on average concentrations. The site is dominated by winds from the south-west, but wind direction data highlight potential sources of airborne pollutants (power stations, conurbations). The average diurnal patterns of gases and particles are consistent with those expected for a remote rural site. The frequency distributions are presented for data where there was good data capture throughout the whole period. Some components (e.g. black carbon) show log-normal frequency distributions, while other components (e.g. ozone) have more nearly normal frequency distributions. A case study is presented for a period in June 2008, showing the influence of regional air pollutants at this remote rural site. All the data reported under the contract are shown graphically in the Appendix

An investigation into CLIL-related sections of EFL coursebooks : issues of CLIL inclusion in the publishing market

The current ELT global coursebook market has embraced CLIL as a weak form of bilingual education and an innovative component to include in General English coursebooks for EFL contexts. In this paper I investigate how CLIL is included in ELT coursebooks aimed at teenaged learners, available to teachers in Argentina. My study is based on the content analysis of four series which include a section advertised as CLIL-oriented. Results suggest that such sections are characterised by (1) little correlation between featured subject specific content and school curricula in L1, (2) oversimplification of contents, and (3) dominance of reading skills development and lower-order thinking tasks. Through this study, I argue that CLIL components become superficial supplements rather than a meaningful attempt to promote weak forms of bilingual education

Professionalism, golf coaching and a master of science degree

A distinction can be made between 'professionalisation', which is concerned with occupational status and standing, and 'professionalism,' which refers to matters of quality and standards of practice (especially specialized knowledge, ethics and altruism). The purpose of this stimulus article is to present key features of contemporary medical professionalism as a basis for critically reflecting on discourse associated with Tiger Woods' current coach, Sean Foley. It is suggested that that provision of a Master of Science degree in golf teaching/coaching would facilitate the development of 'professionalism' in golf coaches

Foreign Direct Investments in Business Services: Transforming the Visegrád Four Region into a Knowledge-based Economy?

Foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the service sector are widely attributed an important role in bringing more skill-intensive activities into the Visegrad Four (V4). This region—comprising Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia—relied heavily on FDIs in manufacturing, which was often found to generate activities with limited skill content. This contribution deconstructs the chaotic concept of “business services” by analysing the actual nature of service sector activities outsourced and offshored to the V4. Using the knowledge-based economy (KBE) as a benchmark, the paper assesses the potential of service sector outsourcing in contributing to regional competitiveness by increasing the innovative capacity. It also discusses the role of state policies towards service sector FDI (SFDI). The analysis combines data obtained from case studies undertaken in service sector outsourcing projects in V4 countries. Moreover, it draws on interviews with senior employees of investment promotion agencies and publicly available data and statistics on activities within the service sector in the region. It argues that the recent inward investments in business services in the V4 mainly utilize existing local human capital resources, and their contribution to the development of the KBE is limited to employment creation and demand for skilled labour

Men and talk about legal abortion in South Africa: equality, support and rights discourses undermining reproductive ‘choice’

Discursive constructions of abortion are embedded in the social and gendered power relations of a particular socio-historical space. As part of research on public discourses concerning abortion in South Africa where there has been a radical liberalisation of abortion legislation, we collected data from male group discussions about a vignette concerning abortion, and newspaper articles written by men about abortion. Our analysis revealed how discourses of equality, support and rights may be used by men to subtly undermine women’s reproductive right to ‘choose’ an abortion. Within an Equal Partnership discourse, abortion, paired with the assumption of foetal personhood, was equated with violating an equal heterosexual partnership and a man’s patriarchal duty to protect a child. A New Man discourse, which positions men as supportive of women, was paired with the assumption of men as rational and women as irrational in decision-making, to allow for the possibility of men dissuading women from terminating a pregnancy. A Rights discourse was invoked to suggest that abortion violates men’s paternal rights