Undergraduate work placement and academic performance: an investigation into the relationship between learning transfer and the architecture of the internship in a business undergraduate programme

Universities in response to government initiatives, have engaged with the vocalisation of Higher Education. This has included the extension of placement opportunities in the belief that this will imbue undergraduate teaching with enhanced relevance to the world beyond the university while increasing the employability of graduates. Among a range of claimed benefits for internships, it has been asserted that there will be enhanced academic performance; to date there has been virtually no published empirical evidence on this relationship. This thesis addresses this lacuna. A set of investigations was designed to test for enhanced academic performance post-placement, with differences in the architecture of the placement as intervening variables. It was found that under work environment architecture, there was no significant difference between the academic performance of placement undergraduates on return to academic studies and that of their non-placement peers; under learning environment architecture there was a significant difference between those who had taken placement and their non-placement peers. There was evidence of prior-selection: students who were academically stronger tended to undertake placement. There was indications that in the learning environment architecture, those who had taken an internship did not add value to their academic performance, whereas their non-intern peers did. There was some evidence that academic motivation in the immediate post-internship period was diminished. In accounting for the findings, the processes of transfer of learning are considered as well as sub-issues including the role of contracts and motivation in transfer of learning. Consideration is taken of the implications of the findings for the constituent stakeholder groups. Issues relating to the public policy are considered and directions for further research are suggested. The results support the view that internships can be designed to promote academic values and learning; they should not be seen merely as vehicles for promoting the learning of skills and competencies which are not readily produced in the universities

The Implementation of a Visco-hyperelastic Numerical Material Model for Simulating the Behaviour of Polymer Foam Materials

Polyurethane foam has been in use for some time in wheelchair seating systems as it offers good pressure relieving capabilities in most cases. However, little characterisation work has gone into seating foam materials by comparison with conventional elastomeric materials. Accurate material models could allow better prediction of foam in-service behaviour, which could potentially improve seating design practises. The objective of this work was to develop an approach for the validation of hyperelastic and viscoelastic material model parameters used to simulate polyurethane foam behaviour. Material parameters were identified from relevant test procedures and implemented in a Finite Element simulation of an ISO foam indentation procedure. Physical test results were compared to results predicted using the identified material parameters. Simulations suggest a good overall agreement between test and model results

Reviews

Introduction to the Law of Employment, Industrial Relations: a Social Psychological Approach, New Zealand and the World: Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Rosenberg, Studies in Conflict: Cases in New Zealand Industrial Relations, Labour Market Economics, The Changing Contours of British Industrial Relations, Workers' Co-operatives: Jobs and Dreams, The Right to Strike, Work and People - an Economic Evaluation of Job Enrichmen

Teaching strategies for enhancing employability skills in learners

This twenty-minute presentation will outline an Ako Aotearoa Regional Hub funded collaborative research project undertaken by a dozen educational developers from seven Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs). The project team sought to identify ‘where and how’ excellent teachers in their ITPs currently enhance their learners’ skills for employability, life-long learning and contributing to society. The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and other stakeholders seek evidence of the effectiveness of programmes of study in preparing graduates for industry. Inspired by Australian research on university preparation for employability, the project team wondered how it might assist teachers in New Zealand ITPs to design teaching and learning strategies for embedding skills that enhance employability

Impact of Tumour Epithelial Subtype on Circulating MicroRNAs in Breast Cancer Patients

While a range of miRNAs have been shown to be dysregulated in the circulation of patients with breast cancer, little is known about the relationship between circulating levels and tumour characteristics. The aim of this study was to analyse alterations in circulating miRNA expression during tumour progression in a murine model of breast cancer, and to detemine the clinical relevance of identified miRNAs at both tissue and circulating level in patient samples. Athymic nude mice received a subcutaneous or mammary fat pad injection of MDA-MB-231 cells. Blood sampling was performed at weeks 1, 3 and 6 following tumour induction, and microRNA extracted. MicroRNA microArray analysis was performed comparing samples harvested at week 1 to those collected at week 6 from the same animals. Significantly altered miRNAs were validated across all murine samples by RQ-PCR (n = 45). Three miRNAs of interest were then quantified in the circulation(n = 166) and tissue (n = 100) of breast cancer patients and healthy control individuals. MicroArray-based analysis of murine blood samples revealed levels of 77 circulating microRNAs to be changed during disease progression, with 44 demonstrating changes .2-fold. Validation across all samples revealed miR-138 to be significantly elevated in the circulation of animals during disease development, with miR-191 and miR-106a levels significantly decreased. Analysis of patient tissue and blood samples revealed miR-138 to be significantly up-regulated in the circulation of patients with breast cancer, with no change observed in the tissue setting. While not significantly changed overall in breast cancer patients compared to controls, circulating miR-106a and miR-191 were significantly decreased in patients with basal breast cancer. In tissue, both miRNAs were significantly elevated in breast cancer compared to normal breast tissue. The data demonstrates an impact of tumour epithelial subtype on circulating levels of miRNAs, and highlights divergent miRNA profiles between tissue and blood samples from breast cancer patients

Review of the quarter's economic trends [January 1977]

There is now ample evidence that the pace of recovery in the major economies slackened during 1976. Published statistics, however, are as yet inadequate to document the full extent of the slowdown or to assert that it was a transient phenomenon. Available evidence would suggest that the growth in the major economies in 1977 may be somewhat slower than had earlier been forecast, and that in the short run further reductions in unemployment and inflation rates may be very difficult to achieve. Several threads may be drawn together in an attempt to justify this interpretation of likely future developments

Phocine Distemper Virus in Northern Sea Otters in the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, USA

Phocine distemper virus (PDV) has caused 2 epidemics in harbor seals in the Atlantic Ocean but had never been identified in any Pacific Ocean species. We found that northern sea otters in Alaska are infected with PDV, which has created a disease threat to several sympatric and decreasing Pacific marine mammals

Quantifying the hydration structure of sodium and potassium ions: taking additional steps on Jacob's Ladder

The ability to reproduce the experimental structure of water around the sodium and potassium ions is a key test of the quality of interaction potentials due to the central importance of these ions in a wide range of important phenomena. Here, we simulate the Na+ and K+ ions in bulk water using three density functional theory functionals: (1) the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) based dispersion corrected revised Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof functional (revPBE-D3) (2) the recently developed strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) functional (3) the random phase approximation (RPA) functional for potassium. We compare with experimental X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements to demonstrate that SCAN accurately reproduces key structural details of the hydration structure around the sodium and potassium cations, whereas revPBE-D3 fails to do so. However, we show that SCAN provides a worse description of pure water in comparison with revPBE-D3. RPA also shows an improvement for K+, but slow convergence prevents rigorous comparison. Finally, we analyse cluster energetics to show SCAN and RPA have smaller fluctuations of the mean error of ion-water cluster binding energies compared with revPBE-D3

Automatisierte Planung von digitalen Hochgeschwindigkeitsnetzen

Der Ausbau von digitalen Hochgeschwindigkeitsnetzen ist gekennzeichnet durch neuartige Anforderungen an den Planungsprozess. Diese Anforderungen erfordern wiederum den Einsatz von neuartigen Paradigmen, die eine effiziente und zugleich genaue Planung von flächendeckenden Glasfasernetzen ermöglichen. Hierbei können wiederkehrende Planungsaufgaben durch eine gezielte computergestützte Automatisierung effizienter und genauer ausgeführt, als es mit bisherigen Planungskonzepten möglich ist. Dieses Arbeitspapier beschreibt die computergestützte Ausführung eines Planungsprozesses auf Basis von fünf grundlegenden, iterativen Planungsschritten und gibt Empfehlungen für eine effiziente und genaue Planung von Glasfasernetzen. Der hier vorgestellte Ansatz ermöglicht es Netzbetreibern und Investoren, den Ausbau beliebiger Siedlungs- und Gewerbegebiete auf der zuverlässigen Basis von belastbarem Faktenwissen wirtschaftlich zu priorisieren