High School in Bali

In the Indonesian education system, high school is comprised of 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. In their first year of high school, a Balinese student’s curriculum might look very similar to an American student’s. At this point in their education, the Balinese are still following the national general curriculum, studying mathematics, science, language, and history. During the eleventh and twelfth years of school the Balinese school structure diverges from the American system. Indonesian students must choose one of three areas of study on which to focus for the last two years of high school, a concept similar to a college major. [excerpt

On relating functional modeling approaches: abstracting functional models from behavioral models

This paper presents a survey of functional modeling approaches and describes a strategy to establish functional knowledge exchange between them. This survey is focused on a comparison of function meanings and representations. It is argued that functions represented as input-output flow transformations correspond to behaviors in the approaches that characterize functions as intended behaviors. Based on this result a strategy is presented to relate the different meanings of function between the approaches, establishing functional knowledge exchange between them. It is shown that this strategy is able to preserve more functional information than the functional knowledge exchange methodology of Kitamura, Mizoguchi, and co-workers. The strategy proposed here consists of two steps. In step one, operation-on-flow functions are translated into behaviors. In step two, intended behavior functions are derived from behaviors. The two-step strategy and its benefits are demonstrated by relating functional models of a power screwdriver between methodologies

Incommensurability and rationality in engineering design: the case of functional decomposition

In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition case: co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering

The Power of Low Frequencies: Faraday Tomography in the sub-GHz regime

Faraday tomography, the study of the distribution of extended polarized emission by strength of Faraday rotation, is a powerful tool for studying magnetic fields in the interstellar medium of our Galaxy and nearby galaxies. The strong frequency dependence of Faraday rotation results in very different observational strengths and limitations for different frequency regimes. I discuss the role these effects take in Faraday tomography below 1 GHz, emphasizing the 100-200 MHz band observed by the Low Frequency Array and the Murchison Widefield Array. With that theoretical context, I review recent Faraday tomography results in this frequency regime, and discuss expectations for future observations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Galaxies as part of the special issue "The Power of Faraday Tomography

Public sector managers of human services : their challenges and strategies : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Middle managers of human services in the public sector have a unique role that allows them to be part of the lives of clients and their families by implementing the strategic vision of political leaders. The expectations of middle managers can be complex and contradictory and therefore challenging. This research identifies the challenges middle managers of human services in the public sector encounter and the strategies that they have developed to deal with these. The support that senior managers in public sector organisations can offer to their middle managers in this process is also discussed. The study is qualitative and placed in a post-modernist position and social constructive perspective. Data is collected through the use of semi-structured interviews and examined using an interpretative thematic approach. The analysis identified a range of challenges for middle managers in the public sector and strategies these managers use to deal with them. Interestingly a number of identified challenges are also identified as a strategy depending on the support middle managers receive from the senior managers in their organisation. The findings identify that a strong strategic vision needs to be in place in public sector organisations to develop clear roles and responsibilities for middle managers with allocated resources. Middle managers need access to training, supervision and networking to deal with additional challenges such as changes in funding and information management. Recommendations are made to public sector organisations to support the development of effective strategies to deal with the challenges identified by their middle managers. Recommendations are made to middle managers in the public sector to prioritise and advocate for their own needs and requirements as they do for their clients and their staff. This research will support both senior and middle managers in public sector organisations in finding strategies to support middle managers to fulfil their role effectively

Decomposing a decade's growth of Central and Eastern Europe's trade

After the breakdown of the central planning system, Central and East European countries (CEECs) took considerable effort in liberalising their economies leading to lasting changes in CEEC trade. As a result, between 1996 and 2004 almost all of these countries displayed very high growth rates of both exports and imports, exceeding OECD and Russian performance. These trade developments are described and interpreted in this note on a descriptive rather than an analytical basis. First, trade volumes by goods categories are examined to account for what kind of goods are the major trade growth drivers. In general, growth in exports and imports is mainly driven by goods used in production rather than consumer goods. Specifically for the Central and East European EU members (EU-8), export and import growth is mainly driven by capital goods and two-way trade in a special subgroup of intermediate goods, i.e., parts and accessories of capital goods. This result can be associated with increasing offshoring activities between the old EU member states and the new EU-8 countries. A closer look at EU-8 exports to and imports from Germany confirms this finding: EU-8 states tend to import parts and accessories of capital goods from Germany to produce and export parts and accessories of capital goods or final capital goods to Germany. Second, the effects of liberalisation on the variety versus the intensity of trade are described. Here as well, CEEC growth in trade at the extensive margin is driven by intermediate rather than consumer goods. Considering the import side this finding has important implications: While more consumer goods “only” have static welfare effects, a higher input variety might signal a change of the economy’s state of technology. The author is a graduate student at the Department of Economics, University of Regensburg and a research assistant at the OEI. I am grateful to Richard Frensch for many helpful discussions and guidance on this note.

The Henize sample of S stars. I. The technetium dichotomy

This paper is the first one in a series investigating the properties of the S stars belonging to the Henize sample (205 S stars with delta<-25 deg. and R<10.5) in order to derive the respective properties (like galactic distribution and relative frequencies) of intrinsic (i.e. genuine asymptotic giant branch) S stars and extrinsic (i.e. post mass-transfer binary) S stars. High-resolution (R=30 000 to 60 000) spectra covering the range 4230-4270AA have been obtained for 76 S stars, 8 M stars and 2 symbiotic stars. The 4262AA and 4238AA blends involving a Tc I line were analysed separately and yield consistent conclusions regarding the presence or absence of technetium. Only one `transition' case (Hen 140 = HD 120179, a star where only weak lines of technetium are detectable) is found in our sample. A resolution greater than R =30 000 is clearly required in order to derive unambiguous conclusions concerning the presence or absence of technetium. The Tc/no Tc dichotomy will be correlated with radial velocity and photometric data in a forthcoming paper.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, Latex, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics main journal. Also available at http://astro.ulb.ac.be

Web Services as Product Experience Augmenters and the Implications for Requirements Engineering: A Position Paper

There is currently little insight into what requirement engineering for web services is and in which context it will be carried out. In this position paper, we investigate requirements engineering for a special kind of web services, namely web services that are used to augment the perceived value of a primary service or product that is itself not a web service. We relate requirements engineering to a common enterprise architecture pattern and derive from this a number of research questions for further study