Profit over culture: The representation of satellite signal theft in the Canadian press.

Satellite signal theft is a significant problem as it threatens Canadian culture. Canadian programming is not available on American satellite dishes and Canadian television service providers are losing money to the illegal satellite market. The coverage of satellite signal theft in the Toronto Star, National Post and the Ottawa Citizen revealed that satellite signal theft is negatively impacting the profits of Canadian television service providers. By conducting a critical discourse analysis of the articles that covered this topic it is evident that the newspapers were effective in portraying satellite signal theft in a negative manner through repeated pirate and drug references to deter audiences from participating in this illegal activity. Through the examination of the background, lexical style, competition, statistics, counter-power and the policy, satellite signal theft emerged as a topic presented to further the interests of the owning parties, reinforcing a political economic perspective. The threat to Canadian culture was only used when legal satellite dish and cable providers needed to strengthen the industry position against satellite signal theft resulting in profit over culture. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0023. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

PDAS as workplace tools for science teachers

This paper reports on work in progress on a project investigating the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) to help students make use of knowledge gained during the study of a Masters course in science education in their professional practice. We report on a review of the literature on mobile technologies as learning tools in workplace settings. We analyse this literature to suggest possible hypotheses for our study. We also describe the selection and design of activities for use on the PDAs, the evaluation strategy based on an activity theory augmented approach for the project and the issues arising during the project

Dental Educators’ Perceptions of Educational Learning Domains

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153618/1/jddjde019010.pd

UK Privatisation: Retrospect and Prospect

This collection of papers originated in a workshop held on 3 November 1999 at the Surrey Energy Economics Centre (SEEC), University of Surrey, on the subject of UK Energy Privatisation: Retrospect and Prospect. In the first paper, Claire Spottiswoode, CBE, PA Consulting and former Director General of Gas Supply, examines ‘the revolution that has taken place in the British utilities industries through a fundamental change in its structure and the introduction of competition’ and discusses how lessons learnt from gas deregulation can be applied to the still heavily regulated water industry. Eileen Marshall, CBE, Deputy Director General of Ofgem, discusses progress in introducing competition in electricity through the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA). She concludes that these together with other pro competitive changes ‘offer the prospect of large and rapidly achieved reductions in wholesale prices and lower prices for customers through more effective supply competition’. Michael Parker of the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, is less sanguine about the impact of reform on the coal industry. Although productivity has increased, ‘in the light of the industry’s continuing fundamental problems, the change of ownership in 1996 has made little difference’. The final paper looks at the impact of reform from inside the nuclear industry. Frank Cronin, Manager, Internal Consultancy, British Energy, discusses the fundamental changes that took place within the management of British Energy in response to the growth of competition in other parts of the energy sector. The papers show that privatisation and reform within the UK energy continue to provide a dynamic stimulus towards improved performance and innovation within and outside the sector.

Fostering gender equality in research institutions through Transformational-Gender Action Plans

"This paper draws upon baseline evidence compiled for the FP7 Project 'INstitutional Transformation for Effecting Gender Equality in Research' (INTEGER) in three very different research and higher education institutions. Despite institutional commitments towards gender equality, there is an under-representation of women at full professorship (Grade A) and equivalent positions. Furthermore, women and men are unequally represented on key committees and other decision-making bodies. INTEGER's task is to address these and other imbalances through the adoption of Transformational Gender Action Plans (T-GAPs). These T-GAPs involve: increasing the visibility and leadership potential of women academics/researchers; monitoring and gender proofing of recruitment/retention and promotion policies and practices; ensuring gender balance on decision-making bodies/committees; providing mentoring programmes and training in gender awareness to overcome unconscious bias at all levels of the institution; setting targets for high level appointments; and promoting gender equality as a core value contributing to research excellence. The T-GAP process is informed by international good practice through peer mentoring with research institutions in the UK/EU and USA and alignment with the Athena SWAN Charter and equivalent award holders. In addition, an external evaluation team assesses progress and impacts of the T-GAPs in each organisation. The paper presents common and different approaches of designing institutional transformation, strategies for building alliances in the institution for effective implementation of the T-GAPs and how the processes can be evaluated." (author's abstract

Who determines the ideal body? A Summary of Research Findings on Body Image

The globalization of media have paved way for Print and television advertisements to use images of thin female bodies to sell products and these advertisements are viewed by women all over the world. Through the media we are constantly bombarded with the western images of beautiful women and perfect bodies. Many surveys have proved the fact that men and women feel negative about their body image not only in the west but also in other parts of the world and the feminist scholars have tended that one should try to view the portrayal of idealized body image critically . In this connection, this paper, through a survey of relevant literature on body image, attempts to understand the following: 1) The concept of body image 2) Various determinants that idealize a woman’s body and define beauty standards 3) Influence of media on the body image of women 4) How the various determinants are interwoven targeting women, making them vulnerable to the idealized images. Keywords: Body image, Determinants, Medi