Developing an Instrument to Examine Preservice Teachers' Pedagogical Development

National and international reform documents have forged blueprints for advancing science education. Coursework for preservice teachers needs to correspond to these documents by providing learning experiences that develop preservice teachers' capabilities to plan and implement reform measures. Using a pretest–posttest design, responses from 59 2nd-year preservice teachers from the same university were compared after involvement in an elementary science pedagogy coursework. The survey, which was linked to the course outcomes (constructs) and multiple indicators, measured the preservice teachers' perceptions of their development towards becoming elementary science teachers. A pretest–posttest survey linked to course outcomes can be employed to assess perceived pedagogical development of preservice teachers, which can inform further teaching practices for implementing science education reform agendas

Refugee Business Start-ups in the North East of England: An Impossible Dream?

Objectives and prior work - For many asylum seekers just getting to the UK is an achievement, let alone obtaining refugee status. When ‘equality’ is achieved with other immigrant workers then the settlement process begins. For some this includes starting a business but there are a number of well documented barriers to business start-up for refugees as well as black minority ethic entrepreneurs, which have been highlighted in the North East region (BRKN, 2007). Given this Northumbria University has sought to engage with these communities. This paper represents on-going research which began with a Northumbria University funded project that supported two main workshops aimed at refugees who wished to start a business. Approach - The University sought to engage with this particular part of the community through a project which aimed to contribute to the widening of business start-up for refugees at a time of increasing economic uncertainty. One practical means that had become available was the opportunity to establish a community based social enterprise. Given this an introductory workshop for refugees was organised on social enterprises. The workshop attracted over twenty-five community leader participants from ten different nations including the Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, the Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Participants requested a second workshop which then took place on ‘planning a business venture.’ Results - Questionnaire data was obtained from these workshops on business and social enterprise start-up, previous business experience and the usefulness of the workshops. Following these some of the workshop participants attended Northumbria University’s Student Law Office for advice on setting up their own businesses. Informal contact is also continuing with leading figures in these communities and through engagement with local voluntary sector groups. Implications - This paper will discuss some of the barriers that refugees face when starting a business and how their migration status impacts on this. It will also consider the recent cuts to the voluntary sector, how this has impacted on many of the groups supporting refugees and the extent to which the University is able to support these communities with business start up. Value - This research aims to identify the barriers which stand in the way of refugees trying to start up businesses, and to suggest measures which might ameliorate the situation, and enable more refugees to become successful business persons, contributing to the UK economy. BRKN (2007) Enterprise for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities, Refugees and Migrants, report by BOW Community Projects, Richardson Howarth LLP, The Knap and Northumbria University for ONE North East

Managing Downside Risk With Upside Volatility: Enhancing The Performance Of An Investment Portfolio With Managed Futures

Managed futures refer to the active trading of forward and futures contracts on physical commodities, financial assets, and currencies.  Since managed futures have little to no correlation with stocks and bonds, advocates claim this asset class provides much-needed diversification, allowing investors to profit from price volatility.  However, naysayers believe this volatility makes managed futures a highly risky investment. Do the unique features of this asset class make it worthy of inclusion in an investment portfolio?  This article asserts managed futures provide investment managers a powerful tool to manage downside risk by capitalising on upside price volatility

Love thy neighbour: proxemic bias in the voting strategy of contestants in the TV quiz-show "The Weakest Link"

We observed the pattern of voting in the first round of 72 episodes of the UK version of the TV quiz-show „The Weakest Link‟ (WL). The first round culminated as each of the nine contestants carried out an eight-alternative-forced-choice task by voting for one of their peers as the WL. Rudimentary probability theory was used to generate the frequencies of votes that would be expected purely due to chance for all eight relative positions of voter-to-candidate spatial relationships. The observed frequencies from the episodes were then compared to the expected pattern. Consensus, the number of contestants voting for the eventual WL, was also recorded in each of the 72 first rounds. Two main findings emerged:- i.) contestants avoided voting their direct neighbour as the WL, although the propensity to vote for a peer was not a simple function of distance per se; ii.) the „neighbour-avoidance‟ effect increased as the group consensus as to the identity of the WL decreased

The Profit Doctrine

The economics profession has a lot to answer for. After the late 1970s, the ideas of influential economists have justified policies that have made the world more prone to economic crisis, remarkably less equal, more polluted and less secure than it might be. How could ideas and policies that proved to be such an abject failure come to dominate the economic landscape?   By critically examining the work of the most famous economists of the neoliberal period including Alan Greenspan, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, the authors Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson demonstrate that many of those who rose to prominence did so primarily because of their defence of, and contribution to, rising corporate profits and not their ability to predict or explain economic events. An important and controversial book, 'The Profit Doctrine' exposes the uses and abuses of mainstream economic canons, identify those responsible and reaffirm the primacy of political economy

A faltering critique: how Fair Trade’s potential dwindles with “success”?

En términos generales, el objetivo del Comercio Justo es mejorar la vida de desarrollo de los productores nacionales. Para ello, el comercio justo, como cualquier otro movimiento de consumidores éticos, debe cambiar el comportamiento de los consumidores. Esto tiene la ventaja potencial de consumo defetishizing animando a la gente a cuestionar el impacto social y medioambiental de sus compras. Sin embargo, debido a que está sujeta a la lógica de un mercado caracterizado por la competencia y el conocimiento del consumidor limitada, el Comercio Justo también contiene características inherentes que trabajan contra este potencial mediante la reducción de la distinción entre el comercio justo y la producción convencional. Si el Comercio Justo es tanto maximizar su beneficio a los productores y animar a la gente a cuestionar la producción convencional, debe revertir su actual tendencia de oscurecer la distinción entre comercio justo y la producción convencional.Broadly speaking, the goal of Fair Trade is to improve the lives of developing nation producers. To do this Fair Trade, like any other ethical consumer movement, must change the behavior of purchasers. This has the potential advantage of defetishizing consumption by encouraging people to question the social and environmental impact of their purchases. Yet, because it is subject to the logic of a market characterized by competition and limited consumer knowledge, Fair Trade also contains inherent characteristics that work against this potential by reducing the distinction between Fair Trade and conventional production. If Fair Trade is to both maximize its benefit to producers and encourage people to question conventional production, it must reverse its current trend of obscuring the distinction between Fair Trade and conventional production

Multidimensional hierarchical self-assembly of amphiphilic cylindrical block comicelles

Cylindrical polymer micelles pack in 3D When you control chemistry, solvents, temperature, and concentration, surfactants and block copolymers will readily assemble into micelles, rods, and other structures. Qiu et al. take this to new lengths through precise selection of longer polymer blocks that self-assemble through a crystallization process (see the Perspective by Lee et al. ). They chose polymer blocks that were either hydrophobic or polar and used miscible solvents that were each ideal for only one of the blocks. Their triblock comicelles generated a wide variety of stable three-dimensional superstructures through side-by-side stacking and end-to-end intermicellar association. Science , this issue p. 1329 ; see also p. 1310 </jats:p