Community Influences on Schooling and Work Activity of Youth in Pakistan

The schooling and work activities of youth remain fundamental to their human capital development. Yet we have limited understanding of factors influencing these activities in Pakistan and elsewhere. The bulk of research on children’s work and schooling looks primarily to household-level factors to explain current rates. As such, activities’ of youth are viewed as a product of family strategies for confronting poverty. On the other hand, the influences at the community level on work and schooling of youth have received relatively little attention and remain largely undeveloped in the literature. Further, work and schooling activities remain are usually investigated separately in the analyses. Most studies focus on either the work activities or schooling of youth, despite recent appeals to examine these activities simultaneously [DeGraff, Bilsborrow and Herrin (1993); Mahmood, Javaid and Baig (1994) and Weiner and Noman (1997)]. The purpose of this paper is to assess the participation of youth in work and schooling activities and the way household and community factors shape these activities. I address two central research questions in this paper. First, what is the distribution of Pakistani youth in work and schooling activities? Second, what factors influence the likelihood that youth engage in work and/or schooling? Particularly, what is the influence of community-level factors (specifically, availability of schools, wage returns to education, and infrastructure development) on the activities of youth?

Community Influences on Schooling and Work Activity of Youth in Pakistan

The schooling and work activities of youth remain fundamental to their human capital development. Yet we have limited understanding of factors influencing these activities in Pakistan and elsewhere. The bulk of research on children’s work and schooling looks primarily to household-level factors to explain current rates. As such, activities’ of youth are viewed as a product of family strategies for confronting poverty. On the other hand, the influences at the community level on work and schooling of youth have received relatively little attention and remain largely undeveloped in the literature. Further, work and schooling activities remain are usually investigated separately in the analyses. Most studies focus on either the work activities or schooling of youth, despite recent appeals to examine these activities simultaneously [DeGraff, Bilsborrow and Herrin (1993); Mahmood, Javaid and Baig (1994) and Weiner and Noman (1997)]

Novel Precursors for Boron Nanotubes: The Competition of Two-Center and Three-Center Bonding in Boron Sheets

We present a new class of boron sheets, composed of triangular and hexagonal motifs, that are more stable than structures considered to date and thus are likely to be the precursors of boron nanotubes. We describe a simple and clear picture of electronic bonding in boron sheets and highlight the importance of three-center bonding and its competition with two-center bonding, which can also explain the stability of recently discovered boron fullerenes. Our findings call for reconsideration of the literature on boron sheets, nanotubes, and clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Schools and their communities: pupil and teacher perceptions of community action

In England over the last two decades, there has been a growing interest in the role of English schools in developing, facilitating and supporting young people’s community participation. A number of policy initiatives have sought to build the capacity and opportunities for youth participation. Research suggests, however, that pupils and schools are often prohibited by significant barriers from becoming involved with community activities, particularly those which might occur beyond the school environment itself. In March 2010 the UK Labour government launched a Youth Community Action initiative for England, piloted across five local authorities, which aimed to involve young people of 14-16 years-of-age in community action. Following the UK general election in May 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government terminated these pilots but was quick to announce the launch and piloting of a National Citizen Service for 16-19 year olds in England. Purpose Drawing on research conducted with participants in one Youth Community Action pilot project, the aim of this study was to explore the perceptions and understandings of young people regarding their involvement in community action activities and how this compared to the perceptions and understandings of the teachers responsible for co-ordinating such activities. Sample In the final synthesis, the sample comprised 614 pupil questionnaires, representing a response rate of 24 percent of the pupils in the 9 participating schools. 11 semi-structured interviews and one focus group interview were conducted with pupils in 6 of the schools, with a further 8 semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers in these 6 schools. Design and methods A questionnaire was administered to pupils participating in the Youth Community Action pilot, enabling an exploration of self-reported behavioural attitudes and perceptions. The data collected was analysed thematically, with an identification of common themes in responses. In addition, factor analysis and a series of Chi² tests of association were carried out. The use of semi-structured interviews, the data from which were analysed thematically, enabled a qualitative exploration of pupils’ and teachers’ self-reported perceptions of community action activities. Results The findings of our questionnaires report that those pupils who know more about their local neighbourhood and community are likely to report greater levels of concern for what happens within it. This suggests that pupils’ learning about their neighbourhoods and community is likely to be beneficial toward developing affective attachments to them. For the pupils in our data-set, simply possessing pro-social behaviours and attitudes was not a sufficient or necessary condition for their community awareness and involvement. It suggests that, at least for a notable number of pupils, active engagement in the community requires cultivation and learning beyond pro-social behaviours. The semi-structured interviews report that pupils identify the school as the key source of information about community engagement opportunities, but also indicate that there is a marked difference in the activities which teachers identify their pupils as having undertaken, and the ability of pupils to vocalise these themselves. A further notable finding was a focus on the practical (time, distance, age-constraints) and social (peer-pressure) barriers to community action activities to the exclusion of specifically educational (lack of understanding and skills) barriers. Conclusions Results from this study suggest that schools represent an important source for pupils’ community involvement, but that in our sample pupils often lack the vocabulary with which to explain the extent and nature of such engagement. Pupils and teachers identify a range of barriers to and benefits of community involvement, but these do not include a lack of understanding or skills. The research raises important questions in the context of recent policy trends in England

Local Authority Development Collaboratives 2008-09 report

As part of the Study Support (SS) Quality Development Programme (QDP) the DCSF provided via Quality in Study Support (QiSS) a grant to develop collaboratives to support Local Authorities (LAs) working together to measure the impact of study support provision within and across regions. Each region was asked to invite Local Authorities (LAs) to commit time to specific projects alongside colleagues within the two themes under the umbrella of QA and impact measurement. Each group would then submit an action plan and budget which would be approved centrally before funding was approved. As a condition of the grant each participating LA initially was asked to carry out a Study Support self-review based on the criteria developed as part of the national framework for Study Support to demonstrate how the proposed collaborative project addressed developmental needs identified in the self-review. Each participating LA was asked to describe how the impact of the activity was evaluated and outcomes disseminated. In addition they were required to indicate how their ‘Development Collaborative’ (DC) has address staff or organisational or service development or delivery issues. 49 LAs participated in DCs during the year 2008-09 .13 DCs were planned but two withdrew and have not been reported upon compared to 19 undertaken in 2007-08). A number of notable outcomes resulted, ranging from increased involvement of young people as advocated and mentors through to holding a conference aimed at commissioners of services and LA Advisors to highlight the importance of engaging in study support activities

Vocabulary sophistication in first-year composition assignments

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from John Benjamins Publishing via the DOI in this record.Recently-developed tools which quickly and reliably quantify vocabulary use on a range of measures open up new possibilities for understanding the construct of vocabulary sophistication. To take this work forward, we need to understand how these different measures relate to each other and to human readers' perceptions of texts. This study applied 356 quantitative measures of vocabulary use generated by an automated vocabulary analysis tool (Kyle & Crossley, 2014) to a large corpus of assignments written for First Year Composition courses at a university in the United States. Results suggest that the majority of measures can be reduced to a much smaller set without substantial loss of information. However, distinctions need to be retained between measures based on content vs. function words and on different measures of collocational strength. Overall, correlations with grades are reliable but weak

CD55 is over-expressed in the tumour environment

CD55 is a protein that protects cells from complement-mediated attack. 791Tgp72 is an antigen which has been used succesfully as a target for both tumour imaging and cancer vaccines. 791Tgp72 has recently been identified as CD55. Quantitative expression of CD55 in the tumour environment was therefore studied. Tumour cells showed a 4–100-fold increase in CD55 cell surface expression when compared to normal cells. Immunohistochemical staining of colorectal tumours also revealed high expression of CD55 in the stroma. To examine the source of this stromal CD55 the ability of both epithelial cells and endothelial cells to produce extracellular CD55 was measured. Tumour cell lines deposit CD55 into their extracellular matrix (ECM) in direct proportion to their cell surface expression. In contrast the ECM from HUVEC cells contained large amounts of CD55 despite expressing low levels of CD55 on their cell surface. Furthermore expression of CD55 on HUVEC cells was increased by exposure to VEGF. Although it remains unclear why CD55 is upregulated in the tumour environment its high level of expression on tumour cells and associated endothelium may explain why it is a good target for both imaging and immunotherapy. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

The kinetics of metal oxide photoanodesfrom charge generation to catalysis

Generating charge carriers with lifetimes long enough to drive catalysis is a critical aspect for both photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic systems and a key determinant of their efficiency. This review addresses the charge carrier dynamics underlying the performance of metal oxides as photoanodes and their ability to drive photoelectrochemical water oxidation, alongside wider comparison with metal oxide function in photocatalytic and electrocatalytic systems. We start by highlighting the disparity between the ps–ns lifetimes of electron and holes photoexcited in bulk metal oxides versus the ms –s timescale of water oxidation catalysis. We go onto review recent literature of the dominant kinetic processes determining photoanode performance, namely charge generation, polaron formation and charge trapping, bulk and surface recombination, charge separation and extraction, and finally the kinetics of water oxidation catalysis. With each topic, we review current understanding and note areas of remaining uncertainty or controversy. We discuss the potential for material selection and examine approaches such as doping, nanostructuring, junction formation and/or co-catalyst deposition to enhance performance. Critically, we examine how such performance enhancements can be understood from analyses of carrier dynamics and propose design guidelines for further material or device optimisation