A landscape view of emerging sustainability responses within VET

With evidence of global climate change and ongoing ecological degradation, there is an urgent need to give more attention to sustainability within VET to ensure that VET does not remain complicit in reproducing the unjust and unsustainable trajectories of current economic and development pathways. At present, the VET literature does not adequately address these issues, hence the need for this special issue. In response, this paper offers a meta-reflective ‘landscape view’ of the sustainability within the VET ‘field of knowledge’ as it is emerging. Here, we use landscape review as a multi-dimensional, ‘outside-in’ view that provides a basis for understanding the broad context and helps to inform actionable next steps. This analysis we believe helps to highlight the key emerging priorities as well as what paths VET is taking on the journey to sustainability. The analysis shows that while some progress has been made in policy and practice related to the ‘greening’ of VET, much of the current response within VET to the environmental challenge reflects a minimalist reformist approach, characterised by ‘bolt-ons’ to existing institutional structures and curricula whilst leaving the fundamental beliefs in productivism, industrialisation and growth in place. Yet, as argued by researchers working on green economy, these beliefs are often complicit in co-creation of the environmental crisis

Reframing skills ecosystems for sustainable and just futures

The current dominant approach to vocational education and training (VET) does not work in theory, policy or practice in current contexts of unsustainability and global inequality. Nor is it fit for future purpose. Drawing on a large-scale research collaboration between four universities, funded by the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund, with co-funding and funding in-kind from global south partners, this paper is a contribution to imagining new VET futures. It looks iteratively, reflexively and expansively at how our experience of VET system development involving boundary crossing between formal and informal VET systems interfaces with recent Northern work on the conceptualisation of social skills ecosystems, and how this concept can be expanded to address the challenge of skills for just transitions in the global South. We advance the skills ecosystems approach ontologically by drawing on critical realism (a growing trend in VET and development research). This allows us both to move beyond the structure-agency divide that has bedeviled the field, and with it the tendency to monoscalar analysis. Rather, we argue that accounts of VET and development must address both structure and agency, and their interplay, and must be multiscalar. This reading allows us to focus on the central importance of relationality. We argue that it is through networks and relationships that the precarious worlds of learning and work are brought together

Fischer carbene complexes of cobalt(I) : synthesis and structure

Please read abstract in the article.Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center Crystallographic data. Data associated with the article:) CCDC 1988149: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc24qtvk&sid=DataCite)CCDC 1988148: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc24qttj&sid=DataCite)CCDC 1988152: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc24qtyn&sid=DataCite)CCDC 1988151: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc24qtxm&sid=DataCite)The National Research Foundation, South Africa and Sasol Technology R&D Pty. Ltd. (South Africa).http://www.elsevier.com/locate/molstrhj2023Chemistr

Recent advances in the field of multicarbene and multimetal carbene complexes of the Fischer-type

This review article covers the development of Fischer carbene complexes since the year 2000, with specific focus on carbene complexes bearing metal-containing fragments as substituents, as well as multicarbene systems. The role of the metal-containing substituents on the character and reactivity of such complexes are discussed. In addition, larger systems containing more than one carbene ligand are also covered (rodlike biscarbenes, chelates, macrosystems, etc.) in terms of the synthesis, reactivity and structural aspects.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ccrhb201

Synthesis and structure of annulated dithieno[2,3- b ;3 ʹ,2 ʹ- d ]thienyl- and ring-opened 3,3 ʹ-bithienyl Fischer carbene complexes

Please read abstract in the article.Appendix A. Supplementary data.Appendix B. checkCIF/PLATON reportResearch data for this article: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center. Crystallographic data: CCDC 2009041: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fksz&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009042: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fkt0&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009043: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fkv1&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009044: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fkw2&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009045: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fkx3&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009046: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fky4&sid=DataCite)CCDC 2009047: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination (https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/search?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc25fkz5&sid=DataCite)The National Research Foundation, South Africa and Sasol Technology R&D Pty. Ltd. (South Africa).http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jorganchemam2021Chemistr

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): merging galaxies and their properties

We derive the close pair fractions and volume merger rates for galaxies in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey with −23 < Mr < −17 (ΩM = 0.27, ΩΛ = 0.73, H0 = 100 km s−1 Mpc−1) at 0.01 < z < 0.22 (look-back time of <2 Gyr). The merger fraction is approximately 1.5 per cent Gyr−1 at all luminosities (assuming 50 per cent of pairs merge) and the volume merger rate is ≈3.5 × 10−4 Mpc−3 Gyr−1. We examine how the merger rate varies by luminosity and morphology. Dry mergers (between red/spheroidal galaxies) are found to be uncommon and to decrease with decreasing luminosity. Fainter mergers are wet, between blue/discy galaxies. Damp mergers (one of each type) follow the average of dry and wet mergers. In the brighter luminosity bin (−23 < Mr < −20), the merger rate evolution is flat, irrespective of colour or morphology, out to z ∼ 0.2. The makeup of the merging population does not appear to change over this redshift range. Galaxy growth by major mergers appears comparatively unimportant and dry mergers are unlikely to be significant in the buildup of the red sequence over the past 2 Gyr. We compare the colour, morphology, environmental density and degree of activity (BPT class, Baldwin, Phillips & Terlevich) of galaxies in pairs to those of more isolated objects in the same volume. Galaxies in close pairs tend to be both redder and slightly more spheroid dominated than the comparison sample. We suggest that this may be due to ‘harassment’ in multiple previous passes prior to the current close interaction. Galaxy pairs do not appear to prefer significantly denser environments. There is no evidence of an enhancement in the AGN fraction in pairs, compared to other galaxies in the same volume

Synthesis and properties of mono- and dimetal Fischer multicarbene complexes derived from thiophene and thieno[2,3-b]thiophene

Access to multicarbene complexes of a fused thienothiophene substrate was obtained by the use of the tetrabrominated thieno[2,3-b]thiophene precursor in a lithium–bromide exchange reaction, followed by nucleophilic attack on metal hexacarbonyls (M = Cr, W). Subsequent alkylation afforded unique triscarbene complexes [M(CO)4{{C(OEt)}2C6H1S2C(OEt)}M(CO)5] (M = Cr 12, W 13) featuring three non-equivalent carbene ligands on a single thiophene linker, as well as the bischelated tetracarbene complexes [M(CO)4{{C(OEt)}2C6S2{C(OEt)}2}M(CO)4] (M = Cr 14, W 15). The triscarbene complexes 12 and 13 are the first examples of multi-alkoxycarbene complexes featuring three non-equivalent carbene ligands. The reaction also afforded the chelated mononuclear biscarbene complexes [M(CO)4{C(OEt)}2C6H2S2] (M = Cr 10, W 11) in low yields. Similarly, employing tetrabromothiophene as precursor yielded the mononuclear chelate biscarbene complexes [M(CO)4{C(OEt)}2C4H2S] (M = Cr 6, W 7) and the dinuclear tetracarbene complexes [M(CO)4{{C(OEt)}2C4S{C(OEt)}2}M(CO)4] (M = Cr 8, W 9). Modification of the classic Fischer carbene synthetic methodology to a process of stepwise additions of lithiating agent and metal carbonyls to thieno[2,3-b]thiophene, facilitates the formation of the mixed metal biscarbene complex [W(CO)5C(OEt){C6H2S2}C(OEt)Cr(CO)5] 5, as analogue of the homonuclear biscarbene complexes [M(CO)5C(OEt){C6H2S2}C(OEt)M(CO)5], (M = Cr 3, W 4). The monocarbene complexes [M(CO)5{C(OEt)- C6H3S2}], (M = Cr 1, W 2) were also obtained in high yields, and the molecular structures of the tungsten complexes, with the exception of 9 and 11, were confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies.The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa with grants to SL (no. 73679 and 77079) and DIB (no. 87890 and 92521).http://www.rsc.org/dalton2016-10-13am201

Rhenium ethoxy- and hydroxycarbene complexes with thiophene substituents

Please read abstract in article.This work was supported financially by the University of Pretoria and by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa under Grant number: 73679 (SL).http://www.rsc.org/dalto

Precision Cosmology: Successes and Challenges

After briefly reviewing the good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard CDM theory and problems with the MOND alternative, I summarize several of the main areas of possible disagreement between theory and observation: galaxy centers, dark matter substructure, angular momentum, and the sequence of cosmogony, updating earlier reviews [1]. All of these issues are sufficiently complicated that it is not yet clear how serious they are, but there is at least some reason to think that the problems will be resolved through a deeper understanding of the complicated "gastrophysics" of star formation and feedback from supernovae and AGN.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in proceedings of 7th UCLA Symposium on sources and detection of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, 22-24 Feb 2006, Marina de Rey, Californi