Developing an interactive writing tool for business law students

Students&rsquo; performance in assessment tasks requiring logical written answers to case study problems can be adversely affected by difficulties in constructing a full length, logical written argument that demonstrates understanding to the level expected. This paper describes a teaching and learning tool developed to assist students in constructing logical full-length answers to given problems, using individual understanding of underlying concepts and their application. The tool allows students to see their thoughts and reasoning written into full-length answers of different styles. Developed initially for Business law students, this Answer Styles tool has scope to assist students&rsquo; writing in many disciplines.</div

Main issues rural women experience with information & communication technology

This brief report will outline the main issues rural women encountered with information and communications technology. This information was derived from interviewing twenty-one rural women from the South West, Eastern Goldfields, Murchison, Gascoyne, and Kimberley regions of Western Australia

Increasing Rural Women\u27s Involvement in Government Decision Making

The purpose of this report was to identify why rural women’s involvement in government decision-making is of a low level despite the concerted government action, and to furthermore provide solutions to inform action. The strength of the research presented is that all information is firmly established in the rural women’s experiences

An action research investigation into new ways rural women in Western Australia can increase their involvement in government decision-making

This research investigates the role of information communication technologies (ICTs) in the promotion of rural women\u27s participation in governmental decision-making. The origins of the research lie in apparent discrepancies between the Australian government’s high-level, policy commitment to increase rural women\u27s involvement in government decision-making and the continuing barriers to their participation as demonstrated by researchers such as Elix and Lambert, (1998); and Wilkinson and Alston, (1999). This research deploys a feminist action research methodology to explore new ways to increase rural women\u27s involvement in government decision-making in Western Australian. The first phase of the research, a phenomenological field study, investigated two research questions, • Why are so few rural women involved in government decision-making in Western Australia? and • What are new ways to increase rural women\u27s involvement in government decision-making in Western Australia? The second phase of the research explored rural women\u27s receptiveness to the implementation of information and communication technologies and any issues they had with using them. In phase one, 21 women from seven rural communities in Western Australia were interviewed to understand their experiences of the government decision-making system. Drawing on Covey\u27s (1999) and Bronfenbrenner\u27s (1979) frameworks, a Government decision-making framework was formulated to bring together the barriers and drivers that affect rural women\u27s engagement with decision-making. This included three levels of factors that influence rural women\u27s involvement - personal, interpersonal and cultural. Further, the Change strategies framework was developed to outline new ways to increase rural women\u27s involvement in government decision-making. Five change strategies, targeting the personal resource and cultural level of the government decision making system were identified. Phase two of the study is a case study of an online meeting between 67 Western Australian rural women and the then Deputy Premier. It showed that rural women found the online government meeting reduced barriers such as limited resources of time and money, but, new barriers with using the technology emerged. A clear outcome is a paradigm shift from prioritising homogeneity to heterogeneity among government decision-makers is needed to address rural women’s different personal, interpersonal and cultural needs

Sodium/proton exchange in the gills of three species of crabs : Libinia dubia, Callinectes sapidus, and Menippe mercenaria

Na+/H+ exchange was studied in plasma membrane vesicles from gills of three species of crabs: Callinectes sapidus (blue crab), Libinia dubia (spider crab), and Menippe mercenaria (stone crab). Spider crabs and stone crabs were acclimated to full (35ppt) seawater, while blue crabs were acclimated to both dilute (5ppt) and full strength seawater. Membrane vesicles were prepared by sucrose density centrifugation. Na+/H+ exchange was analyzed using acridine orange fluorescence. Male C. sapidus showed the most exchange activity (per g gill tissue), followed by M. mercenaria, female C. sapidus and Libinia dubia. No difference in exchange activity was evident when blue crabs were acclimated to both full and dilute seawater. The Na+/H+ exchange stoichiometry was larger than one for both C. sapidus and M. mercenaria, but approximately one for L. dubia. C. sapidus is an osmoregulator and can move from high salinities to reduced; its exchange mechanism may be more efficient in obtaining Na+ from lower salinities, compared to the stenohaline L. dubia. The control of ionic exchange in gills of M. mercenaria has not been studied. However, a stoichiometry as well as exchange rate similar to C. sapidus would suggest that some regulation is possible

On the topological convergence of multi-rule sequences of sets and fractal patterns

AbstractIn many cases occurring in the real world and studied in science and engineering, non-homogeneous fractal forms often emerge with striking characteristics of cyclicity or periodicity. The authors, for example, have repeatedly traced these characteristics in hydrological basins, hydraulic networks, water demand, and various datasets. But, unfortunately, today we do not yet have well-developed and at the same time simple-to-use mathematical models that allow, above all scientists and engineers, to interpret these phenomena. An interesting idea was firstly proposed by Sergeyev in 2007 under the name of "blinking fractals." In this paper we investigate from a pure geometric point of view the fractal properties, with their computational aspects, of two main examples generated by a system of multiple rules and which are enlightening for the theme. Strengthened by them, we then propose an address for an easy formalization of the concept of blinking fractal and we discuss some possible applications and future work

Local indices within a mathematical framework for urban water distribution systems

In this paper, a set of local energetic indices for an urban water distribution system is proposed, together with a mathematical organization of the matter which is also able to incorporate many of the well known (global) indicators. In fact, arranged such incoming indices in vectors and drawing on some notions of linear algebra and vector calculus, they are placed at the starting point of a mathematical framework that seems never used before for engineering-hydraulic purposes. It is then told how such a study and local treatment of a water network can be very useful, accurate and rich in information, and can be considered as a natural and simple theoretical development of a common global vision generally pursued so far: in particular, it is shown how it is possible to recover from the drawn layout, through suitable formulas, some of the most known and mainly used energetic parameters in a very clear and effective way