Promoting environmentally sustainable enterprises: some policy options

Governments around the world are taking an increasing interest in promoting environmentally-sustainable economic activity. They have developed a variety of policy approaches in an effort to address environmental issues that range from localised pollution incidents to global climate change. This chapter examines the kinds of intervention tools that are being used to improve the environmental performance of SMEs, and to guide entrepreneurial energies towards more environmentally-benign goals. The chapter aims to: (1) outline the main options available to policy-makers; (2) compare specific intervention tools, noting their strengths and limitations; and (3) discuss the case for adopting more holistic approaches to address the pervasive, complex and often deeply-rooted challenges of sustainable development. Key lessons are that policy makers need to select appropriate combinations of tools based on careful reviews of the evidence, and that well-integrated, context-sensitive policies are likely to prove the most effective

Functional electrical stimulation of the triceps surae during gait

Every year stroke affects approximately 15 million people worldwide. It is the leading cause of disability in the western world. Gait relearning has high priority for stroke survivors. One of the most commonly treated effects of stroke gait is drop-foot (the inability to raise the toes during the swing). However, push-off is also severely diminished during stroke gait. Electromyography (EMG) results show that all muscles of the affected (paretic) side have decreased physiological activation. Reduction and premature activation of the triceps surae leads to poor push-off.\ud Our goal was to stimulate the triceps surae using functional electrical stimulation to increase the activation of this muscle group. EMG of the stimulated muscle and other leg muscles of legs was measured, simultaneously. The aim was to evaluate how stimulation influences the activation patterns of the stimulated and non-stimulated muscles.\ud Tests were first carried out on healthy subjects. Surface stimulation was applied to the tibial nerve, which activates the triceps surae. Stimulation timing was controlled using a uniaxial gyroscope on the lateral shank. Stimulation bursts of 300ms duration, 50Hz was applied at each step.\ud EMG of the medial gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, semitendinosus and rectus femoris of both legs was measured at 2048Hz.\ud Responses between each stimulation pulse were analysed, for motor and reflexive signals. Additionally, the amplitude changes and the on and offset times of EMG bursts were analysed.\ud Results: While FES influenced the activation patterns of healthy and stroke subjects on the stimulated and non-stimulated sides, the effects were considerably varied. Motor and or reflexive responses in the stimulated gastrocnemius were observed in healthy and stroke. In healthy subjects, responses were also observed in the tibilais anterior of the stimulated side. Less clear changes were seen in the physiological on and offset timings.\ud Future studies should involve a larger test group with more strictly defined patient criteria. Using percutaneous or implantable stimulation electrodes, stimulation levels can be reduced; by-passing cutaneous sensation and preventing recruitment instability since the electrode would be in direct contact with the nerve. Finally, subjects should undergo a training program to facilitate gait while using FES

Pedagogies of Transformation for High School Study Abroad Programming

This autoethnographic case study examines the ways in which high school students and teachers’ behaviors, values, and attitudes were transformed during their participation on a semester-long study abroad program in Central America. The study found that an integrative pedagogical approach in which place-based content was paired with place-based experience as well as critical reflection was the most effective process by which teachers facilitated transformation in students\u27 behaviors, values and attitudes. Additionally, an interdisciplinary approach developed by faculty-members resulted in a high degree of student transformation as well as a transformation in teachers’ own behaviors, values, and attitudes. This study is valuable for administrators and course planners in grades 9-12 as well as in higher ed. in devising curricular and pedagogical approaches for study abroad programming that effectively facilitates student transformation

Evaluating the role of enterprise policies in purposive sustainability transitions: a case-based comparison

Objectives • To review the literature on enterprise policy and purposive sustainability transitions • To present comparative case-based analyses of entrepreneurial activity in different transitions • To draw out the implications for research, policy and practice Prior Work Our paper is framed around the socio-technical transitions literature, with a particular focus on entrepreneurship and enterprise policy. It builds on previous work, in which we challenged pre-conceptions about the role of entrepreneurial actors in purposive sustainability transitions. In this paper, we build on these themes and draw out the implications for SME and entrepreneurship policies in Europe. Approach We conduct a critical review of recent policy developments, with selected case-based illustrations that involve various kinds of purposive sustainability transition. This concludes with a brief reflection on the main similarities and differences in terms of governance mechanisms and entrepreneurship infrastructures. We note that, while cross-national agreements, such as EU-ETS and the European Small Business Act, provide overarching frameworks, there is considerable variety in enterprise policies at a national level (e.g. goals, approaches, target audiences, performance), which overlay, and interact with, pre-existing geographic variations in entrepreneurial activity. Results Our argument is based around the following observations: (i) there is a groundswell of entrepreneurial activity oriented towards environmental sustainability; (ii) many governments have recognised that entrepreneurs can be key actors in the design and delivery of sustainability initiatives; (iii) transitions scholars have already highlighted many specific instances of entrepreneurial agency; (iv) there is now an urgent requirement to consolidate and build on this evidence base, in order to draw out practical implications for enterprise policy conception and implementation. Implications Traditionally, enterprise policies have been framed and evaluated with a primary focus on economic criteria, such as job creation and economic growth. A new set of challenges arises when governments seek to reorient policy around more ambitious and multi-faceted sustainability goals. For example: evidence on the long-term outcomes of previous policy initiatives are mixed, whether at firm-level or across geographic regions; there are difficulties in isolating the impact of particular policies even when relevant statistical measures and datasets (e.g. for unemployment and GDP) are generally available; and policies are now being developed in a much wider range of contexts, including newly-industrialised and developing countries. Value The study is designed to inform future research and policy-making. It makes connections between the socio-technical transitions literature and relevant research on entrepreneurship and enterprise policy, in pursuit of entrepreneurial activities that contribute to more effective and equitable sustainability transitions

Asking “Why” and “How”: A Historical Turn in Refugee Education Research

History has much to offer education in emergencies (EiE) scholars and practitioners. Most EiE research comprises qualitative case studies and, to a lesser extent, quantitative experimental studies, both of which tend to focus on either the impact of interventions or whether education processes or structures are a cause or effect of conflict. I argue that historical approaches enable researchers to ask different questions, to construct a narrative that establishes why specific policies and programs for refugee education were developed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or in particular refugee camps or settlements, and to determine why and how the field has changed over time. This enables the researcher to consider why and how policy and programmatic changes often have not brought lasting change to the challenges of refugee education, and to critically consider what future changes might be possible. In this article, I make the case for a turn to historical approaches in refugee education research by providing an example of how I used historical methods to reconstruct the education narrative of Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps

A Truly Transformative HRE: Facing our Current Challenges

In this research project, we examine how human rights education can go be-yond the symbolism and rhetoric of rights and, instead, be understood in a way that critically considers the continued social, economic, and political inequalities that persist. Learning about rights should be informed by the lived experiences of those whose rights have been and continue to be violated. We use five years of research which empirically documents the impact and learning that took place in an interdisciplinary, action-oriented high school class comprised of honors/Advanced Placement (AP), refugee/migrant and special education students. By understanding and investigating identity, belonging, and citizenship through critical historical inquiry, experiential learning in diverse classroom settings, and civic action lessons, human rights education can provide a more complex way of looking at and understanding rights and responsibilities in a global world. The research examines the limitations in teaching human rights through “declarationism” (or merely through presenting texts, facts, and figures); but it also describes the strengths and possibilities for teaching rights through engaged critical praxis which enables learners to explore their rights and injustices through social action projects in their communities. We describe a combined university and high school course “Human Rights Activism and Education” which integrated university students with refugee/migrant and American high school students. Through action research projects that were carried out over a year-long course, students engaged in investigations about the intersections of race, class, and gender with issues of power and status, and considered these in light of their own experiences as well as their potential to impact the following concerns: homelessness, food security, racial discrimination, and immigration

Transitioning From High School Students to Aspiring Future Rural Educators: Promising Practices to Fuel the Rural Teacher Pipeline

This study examined the potential of a residency/concurrent enrollment program to support rural students that are interested in the field of education. With 17 students in the program, the goals were to make a career in teaching more accessible to rural high school students through concurrent enrollment, to help future teachers solidify their career choice, and to establish partnerships with rural districts to continue expanding concurrent enrollment and ultimately fuel the teacher pipeline. For the purposes of this study, we investigated how these efforts might influence high school students’ understanding of teaching as a profession and examined if and how the program might be able to facilitate participants’ first steps toward becoming culturally aware, highly effective educators who can return and give back to their own communities. Using an interpretivist model of qualitative research, we found that community was an essential thread that was multifaceted, complex, and extended from the rural communities in which students lived. It was also an essential lens through which students viewed the program, and subsequently solidified their interests in and perceptions of teaching. The study has many implications for rural education with regards to increasing rural students’ interest in pursuing the field of education, supporting rural students in successfully entering preparation programs, and attracting teachers to working in rural areas. There are also implications for Educator Preparation Programs in successfully preparing all students for coursework, field experiences, and their future careers

Learning vocabulary and grammar from cross-situational statistics

Across multiple situations, child and adult learners are sensitive to co-occurrences between individual words and their referents in the environment, which provide a means by which the ambiguity of word-world mappings may be resolved (Monaghan & Mattock, 2012; Scott & Fisher, 2012; Smith & Yu, 2008; Yu & Smith, 2007). In three studies, we tested whether cross-situational learning is sufficiently powerful to support simultaneous learning the referents for words from multiple grammatical categories, a more realistic reflection of more complex natural language learning situations. In Experiment 1, adult learners heard sentences comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives, and grammatical markers indicating subject and object roles, and viewed a dynamic scene to which the sentence referred. In Experiments 2 and 3, we further increased the uncertainty of the referents by presenting two scenes alongside each sentence. In all studies, we found that cross-situational statistical learning was sufficiently powerful to facilitate acquisition of both vocabulary and grammar from complex sentence-to-scene correspondences, simulating the situations that more closely resemble the challenge facing the language learner

A single paradigm for implicit and statistical learning

Implicit learning generally refers to the acquisition of structures that, like knowledge of natural language grammar, are not available to awareness. In contrast, statistical learning has frequently been related to learning language structures that are explicitly available, such as vocabulary. In this paper, we report an experimental paradigm that enables testing of both classic implicit and statistical learning in language. The paradigm employs an artificial language comprising sentences that accompany visual scenes that they represent, thus combining artificial grammar learning with cross-situational statistical learning of vocabulary. We show that this methodology enables a comparison between acquisition of grammar and vocabulary, and the influences on their learning. We show that both grammar and vocabulary are promoted by explicit information about the language structure, that awareness of structure affects acquisition during learning, and awareness precedes learning, but is not distinctive at the endpoint of learning. The two traditions of learning – implicit and statistical – can be conjoined in a single paradigm to explore both the phenomenological and learning consequences of statistical structural knowledge

Distinctions in the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar : An individual differences approach

Learning language requires acquiring the grammatical categories of words in the language, but learning those categories requires understanding the role of words in the syntax. In this study, we examined how this chicken and egg problem is resolved by learners of an artificial language comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives and case markers following syntactic rules. We also measured individual differences in declarative and procedural memory processing, which have been linked to vocabulary and grammar learning, respectively. The results showed that grammar and vocabulary can be acquired simultaneously, but with distinctive patterns of acquisition – the syntactic role of verbs and their referents first, then other lexical categories, and finally the syntactic function of case markers. Interdependencies in learning were found for word order and verbs, which related to verbal declarative memory, and also for nouns, adjectives and case markers, which related to procedural memory