Third level institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs): connections and relationships

In a world where the amount of aid from developed countries is falling as a percentage of Gross National Product (GNP), development agencies that wish to maintain or increase their aid effort face the problem of bringing public opinion along with them. Development education, with its dual aim of informing and encouraging action, has an important role to play in winning this public support. It can explain the need for development assistance, provide information on development activities and persuade individuals to actively support the development project. To date the development education funds granted by Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI) have been directed mainly at primary or secondary level students and teacher training colleges. A recent exception has been funding for Suas (http://www.suas.ie/), an organisation which aims to raise awareness of development issues and encourage short term volunteering among third level students. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role of development education by exploring the present and potential contribution of NGO/third level linkages. It will do this by examining the connections and relationships between NGOs and third level institutions in Ireland and by using the UK and US as a comparative international backdrop. This should help to highlight possible ways forward in enhancing the effectiveness of development education at third level

Inferring processes of cultural transmission: the critical role of rare variants in distinguishing neutrality from novelty biases

Neutral evolution assumes that there are no selective forces distinguishing different variants in a population. Despite this striking assumption, many recent studies have sought to assess whether neutrality can provide a good description of different episodes of cultural change. One approach has been to test whether neutral predictions are consistent with observed progeny distributions, recording the number of variants that have produced a given number of new instances within a specified time interval: a classic example is the distribution of baby names. Using an overlapping generations model we show that these distributions consist of two phases: a power law phase with a constant exponent of -3/2, followed by an exponential cut-off for variants with very large numbers of progeny. Maximum likelihood estimations of the model parameters provide a direct way to establish whether observed empirical patterns are consistent with neutral evolution. We apply our approach to a complete data set of baby names from Australia. Crucially we show that analyses based on only the most popular variants, as is often the case in studies of cultural evolution, can provide misleading evidence for underlying transmission hypotheses. While neutrality provides a plausible description of progeny distributions of abundant variants, rare variants deviate from neutrality. Further, we develop a simulation framework that allows for the detection of alternative cultural transmission processes. We show that anti-novelty bias is able to replicate the complete progeny distribution of the Australian data set

Fluoridated elastomers: in vivo versus in vitro fluoride release

OBJECTIVES: To compare (i) the in vivo release of fluoride from fluoridated elastomers to the in vitro release, and (ii) the residual fluoride content of the elastomers after 1 week in the mouth with and without fluoride toothpaste and mouthrinse. DESIGN: A prospective, longitudinal, cross-over study. Subjects and method: Six subjects were recruited by poster to take part in the study. Each subject had one premolar in each quadrant to which a bracket could be fixed and exemplary oral hygiene. Elastomers were then placed on these brackets. Intervention: The study was divided into two parts: (i) subjects used oral hygiene products with fluoride and (ii) oral hygiene products with fluoride were excluded. Both groups of elastomers were left in the mouth for 1 week. After collection the elastomers were stored in distilled water. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The amount of residual fluoride in the ligatures after they have been placed in the mouth for 1 week was compared with the cumulative fluoride release in vitro over 1 week and 6 months. RESULTS: Only 13 per cent of the total amount of fluoride in fluoridated elastomers was released during the first week in vitro, compared with 90 per cent in vivo. There was a significantly greater amount (P = 0.001) of residual fluoride when the elastomers were in the mouth for 1 week in the presence of fluoride toothpaste and mouthrinse, than when fluoride supplements were excluded. CONCLUSIONS: (1) Higher levels of fluoride are lost from the fluoride elastomers in vivo than in vitro during the first week. (2) A significantly greater amount of residual fluoride was released from the elastomers placed in the mouth when fluoride toothpaste and mouthrinse were used

Introduction : user studies for digital library development

Introductory chapter to the edited collection on user studies in digital library development. Contains a general introduction to the topic and biographical sketches of the contributors.peer-reviewe