Contemporary perspectives of the child in action: An investigation into children’s connectedness with, and contribution to, the world around them

Childcare within Australia has undergone significant reform as a result of the implementation of the nationally mandated Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] (Department for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR]. 2009. Belonging, Being and Becoming. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). The EYLF articulates contemporary perspectives of the child through its principles, practices and learning outcomes. Educators are required to promote these principles, practices and learning outcomes with children aged from birth to 5 years. This paper reports the findings from a research project that sought to investigate how educators applied their understanding of learning outcome two of the EYLF (children are connected with and contribute to their world). The focus of this research was educators working with children aged two to three years within childcare centres operating on school sites, in metropolitan Western Australian. The research design was qualitative and situated within the interpretivist paradigm. Observations were used as the method for gathering data and these were analysed through a process of coding. This paper presents the observational findings of educators’ practices within learning outcome two. Composite vignettes from the voice of the child are included to present the observational findings. In centralising the voice of the child, contemporary perspectives are made explicit

Making Mommies: The Washington State Court of Appeals Exceeded Its Authority by Creating a Common Law Parentage Action in \u3ci\u3eIn re Parentage of L.B.\u3c/i\u3e

In In re Parentage of L.B., Division I of the Washington State Court of Appeals created a new common law cause of action that allows a same-sex de facto parent to be declared a legal parent. In the alternative, the court held that a de facto parent has a cause of action under Washington\u27s nonparental visitation statute. This Note argues that the court exceeded its authority in creating a common law cause of action because the Uniform Parentage Act and the statutory scheme preempt the common law. Further, this Note argues that the ability of a de facto parent to obtain a visitation order under the nonparental visitation statute adequately protects the best interests of the child. Therefore, the Washington State Supreme Court should reverse Division l\u27s creation of a common law parentage action and affirm Division l\u27s alternative holding

Love in education: West Australian early childhood pre-service teachers\u27 perspectives on children\u27s right to be loved and its actualisation within their future practice

Children\u27s right to love is a recognised fundamental human need set down within the 1992 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This recognition stems from an acknowledgement that the Early Years of Development are emotionally driven (Degotardi, S., & Sweller, N. (2012). Mind-mindedness in infant child-care: Associations with early childhood practitioner sensitivity and stimulation. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27(2), 253–265. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2011.09.002.). Young children respond best to those with whom they experience love and acceptance (Carter, M. A., & Fewster, C. (2013). Diversifying early years’ professional learning: One size no longer fits all. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 38(1), 73–⁠80.). As such, love in the classroom is important as an empowering agent of children\u27s well-being and achievement. Children’s need and right to be surrounded by love poses a challenge for many early childhood teachers as they strive to meet the emotional needs of children within a professional care-based relationship (Goldstein, J. (2012). Children’s development, health and well-being. Waterloo, Brussels: Toy Industries of Europe (TIE); Walsh, K., & Brandon, L. (2012). Their children’s first educators: Parents’ views about child sexual abuse prevention education. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21(5), 734–746. doi:10.1007/s10826-011-9526-4.). This research presents pre-service teachers’ perspectives on love in early childhood education; their definitions, their understanding of its role within the development, and their visions of how it can be actualised within their practice

Mode identification of Pulsating White Dwarfs using the HST

We have obtained time-resolved ultraviolet spectroscopy for the pulsating DAV stars G226-29 and G185-32, and for the pulsating DBV star PG1351+489 with the Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph, to compare the ultraviolet to the optical pulsation amplitude and determine the pulsation indices. We find that for essentially all observed pulsation modes, the amplitude rises to the ultraviolet as the theoretical models predict for l=1 non-radial g-modes. We do not find any pulsation mode visible only in the ultraviolet, nor any modes whose phase flips by 180 degrees; in the ultraviolet, as would be expected if high l pulsations were excited. We find one periodicity in the light curve of G185-32, at 141 s, which does not fit theoretical models for the change of amplitude with wavelength of g-mode pulsations.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, Aug 200

The Local Content Law in Nigeria: Strategies for Greater Impact on the Economy

This paper examines the local content law as passed by the National Assembly and the impact on Nigerians and its economy. The paper discusses the issues in the law and operational strategies to achieve results. The aim of the law is to allow more Nigerians participate in the crucial oil and gas industry; however, there are challenges in achieving maximum participation and benefits by Nigerians, such as lack of funds, infrastructure, policy issues etc. The paper articulates measure that the government should take to achieve better result, in terms of indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. This includes; articulation of policies that will allow for indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry, embark on market oriented reforms that will integrate the economy towards achieving competitive economic growth and globalization. Small and medium scale enterprises are an integral part of the successful implementation of the local content laws. Finally, the local investors need institutions, infrastructure and policy support from the government in order to develop and contribute effectively to the growth of the economy, through local content improvement in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria. Keywords: Oil and gas sector, Local content law, Government polic

The ELAIS deep X-ray survey - I. Chandra source catalogue and first results

We present an analysis of two deep (75 ks) Chandra observations of the European Large Area Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) Survey (ELAIS) fields N1 and N2 as the first results from the ELAIS deep X-ray survey. This survey is being conducted in well-studied regions with extensive multiwavelength coverage. Here we present the Chandra source catalogues along with an analysis of source counts, hardness ratios and optical classifications. A total of 233 X-ray point sources are detected in addition to two soft extended sources, which are found to be associated with galaxy clusters. An overdensity of sources is found in N1 with 30 per cent more sources than N2, which we attribute to large-scale structure. A similar variance is seen between other deep Chandra surveys. The source count statistics reveal an increasing fraction of hard sources at fainter fluxes. The number of galaxy-like counterparts also increases dramatically towards fainter fluxes, consistent with the emergence of a large population of obscured sources

Supra-oscillatory critical temperature dependence of Nb-Ho bilayers

We investigate the critical temperature Tc of a thin s-wave superconductor (Nb) proximity coupled to a helical rare earth ferromagnet (Ho). As a function of the Ho layer thickness, we observe multiple oscillations of Tc superimposed on a slow decay, that we attribute to the influence of the Ho on the Nb proximity effect. Because of Ho inhomogeneous magnetization, singlet and triplet pair correlations are present in the bilayers. We take both into consideration when solving the self consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and we observe a reasonable agreement. We also observe non-trivial transitions into the superconducting state, the zero resistance state being attained after two successive transitions which appear to be associated with the magnetic structure of Ho.Comment: Main article: 5 pages, 4 figures; Supplementary materials: 4 pages, 5 figure

The Power Spectrum of the PSC Redshift Survey

We measure the redshift-space power spectrum P(k) for the recently completed IRAS Point Source Catalogue (PSC) redshift survey, which contains 14500 galaxies over 84% of the sky with 60 micron flux >= 0.6 Jansky. Comparison with simulations shows that our estimated errors on P(k) are realistic, and that systematic errors due to the finite survey volume are small for wavenumbers k >~ 0.03 h Mpc^-1. At large scales our power spectrum is intermediate between those of the earlier QDOT and 1.2 Jansky surveys, but with considerably smaller error bars; it falls slightly more steeply to smaller scales. We have fitted families of CDM-like models using the Peacock-Dodds formula for non-linear evolution; the results are somewhat sensitive to the assumed small-scale velocity dispersion \sigma_V. Assuming a realistic \sigma_V \approx 300 km/s yields a shape parameter \Gamma ~ 0.25 and normalisation b \sigma_8 ~ 0.75; if \sigma_V is as high as 600 km/s then \Gamma = 0.5 is only marginally excluded. There is little evidence for any `preferred scale' in the power spectrum or non-Gaussian behaviour in the distribution of large-scale power.Comment: Latex, uses mn.sty, 14 pages including 11 Postscript figures. Accepted by MNRA