Towards a framework for educational change : state deregulation, citizen empowerment, and strategic partnership : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

This thesis is an interweave of global, national, and local issues. It is about the nature of motivation that turns dissatisfaction with the status quo in teacher education into action for change. It is also about the opportunity for change to occur. Themes, both top-down and bottom-up, relate to new perspectives in the field of Development Studies including development from below, the retreat of the slate, empowerment, and community motivation. The study focuses on innovation in teacher education, and views the activities of three institutions as one 'project'. The study investigates circumstances of change within the context of the local scene and international trends. Recent literature seems to indicate decreasing involvement of the state in many facets of everyday life has resulted in a range of commercial and social responses. A number of driving forces are involved. From above there are concerns about increasing inability to afford to pay for public services in the future. From below there are calls for rights, choices, and empowerment. Both perspectives evidence diminishing confidence in the assurances offered by grand theory, and both result in a marked shift away from a dominant state-run model. Narrowing further into education locally, there have been changes in many aspects of New Zealand education including school governance, curriculum, types of courses, qualifications, and opportunities for new players. This has occurred within the context of concerns about declining academic and behavioural standards. The research question is: What factors have motivated change in a New Zealand teacher-education development project? Participant observation and structured interview methods have been used to examine possible motivations. The objective has been to identify and quantify benefits to the community derived from more involvement, sense of ownership, mission and purpose. The findings indicate strength of commitment and involvement by participants in the purposes and activities. The study found there was a sense of success connected with what participants had achieved. There was also an optimistic view of the future, which seems likely to involve increased government-community partnership and a more consultative approach towards ongoing development

Gamma-ray Burst Positions from the ASM on RXTE

The RXTE/ASM has detected and positioned 14 confirmed GRB bursts (at this writing, Jan. 1999) including six whose positions were comunicated to the community 2 to 32 hours after the burst. Two of these latter bursts led to measurements of optical red shifts but one, despite an easily detected x-ray afterglow, produced no detectable optical or radio afterglow.Comment: 2 pages, 1 Figure, A&A format, accepted to appear in the proceedings of the conference "Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era", Rome, 3-6 Nov, 199

Golden Arm: A Probabilistic Study of Dice Control in Craps

This paper calculates how much control a craps shooter must possess on dice outcomes to eliminate the house advantage. A golden arm is someone who has dice control (or a rhythm roller or dice influencer). There are various strategies for dice control in craps. We discuss several possibilities of dice control that would result in several different mathematical models of control. We do not assert whether dice control is possible or not (there is a lack of published evidence). However, after studying casino-legal methods described by dice-control advocates, we can see only one realistic mathematical model that describes the resulting possible dice control, that in which the four faces on a rotating (horizontal) axis are favored. This is the model that we analyze in this paper

Circuit design tool. User's manual, revision 2

The CAM chip design was produced in a UNIX software environment using a design tool that supports definition of digital electronic modules, composition of these modules into higher level circuits, and event-driven simulation of these circuits. Our design tool provides an interface whose goals include straightforward but flexible primitive module definition and circuit composition, efficient simulation, and a debugging environment that facilitates design verification and alteration. The tool provides a set of primitive modules which can be composed into higher level circuits. Each module is a C-language subroutine that uses a set of interface protocols understood by the design tool. Primitives can be altered simply by recoding their C-code image; in addition new primitives can be added allowing higher level circuits to be described in C-code rather than as a composition of primitive modules--this feature can greatly enhance the speed of simulation

LEVEL OF STRUCTURAL AGGREGATION AND PREDICTIVE ACCURACY OF MILK SUPPLY RESPONSE ESTIMATES

Milk supply response was estimated for Pennsylvania using three different levels of structural aggregation. The base level involved the estimation of milk production in a single equation. Under the second method, production was the product of two equations: milk per cow and number of milk cows. The third method factored production into three equations: milk per cow, number of dairy farms, and number of cows per farm. As expected, the greater the degree of disaggregation the more was learned about the structural aspects of milk production. At the same time, predictive accuracy generally decreased, but the differences among models was slight.Livestock Production/Industries,

Determinants of Hair Manganese, Lead, Cadmium and Arsenic Levels in Environmentally Exposed Children.

Biomarkers of environmental metal exposure in children are important for elucidating exposure and health risk. While exposure biomarkers for As, Cd, and Pb are relatively well defined, there are not yet well-validated biomarkers of Mn exposure. Here, we measured hair Mn, Pb, Cd, and As levels in children from the Mid-Ohio Valley to determine within and between-subject predictors of hair metal levels. Occipital scalp hair was collected in 2009-2010 from 222 children aged 6-12 years (169 female, 53 male) participating in a study of chemical exposure and neurodevelopment in an industrial region of the Mid-Ohio Valley. Hair samples from females were divided into three two centimeter segments, while males provided a single segment. Hair was cleaned and processed in a trace metal clean laboratory, and analyzed for As, Cd, Mn, and Pb by magnetic sector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Hair Mn and Pb levels were comparable (median 0.11 and 0.15 µg/g, respectively) and were ~10-fold higher than hair Cd and As levels (0.007 and 0.018 µg/g, respectively). Hair metal levels were higher in males compared to females, and varied by ~100-1000-fold between all subjects, and substantially less (<40-70%) between segments within female subjects. Hair Mn, Pb, and Cd, but not As levels systematically increased by ~40-70% from the proximal to distal hair segments of females. There was a significant effect of season of hair sample collection on hair Mn, Pb, and Cd, but not As levels. Finally, hair metal levels reported here are ~2 to >10-fold lower than levels reported in other studies in children, most likely because of more rigorous hair cleaning methodology used in the present study, leading to lower levels of unresolved exogenous metal contamination of hair

Properties of three graphite/toughened resin composites

Results are presented from an experimental evaluation of IM7/977-2, IM7/F655, and T800/F3900. Data presented include ply-level (unidirectional laminate) strength and moduli, unnotched and notched (open hole) tension and compression properties of quasi-isotropic laminates, and compression-after-impact strengths. These data are compared with properties of other toughened (IM7/8551-7 and IM6/18081) and brittle (T300/5208) graphite-epoxy materials. The IM7/977-2, IM7/F655, and T800/F3900 materials are substantially stronger and more damage tolerant than widely used first generation composite materials such as T300/5208. The T800/F3900 outperforms IM7/977-2 and IM7/F655 materials in tolerance to projectile impacts. Compression-after-impact strengths were found to be dependent on impactor velocity for a given impact energy. The open hole compression properties of all three materials are degraded by the combination of heat and moisture

Properties of two composite materials made of toughened epoxy resin and high-strain graphite fiber

Results are presented from an experimental evaluation of IM7/8551-7 and IM6/18081, two new toughened epoxy resin, high strain graphite fiber composite materials. Data include ply-level strengths and moduli, notched tension and compression strengths and compression-after-impact assessments. The measured properties are compared with those of other graphite-epoxy materials