The impact of an alternative approach to teaching in thermodynamics II using spreadsheets - a case study.

Theses (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.Since South Africa’s newly formed democratically elected Government in 1994 the face of South African education has changed across the board involving a paradigm shift from a content-based teacher-centred curriculum to outcomes based education (OBE), a learner-centred outcomes-based curriculum. This means that educators need to re-align their courses to that system and allocate appropriate resources to it. Hence the way one needs to go about educating learners has changed, and conversely, the learners themselves have had to face a change in learning tactics associated with the system. In light of the above, this study was undertaken to test an alternative method of teaching and learning. The subject chosen was a second semester introductory subject, Thermodynamics II, having several follow-on courses at higher levels. It is a subject that for many years has been considered internationally to be a “difficult” subject by many who have been through the system and one that in later life still tends to attract the same response. The study was conducted at the Durban Institute of Technology (DIT), formed from the merger of two former Technikons, Technikon Natal and ML Sultan, in 2002, now the Durban University of Technology (DUT), since 2007. The class was a fairly representative mix of race groups and gender. The study was a single case study, operating both within the positivist paradigm, the typical paradigm of scientific study, and the interpretivist paradigm, one in which students are often more involved in constructing meaning for themselves. The study was run over an eight week period, roughly the first term of a semester, covering the first few sections of the syllabus. The approach chosen was to halve the number of conventional chalk and talk lectures over that period, and using a constructivist approach to learning, to replace them by interactive computer laboratory sessions whereby students learnt the theory for themselves whilst at the same time using it to generate spreadsheet exercises to solve typical Thermodynamics problems. The idea was that students actually interacting with the basic requirements of the subject would hopefully develop a deeper level of understanding for the subject. The second term of the subject was handled in the typical manner of conventional lectures. There were three main interventions undertaken during the study period, namely two spreadsheet assignments undertaken using Excel, a student study habit survey and a concept test. Towards the end of the semester nine students from the class were interviewed. Each intervention is explained below. For the two spreadsheet assignments, a constructivist approach was taken with students working in groups of three to design the spreadsheets, the first to solve for the work done for any three consecutive processes forming a cycle, drawing the cycle on a pressure-volume graph. The second spreadsheet assignment was to be able to solve any problem associated with the non-flow energy equation and the steady flow energy equation, for any one unknown. At the end of each assignment each group had to peer assess one other group’s spreadsheet by using it to solve a problem. They then had to assess it guided by a rubric, considering criteria taken from the subject’s learning outcomes, writing down any good points and points for improvement. The study habit survey was a single page, two sided survey questionnaire, answered mostly using Lickert type scales and was handed out during one of the computer sessions. There were six main sections, namely personal information, information exchange, library use, subject specifics, practical experience/exposure and study techniques. A section was left at the end for students to fill any other information they wished to add. SPSS was used to analyse the information using cross tabs. The concept test was designed by the Researcher in Quattro Pro and was a multiple choice type questionnaire. It automatically marked the test by adding up the correct answers, giving the student immediate feedback at the end of the test by providing a percentage score for each of the four questions asked and a percentage score for the test as a whole. The test questions were based on the principles and methods that students would have used in the setting up of the computer spreadsheet exercises. The interviews were conducted individually for each student using a semi-structured approach. They were then transcribed and analysed using Transana. The information gathered from these, combined with information from the other interventions were triangulated where appropriate. Further, the two main intervention semester test scores were compared to each other using SPSS. Previous semester test scores were used as a control group and were also compared to the intervention semester test scores. Although the marks attained in the intervention semester did not show any major improvement when compared with other semesters, it did show that alternative methods of teaching and learning can be implemented within the mark norms. The study habits survey provided information about student preferences which will be helpful in future attempts at improving teaching and learning in this branch of engineering in this institution

The developmental state: dead or alive?

Before the 1980s, the mainstream Western prescription for developing countries to catch up with the West assigned the state a leading role in governing the market. In the 1980s, this shifted to a framework‐providing role in a largely deregulated and maximally open economy. Also in the 1980s, it became apparent that some East Asian capitalist economies were growing so fast that they would become ‘developed’ in the foreseeable future, marking them out as completely exceptional. Mainstream economists explained their success as the result of following the Western prescription, while other scholars attributed this rapid growth to ‘the developmental state’. This essay compares these two explanations of successful economic development, concluding in favour of the latter — with respect to the catch‐up decades. But what happened subsequently? Several scholars who accept the key role of the developmental state in the early period of fast industrialization in East Asia now argue that South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have transformed from developmental to close‐to‐neoliberal states. This contribution argues that the erstwhile East Asian developmental states have indeed changed, but they have not transformed into neoliberal states. Rather they have adapted and evolved, but still undertake market‐steering, ‘societal mission’ roles well beyond neoliberal limits. The essay also suggests how other developing countries can learn lessons from their experience

Single-channel properties of glycine receptors of juvenile rat spinal motoneurones in vitro

An essential step in understanding fast synaptic transmission is to establish the activation mechanism of synaptic receptors. The purpose of this work was to extend our detailed single-channel kinetic characterization of α1β glycine channels from rat recombinant receptors to native channels from juvenile (postnatal day 12–16) rat spinal cord slices. In cell-attached patches from ventral horn neurones, 1 mm glycine elicited clusters of channel openings to a single conductance level (41 ± 1 pS, n=12). This is similar to that of recombinant heteromers. However, fewer than 1 in 100 cell-attached patches from spinal neurones contained glycine channels. Outside-out patches gave a much higher success rate, but glycine channels recorded in this configuration appeared different, in that clusters opened to three conductance levels (28 ± 2, 38 ± 1 and 46 ± 1 pS, n=7, one level per cluster, all levels being detected in each patch). Furthermore, open period properties were different for the different conductances. As a consequence of this, the only recordings suitable for kinetic analysis were the cell-attached ones. Low channel density precluded recording at glycine concentrations other than 1 mm, but the 1 mm data allowed us to estimate the fully bound gating constants by global model fitting of the ‘flip’ mechanism of Burzomato and co-workers. Our results suggest that glycine receptors on ventral horn neurones in the juvenile rat are heteromers and have fast gating, similar to that of recombinant α1β receptors

Institutions and the Diversity and Prevalence of Multinationals’ Knowledge-Augmenting Subsidiaries

Multinational corporations (MNCs) increasingly seek to gain access to, and exploit, locationally specific sources of advanced knowledge and technological capabilities, creating a need to explain (1) the diversity among these facilities and (2) how institutions influence MNCs’ abilities to invest in different subsidiary types. Extending debates on firms’ knowledge‐augmenting activities, the authors integrate institutions into their analytical framework to a greater extent than previous work has done. Moreover, existing contributions provide typologies of R&D subsidiaries. In contrast, the authors focus on a particular subset of subsidiaries, knowledge‐augmenting ones, and put forward a theory to explain their variety and their prevalence, enabling them to identify previously neglected subsidiary types that have important managerial and policy implications. By downplaying the diversity of these subsidiaries, existing work has not been able to capture the full range of managerial challenges as well as the costs and benefits of different subsidiary types to host countries. The authors, therefore, problematize firms’ abilities to gain access to foreign knowledge‐generating assets, highlight the importance of institutional environments, provide policy recommendations and identify areas for future research

The Future of Financial Activism in Taiwan? The Utility of a Mindset-centred Analysis of Developmental States and Their Evolution

Since the end of WWII, the so-called developmental states of East Asia have become famous for their ‘financial activism’: their efforts to link the financial and productive sectors of their economies in ways that advance national development objectives. However it is now widely acknowledged that the twin pressures of global financial integration and financialisation have transformed the policymaking landscape and complicated the pursuit of financial activism. So what do these developments mean for the capacities of East Asian states to pursue developmental ambitions? To address this question, I adopt a novel, mindset-centred analytical framework for the study of developmental state evolution and apply it for the first time to the case of Taiwan. My analysis reveals that the evolutionary trajectory of Taiwan’s developmental state has not been linear; since the early 2000s, the state’s commitment to and capacities for financial activism have waxed and waned. Moreover, two factors emerge as particularly significant in this waxing and waning: social legitimacy and political leadership. This paper demonstrates the analytical utility of a mindset-centred analysis when it comes to investigating the dynamics of developmental state evolution, and why some national variants appear more durable than others at different moments in history

Australia and the Rules of International Trade and Finance

Throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century, Australia was a fierce advocate and defender of the multilateral rules-based economic order. Since the early 2000s however, the Australian government has privileged the pursuit of preferential trade and investment agreements, and now sees the pursuit of preferential deals as central to the advancement of its broader foreign policy goals. In this chapter, I assess Australia's contribution to the rules-based international order in trade and finance from the end of WWII to the present. I also examine the relationship between Australia's trade and investment policy approach and its broader foreign policy objectives by asking: are the economic rules Australia is promoting likely to advance or undermine its stated foreign policy goals? My aim is to advance debate about the most desirable future direction of Australia's foreign economic policy agenda

Economic statecraft at the frontier: Korea’s drive for intelligent robotics

East Asian countries come most to mind when considering the role of governmental institutions in the contemporary economy. Specifically, it is widely assumed that the openness of economies, the maturation of companies, and their participation in global production chains have created extraordinary pressures that erode opportunities and incentives for government-business collaboration. We test this assumption in the South Korean context, with a focus on the case of robotics. This case is fruitful because it highlights the multiple challenges that face South Korean policymakers. These include the capacity to deliver cutting-edge technologies, to create new industry, to address potential downsides with novel solutions, and to engage the private sector in a relationship of ‘governed interdependence’. In examining Korean strategies for grappling with the pressures they face, we seek to illuminate a pattern of state activity that existing concepts fail to capture. By refocusing the concept of geo-economic statecraft to encompass domestically deployed initiatives at the techno frontier, we intend to breach the impasse in the developmental/post developmental state debate and to open up a new research agenda. That agenda should probe the conditions that might motivate states to craft techno-economy building initiatives, and the relationships of governed interdependence which they must forge to achieve them

Cryptosporidium parvum decay during air drying and stockpiling of mesophilic anaerobically digested sewage sludge in a simulation experiment and oocyst counts in sludge collected from operational treatment lagoons in Victoria, Australia.

The inactivation of Cryptosporidium species oocysts during sewage sludge treatment is important to protect human health when the residual biosolids are applied to agricultural land. Quantifying the decay of Cryptosporidium species during sludge treatment for microbiological assurance purposes is difficult if low numbers are present in wastewater. The rate of decay of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts during solar/air drying treatment and in sludge stockpiles in temperate environment conditions was simulated in laboratory inoculation experiments using sludge sampled from a mesophilic anaerobic digester. Oocyst numbers were also determined in settled lagoon sludge samples collected from three operational rural wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). C. parvum oocysts were enumerated by immunomagnetic separation followed by staining with vital dyes and examination by confocal laser scanning microscopy. An air-drying/storage period equivalent to 11 weeks was required for a 1 log10 reduction of viable oocysts inoculated into digested sludge. Oocyst viability in air-dried and stored digested sludge decreased with time, but was independent of sludge desiccation and dry solids (DS) content. No oocysts were detected in sludge samples collected from the anaerobic digester, and the average concentration of oocysts found in settled lagoon sludge from the rural WWTP was 4.6 × 102 oocysts/g DS