Introduction to Library Trends 52 (2) 2003: Organizing the Internet

published or submitted for publicatio

The re-historicisation and increased contextualisation of curriculum and its associated pedagogies

Curriculum has traditionally been an historical and technical field. The consequence has been to view curriculum and its associated pedagogical practices as neutral entities, devoid of meaning - in essence arising ex nihilo. However, this naïve assumption has fatefully resulted in revisiting the same swamps over and over again. Standardised curriculum and pedagogy function invisibly to reproduce class and inequality and to institutionalise cultural norms. Despite lingering attempts to maintain this technocratic approach that ignores subcutaneous meanings, a strong movement has emerged to reconceptualise curriculum in terms of its historical and sociopolitical context. While it is conceded that this is a step into a larger quagmire, it is a necessary one if true progress is to be made. Nevertheless, this large quagmire provides the possibility of escape, unlike the fatal determinism of forever returning to the swamps. Expectedly, this move to reconceptualise curriculum has its critics. Their arguments are also addressed, in particular the perceived tendency to separate theory and practice. Although curriculum and curriculum practices can be contextualised in many ways, this paper focuses primarily on key political concepts and concealed constructs such as hegemony, reproduction and resistance, resilience of the institution, the non-neutral nature of knowledge, the inclusion/exclusion principle, slogan systems and the hidden curriculum. Only by understanding the complex historical and political nature of curriculum can teaching professionals understand the hidden meaning of their practices. This is the first step for professionals to take in order to achieve Giroux's (1979, 1985, 1992) vision of teachers as transformative professionals (particularly through collaborative frameworks like the IDEAS project) in a climate of standardised curriculum and testing

The competitiveness of fruit spirits of New Member States in terms of protected denomination of origin

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Resonant switch model of twin peak HF QPOs applied to the atoll source 4U 1636-53

We present a Resonant Switch (RS) model of twin peak high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HF QPOs), assuming switch of twin oscillations at a resonant point, where frequencies of the upper and lower oscillations $\nu_U$ and $\nu_L$ become to be commensurable and the twin oscillations change from one pair of the oscillating modes (corresponding to a specific model of HF QPOs) to some other pair due to non-linear resonant phenomena. The RS model enables to determine range of allowed values of spin $a$ and mass $M$ of the neutron star located at the atoll source 4U 1636-53 where two resonant points are observed at frequency ratios $\nu_U:\nu_L$ = 3:2, 5:4.Comment: 2 pages, to be published in Proceedings of IAUS 290 "Feeding Compact Objects: Accretion on All Scales", C. M. Zhang, T. Belloni, M. Mendez and S. N. Zhang (eds.

Improvements of the Variable Thermal Resistance

A flat mounting unit with electronically variable thermal resistance [1] has been presented in the last year [2]. The design was based on a Peltier cell and the appropriate control electronics and software. The device is devoted especially to the thermal characterization of packages, e.g. in dual cold plate arrangements. Although this design meets the requirements of the static measurement we are intended to improve its parameters as the settling time and dynamic thermal impedance and the range of realized thermal resistance. The new design applies the heat flux sensor developed by our team as well [3], making easier the control of the device. This development allows even the realization of negative thermal resistances.Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions

Estimation Method for Emission of Road Transport

It is a well-known that the growth of GDP induces the growth of motorization. Motorization has developed so dramatically that the air, soil, water pollutions are considerable to the amounts of air, soil and water of Earth. Some of the pollutants affect on local or regional scale while others affect on global scale. There is the natural, non-antropogeneous greenhouse gas emission developed before the human activity that has been essential for life on Earth. Without it the average world temperature would be -20ºC. [1] Sustainable development is a development where the pace of technical development, the satiation of increasing supply, raw materials and resources of Earth are poised so that the rate of living and opportunities of the next generations need not to be worse. So global warming caused by the antropogeneous and non-antropogeneous CO2 can be estimated. The measured data is from the non-antropogenous source, but prediction can be done. To have the best result I have made a Best Fit Analize. The prediction should be parabolic because when the CO2 concentration grows smog or cloud arises that blocks sunlight from Earth, the only source of heat. The growing CO2 concentration part of the parabola can be approximated by linear trend. The other part of the emissions caused by the motorization is local or regional. Theoretically one solution could be to stop motorised transportation. Transportation cannot be replaced because it is the part of the production chain. Societies are horizontally and vertically differential. People live in different places and do different things for living. The manpower, the stock, the semi-finished and finished products must be transported. The importance of the transportation sector is indicated by the sector production which is 10% of the GDP of the European Union and more than 10 million people are working in this sector. One of the most emphasized goals of the transport policy of the European Union is sustainable mobility. For this reason transportation systems must be developed and standardized, the effectiveness of transportation service must be increased, while the environmental pollution must be decreased or prevented. This is a task for engineers and operators as well. People who would like to make rational decisions, make an optimization, choosing the maximum utility and benefit. Theoretically, all benefits and costs should be accounted in the analysis. Externalities should be internalised and indicated in the cost of transportation according to the EU guideline „Users should pay the billâ€. Some of the external costs can simply be added to the average costs but some of them need a totally different aspect and pricing method, the marginal costs based pricing method. The more realistic pricing method we want the more externalities should be included to the marginal costs based pricing method. Some of them can be calculated and monetized, some of them can be estimated, and some of them cannot be expressed in monetary terms. The environmental external effects of transport cover a wide range of different impacts, including for example noise, local/regional air pollution and climate change. Transport infrastructure projects often affect local and regional air pollution. Emissions from road traffic are good examples of a complex system with an output that cannot be completely measured. It is natural to analyze the emissions from a sample of vehicles under different driving conditions and other conditions (temperature, fuel content, road gradients, etc.) and to try to create an emission model for the traffic. Depending on what data are collected about the traffic the model may be more or less detailed and complex. Traffic data are not collected in the same way and with the same level of detail in every country and this is a problem if a model is meant to be used for calculations in many countries or for comparisons between them. The EURO standards based on the ECE-R15 driving cycle: [3] Each vehicle category has its own limits. The vehicle flow can be divided into groups by EURO standards and vehicle categories with its pollutant limits. Being aware of the vehicle numbers in each category multiplied with the limit they can be summarised. Now the pollutants can be calculated from the given vehicle flow and the given distance. [4] References: [1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6735/extref/399429a0.co2nat.txt [2] MC-ICAM Deliverables 4, 5, 6 - EU Commission DG TREN, 2003 [3] Vehicle Emission Standards and Inspection and Maintenance - Recent European Union (EU) emissions standards www.unece.org [4] Calculation of the emission surplus of the incoming vehicles in the traffic flow consideration of the international limits (in Hungarian) - Scientific Review of Transport – 2005/9 Adam Torok, Mate Zoldy

Appearance of innermost stable circular orbits of accretion discs around rotating neutron stars

The innermost stable cicular orbit (ISCO) of an accretion disc orbiting a neutron star (NS) is often assumed a unique prediction of general relativity. However, it has been argued that ISCO also appears around highly elliptic bodies described by Newtonian theory. In this sense, the behaviour of an ISCO around a rotating oblate neutron star is formed by the interplay between relativistic and Newtonian effects. Here we briefly explore the consequences of this interplay using a straightforward analytic approach as well as numerical models that involve modern NS equations of state. We examine the ratio K between the ISCO radius and the radius of the neutron star. We find that, with growing NS spin, the ratio K first decreases, but then starts to increase. This non-monotonic behaviour of K can give rise to a neutron star spin interval in which ISCO appears for two very different ranges of NS mass. This may strongly affect the distribution of neutron stars that have an ISCO (ISCO-NS). When (all) neutron stars are distributed around a high mass M0, the ISCO-NS spin distribution is roughly the same as the spin distribution corresponding to all neutron stars. In contrast, if M0 is low, the ISCO-NS distribution can only have a peak around a high value of spin. Finally, an intermediate value of M0 can imply an ISCO-NS distribution divided into two distinct groups of slow and fast rotators. Our findings have immediate astrophysical applications. They can be used for example to distinguish between different models of high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations observed in low-mass NS X-ray binaries.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted by A&A Letter

Confronting the models of 3:2 quasiperiodic oscillations with the rapid spin of the microquasar GRS 1915+105

Spectral fitting of the spin a in the microquasar GRS 1915+105 estimate values higher than a=0.98. However, there are certain doubts about this (nearly) extremal number. Confirming a high value of a>0.9 would have significant concequences for the theory of high-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations (HF QPOs). Here we discuss its possible implications assuming several commonly used orbital models of 3:2 HF QPOs. We show that the estimate of a>0.9 is almost inconsistent with two hot-spot (relativistic precession and tidal disruption) models and the warped disc resonance model. In contrast, we demonstrate that the epicyclic resonance and discoseismic models assuming the c- and g- modes are favoured. We extend our discussion to another two microquasars that display the 3:2 HF QPOs. The frequencies of these QPOs scale roughly inversely to the microquasar masses, and the differences in the individual spins, such as a=0.9 compared to a=0.7, represent a generic problem for most of the discussed geodesic 3:2 QPO models. To explain the observations of all the three microquasars by one unique mechanism, the models would have to accommodate very large non-geodesic corrections.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; v2: corrections in the introduction, language corrections (Astronomy & Astrophysics proof-readed version