International vocational education and training - the migration and learning mix

International VET students have divergent, shifting and in some cases multiple purposes for undertaking their VET courses. Students\u27 motives may be instrumental and/or intrinsic and can include obtaining permanent residency, accumulating skills that can secure good employment, gaining a foothold that leads to higher education, and/or personal transformation. Moreover, students\u27 study purposes and imagining of acquired values are neither fixed nor unitary. They can be shaped and reshaped by their families and personal aspirations and by the social world and the learning environment with which they interact. We argue that, whatever a student\u27s study purpose, s/he needs to engage in a learning practice and should be provided with a high quality education. Indeed, we insist this remains the case even if students enroll only in order to gain the qualifications needed to migrate. The paper details the association between migration and learning, and argues that the four variations emerging from the empirical data of this study that centre on migration and skills\u27 accumulation better explain this association than does the \u27international VET students simply want to migrate\u27 perspective. We conclude with a discussion of why the stereotype that holds VET international students are mere \u27PR hunters\u27 is unjust and constitutes a threat to the international VET sector

Project Dawdler: a Proposal in Response to a Low Reynolds Number Station Keeping Mission

In direct response to Request for Proposals: Flight at very low Reynolds numbers - a station keeping mission, the members of Design Squad E present Project Dawdler: a remotely-piloted airplane supported by an independently controlled take-off cart. A brief introduction to Project Dawdler's overall mission and design, is given. The Dawdler is a remotely-piloted airplane designed to fly in an environmentally-controlled closed course at a Reynolds number of 10(exp 5) and at a cruise velocity of 25 ft/s. The two primary goals were to minimize the flight Reynolds number and to maximize the loiter time. With this in mind, the general design of the airplane was guided by the belief that a relatively light aircraft producing a fairly large amount of lift would be the best approach. For this reason the Dawdler utilizes a canard rather than a conventional tail for longitudinal control, primarily because the canard contributes a positive lift component. The Dawdler also has a single vertical tail mounted behind the wing for lateral stability, half of which is used as a rudder for yaw control. Due to the fact that the power required to take-off and climb to altitude is much greater than that required for cruise flight and simple turning maneuvers, it was decided that a take-off cart be used. Based on the current design, there are two unknowns which could possibly threaten the success of Project Dawdler. First, the effect of the fully-movable canard with its large appropriation of total lift on the performance of the plane, and secondly, the ability of the take-off procedure to go as planned are examined. These are questions which can only be answered by a prototype

Toward Real-time Multi-criteria Decision Making for Bus Service Reliability Optimisation

This paper addresses issues associated with the real-time control of public transit operations to minimize passenger wait time: namely vehicle headway, maintenance of passenger comfort, and reducing the impact of control strategies. The randomness of passenger arrivals at bus stops and external factors (such as traffic congestion and bad weather) in high frequency transit operations often cause irregular headway that can result in decreased service reliability. The approach proposed in this paper, which has the capability of handling the uncertainty of transit operations based on Multi-objective evolutionary algorithm using a dynamic Bayesian network, applies preventive strategies to forestall bus unreliability and, where unreliability is evident, restore reliability using corrective strategies. Holding , expressing , shortturning and deadheading are the corrective strategies considered in this paper

What's Real Anymore: A Comparison of World of Warcraft, SecondLife and Online Experiences

The proliferation of the Internet and online-based social interactions has become an increasingly popular topic with communication scholars. The goal of this study was to explore how massively multi-player online role playing game (MMORPG) players make sense of and negotiate their online social interactions. This study (N = 292) examined how players of SecondLife and World of Warcraft evaluated their online relationships compared to their offline relationships and investigated how different levels of realism within different MMORPGs effected player's online experiences. The results indicated that players of SecondLife placed higher values of emotional closeness to their online relationships when compared to players of World of Warcraft and SecondLife was rated more real by its players than World of Warcraft. Results further indicated that players of SecondLife had higher levels of perceived online emotional closeness when compared to perceived offline emotional closeness. Implications of this study focus on developing a bottom up holistic profile of online game players as opposed to the current top down research model

SHARC: Space Habitat, Assembly and Repair Center

Integrated Space Systems (ISS) has taken on the task of designing a Space Habitat, Assembly and Repair Center (SHARC) in Low Earth Orbit to meet the future needs of the space program. Our goal is to meet the general requirements given by the 1991/1992 AIAA/LORAL Team Space Design competition with an emphasis on minimizing the costs of such a design. A baseline structural configuration along with preliminary designs of the major subsystems was created. Our initial mission requirements, which were set by AIAA, were that the facility be able to: support simultaneous assembly of three major vehicles; conduct assembly operations and minimal extra vehicular activity (EVA); maintain orbit indefinitely; and assemble components 30 feet long with a 10 foot diameter in a shirtsleeve environment

Applying Motivation Theories to the Design of Educational Technology

Although there has been a wealth of research exploring motivation within technological environments, few of these studies employ frameworks that are grounded in well-established theories of motivation. This paper brings rigorous theoretical frameworks of motivation to the study and design of educational technology. First, we outline key motivation constructs that compose Eccles and Wigfield’s Expectancy-Value theory and the Self-Determination theory and discuss their implications for education. Through a case study, we then illustrate how motivational theories informed the recent development of a virtual learning environment designed to promote students’ interest in and motivation to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. Finally, looking toward the future of mobile learning, we discuss the motivational affordances of personal and portable features of mobile handhelds