The policyscape of transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: A case study

In this paper, our purpose is to investigate policy informing texts and discourses referencing transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system. Drawing on scholarship from transgender, queer and policy studies, we highlight the interplay of progressive and conservative forces affecting the Western Australian education system’s commitment to supporting transgender and gender non-binary students. Based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) project, the paper constructs a Western Australian case study, which threads together the critical examination of policy informing texts, qualitative interview data and media discourses surrounding public narratives, such as the Safe School Coalition Australia’s attempt to implement a school program, which builds awareness about gender and sexual diversity. Emerging through the material, discursive and spatial elements of locales and networks, our case study has the potential to deepen knowledge regarding the heuristic capacity of employing policyscape as an analytic category. In this vein, we draw attention to the possibilities and challenges for re-conceptualizing gender and providing trans-affirmative school spaces that promote equality

The impact of failing liquids with liquid surfaces

This thesis examines the splashing of water drops on a water surface and the entrainment of air by a jet plunging into a liquid pool. Both these phenomena have been examined photographically and as a result mechanisms have been proposed for them both. Models based on these suggested mechanisms have been tested against experimental data. Measurements have been taken of air entrainment rates and a correlation suggested relating this to the properties of the jet. The model of the air entrainment rate as a function of jet roughness has been confirmed and another proposed for the rate of air entrainment as a function of bubble penetration depth into the pool

Low Frequency Observations of Millisecond Pulsars with the WSRT

With LOFAR beginning operation in 2008 there is huge potential for studying pulsars with high signal to noise at low frequencies. We present results of observations made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope to revisit, with modern technology, this frequency range. Coherently dedispersed profiles of millisecond pulsars obtained simultaneously between 115-175 MHz are presented. We consider the detections and non-detections of 14 MSPs in light of previous observations and the fluxes, dispersion measures and spectral indices of these pulsars. The excellent prospects for LOFAR finding new MSPs and studying the existing systems are then discussed in light of these results.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, To appear in the proceedings of "40 Years of Pulsars: Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars, and More", August 12-17, 2007, McGill University, Montreal, Canad

HOMELESS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN AMERICA: WHO COUNTS?

After interviewing homeless high school students, the research team in a Colorado school district discovered that many students had not revealed their true living conditions (homelessness) to anyone in the school district. This research team developed an anonymous survey written around the homeless categories identified in the McKinney-Vento federal legislation. Results revealed students who identified as homeless for a portion of their high school years in numbers and percentages alarmingly higher than the district had on file. In fact, over 25 times as many homeless students were identified by this process than by the previously-used district system for identifying homelessness. An equally alarming finding is that very few students identified their homeless status to a teacher, counselor, or school administrator. This article identifies statistical patterns to predict homelessness and provides recommendations for administrative practices

New approaches to literacy problems: Multiliteracies and inclusive pedagogies

This study investigates the Alternative Certification Program (ACP) students’ motivations to become teachers. Fit-Choice Scale is used. Sample of the study consists of 248 participants in three groups i.e. Health, Sports and Mathematics. Descriptive and inferential statistics, and content analysis are used to examine ACP students’ reasons to want to become teachers, and to investigate differences regarding their primary career choices, age and gender. The results showed that social, intrinsic career and personal utility values are the highly rated motivation factors. Teaching is perceived as a highly skillful occupation and a high status profession by the ACP students. Relationships between ACP students’ motivations and perceptions with their primary career choices, age and gender are identified. Health group had higher motivation for time for family, and Sports group had higher motivation for ability and job security. Mathematics group’s motivation for job transferability, perception scores of salary and social status of teaching profession and career choice satisfaction were lower than the other groups. Yet their perception scores of difficulty was higher than the others. ACP students older than the mean age of 26 had higher scores of self-perceptions of ability, intrinsic career value, job transferability and work with children factors than their young classmates. Significant differences are observed between male and female participants’ motivation of having time for family. Together with contrasting findings and particular similarities with the previous research, these relationships are used to conclude that ACP students themselves have different motivation patterns. Influence of sample characteristics and contextual features are also acknowledged

A Search for Single Radio Pulses and Bursts from Southern AXPs

We observed four southern AXPs in 1999 near 1400 MHz with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope to search for periodic radio emission. No Fourier candidates were discovered in the initial analysis, but the recent radio activity observed for the AXP XTE J1810-197 has prompted us to revisit these data to search for single radio pulses and bursts. The data were searched for both persistent and bursting radio emission at a wide range of dispersion measures, but no detections of either kind were made. These results further weaken the proposed link between rotating radio transient sources and magnetars. However, continued radio searches of these and other AXPs at different epochs are warranted given the transient nature of the radio emission seen from XTE J1810-197, which until very recently was the only known radio-emitting AXP.Comment: 3 pages, including 1 table. To appear in the proceedings of "40 Years of Pulsars: Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars, and More", August 12-17, 2007, McGill University, Montreal, Canad

Mitigation of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in Venture Capital Financing: The Influence of the Country’s Institutional Setting

A venture capitalist (VC) needs to trade off benefits and costs when attempting to mitigate agency problems in their investor-investee relationship. We argue that signals of ventures complement the VC’s capacity to screen and conduct a due diligence during the pre-investment phase, but its attractiveness may diminish in institutional settings supporting greater transparency. Similarly, whereas a VC may opt for contractual covenants to curb potential opportunism by ventures in the post-investment phase, this may only be effective in settings supportive of shareholder rights enforcement. Using an international sample of VC contracts, our study finds broad support for these conjectures. It delineates theoretical and practical implications for how investors can best deploy their capital in different institutional settings whilst nurturing their relationships with entrepreneurs

The GBT350 Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane for Radio Pulsars and Transients

Using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Pulsar Spigot at 350MHz, we have surveyed the Northern Galactic Plane for pulsars and radio transients. This survey covers roughly 1000 square degrees of sky within 75 deg < l < 165 deg and |b| < 5.5 deg, a region of the Galactic Plane inaccessible to both the Parkes and Arecibo multibeam surveys. The large gain of the GBT along with the high time and frequency resolution provided by the Spigot make this survey more sensitive by factors of about 4 to slow pulsars and more than 10 to millisecond pulsars (MSPs), compared with previous surveys of this area. In a preliminary, reduced-resolution search of all the survey data, we have discovered 33 new pulsars, almost doubling the number of known pulsars in this part of the Galaxy. While most of these sources were discovered by normal periodicity searches, 5 of these sources were first identified through single, dispersed bursts. We discuss the interesting properties of some of these new sources. Data processing using the data's full-resolution is ongoing, with the goal of uncovering MSPs missed by our first, coarse round of processing.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of "Forty Years of Pulsars: Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars and More" held in Montreal, Canada, August 12-17, 2007. 3 pages, 2 figure