Teachers\u27 Use of YouTube in the United Arab Emirates: An Exploratory Study

Teachers around the world are using YouTube movies for different purposes. This mixed-methods study was a preliminary investigation of United Arab Emirates teachers\u27 perceptions about YouTube\u27s advantages in the classroom, current practices, and major challenges faced. Forty-five teachers completed an open-ended questionnaire. Results indicated that perceived advantages included supporting the learning process, increasing interest and efficiency, and enriching content. Moreover, findings revealed that the majority of participants were using videos for presentation purposes in teacher-led classrooms. Connectivity, technical issues, appropriateness of content, and administrative support were perceived as major challenges. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

The General Election in Costa Rica, February 2010

On 7 February 2010, almost 2 million Costa Ricans (69% of the registered electorate) voted in the country’s general election, the fifteenth consecutive general election to be held since the end of the short but bloody civil war of 1948. Laura Chinchilla was elected as Costa Rica’s first woman president but her Partido Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Party, PLN) fell short of a parliamentary majority and so will have to sustain agreements with other parties in the legislature in order to pursue its policy agenda.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Sistema de Estudios de Posgrado::Ciencias Sociales::Maestría Académica en Ciencias Políticas con énfasis en Políticas Públicas y Gobernabilidad Democrátic

HEP Outreach, Inreach, and Web 2.0

I report on current usage of multimedia and social networking "Web 2.0" tools for Education and Outreach in high-energy physics, and discuss their potential for internal communication within large worldwide collaborations, such as those of the LHC. Following a brief description of the history of Web 2.0 development, I present a survey of the most popular sites and describe their usage in HEP to disseminate information to students and the general public. I then discuss the potential of certain specific tools, such as document and multimedia sharing sites, for boosting the speed and effectiveness of information exchange within the collaborations. I conclude with a brief discussion of the successes and failures of these tools, and make suggestions for improved usage in the future.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90828/1/1742-6596_331_8_082003.pd

Regulatory capacity building and the governance of clinical stem cell research in China

While other works have explained difficulties in applying ‘international’ guidelines in the field of regenerative medicine in so-called low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in terms of ‘international hegemony’, ‘political and ethical governance’ and ‘cosmopolitisation’, this article on stem cell regulation in China emphasises the particular complexities faced by large LMICs: the emergence of alternative regulatory arrangements made by stakeholders at a provincial level at home. On the basis of ethnographic and archival research of clinical stem cell research hubs, we have characterized six types of entrepreneurial ‘bionetworks’, each of which embodies a regulatory orientation that developed in interaction with China’s regulatory dilemmas. Rather than adopting guidelines from other countries, we argue that regulatory capacity building is more appropriately viewed as a relational concept, referring to the ability to develop regulatory requirements that can cater for different regulatory research needs on an international level and at home

‘A More Receptive Crowd than Before’: Explaining the World Bank’s Gender Turn in the 2000s

In the mid-2000s, the gender work of the World Bank took a different turn with a new Gender Action Plan. Up until then, gender equality had been on the margins of the World Bank, concentrated around a small number of advocates. This particular articulation of gender took as its tagline ‘gender equality as smart economics’. The Plan attracted three times the original budget of US$24.5 million, and moved gender analysis into new fields of work: labour, work, land and agriculture rather than the more usual areas of health and education. It emerged at a time when gender work was becoming more legitimate in the field of development economics; where World Bank economists were ‘a more receptive crowd than before’. The mid-2000s was also a time when the World Bank was becoming more conscious of its use of media technologies. The article draws on these two elements—economics and the use of media—to suggest the broader environment against which gender agendas take on meaning. Structural shifts in the field of development economics—the dominant discipline at the World Bank—made work on gender more legitimate and credible, and made World Bank staff ‘a more receptive crowd than before’, while the increasing use of media technologies meant the World Bank was conscious of how its work looked to outside audiences. These elements, only loosely related to what we might think of ‘gender’ as a normative agenda, nonetheless, changed what gender meant to many people working within the World Bank

Determinantes de la intención de uso de las aplicaciones de banca para móviles: una extensión del modelo TAM clásico

This study has been conducted with financial support received from Excellence Research Project P12-SEJ-1980 of the Andalusia Regional Government and Project ECO2012- 39576 of Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.For financial institutions mobile banking has represented a breakthrough in terms of remote banking services. However, many customers remain uncertain due to its security. This study develops a technology acceptance model that integrates the innovation diffusion theory, perceived risk and trust in the classic TAM model in order to shed light on what factors determine user acceptance of mobile banking applications. The participants had to examine a mobile application of the largest European bank. In the proposed model, an approach to external influences was included, theoretically and originally stated by Davis et al. (1989). The proposed model was empirically tested using data collected from an online survey applying structural equation modeling (SEM). The results obtained in this study demonstrate how attitude determine mainly the intended use of mobile apps, discarding usefulness and risk as factors that directly improve its use. Finally, the study shows the main management implications and identifies certain strategies to reinforce this new business in the context of new technological advances.Para las entidades financieras la banca para móviles ha representado una innovación en términos de servicios de banca remota. Sin embargo, muchos clientes siguen considerando incierta su seguridad. Este estudio desarrolla un modelo de aceptación tecnológica que integra, en el modelo TAM clásico, la teoría de la difusión de la innovación, el riesgo percibido y la confianza, a fin de clarificar qué factores determinan la aceptación de las aplicaciones de banca para móviles por parte del usuario. Los participantes tuvieron que examinar una aplicación para móviles perteneciente al mayor banco europeo. En el modelo propuesto, se incluyó una aproximación hacia las influencias externas, que fue establecida de manera teórica y original por parte de Davis et al. (1989). El modelo propuesto se testó empíricamente utilizando la información recolectada mediante una encuesta online, aplicando el modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM). Los resultados obtenidos en el estudio demuestran el modo en que la actitud determina principalmente el uso previsto de las aplicaciones para móvil, descartando la utilidad y el riesgo como factores que mejoran directamente su uso. Por último, el estudio muestra las principales implicaciones para la gestión, e identifica ciertas estrategias de refuerzo de este nuevo negocio en el contexto de los nuevos avances tecnológicos.Excellence Research Project P12-SEJ-1980 of the Andalusia Regional GovernmentProject ECO2012- 39576 of Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivenes

Approaches, Strategies and Theoretical and Practice-Based Research Methods to investigate and archive video art:Some reflections from the REWIND projects

This paper will discuss methodologies, approaches and issues, emerging out of three major research projects that have investigated early histories of video art in Europe: REWIND (2004 ongoing), REWINDItalia (2011-2014) and EWVA (2015-2018). The paper will discuss how the projects have engaged with the history of the apparatus, the identity and status of the artworks, preservation methods, and the legacy of these video artworks today. A particular focus will be on semi-structured questionnaires for interviews structured to capture oral histories, memories and recollections, that in some cases would have been otherwise lost to future knowledge and the uncovering of lost artworks and their available documentation. The speakers directly involved in the projects - will discuss solutions, risks and experiences encountered in the projects and future research perspectives for re-covering, collecting, archiving and narrating the histories of early video art in Europe. The paper will discuss also different practice-based research methods, platforms and engagement strategies, including re-installation and re-enactment

Rapid Food Hygiene Inspection Tool (RFHiT) to assess hygiene conformance index (CI) of street food vendors

Street-vended food is a popular choice among consumers as they are cheap, convenient and easily accessible, especially in Asia. Studies have assessed street food vendors’ food safety and microbiological quality of street-vended foods and overall findings revealed gaps and inconsistencies in hygiene practices. High numbers of street food vendors vs low numbers of environmental health officers and limited time remains a challenge in most developing countries in assessing the hygiene compliance of food services. Most inspections rely on paper-based assessments of the cleanliness and hygiene practices of staff. This study developed a Rapid Food Hygiene Inspection Tool (RFHiT) to assess and calculate the hygiene conformance index (CI) of 95 street food vendors. RFHiT allows rapid assessment as it takes less than 20 minutes to assess each street food vendor. 51.30% of the street food vendors were rated as moderately clean whilst 14.25% were rated as poor and 0.95% as very poor. 20% of the vendors achieved a good rating with six street-food vendors rated as excellent. The proposed tool further demonstrated practical implications of using the rapid inspection tool to assess actual hygienic practices of street food vendors, thus reducing the Hawthorne effect among food handlers