Interests, trust and security in US-Jordanian nuclear relations

This article explores the relationship between Jordan and the United States (US) in the field of nuclear energy cooperation. Since 2010 the Jordanian government has accelerated its plans for a nuclear energy program and has engaged with multiple partners around the world in order to agree terms for cooperation in technology exchange, monitoring, and the construction of infrastructure. Bilateral negotiations between the US and Jordan for a "123" nuclear cooperation agreement were underway by early 2008, but were suspended in 2011 without an agreement being reached. Jordanian nuclear energy policy has been spurred by energy security considerations (as it currently imports 97 percent of its energy needs) and the discovery of up to 120,000 tonnes of uranium ore in Jordan. At the same time, the US is primarily interested in management of nuclear technology proliferation. This work considers the perceptions of self and other in Jordanian and US policymaking in order to understand why bilateral cooperation has not materialized and what this means for nuclear proliferation in Jordan. This study finds that the US–Jordanian negotiations have been impeded by contradictory objectives and perceptions, and a "123" agreement is not likely in the short to medium term, but that development of Jordan’s nuclear energy program will likely continue regardless

American power and identities in the age of Obama

Although the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency represents a landmark event in the history of that country, questions remain over its broader political significance. What is the likelihood of Obama's foreign and national security policies differing fundamentally from those of the Bush administrations Does Obama's election signal a post-racial phase in American national life What are the factors that suggest opportunities to change and expand American identities as opposed to those that limit Obama's sphere of action This article introduces the special issue and suggests that although Obama's room for manoeuvre is limited by legacies inherited from the Bush administration, Obama's own appointments to high office as well as other actions, despite the availability of alternative courses, indicate that he is not the transformational president he claimed to be. American identities, therefore, are deeply embedded and remain heavily imbued with racial, religious and imperial features

Doing more with less: Teacher professional learning communities in resource-constrained primary schools in rural China.

Teacher professional learning communities provide environments in which teachers engage in regular research and collaboration. They have been found effective as a means for connecting professional learning to the day-to-day realities faced by teachers in the classroom. In this article, the authors draw on survey data collected in primary schools serving 71 villages in rural Gansu Province as well as transcripts from in-depth interviews with 30 teachers. Findings indicate that professional learning communities penetrate to some of China’s most resource-constrained schools but that their nature and development are shaped by institutional supports, principal leadership, and teachers’ own initiative

(Re)Storying Obama: An Examination of Recently Published Informational Texts

American publishers have published numerous children’s books about Barack Obama over the past several years; most take the form of informational biographies. This article reports on a research project aimed at how these books incorporate sociohistorical narratives, particularly those related to the civil rights movement. Though the features of the books might cause the reader to presume political neutrality, the books link readers to distinct Discourses (Gee, 1996), suggesting particular ideologies. In this article, we identified the following differences: (1) specific happenings from Obama’s life were included in some texts while omitted in others; (2) when the events were included, how they were framed differed; and (3) the narrative constructions of the events varied. We use the differences amongst these texts to argue for the importance of critical literacy in elementary classrooms

'A foundation-hatched black elite’: Obama, the US establishment and foreign policy

US foreign policy has a largely unacknowledged racial dimension due to the racial characteristics of the US foreign policy establishment, and in shared mindsets in a soon-to-be ‘majority-minority’ nation. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) racial-ethnic and class factors produce managed change through socialisation in an attenuated meritocratic order, adapting to challenges to elite dominance by incorporating rising talent, without altering broader patterns of power. The greatest success of such a system would be the assimilation of the most elite minority individuals, even as the bulk of those groups’ members continue to experience discrimination. Such success would be compounded by election to the highest office of a minority US president extolling the virtues of post-racial politics. President Barack Obama represents a ‘Wasp-ified’ black elite, assimilated into the extant structures of power that remain wedded to a more secular, non-biologically-racial, version of Anglo-Saxonism or, more broadly, liberal internationalism. Hence, it should occasion little surprise that there has been so little change in US foreign policies during Obama’s two-term presidency

Reducing potentially preventable complications at the multi hospital level

Contains fulltext : 96269.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: This study describes the continuation of a program to constrain health care costs by limiting inpatient hospital programs among the hospitals of Syracuse, New York. Through a community demonstration project, it identified components of individual hospital programs for reduction of complications and their impact on the frequency and rates of these outcomes. FINDINGS: This study involved the implementation of interventions by three hospitals using the Potentially Preventable Complications System developed by 3M Health Information Systems. The program is noteworthy because it included competing hospitals in the same community working together to reduce adverse patient outcomes and related costs.The study data identified statistically significant reductions in the frequency of high and low volume complications during the three year period at two of the hospitals. At both of these hospitals, aggregate complication rates also declined. At these hospitals, the differences between actual complication rates and severity adjusted complication rates were also reduced.At the third hospital, specific and aggregate complication rates remained the same or increased slightly. Differences between these rates and those of severity adjusted comparison population also remained the same or increased. CONCLUSIONS: Results of the study suggested that, in one community health care system, the progress of reducing complications involved different experiences. At two hospitals with relatively higher rates at the beginning of the study, management by administrative and clinical staff outside quality assurance produced significant reductions in complication rates, while at a hospital with lower rates, management by quality assurance staff had little effect on reducing the rate of PPCs

Putting it into perspective: Mathematics in the undergraduate science curriculum

Mathematics and science are tightly interwoven, yet they are often treated as distinct disciplines in the educational context. This study details the development, implementation and outcomes of a teaching intervention that highlights the links between mathematics and science, in the form of a first-year interdisciplinary course. A mixed method study using surveys and focus groups was employed to investigate undergraduate science students' perceptions of their experiences. Findings reveal that students bring strong beliefs about the nature of mathematics and science from secondary school, which can impact significanly on the success of interdisciplinary science-mathematics courese at the teritary level. Despite this, a range of beneficial outcomes can arise from such courses when they are delivered within a framework of analysing real-world issues. However, students with weak mathematical skills derived little benefit from an interdisciplinary approach and are likely to disengage from learning, in comparision with students who enter university with a solid foundation in mathematics