Student perceptions of barriers to networking with employers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness of the concept of the ‘implied graduate’ to explain the difficulties, which students report when engaging with local employers. Design/methodology/approach - The ‘implied graduate’ is an analytical concept that aims to bring together assumptions about what a graduate should be like. In this paper the concept has been used to analyse interview data collected from students after they took part in an employability project at a small Higher Education (HE) campus in a Further Education (FE) college. Findings - The students in this study reported significant issues with continuing to engage and maintain contact with the employers they met during the project. For many, this was the first time they had met graduate level employers and so felt inexperienced in how to approach networking with them. It seems that some of the offers for future contact made by the employers were aimed at an ‘implied graduate’ and, as such, the students struggled to fulfil those expectations. Originality/value - This paper sheds light on the difficulties that HE in FE students face in engaging with graduate employers. These issues are likely to contribute to the well-established, but unexplained, differences in employment outcomes for students from diverse backgrounds. Keywords: Non-traditional Students, Employability, Graduates, Networking, HE in FE, Article Classification: Research pape

The influence of television on children of primary school age

The study reviews the literature relating to the influence of television on children of primary school age. An account is then given of an investigation into the viewing habits and preferences of two consecutive classes of 8 - 9 year old school children, mainly from a socially deprived area. 87% came from homes with more than one TV set, 59% had a VCR - above the national average, as were the term-time viewing hours of 69% of these pupils; 60% of them spent more time watching television than in school and 26% watched for more than a quarter of each entire week. The results revealed a developing dichotomy between the increasingly private viewing of 'live' television and the family togetherness experienced during a hired video screening. Most children in multi-set households were able to watch anything they wished. Possession of a VCR enabled transmissions after the 9 p.m. 'watershed' to be watched at a more convenient time. Favourite programmes included cartoons and adult shows (especially situation comedies and violent programmes considered unsuitable for children). Reasons for these preferences were investigated and, in general, children used television as a means of escapism and thus tended to dislike those programmes which made demands on them. In view of their popularity, the content and appeal of cartoons were further examined. Cartoons provided fantasy, excitement, fun and laughter. Although often containing more acts of violence than a 'real' programme, they were enjoyable because, in reality, no-one was hurt. In school, the heaviest viewers tended to be the least attentive and the most aggressive, but other causative factors made it difficult to directly correlate such behaviour. Although television provided a commonality of experience for these children’s conversation and play, it appeared to contribute little to their language, their knowledge and their perception of social reality

Fijian Sigidrigi and the Sonic Representation and Construction of Place

This paper explores how the inhabitants of Taveuni, Fiji’s third largest island, use the music genre known as sigidrigi (from the English ‘sing drink’) to articulate and redefine their relationships to particular places. Sigidrigi songs are often performed by groups of men to entertain people during informal yaqona (or kava as it is known throughout Polynesia) drinking sessions. They feature three or four-part vocal harmony, and are accompanied by guitar and/or ukulele. The repertoire consists of covers and localised versions of overseas songs, as well as songs composed by Fijians in styles adopted and adapted primarily from Northern America and Western Europe (for example, rock, pop, country and blues). The repertoire also includes songs from other Pacific islands, the Caribbean (for example, reggae), Indo-Fijian songs, and i taukei (indigenous Fijians of Melanesian or Polynesian descent) children’s songs and meke (an art form consisting of music, dance and costuming whose origin pre-dates European contact). An examination of sigidrigi song lyrics (in terms of both language use and textual content), band names, and various elements of musical style (such as texture, timbre, meter etc.) reveals how Taveuni islanders have used this music genre to (re)construct communities at geographical scales ranging from the local to the supranational

Smart object-oriented access control: Distributed access control for the Internet of Things

Ensuring that data and devices are secure is of critical importance to information technology. While access control has held a key role in traditional computer security, its role in the evolving Internet of Things is less clear. In particular, the access control literature has suggested that new challenges, such as multi-user controls, fine-grained controls, and dynamic controls, prompt a foundational re-thinking of access control. We analyse these challenges, finding instead that the main foundational challenge posed by the Internet of Things involves decentralization: accurately describing access control in Internet of Things environments (e.g., the Smart Home) requires a new model of multiple, independent access control systems. To address this challenge, we propose a meta-model (i.e., a model of models): Smart Object-Oriented Access Control (SOOAC). This model is an extension of the XACML framework, built from principles relating to modularity adapted from object-oriented programming and design. SOOAC draws attention to a new class of problem involving the resolution of policy conflicts that emerge from the interaction of smart devices in the home. Contrary to traditional (local) policy conflicts, these global policy conflicts emerge when contradictory policies exist across multiple access control systems. We give a running example of a global policy conflict involving transitive access. To automatically avoid global policy conflicts before they arise, we extend SOOAC with a recursive algorithm through which devices communicate access requests before allowing or denying access themselves. This algorithm ensures that both individual devices and the collective smart home are secure. We implement SOOAC within a prototype smart home and assess its validity in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Our analysis shows that SOOAC is successful at avoiding policy conflicts before they emerge, in real time. Finally, we explore improvements that can be made to SOOAC and suggest directions for future work

Virgilio e la strumentalizzazione della ragione nell'Inferno di Peter Weiss

L'articolo propone un'aprossimazione all'Inferno (2003) di Peter Weiss, un'atipica riscrittura drammatica in trentatre canti della prima cantica della Commedia che è rimasta inedita dall'anno della sua redazione (1964) come conseguenza dell'abbandono - temporaneo - del cosiddetto DC-Projekt di cui faceva parte. L'intricata storia genetica del testo e la sua tardiva ricuperazione hanno impedito, a mio avviso, una corretta valutazione dello stretto vincolo che il dramma stabilisce con il modello. Il mio contributo si centra nell'analisi del personaggio di Virgilio con l'obiettivo di offrire una lettura capace di rendere conto dei processi di manipolazione che soffrono i materiali originali per essere reintrodotti, con significati rinnovati, nel testo derivativo. Si dimostra attraverso l'esempio concreto di Virgilio, la cui caratterizzazione è tra le più complesse del dramma, come nonostante l'apparente lontananza dall'ipotesto, L'inferno di Peter Weiss rinvia invece in maniera costante alla Commedia e come il riconoscimento dei nascosti riferimenti al modello scopra delle dimensioni del testo inavvertite.The article proposes an approach to Inferno (2003) by Peter Weiss, an atypical dramatic rewriting of thirty three cantos of the first Canto of the Commedia that has remained untouched since the year of its composition (1964) as a result of the contemporary neglect of the so-called DC-Projekt of which it was a part. The intricate genetic story of the text and its late recovery have prevented, in my view, a correct assessment of the close links that this drama established with its model. My contribution focuses on the analysis of the character of Virgil with the aim to offer a reading capable of understanding the processes of transformation of the original materials in order to be presented again with a renewed meaning of the text from which it derives. This is shown through the specific example of Virgil, whose characterization is the most complex of the drama. Despite the apparent distance of the hypotext, l'Inferno of Peter Weiss makes constant references to the Commedia and acknowledges hidden references to the model by revealing dimensions that have gone unnoticed. After a necessary presentation and contextualization of the play, what the article concretely suggests, is a new interpretation of Virgilio through its relation to the concept of instrumental rationality made by Adorn

Assessment of tibial fracture healing with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry: influence of metallic implants at the fracture site

Evaluation of the progress of fracture healing traditionally combines manual fracture manipulation with a visual radiographic assessment. This approach can lead to satisfactory healing, but trouble can ensue when the type of fixation compromises the healing assessment, and in fractures of long bones such as the tibia, where a high incidence of delayed union is still a problem. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) offers a safe, accurate, repeatable and non-invasive method of measuring bone mineral density (BMD), a quantity which is directly related to the mechanical properties of bone. DXA has been successfully used to monitor BMD changes around fractures treated by external fixation. Nine patients with fractures stabilized m this way have been scanned at monthly intervals, and two distinct patterns of healing have been identified. Before this technique could be extended to fractures treated by internal fixation, the effect of large areas of radio-dense material m scans had to be established. To judge the effect of steel implants on scanning and image analysis, tests were conducted on steel and aluminium phantoms in three geometries - parallel rectangular blocks, a square rod in a square case, and a circular rod m a circular case. A perspex base was used in all scans. ANOVA (analysis of variance) performed on the BMD data from scans with and without steel indicated that steel had no effect on scanning (5% significance level). These results implied that steel implants would not affect the reliability of DXA scanning, and that this method of monitoring healing could be used with fractures stabilized by internal fixation. On this basis several patients with nailed tibial shaft fractures have been scanned and their scan images analyzed

Upper mantle discontinuities beneath South Africa

/\ dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the Degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg 1994.This dissertation investigates the upper mantle discontinuities beneath South Africa by analysing seismic waves converted from p to Sv recorded at an array of broad band seismometers. Events, with desirable characteristics recorded at each station are transformed to a suitable coordinate system, normalised, and stacked to enhance the weak converted phases. Additional low pass filters are also applied to improve the signal to noise characteristics of the data. No data suitable to processing were found for stations outside the Kaapvaal craton Despite additional problems related to the application of sub-optimum numerical routines to a limited data base, by combining results with those from an independent study two models were derived for the '400 km' and '670 km' discontinuities beneath the Craton. Models for the '670 km' discontinuity accord with a simplified global earth model while models for the '400 km' discontinuity indicate the presence of a low shear velocity layer not supported in a global earth model. Addltlonal broad band seismic data must be acquired to investigate this phenomenon further.AC201