The Legal Empowerment Movement and its Implications

Around the world, a global legal empowerment movement is transforming the way in which people access justice. The concept of legal empowerment is rooted in strengthening the ability of communities to: “understand, use and shape the law.” The movement relies on people helping one another to stand up to authority and challenge injustice. At its center are paralegals, barefoot lawyers, and community advocates. Backed up by lawyers, these advocates are having significant impacts

International Dimensions in the Financing of Higher Education

This chapter compares and contrasts international experience with respect to higher education financing. The size and payment forms of tuition, and the different types and levels of public sector support, are illustrated for a large number of countries. A major aspect of the discussion concerns the conceptual bases and the costs and benefits of the two different instruments of government intervention for student financing: guaranteed bank loans, and income contingent loans. It is argued that income contingent loans have a number of advantages over government guaranteed bank loans, and this seems to be increasingly recognised with respect to international adoption of the former. However, to be efficacious income contingent loan systems require sophisticated institutional and administrative repayment collection arrangements.government guaranteed bank loans, higher education, income contingent loans, student loans, tuition

Content without context is noise : Looking for curriculum harmony in primary arts education in Western Australia

Arts education in Western Australian primary schools consist of learning opportunities outlined by mandated curriculum. However, assumptions underlying this curriculum involving access, resources and support impact schools’ capacity to implement the curriculum without them being adequately addressed by the written curriculum. Drawing on the policy enactment theory of Ball, Maguire, and Braun (2012), four contextual variables (situated contexts, professional cultures, material contexts and external factors) are used to highlight the differences between the written published curriculum and the implemented, practised curriculum. Drawing on interviews with 24 participants across four schools issues of geographic location, use of arts specialists, appropriate learning spaces and the stresses associated with mandated literacy and numeracy testing are reported as contextual pressures by this study. This paper details the disruptive interference of these contextual pressures that we describe as ‘noise’. The provision of a better understanding of this contextual landscape brings schools and teachers away from the ‘noise’ of disruption and closer to curriculum harmony

Local heat flux and energy loss in a 2D vibrated granular gas

We performed event-driven simulations of a two-dimensional granular gas between two vibrating walls and directly measured the local heat flux and energy dissipation rate in the stationary state. Describing the local heat flux as a function of the coordinate x in the direction perpendicular to the driving walls, we use a generalization of Fourier's law, q_x(x) = kappa d_x T(x) + mu d_x rho(x), to relate the local heat flux to the local gradients of the temperature and density. This ansatz accounts for the fact that density gradients also generate heat flux, not only temperature gradients. The transport coefficients kappa and mu are assumed to be independent of x, and we check the validity of this assumption in the simulations. Both kappa and mu are determined for different system parameters, in particular, for a wide range of coefficients of restitution. We also compare our numerical results to existing hydrodynamic theories. Agreement is found for kappa for very small inelasticities only. Beyond this region, kappa and mu exhibit a striking non-monotonic behavior.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

The Effects of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Stretching Techniques on College Age Football Players

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a stretching program using P.N.F. (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) techniques on the South Dakota State University football team during the 1997 football season. The following hypotheses were investigated: 1) It was hypothesized there would be no significant mean differences in flexibility measures among pre-, post-, and 5-week retention test values of the sit and reach, groin, and shoulder tests. 2) It was hypothesized there would be no significant mean differences in flexibility measures among pre-, post-, 15-minute, and 30-minute test values of the sit and reach, groin, and shoulder tests. There have been two leading types of stretching exercises used in physical education and athletics—stretching and ballistic stretching. Ballistic stretching, referred to as fast stretch, involves repetitive rebound movements which are aimed toward a gradual progressive increase of flexibility. Static stretch, referred to as slow stretch, involves the use of held stretch position which may or may not be repeated. With static stretching, ballistic stretching, and the combination of the two, evidence has been presented that all three have improved flexibility. Some believe that increased flexibility prevents injuries; however, there is little documentation to support this belief. Opinions abound in the literature reviewed concerning injury and flexibility. Three studies which have investigated the effects of flexibility upon injury have presented conflicting conclusions. Powell stated that sprains and strains were reported to be the general injury in fall football practices at Big Ten schools, hamstring strain being the predominant injury. A three-day conditioning period may not be adequate for preparing the football player for the season. Powell emphasized that flexibility as well as strength and endurance should be included in a pre-season program. A supporting conclusion was reached I another football related study that there was an increased incidence in muscle tears in less flexible members of a professional football team (Nicholas). In contrast, Jackson presented results that indicated that flexibility was not a predictor of injury. In the investigations of flexibility previously done, only one, Sigerseth, dealt with flexibility as it related to football players. Neither of the studies of P.N.F. techniques increase flexibility, but little is known about changes in flexibility that will occur if these techniques are performed by football players during their competitive season. If stretching programs administered during practice sessions do not significantly change the football player’s flexibility, then alternative programs must be examined and subsequent changes made based on findings

On the Completeness of Spider Diagrams Augmented with Constants

Diagrammatic reasoning can be described formally by a number of diagrammatic logics; spider diagrams are one of these, and are used for expressing logical statements about set membership and containment. Here, existing work on spider diagrams is extended to include constant spiders that represent specific individuals. We give a formal syntax and semantics for the extended diagram language before introducing a collection of reasoning rules encapsulating logical equivalence and logical consequence. We prove that the resulting logic is sound, complete and decidable

Improving accounting information system performance and achieving competitive advantage through effective it governance

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business.Accounting information systems (AIS) are a vital technology-based asset for all organisations. The accounting information that is generated and distributed by these systems is essential for effective strategic decision making and achieving ongoing organisational benefits. The quality of the accounting information used for these decisions is reliant on the performance capabilities of the AIS. Prior research has identified a number of direct organisational benefits that can be obtained through effective IT governance, including improvements in the performance of organisational information systems such as AIS. This thesis expands upon prior literature by utilising the resource based view of the firm (RBV) to examine how competitive advantage is achieved via complex interactions between IT governance, AIS and other technology related capabilities and resources. The three types of IT governance mechanism - structural, procedural and relational – are assessed from a theoretical perspective in regards to their suitability to act as RBV resources or capabilities. While only relational mechanisms are found to possess the characteristics required of an RBV resource or capability, a review of recent RBV-framed IT governance research finds that many studies give little consideration to relational mechanisms and rely predominately upon the presence of structural and procedural mechanisms to assess IT governance performance. To confirm the significance of relational mechanisms of IT governance, this thesis tests the capacity for relational mechanisms of IT governance to contribute to competitive advantage through improving the performance of IT management capabilities and organisational AIS. Observations were collected via a survey of senior finance executives in Australian organisations and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS SEM). The results indicate that, under the direction and control of effective IT governance, IT management capabilities are able to improve accounting information system (AIS) performance and thereby achieve competitive advantage. Moderation analysis reveals that the level of competitive and technological pressure (environmental dynamism) alters the relationship between IT governance and competitive advantage. This finding suggests that IT governance not only acts as a higher order capability by directing and controlling the use of other organisational resources and capabilities, but may also be capable of acting dynamically to achieve competitive advantage through exploiting opportunities created by competitive and environmental pressures

PaL Diagrams: A Linear Diagram-Based Visual Language

Linear diagrams have recently been shown to be more effective than Euler diagrams when used for set-based reasoning. However, unlike the growing corpus of knowledge about formal aspects of Euler and Venn diagrams, there has been no formalisation of linear diagrams. To fill this knowledge gap, we present and formalise Point and Line (PaL) diagrams, an extension of simple linear diagrams containing points, thus providing a formal foundation for an effective visual language.We prove that PaL diagrams are exactly as expressive as monadic first-order logic with equality, gaining, as a corollary, an equivalence with the Euler diagram extension called spider diagrams. The method of proof provides translations between PaL diagrams and sentences of monadic first-order logic