Blockchain Technology - China\u27s Bid to High Long-Run Growth

Despite having the second largest economy at $13 trillion, China has only recently surpassed the World Bank’s definition of the ‘middle-income range’ which is a gross national income per capita between$1,000 to $12,000 (constant 2011 international$). This is a noteworthy accomplishment since many other developing nations have fallen victim to economic stagnation within this range leading to the term “middle-income trap”. This paper will argue that one of the ways in which China escaped the middle-income trap and will continue to grow its economic influence is through the support of blockchain technology. Research and development, early technological adoption and business climate all play a role in explaining how the Chinese public and private sector have used blockchain technology to encourage economic growth. While there are many questions and misconceptions about blockchain technology and its place in China, this paper seeks only to answer a select few

One King to Rule Them All

He battled for superiority over his fellow musicians in the shady nightclubs of New Orleans, led his great Creole Jazz Band in the early 1920s, and stood tall in the face of racial prejudice. Joe “King” Oliver was the type of man to not just survive but thrive—like any true king would

The language teacher’s development

This paper provides a commentary on recent contributions to the subject of teacher development and growth, focusing particularly on our understanding of some of the processes and tools that have been identified as instrumental and supportive in teacher development. Implicit in the notions of ‘reflective practice’, ‘exploratory teaching’, and ‘practitioner inquiry’ is the view that teachers develop by studying their own practice, collecting data and using reflective processes as the basis for evaluation and change. Such processes have a reflexive relationship with the construction of teacher knowledge and beliefs. Collaborative and co-operative processes can help sustain individual reflection and development

Opening the insider's eye: starting action research

This paper discusses the topic of getting started on a process of action research (AR). I hope that the paper encourages a few teachers to begin classroom investigations, because it is important for the TESOL and TEFL profession that we have more teacher-researchers. Only if we establish action research as a more attractive aspect of teaching can we avoid the almost complete separation between research on the one hand and practice on the other (Wallace 1991, p. 10). This gap between theory and practice has understandably caused a negative attitude towards theory among teachers. Essentially this rift has been caused by the predominance of the objective outsider in TESOL research. Action research offers the possibility of TESOL teachers providing an insider's view of the teaching process

Changing academic practice at a UK research-intensive university through supporting the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)

Over the past decade, there have been many changes in Higher Education in the UK. Alongside increased student participation and widening access, the government has called for universities to professionally develop teachers in Higher Education and recognise the role of learning and teaching in the sector. The University of Glasgow has responded to this changing agenda in a number of ways. At the institutional level, the University launched its first comprehensive Learning and Teaching Strategy in 2006. At the same time it also appointed Associate Deans of Learning and Teaching in each Faculty. Another initiative has been the introduction of a ‘teaching’ career track, through the establishment of a new category of academic staff, the University Teacher, with promotion procedures supporting career development up to Professorial level. Rather than engaging in research (one of the main academic roles of the lecturer, associate professor in US terms), University Teachers must engage in scholarship, in addition to their teaching and administration duties. The establishment of a Learning and Teaching Centre responsible for supporting the University in the implementation of its Learning and Teaching Strategy has also consolidated and initiated a number of activities that all aim to enhance the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Glasgow. These initiatives have wrought changes at an institutional level and are contributing to changing academic practice. In particular, the term ‘Scholarship of Teaching and Learning’, once unheard of at the institution is increasingly being recognised as a valid form of academic activity and increasing numbers of academic staff are engaging in it. This paper will outline some of these changes and offer reflections on their impact on SoTL and academic practice

Modelling repeated epidemics with general infection kernels

An integral equation approach is taken to explore the characteristics of a general infectious disease in a homogeneous population. It is shown that the final size of the epidemic depends on the basic reproduction ratio for the infection and the initial number of susceptibles. A discrete map for the susceptible population from epidemic generation to epidemic generation is formed to consider the long term behaviour of the disease in a population of constant size

Credit Cards and Debit Cards in the United States and Japan

This article examines differences in credit-card and debit-card usage between the United States and Japan. Although I do not doubt that social and psychological factors have some significance, I contend that four institutional factors also have useful explanatory power: the freedom of banks to enter the industry; the size of retailers; the level of telecommunications costs; and the size of the national economy. Generally, credit cards in Japan are used for a smaller share of transactions, with a higher average amount, and with less borrowing per transaction. The costs to merchants that take the cards and the rates of fraud also are noticeably higher in Japan than in the United States. The article argues that the difference in usage is attributable primarily to regulations that largely excluded banks and their affiliates from credit- card lending until 1992 and also, to some lesser degree, to the relatively small size of Japanese retailers. The article concludes that the differences in discount rates and fraud rates are more likely to be transient, but attributable to a combination of factors, including the comparatively small payment-card market and high telecommunications costs, both of which have hampered the sophistication of responses to fraudulent transactions. Debit cards are used quite rarely in Japan?the first general-use debit card was not introduced until the spring of 2000. Although that card is cheaper for the merchants that take it than credit cards, and also is much more resistant to fraudulent transactions, the article suggests that the debit card will not find as large a market in Japan as it has in the United States. The reason is that the shift of the credit card from its use as a borrowing device in the United States to its use as a near-cash payment device in Japan leaves a much smaller niche for the debit card in Japan.

3-Body Dynamics in a (1+1) Dimensional Relativistic Self-Gravitating System

The results of our study of the motion of a three particle, self-gravitating system in general relativistic lineal gravity is presented for an arbitrary ratio of the particle masses. We derive a canonical expression for the Hamiltonian of the system and discuss the numerical solution of the resulting equations of motion. This solution is compared to the corresponding non-relativistic and post-Newtonian approximation solutions so that the dynamics of the fully relativistic system can be interpretted as a correction to the one-dimensional Newtonian self-gravitating system. We find that the structure of the phase space of each of these systems yields a large variety of interesting dynamics that can be divided into three distinct regions: annulus, pretzel, and chaotic; the first two being regions of quasi-periodicity while the latter is a region of chaos. By changing the relative masses of the three particles we find that the relative sizes of these three phase space regions changes and that this deformation can be interpreted physically in terms of the gravitational interactions of the particles. Furthermore, we find that many of the interesting characteristics found in the case where all of the particles share the same mass also appears in our more general study. We find that there are additional regions of chaos in the unequal mass system which are not present in the equal mass case. We compare these results to those found in similar systems.Comment: latex, 26 pages, 17 figures, high quality figures available upon request; typos and grammar correcte

The design of supercritical wings by the use of three-dimensional transonic theory

A procedure was developed for the design of transonic wings by the iterative use of three dimensional, inviscid, transonic analysis methods. The procedure was based on simple principles of supersonic flow and provided the designer with a set of guidelines for the systematic alteration of wing profile shapes to achieve some desired pressure distribution. The method was generally applicable to wing design at conditions involving a large region of supercriterical flow. To illustrate the method, it was applied to the design of a wing for a supercritical maneuvering fighter that operates at high lift and transonic Mach number. The wing profiles were altered to produce a large region of supercritical flow which was terminated by a weak shock wave. The spanwise variation of drag of this wing and some principles for selecting the streamwise pressure distribution are also discussed