Can Foreign Aid Buy Investment? Appropriation Through Conflict

The failure of foreign aid to promote growth in the developing world has received significant attention as evidence suggests that foreign aid does not translate into investment. This research has demonstrated that poor institutions in these developing economies (particularly with respect to property rights) results in an inability to fully appropriate the return to one’s investment, thereby serving as a prominent disincentive to investment. This paper presents an experimental test of a a 2-player, one-shot game of conflict in which we vary the strength of property rights. Our results suggest that stronger property rights reduce conflict and increase investment. In addition, we test the conventional wisdom that technological progress can increase the effectiveness of aid in stimulating investment. Contrary to intuition, we find technological progress has practically no effect on investment and that this failure to stimulate investment is largely due to deficiencies in property right institutions. Key Words: Property Rights; Conflict; Investment; Foreign Aid; Experiments

Music and drama in primary schools in the Madeira Island - Narratives of ownership and leadership

Este artigo foi uma das publicações resultantes do projeto financiado pela FCT "Música e Drama no 1º ciclo do Ensino básico – o caso da Região Autónoma da Madeira" (PTDC/CED/72112/2006).A three-year-case study funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) from the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education was designed to study a 30-year project of music and drama in primary schools in Madeira. This article reports on the narratives of the three main figures in the project as they elaborate on its construction according to the following themes: innovation, philosophies of music education and teacher education. Through the lens of a narrative inquiry, the discourses produced are analysed, taking into account the emerging concepts of ownership and leadership.

Fatigue Analysis of Central Bridge Deduced from Strain Gage Data and Probability Analysis

This report presents evaluations of the load history of the Central Bridge from both strain gage data and probability analysis. Estimation of remaining service life is made through fatigue criteria. Also included is a comparison (from strain gage data) of live load stresses carried by parallel eye bars. An appendix provides a user\u27s manual for the computer program for probability-based analyses of load events and fatigue-life computations

Toda brackets and cup-one squares for ring spectra

In this paper we prove the laws of Toda brackets on the homotopy groups of a connective ring spectrum and the laws of the cup-one square in the homotopy groups of a commutative connective ring spectrum.Comment: 22 page

Learners reconceptualising education: Widening participation through creative engagement?

This paper argues that engaging imaginatively with ways in which statutory and further education is provided and expanding the repertoire of possible transitions into higher education, is necessary for providers both in higher education and in the contexts and phases which precede study at this level. Fostering dispositions for creativity in dynamic engagement with educational technology together with the consideration of pedagogy, learning objects, inclusion, policy and the management of change, requires innovative provision to span the spaces between school, home, work and higher education learning. Reporting on The Aspire Pilot, a NESTA-funded initiative at The Open University, the paper offers the beginning of a theoretical frame for considering learning, learners and learning systems in the information age prioritizing learner agency. It will report emergent empirical findings from this inter-disciplinary project, with a significant e-dimension, which seeks to foster the creativity of 13-19 year olds in considering future learning systems, developing provocations for others to explore creative but grounded possibilities. It explores implications arising from this project for approaches that may facilitate widening participation in higher education

Desarrollo, cultura y educación: algunas reflexiones sobre lo que debería estudiar la psicología

Se recogen las reflexiones presentadas en el VII Congreso Internacional de Psicología y Educación y XXI Congreso de INFAD. La ciencia de la psicología trata de investigar y comprender la condición humana. Considera que los métodos convencionales de investigación psicológica no tienen en cuenta factores como la incidencia de la educación y la cultura, que el psicólogo puede aprender del antropólogo, del sociólogo y del historiador. Nunca se comprenderá el comportamiento humano estudiándolo fuera de contexto. Se necesita ir más allá de los estudios convencionales sobre pensamiento lógico y asociativo y adentrarse en el ámbito del pensamiento narrativo. Esta investigación cultural es esencial para cultivar y mantener la profundidad y la extensión de la psicología. La educación no es lo único, ni debe dedicarse exclusivamente, a la transmisión del conocimiento establecido. También debe cultiva la conciencia de la condición humana. La educación no es solo llegar a dominar un contenido, también es lograr captar en qué consiste conocer y comprender.This article collects his reflections presented at the VII International Congress of Psychology and Education and XXI Congress of INFAD. The science of psychology tries to investigate and understand the human condition. Considers that the conventional methods of psychological investigation do not take into account factors such as the incidence of education and culture, that the psychologist can learn of the anthropologist, sociologist and historian. Never can be understood the human behavior studying it out of context. We need to go beyond the conventional studies on logical thinking and associative and we need to go into the field of thought narrative. This cultural research is essential to cultivate and maintain the depth and extent of psychology. Education is not the only thing, nor should be devoted exclusively to the transmission of knowledge established. You must also cultivate the conscience of the human condition. Education is not the only content, it's also capture what is know and understand.peerReviewe

Dynamic evolution of the source volumes of gradual and impulsive solar flare emissions

This study compares flare source volumes inferred from impulsive hard X-rays and microwaves with those derived from density sensitive soft X-ray line ratios in the O VII spectrum. The data for this study were obtained with the SMM Hard X-Ray Burst Spectrometer, Earth-based radio observatories, and the SOLEX-B spectrometer on the P78-1 satellite. Data were available for the flares of 1980 April 8, 1980 May 9, and 1981 February 26. The hard X-ray/microwave source volume is determined under the assumption that the same electron temperature or power law index characterizes both the source of hard X-rays and the source of microwaves. The O VII line ratios yield the density and volume of the 2 X 10 to the 6th K plasma. For all three flares, the O VII source volume is found to be smallest at the beginning of the flare, near the time when the impulsive hard X-ray/microwave volume reaches its first maximum. At this time, the O VII volume is three to four orders of magnitude smaller than that inferred from the hard X-ray/microwave analysis. Subsequently, the O VII source volume increases by one or two orders of magnitude then remains almost constant until the end of the flare when it apparently increases again

Why School Culture Both Attracts and Resists Whole School Reform Models

This paper uses the metaphor of grafting to describe the relationship of comprehensive school reform designs to the work culture of schools. One school reform model that has widespread implementation is the Success for All (SFA) reading program. The new practice provided in the SFA reading program offered a compatible graft onto the existing culture found in low achieving schools. The grafting on of a new program can only occur as long as its requirements do not stray from the existing traditions of the system. Schools adopt reform programs that offer procedural or curricular changes that fit within their existing systems. However, in schools, as in gardening, the graft cannot repair a damaged root. Rather, the growth of a successful graft is strengthened by a hearty rootstock, and the best rootstock is a healthy and supportive culture

Nature and Place of Transition from True Prairie to Mixed Prairie

As a memorial to Dr. Frederic E. Clements, it is a pleasure to present this paper on the midcontinental grasslands of North America. Born and reared at Lincoln, Nebraska, he developed a remarkable interest in and love for the prairie. He has often stated to the first author that of all the vegetation of North America, he liked the grassland best. Clements was the first to recognize the Mixed Prairie as a distinct plant association and to describe its nature and range and the grouping of the dominants ( 1920). When one examines the prairies of western Iowa and then proceeds some distance westward, he is impressed by several changes. The vegetation is reduced in height, it becomes less dense, ant1 takes on a distinctly more xeric impress. These changes result from gradually increasing unfavorable water relations as the vegetation of True Prairie gives way to that of Mixed Prairie. Along the Nebraska-Kansas interstate line, for example, the 33-inch annual precipitation near the Missouri River decreases westward at an average rate of about an inch every 15 miles. Conversely, rate of evaporation rapidly increases. In Nebraska, the transition from True to Mixed Prairie occurs over three types of topography. South of the Platte Valley Lowland it has been traced over the nearly level portion of the Loess Plain Region (Fig.1) . Northward, the transition takes place in the greatly dissected Loess Hills and Plains. East of the northern Sandhill Region, it occurs on the Holt-Pierce Plain and Boyd Shale Plain

A Seven-Year Quantitative Study of Succession in Grassland

The study of plant succession has contributed more than any other single line of investigation to a deeper insight into the nature of vegetation. Earlier studies of succession, especially in grassland, were largely those of the primary sere. But with the utilization of the prairies for grazing, and the abandonment of submarginal land after a short period of cropping, numerous investigations of secondary successions were made. The earlier studies have been discussed by Clements (1916) in Plant Succession. Sampson\u27s plant succession in relation to range management appeared in 1919. Many of the more recent investigations of subseres in grassland and on abandoned lands have been reviewed by Drew (1942). Costello (1944) has studied the grassland subsere in northeastern Colorado. Weaver and Albertson (1944) have traced the subsere following the recent great drought over a vast central area of both true and mixed prairie. Information on the rate and nature of natural re-vegetation of depleted ranges and abandoned cultivated land is of basic importance to many problems of soil conservation and land use