An investigation of cognitive skills and topics development within finance programmes: a UK perspective

Finance is an important subject in many accountancy and other undergraduate programmes. The technical competencies in this area are covered under the QAA benchmark in finance (2007). However, the benchmark does not rigidly lay down the curriculum and competencies it expects students to acquire; universities are free to teach the subject from a variety of perspectives. In this paper the subject specific knowledge and skills emphasised in finance subjects in accounting undergraduate programmes in the UK are examined. Learning outcomes from module handbooks/unit specifications from ten universities in the UK are used to gauge and analyse what cognitive skills and topics are emphasised. This research finds that universites should include higher level cognitive skills in order to meet the demands of the changing environment. It is also evident that funding and sources of capital is the most important topic in the curriculum

Understanding the Fanaroff-Riley radio galaxy classification

The simple, yet profoundly far-reaching classification scheme based on extended radio morphologies of radio galaxies, the Fanaroff-Riley classification has been a cornerstone in our understanding of radio galaxies. Over the decades since the recognition that there are two basic types of radio galaxy morphologies there have been several findings in different wavebands that have reported properties on different scales. Although it is realized that there may be intrinsic as well external causes an overarching view of how we may understand the two morphological types is missing. With the radio power-absolute magnitude relation (the Owen-Ledlow diagram) as backdrop we review and develop an understanding of the two radio galaxy types in the light of what is known about them. We have for the first time included the dust properties of the two FR classes together with the relative orientations of dust, host major axis and the radio axis to present a qualitative framework within which to understand the conditions under which they form. (Abridged).Comment: 15 pages, To appear in Astronomical Journa

Concept of Dharma in Shashi Tharoor’s Novel show business (1991)

Dharma is the total cosmic responsibility, including gods, a universal justice for more inclusive, wider and profounder than any western equivalent, such as duty. What is Dharma? This is the question that Shashi Tharoor explores repeatedly in his novel; though the situations, settings and characters are sufficiently varied each time to make quests dissimilar. His preoccupations are essentially abstract. The choice that a man has to make to remain true to himself, the corrosion of values in a world that puts premium on material success, the human price of ambition in a competitive society, and the possibility of making an authentic decision in a set up where an individual is allowed very little freedom-these are the recurrent concerns running through his novel – Show Business. Shashi Tharoor shows his socio-Moral vision and mourns for the lack of Dharma in modern times. In a Post Modernistic world, where all moral values are gone with the wind, there are very few committed artists with the philosophic vision, who can wage a strong war against the advent of basic human values. Tharoor considers his art as a medium through which he tries to resurrect the lost dignity of the human being. Art therefore seems to turn into a didactic weapon by which he reinstates the lost glory of the world