Attainment in Secondary School

This paper studies attainment in secondary schools. We estimate an education production function in which attainment depends upon parental inputs, peer group inputs and schooling inputs. We find that the most powerful parental input is parental interest in children, as assessed by teachers. We find a strong peer group effect. The school pupil-teacher ratio does not enter significantly. The only strongly endogenous variable is initial attainment. We argue that this is due to measurement error. There is some evidence that parental interest is endogenous but we do not find peer group variables to be so.

Pre-School Education and Attainment in the NCDS and BCS

This paper considers the effect of how children pass time before entrance to school on attainment in primary school. We find in NCDS data that children perform marginally better at seven and eleven if they spent time with their mother, or at a pre-school, rather than in informal care. This holds when one controls for parental education, social class, and assessed parental interest in the child's education, as well as the quality of the peer group. In the BCS, however, time spent in nurseries effected no improvement in maths at ten as compared to time in informal care and pre-school children were performing much worse in reading. This worse performance was traceable to reduced vocabulary at five. Pre-school children were more advanced in copying at five relative to children in informal care but, while copying is a good predictor of scores in both maths and reading at ten, this advancement had been offset by then.

Experimental investigation of an axisymmetric free jet with an initially uniform velocity profile

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the flow characteristics of a circular free helium jet having an initially uniform velocity profile. Complete velocity profiles are presented at Reynolds numbers of 1027 and 4571 at 0, 3, 6, 10, 15, and 20 nozzle diameters (where possible) from the nozzle exit. Centerline velocity decay and potential core length were obtained over a range of Reynolds numbers from 155 to 5349 at distances up to and including 25 nozzle diameters from the nozzle exit. The angles of spread associated with the diffusion of the jet downstream of the nozzle are also given. Axial jet momentum flux and entrained mass flux, at various distances downstream of the nozzle, are presented as a function of the jet Reynolds number

Technical and financial project management tool

In order to control the technical and financial aspects of the civil engineering contribution to the LHC project, an autonomous data management tool has been put in place to integrate drawings, schedules and budget control. To assemble this very heterogeneous data in its support, contents, and naming, a uniform Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) has been introduced between the different files. For updating reasons, the technical menu has a direct access to the CERN Drawings Directory (CDD). The budget menu compares, for each structure, the initial estimates with the actualized ones, the latter compared permanently with the paid invoices. The total amount of the civil engineering cost is available online

To be or not B2B?

La question du commerce électronique interentreprises par le web (Business to Business, B2B) est posée actuellement par les grands groupes industriels impliqués dans le commerce mondial. Les prévisions sont imposantes, le B2B atteindra le C.A. de 3000 milliards de dollars en 2003. Les conditions d'accès, la façon de procéder des deux organisateurs (ARIBA et COMMERCE ONE) des plus grandes places de marchés actuelles, sont décrites. La base de l'énorme pyramide est le catalogue électronique multilingue UNSPSC (United Nations Standard Products and Services Classification) et l'organisation ECCMA (Electronic Commerce Code Management Association) qui gère le développement des UNSPSC codes en 8 langues. Dans ce contexte, l'auteur (re)-déclare qu'un des efforts principaux à fournir par le CERN est la création de son propre catalogue électronique. Dans la Division ST, une aide partielle à ce vaste programme pourrait être apportée par la normalisation des codes et désignations des pièces de maintenance en MP5. Ce travail éventuel mais essentiel est parfaitement inutile si, à la question " To be or not to be B2B", le CERN ne parvient pas à répondre

Qui a peur des émotions organisationnelles? Revisiter le rapport entre le féminin et la gestion à l’aide du concept de l’espace-temps affectif

La thèse de cet article est double. Premièrement, à l’instar de Ferguson et de Fondas, l’auteure soutient que la profession de gestionnaire est engagée dans un processus de féminisation, par lequel les qualités associées traditionnellement aux femmes se répandent tant dans la théorie de la gestion que dans la pratique managériale. Pour sa part, Fondas suggère que les principes de gestion américains contemporains féminisent cette profession, et l’article de Symons a pour objet d’examiner cette hypothèse. D’ailleurs, l’étude qualitative et inductive à méthodologie flexible, menée au Québec par l’auteure auprès de 50 cadres de niveau supérieur et intermédiaire ainsi que superviseuses et superviseurs, venant d’organisations publiques et privées, soutient la thèse de la féminisation. Deuxièmement, l’auteure présente la métaphore de l’espace-temps affectif en tant que nouveau concept sociologique pour comprendre la dynamique affective du travail de gestion. Elle argumente que ce concept fournit une perspective organisationnelle nouvelle et utile, à partir de laquelle il est possible d’examiner le processus de féminisation. L’article se termine par une réflexion sur la signification de ce développement théorique en ce qui a trait à l’interrelation du féminin, des émotions et de la gestion dans le discours et dans la pratique. Selon la perspective de l’espace-temps affectif, les émotions sont des ressources et non un destin.The thesis of this paper is twofold. First of all I contend, along with Ferguson and Fondas, that the management profession is involved in a process of feminization, whereby qualities traditionally associated with women are spreading to both management theory and managerial practice. Fondas has suggested that recent American thinking on management is feminizing the occupation, and this paper sets out to examine this hypothesis. A qualitative inductive flexible design study of 50 senior, middle and first-line managers in public and private organisations in Quebec finds support for the feminization thesis. Secondly, I introduce the metaphor of emotional spacetime as a new sociological concept for understanding the emotional dynamics of managerial work. I argue that this concept affords a useful and original organizational perspective from which to vision the process of feminization. Finally I reflect on the significance of this theoretical development for the interrelation of the feminine, emotions and management in both discourse and practice. From the perspective of emotional spacetime, emotions are resources, not destiny