A case study of system change and the influence of change agents : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education at Massey University

The education system in Papua New Guinea over a three year period, underwent a massive re-organization that was unique in both its scope and the speed with which it was accomplished. The change from a highly centralized, fragmented system of education to a decentralized system that catered for all agencies involved in education, was proposed, legislated and implemented without being motivated by major social crises or revolutionary demands for change. Studies of change and innovation in education over the past decade, have tended to emphasize quantitative studies with fewer theoretical studies and very few case histories, particularly of developing countries. Much literature on change and innovation is highly technical in language and tends to regard change as an industrial process. There has been a tendency to neglect the historical, political and social framework within which change and innovations operate. The aim of this study was to provide a case study approach to the conditions and factors that motivated the change process of the innovation. Educational innovation as a complex subject, must be studied at several levels. This study examined the innovation at the level of the individuals involved in changing others and interviewed a sample of the identifiable principal change agents, to analyse the techniques or strategies used to implement the change. The interviews were also designed to provide a storehouse of data for future research. The data generally demonstrated that the initiative for change in this instance came from within the educational structure rather than from outside which is a significant departure from previous case study findings. The Chief Administrator of the Papua New Guinea education system, emerged as the decisive figure who significantly directed and influenced the change process. External experts were used as legitimizing agents to make the structural innovation acceptable to resisters within Papua New Guinea and to the Australian Government. Strategies employed by the principal change agents were generally collaborative in style, however, conflict situations were creatively utilized on occasions to reach a change goal. Absence of transactional influence was observed only rarely. The implications of the study for further research were discussed. The transcripts of interviews provide an invaluable base for research into future quantitative studies particularly one critical issue identified by all change agents. This centres around the conflict between the Teaching Service Commission, the Department of Education and to a lesser extent the Minister for Education, which, in having its origins in the initial innovation, will affect the ultimate survival of the Papua New Guinea education system in its planned form

Special and Differential Treatment in the GATT: A Pyrrhic Victory for Developing Countries

Preferential measures for developing countries implemented within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade failed to achieve their purported goal of facilitating economic development; this failure was due to their weak theoretical underpinnings and poor policy design. Not only were the demands developing countries made for discriminatory preferences largely ineffectual, their demands for preferential treatment, together with their forgoing full participation in the multilateral trading system, fundamentally reduced the obligation of developed countries to consider the interests of developing countries in future negotiation rounds. Thus the winning of preferences was rendered a pyrrhic victory for developing countries.Economic development, trade liberalization, GATT, special and differential treatment, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy,

Nation Building Media Narratives and its Anti-Ecological Roots: An Eco-Aesthetic Analysis of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan

Khushwant Singh’s Train To Pakistan documents the horrors of the partition of India and Pakistan in the year 1947 by presenting a story set in a fictional village, Mano Majra which is an ecological synecdoche as the village stands for the two nations, India and Pakistan. The nation building narrative of Singh, as well as Gandhi - "the future of India lies in villages", though highly ecological as its focus is only on maintaining the "self-sufficiency" of every village, is paradoxical as it is concerned only with the microcosm of the villages and not with the macrocosm of the nation. The spiritual connection that Mano Majrans have with their land and river, which is the basis of their identity, cannot be limited by narratives of nation building revolving around political boundaries. The post-partition anxiety of the two countries, at the level of the microcosm, is the trauma of the loss of their ecological home. Khushwant Singh's novel provides a powerful insight into the deep roots of this eco-aesthetic identity and the anxiety of its loss resulting in the cultural divide that continues to exist between India and Pakistan. This essay makes the argument that Khushwant Singh highlights the anti-ecological nature of nation building narratives in his novel, Train to Pakistan

Distribution of Allatostatin C-like Immunoreactivity in the Central Nervous System of the Copepod Crustacean \u3cem\u3eCalanus finmarchicus\u3c/em\u3e

The C-type allatostatins (C-ASTs) are a family of highly pleiotropic arthropod neuropeptides. In crustaceans, transcriptomic/mass spectral studies have identified C-ASTs in the nervous systems of many species; the cellular distributions of these peptides remain unknown. Here, the distribution of C-AST was mapped in the nervous system of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, the major contributor to the North Atlantic’s zooplanktonic biomass; C-AST-immunopositive neurons were identified in the protocerebrum, in several peripheral ganglia associated with feeding appendages, and in the ganglia controlling the swimming legs, with immunopositive axons present throughout the ventral nerve cord. In addition, axons innervating the dorsal longitudinal and ventral longitudinal muscles of the body wall of the metasome were labeled by the C-AST antibody. While the distribution of C-AST-like immunoreactivity was similar between sexes, several differences were noted, i.e., two pair of somata located at the deutocerebral/tritocerebral border in males and immunopositive fibers that surround the genital opening in females. To place the C-AST-like labeling into context with those of several previously mapped peptides, i.e., A-type allatostatin (A-AST) and tachykinin-related peptide (TRP), we conducted double-labeling studies; the C-AST-like immunopositive neurons appear distinct from those expressing either A-AST or TRP (and through extrapolation, pigment dispersing hormone). Collectively, our data represent the first mapping of C-AST in crustacean neural tissue, show that sex-specific differences in the distribution of C-AST exist in the C. finmarchicus CNS, and suggest that the peptide may be involved in the modulation of both feeding and postural control/locomotion

The Examination Effect: A Comparison of the Outcome of Patent Examination in the US, Europe and Australia, 16 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 21 (2016)

The article provides an answer to a question that, rather surprisingly, has not been addressed in the academic literature to date: What is the practical effect of patent examination? It does so by undertaking an empirical analysis of the examination of nearly 500 patent applications, filed in identical form, in three patent offices: the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), and the Australian Patent Office (APO). By comparing the form of claim 1 as granted with claim 1 in the patent application, we can identify whether there is any meaningful difference between the two and, if so, what is the type of difference. Any identifiable difference will show both the extent to which, and the way in which, the examination process within each office has a practical effect. Furthermore, by comparing the frequency with which each office effects meaningful change to claim 1, we can identify in which of the offices the process of examination has the greatest practical effect. We find that the routine effect of patent examination is to produce meaningful change, specifically a narrowing, to the definition of the invention contained in claim 1 of the patent. Importantly, this effect occurs more often in the USPTO than in the EPO, and more often in both of those offices than in the APO. Notably, our findings suggest that the quality of patents granted by the USPTO is higher than those granted by the other two offices despite its reputation for issuing many bad quality patents