The ‘Blueprint’ framework for career management skills: a critical exploration

This article examines the Blueprint framework for career management skills as it has been revealed across sequential implementations in the USA, Canada and Australia. It is argued that despite its lack of an empirical basis, the framework forms a useful and innovative means through which career theory, practice and policy can be connected. The framework comprises both core elements (learning areas, learning model and levels) and contextual elements (resources, community of practice, service delivery approach and policy connection). Each of these elements is explored

Dynamics of 2D pancake vortices in layered superconductors

The dynamics of 2D pancake vortices in Josephson-coupled superconducting/normal - metal multilayers is considered within the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory. For temperatures close to $T_{c}$ a viscous drag force acting on a moving 2D vortex is shown to depend strongly on the conductivity of normal metal layers. For a tilted vortex line consisting of 2D vortices the equation of viscous motion in the presence of a transport current parallel to the layers is obtained. The specific structure of the vortex line core leads to a new dynamic behavior and to substantial deviations from the Bardeen-Stephen theory. The viscosity coefficient is found to depend essentially on the angle $\gamma$ between the magnetic field ${\bf B}$ and the ${\bf c}$ axis normal to the layers. For field orientations close to the layers the nonlinear effects in the vortex motion appear even for slowly moving vortex lines (when the in-plane transport current is much smaller than the Ginzburg-Landau critical current). In this nonlinear regime the viscosity coefficient depends logarithmically on the vortex velocity $V$.Comment: 15 pages, revtex, no figure

Prototype ATLAS IBL Modules using the FE-I4A Front-End Readout Chip

The ATLAS Collaboration will upgrade its semiconductor pixel tracking detector with a new Insertable B-layer (IBL) between the existing pixel detector and the vacuum pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. The extreme operating conditions at this location have necessitated the development of new radiation hard pixel sensor technologies and a new front-end readout chip, called the FE-I4. Planar pixel sensors and 3D pixel sensors have been investigated to equip this new pixel layer, and prototype modules using the FE-I4A have been fabricated and characterized using 120 GeV pions at the CERN SPS and 4 GeV positrons at DESY, before and after module irradiation. Beam test results are presented, including charge collection efficiency, tracking efficiency and charge sharing.Comment: 45 pages, 30 figures, submitted to JINS

Spatializing the Ecological Leviathan: Territorial Strategies and the Production of Regional Natures

This paper explores a dual absence – the absence of the state within contemporary geographical analyses of nature; and the absence of nature within contemporary explorations of state power. We argue that the modern state continues to play a crucial role in framing social interactions with nature, while nature is still vital to states within their realization of different forms of material and ideological power. In order to reconnect analyses of the state and nature, this paper combines work on the production of nature and state strategy with Lefebvre’s recently translated writings on state space and territory. By focusing on the production of territory (or state space), we explore the interaction of the state and nature in the context of the political management of social and ecological space. We unravel the spatial entanglements of the state and nature through an analysis of the British state’s territorial strategies within the West Midlands region. By considering three key historical periods within the history of the West Mid-lands we reveal how the emergence of the regional space called the West Midlands is a product of the ongoing spatial dialectics of state and nature therein

Should science educators deal with the science/religion issue?

I begin by examining the natures of science and religion before looking at the ways in which they relate to one another. I then look at a number of case studies that centre on the relationships between science and religion, including attempts to find mechanisms for divine action in quantum theory and chaos theory, creationism, genetic engineering and the writings of Richard Dawkins. Finally, I consider some of the pedagogical issues that would need to be considered if the science/religion issue is to be addressed in the classroom. I conclude that there are increasing arguments in favour of science educators teaching about the science/religion issue. The principal reason for this is to help students better to learn science. However, such teaching makes greater demands on science educators than has generally been the case. Certain of these demands are identified and some specific suggestions are made as to how a science educator might deal with the science/religion issue. © 2008 Taylor & Francis