Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) Project. First Report: Researching Schools’ Enactments of New Zealand’s National Standards Policy

This is the first report of the Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) project, one year into a three-year study of the introduction of National Standards into New Zealand primary and intermediate schools

Effect of heating rate on gas emissions and properties of fired clay bricks and fired clay bricks incorporated with cigarette butts

In general, the firing process of clay bricks generates a range of gas emissions into the atmosphere. At high concentrations, these volatile emissions can be a serious source of environmental pollutions. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different heating rates on gas emissions and properties during the firing of clay bricks and clay bricks incorporated with cigarette butts (CBs). In this investigation, four different heating rates were used: 0.7 °C min−1−1, 2 °C min−1, 5 °C min−1 and 10 °C min. The samples were fired in solid form from room temperature to 1050 °C. During the firing cycles, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides,hydrogen cyanide and chlorine emissions were measured at different heating rates. All bricks were also tested for their physical and mechanical properties including dry density, compressive strength, tensile strength, water absorption and initial rate of absorption. Results show that gas emissions were reduced significantly with higher heating rates (10 °C min) followed by 5 °C min−1−1 and 2 °C min for both types of brick samples. Higher heating rates also decrease the compressive strength and tensile strength value but demonstrate an insignificant effect on the water absorption properties respectively. In conclusion, a higher heating rate is preferable in terms of decreasing gas emissions and it is also able to produce adequate physical and mechanical properties especially for the CB brick

On standards and values: Between finite actuality and infinite possibility

This article explores the relation between subjects and standards in a way that is informed by a process orientation to theoretical psychology. Standards are presented as objectifications of values designed to generalize and stabilize experiences of value. Standards are nevertheless prone to becoming “parodic” in the sense that they can become obstacles to the actualization of the values they were designed to incarnate. Furthermore, much critical social science has mishandled the nature of standards by insisting that values are nothing but local and specific constructions in the mundane world of human activity. To rectify this problem, this article reactivates a sense of the difference between the idea of a finite world of activity and a world of value which points beyond and exceeds passing circumstance. Resources for the reactivation of this difference— which is core to a processual grasp of self, memory, and value—are found in the thinking of A. N. Whitehead, Max Weber, Marcel Proust, and Soren Kierkegaard

Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) Project Final Report: National Standards and the Damage Done

This is the final report of the Research Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) project, a three-year study of the enactment of the National Standards policy in six diverse primary and intermediate schools. This report provides an overview discussion of the pros and cons of the National Standards policy as experienced by staff, children and parents in the RAINS schools. It summarises the policy and methodological background to the research and the findings of the two previous RAINS reports. The report is also being accompanied by online case studies and other data files

Managing standards compliance

Software engineering standards determine practices that `compliant' software processes shall follow. standards generally define practices in terms of constraints that must hold for documents. The document types identified by standards include typical development products, such as user requirements, and also process-oriented documents, such as progress reviews and management reports. The degree of standards compliance can be established by checking these documents against the constraints. It is neither practical nor desirable to enforce compliance at all points in the development process. Thus compliance must be managed rather than imposed. We outline a model of standards and compliance and illustrate it with some examples. We give a brief account of the notations we have developed tosupport the use of the model and describe a support environment we have constructed. We contrast our approach to related work and discuss the broader implications of our findings for process modelling and the management of inconsistent information

Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum: Point of View by Sussan M. Drake and Rebecca C. Bruns

Through an integrated curriculum, it is expected that the fulfillment of a maximum standard of learning for students' problems while learning,  the integrated curriculum will determine the content, processes, materials, and learning materials that teachers do to students in the classroom. Students who have problems are expected to be able to overcome the problem both those who lack achievement and are left behind, the evaluation carried out is also expected to be able to measure the ability of students to improve learning that has been done, besides  it can be compared between one school to another with an evaluation. So we need a standard-based approach and an integrated curriculum, the second offers several strategies in developing an integrated curriculum that has been proven in its implementation, thirdly to validate an integrated curriculum by offering examples of integrated curricula that have proven to be successful