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Young children often endorse stereotypes--such as "girls are bad at math." We explore one mechanism through which these beliefs may be transmitted: via pragmatic inference. Specifically, we ask whether preschoolers and adults can learn about an unmentioned social group from what is said about another group, and if this inferential process is sensitive to the context of the utterance. Sixty-three- to five-year-old children and fifty-five adults were introduced to two novel social groups--Stripeys and Dotties--and witnessed a speaker praising abilities of one group (e.g., "the Stripeys are good at building chairs"). To examine the effect of context, we compared situations where the speaker was knowledgeable about the abilities of both groups, and had been queried about the performance of both groups (broad context), versus situations where the speaker was only knowledgeable about one group and was only asked about that group (narrow context). Both preschoolers and adults were sensitive to context: they were more likely to infer that the group not mentioned by the speaker was relatively unskilled, and were more confident about it, in the broad context condition. Our work integrates research in language development and social cognitive development and demonstrates that even young children can "read between the lines," utilizing subtle contextual cues to pick up negative evaluative messages about social groups even from statements that ostensibly do not mention them at all.

Two preregistered experiments (N = 218) investigated children's developing ability to respond reasonably to disagreement. U.S. children aged 4-9, and adults (50% female, mostly white) formed an initial belief, and were confronted with the belief of a disagreeing other, whose evidence was weaker, stronger than, or equal to participants' evidence. With age, participants were increasingly likely to maintain their initial belief when their own evidence was stronger, adopt the other's belief when their evidence was weaker, and suspend judgment when both had equally strong evidence. Interestingly, 4- to 6-year-olds only suspended judgment reliably when this was assessed via the search for additional information (Experiment 2). Together, our experiments suggest that the ability to respond reasonably to disagreement develops over the preschool years.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the impact of excessive smartphone use on students' academic performance. In today's digitalized world, smartphones have become a vital device in human lives and have taken control over every aspect of day-to-day activities. Design/methodology/approach: After a thorough literature review, the factors associated with smartphone use that impact student performance were identified, and a conceptual framework was developed. Further, a survey was conducted by contacting 264 students pursuing higher education in India to test the model. Structural equation modeling was adopted to test the hypotheses. Findings: Results indicate that there is no direct impact of excessive mobile phone use on student performance. However, it can be observed that excessive mobile phone use impacts student performance indirectly mediated by technoference. Research limitations/implications: This study was conducted among students pursuing higher education in cosmopolitan cities with representation from India. Future studies can test the model among students in tier two cities and rural areas and primary and high school students for more insights. Practical implications: This study has suggestions for college management to promote a hybrid learning model and prohibit using smartphones in classrooms and academic areas. Originality/value: This study is among the earliest to explore the impact of technoference in an academic environment.

This study explores the extent to which a unique and disruptive experience (a field trip to a prison) combined with reflective writing resulted in transformative learning by students enrolled in an accounting ethics course. Students were provided with clearly defined steps ('prompts') designed to encourage them to think logically and to reflect upon their experience, with student narratives collected before, and following the field trip. Analysis of these narratives reveals evidence of transformative learning in that students articulated not just the content of learning but changes in their perspectives of accounting practice, white-collar offenders and what it should mean to be a professional accountant.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the formal workplace learning situation in Nepal and argue that workplace learning is not in priority in Nepali Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) despite a regular policy emphasis. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered using both desk-based review of pre-diploma and diploma-level curricula and semi-structured interviews with eight employers and six technical school principals. Coded themes were interpreted in the meaning-making process. Findings: Workplace skills learning in Nepal has remained a neglected agenda. Despite some successful implementation practices and policy recognition, it is stagnated. Employers expect skills in graduates relevant to their demands. However, unfortunately, there needs to be more trust for a culture of shared responsibilities among employers and TVET providers for arranging the provisions so that the learners can acquire the skills that the employers need. There is a blaming game between them, which has ultimately resulted in the poor arrangement of workplace learning. Practical implications: TVET providers' and employers' engaged participation in recognizing and developing workplace learning for making the learning as per the needs of the world of work could benefit them and also support students to upgrade and acquire employability skills. Originality/value: This paper is based on empirical data and contributes new knowledge in academia which is still rare in the context of Nepal.

Ion channel sensors have several applications including DNA sequencing, biothreat detection, and medical applications. Ion channel sensors mimic the selective transport mechanism of cell membranes and can detect a wide range of analytes at the molecule level. Analytes are sensed through changes in signal patterns. Papers in the literature have described different methods for ion channel signal analysis. In this paper, the authors describe a series of new graphical tools for ion channel signal analysis which can be used for research and education. The paper focuses on the utility of these tools in biosensor classes. Teaching signal processing and machine learning for ion channel sensors is challenging because of the multidisciplinary content and student backgrounds which include physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. The paper describes graphical ion channel analysis tools developed for an online simulation environment called J-DSP. The tools are integrated and assessed in a graduate bio-sensor course through computer laboratory exercises.

In this study, the transformational play approach was further used to deploy drama-based situational learning in the classroom through the Digital Learning Theatre (DLT) by engaging drama performers and the audience collaboratively. This study analysed the learners' learning effectiveness based on translation and sentence-construction abilities, and their perception by focussing on concentration, and comprehension of dialogues before and after the drama-based activity. The experimental results were based on both the DLT including tablet PCs to enable audience participation in drama performances, and the DLT for drama performances in which the audience can participate through traditional open discussion sessions with the narrator of the drama. Sixty-five students were selected randomly as participants from the English as a Foreign Language academic program at the junior high school level. The application of the DLT including the tablet PCs approach showed considerable improvement in students' learning effectiveness as well as a significant positive effect on classroom learning, outperform the effectiveness of the DLT with traditional open discussion sessions for the audience. Accordingly, to improve students' learning effectiveness, their engagement in the learning process can be advanced through situational learning activities using educational technologies that combine with collaborative learning mechanisms for classroom learning.

Parents with fewer educational and economic resources (low socioeconomic-status, SES) tend to speak less to their children, with consequences for children's later life outcomes. Despite this well-established and highly popularized link, less research addresses why the SES "word gap" exists. Moreover, while research has assessed individual-level contributors to the word gap--like differences in parenting knowledge--we know little about how structural constraints that vary according to SES might affect caregivers' speech. In two pre-registered studies, we test whether experiencing financial scarcity can suppress caregivers' speech to their children. Study 1 suggests that higher-SES caregivers who are prompted to reflect on scarcity--particularly those who reflect on financial scarcity--speak less to their 3-year-olds in a subsequent play session, relative to a control group. Study 2 suggests that mid- to higher-SES caregivers engage in fewer back-and-forth exchanges with their children at the end of the month--when they are more likely to be experiencing financial hardship--than the rest of the month. These studies provide preliminary evidence that--above and beyond caregivers' individual characteristics--structural constraints may affect how much parents speak to their children.

Word learning is typically studied as a problem in which children need to learn a single meaning for a new word. And by most theories, children's learning is itself guided by the assumption that a new word will have only one meaning. However, the majority of words in languages are polysemous, carrying multiple related and distinct meanings. Here, we consider the implications of this disjuncture. As we review, current theories predict that children should struggle to learn polysemous words. And yet research shows that young children readily learn multiple meanings for words and represent them in qualitatively similar ways to adults. Moreover, polysemy may facilitate word learning, by allowing children to use their knowledge of familiar meanings of a word to learn its other meanings. These findings motivate a new perspective on word learning that recognizes polysemy as a fundamental feature of language, instead of treating it as an edge case.

Why are spatial metaphors, like the use of "high" to describe a musical pitch, so common? This study tested one hundred and fifty-four 3- to 5-year-old English-learning children on their ability to learn a novel adjective in the domain of space or pitch and to extend this adjective to the untrained dimension. Children were more proficient at learning the word when it described a spatial attribute compared to pitch. However, once children learned the word, they extended it to the untrained dimension without feedback. Thus, children leveraged preexisting associations between space and pitch to spontaneously understand new metaphors. These results suggest that spatial metaphors may be common across languages in part because they scaffold children's acquisition of word meanings that are otherwise difficult to learn.

Improving both the quantity and quality of existing data are placed at the center of research for adaptive micro open learning. To cover this research gap, our work targets on the current scarcity of both data and rules that represent open learning activities. An evolutionary rule generator is constructed, which consists of an outer loop and an inner loop. The outer loop runs a genetic algorithm (GA) to produce association rules that can be effective in the micro open learning scenario from a small amount of available data sources; while the inner loop optimizes generated candidates by taking into account both rare and negative association rules (NARs). These optimized rules are further applied in refining and augmenting data denoting learners' behaviors in open learning into a low-dimensional, descriptive and interpretable form. The performance of rule discovery and data processing have been empirically evaluated using genuine open learning data.

The Embodied Art Therapy Process (TEATP) focuses on the co-creation of embodied artistic expressions to promote self-awareness and autonomy for children. A case study describes how TEATP was implemented to support a child in gaining self-awareness and autonomy. Awareness of her own body, sensations, and feeling allowed her to assert her voice and practice agency.

The development of educational technologies has resulted in a fundamental shift in the educational paradigm with learning no longer equating to the assimilation of knowledge transmitted by textbooks and instructors but by personally building and communicating knowledge. The aim of this paper is to analyse and discuss the importance of infusing blogs as a formative assessment tool in university education. After describing the theoretical aims, design, implementation and evaluation of blogging as a formative assessment tool; the paper supports the argument for the educational use and pedagogical importance of blogging. The paper also highlights potential problems and limitations of the blogging as an assessment tool and provides a conceptual framework for the effective implementation of blogs for enhancing student learning outcomes.

This paper is a part of an ongoing doctoral research on "Teacher Talk in ESL Classrooms". The idea for this was gained through the hypothesis that teachers' beliefs about English teaching may also mould their talk. The researcher intends here to analyse and comment on teachers' English teaching beliefs. It is generally accepted that teaching is greatly affected by the belief systems of its practitioners-teachers. Teachers' beliefs influence their consciousness, teaching attitude, teaching methods and teaching policies, and finally, learners' development. Horwitz (1987) also states rightly that the formation of teachers' educational beliefs in language teaching/ learning process will influence, though indirectly, on forming effective teaching methods and will bring about the improvement of learners' language learning abilities. In Indian context, there is dearth of research evaluating teachers' beliefs about English teaching. This study explores teachers' beliefs regarding teaching English to children and tries to explore whether medium of instruction makes any difference in their beliefs. It also intends to determine what similar and different beliefs might be held by in-service teachers from two different mediums. A total of 100 pre-service teachers are the subjects of this study. In order to recognize these teachers' specific beliefs in a more systematic way, a research instrument, The Questionnaire of Primary School Pre-service English Teachers' Teaching Beliefs was developed. Almost all of these pre-service teachers expected to have training regarding how to make their talk effective and relevant in classrooms. The Questionnaire of Primary School Pre-Service English Teachers' Teaching Beliefs is appended.

While traditional HIV prevention programs with female sex workers (FSWs) in Karnataka, India, have focused on reducing HIV transmission between FSWs and clients through increased condom use, these programs have not fully addressed the transmission risk between FSWs and their nonpaying intimate partners (IPs). Condom use is infrequent and violence is recurrent in these relationships: Furthermore, there is little evidence on the precise nature of FSW-IP relationships. Our study addresses this knowledge gap to inform HIV programs targeted at FSWs. A series of workshops, using participatory tools, was held to explore FSW-IP relationships; 31 FSWs and 37 IPs participated. Three aspects of FSW-IP relationships were examined: how FSWs and IPs understand and interpret their relationships, factors influencing condom use, and the role of violence and its consequences. FSWs wish to be perceived as their IPs' wives, while IPs expect their FSW partners to accept their dominance in the relationship. Nonuse of condoms signals fidelity and elevates the status of the relationship almost to that of marriage, which helps FSWs enter the category of "good" (married) women. Tolerating and accepting violence in these relationships is normative, as in other marital relationships; IPs justify violence as necessary to establish and maintain their power within the relationship. Both FSWs and IPs value their relationships despite the high degree of risk posed by low condom use and high levels of violence. Implications for program design include addressing current norms around masculinity and gender roles, and improving communication within relationships.

Spatial language is often used metaphorically to describe other domains, including time (long sound) and pitch (high sound). How does experience with these metaphors shape the ability to associate space with other domains? Here, we tested 3- to 6-year-old English-speaking children and adults with a cross-domain matching task. We probed cross-domain relations that are expressed in English metaphors for time and pitch (length-time and height-pitch) as well as relations that are unconventional in English but expressed in other languages (size-time and thickness-pitch). Participants were tested with a perceptual matching task, in which they matched between spatial stimuli and sounds of different durations or pitches, and a linguistic matching task, in which they matched between a label denoting a spatial attribute, duration, or pitch and a picture or sound representing another dimension. Contrary to previous claims that experience with linguistic metaphors is necessary for children to make cross-domain mappings, children performed above chance for both familiar and unfamiliar relations in both tasks, as did adults. Children's performance was also better when a label was provided for one of the dimensions, but only when making length-time, size-time, and height-pitch mappings (not thickness-pitch mappings). These findings suggest that although experience with metaphorical language is not necessary to make cross-domain mappings, labels can promote these mappings, both when they have familiar metaphorical uses (e.g., English long denotes both length and duration) and when they describe dimensions that share a common ordinal reference frame (e.g., size and duration but not thickness and pitch).

Previous accounts of how people develop expertise have focused on how deliberate practice transforms the cognitive and perceptual representations and processes that give rise to expertise. However, the likelihood of developing expertise with a particular tool may also depend on the degree to which that tool fits pre-existing perceptual and cognitive abilities. The present studies explored whether the abacus--a descendant of the first human computing devices--may have evolved to exploit general biases in human visual attention, or whether developing expertise with the abacus requires learning special strategies for allocating visual attention to the abacus. To address this question, we administered a series of visual search tasks to abacus experts and subjects who had little to no abacus experience, in which search targets and distractors were overlaid atop abacus "beads." Across three studies, we found that both experts and naïve subjects were faster to detect targets in semantically relevant components of the abacus, suggesting that abacus training is not required to exhibit attentional biases toward these components of the abacus. This finding suggests that the attentional biases that scaffold numerical processing of the abacus may emerge from general properties of visual attention that are exploited by the design of the abacus itself.

The use of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) as a treatment for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been explored in a number of trials. Whilst CBT appears superior to no treatment or treatment as usual, few studies have assessed CBT against a control group receiving an alternative therapy. Our randomised controlled trial compared use of CBT against person-centred counselling for anxiety in 36 young people with ASD, ages 12-18. Outcome measures included parent- teacher- and self-reports of anxiety and social disability. Whilst each therapy produced improvements in participants, neither therapy was superior to the other to a significant degree on any measure. This is consistent with findings for adults.

Mental abacus (MA) is a technique of performing fast, accurate arithmetic using a mental image of an abacus; experts exhibit astonishing calculation abilities. Over 3 years, 204 elementary school students (age range at outset: 5-7 years old) participated in a randomized, controlled trial to test whether MA expertise (a) can be acquired in standard classroom settings, (b) improves students' mathematical abilities (beyond standard math curricula), and (c) is related to changes in basic cognitive capacities like working memory. MA students outperformed controls on arithmetic tasks, suggesting that MA expertise can be achieved by children in standard classrooms. MA training did not alter basic cognitive abilities; instead, differences in spatial working memory at the beginning of the study mediated MA learning.

Aims: Scotland was the first country to adopt take-home naloxone (THN) as a funded public health policy. We summarise the background and rigorous set-up for before/after monitoring to assess the impact on high-risk opiate-fatalities. Methods: Evidence-synthesis of prospectively monitored small-scale THN schemes led to a performance indicator for distribution of THN-kits relative to opiate-related deaths. Next, we explain the primary outcome and statistical power for Scotland's before/after monitoring. Results: Fatality-rate at opiate overdoses witnessed by THN-trainees was 6% (9/153, 95% CI: 2-11%). National THN-schemes should aim to issue 20 times as many THN-kits as there are opiate-related deaths per annum; and at least nine times as many. Primary outcome for evaluating Scotland's THN policy is reduction in the percentage of all opiate-related deaths with prison-release as a 4-week antecedent. Scotland's baseline period is 2006-10, giving a denominator of 1970 opiate-related deaths. "A priori" plausible effectiveness was 20-30% reduction, relative to baseline, in the proportion of opiate-related deaths that had prison-release as a 4-week antecedent. A secondary outcome was also defined. Conclusion: If Scotland's THN evaluation shifts the policy ground seismically, our new performance measure may prove useful on how many THN-kits nations should provide annually.

This article will focus on involvement of Higher Education Institutions in promoting Education for Sustainable Development through UNEPs flagship programme Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability. To achieve this, the activities of the network are centered on three pillars: Education, Training and Networking.

How do children resolve the problem of indeterminacy when learning a new word? By one account, children adopt a "taxonomic assumption" and expect the word to denote only members of a particular taxonomic category. According to one version of this constraint, young children should represent polysemous words that label multiple kinds--for example, "chicken," which labels an animal and its meat--as separate and unrelated words that each encode a single kind. Our studies provide evidence against this account: we show that four- and five-year-old children spontaneously expect that a word that has labeled one meaning of a familiar polysemous word will also label its other, taxonomically different meaning. Further, we show that children's taxonomic flexibility is importantly constrained--children do not expect a word to label thematically-related meanings (e.g., "chicken" and "egg"), or the unrelated meanings of homophones (e.g., "bat"[animal] and "bat"[baseball]). We argue that although children are initially guided by the taxonomic constraint when pairing word forms with meanings, they nonetheless relate the taxonomically-different meanings of polysemous words within lexical structure. Thus, for even young children, a single word can label multiple kinds.

It is typically assumed that count nouns like "fork" act as logical sortals, specifying whether objects are countable units of a kind (e.g., that a whole fork counts as "one fork") or not (e.g., that a piece of a fork does not count as "one fork"). In four experiments, we provide evidence from linguistic and conceptual development that nouns do not specify units of quantification, but include both whole objects and their arbitrary parts in their denotations. We argue that, to restrict quantification to whole objects, nominal concepts are enriched pragmatically, via contrast with concepts denoted by alternative descriptions: a piece of a fork is not counted as "one fork" because it is "one piece of fork." Experiment 1 replicated previous findings that children count pieces of broken objects as whole objects (e.g., two pieces of fork as "two forks"), and showed that children also accept whole object labels as descriptions of object pieces (e.g., "two forks" to describe two pieces of fork). Experiment 2 showed that although children accept such descriptions in isolation, they prefer measure phrases (e.g., "two pieces of fork") when they are explicitly presented as alternatives. Experiment 3 found that children were better at excluding pieces from their counts of whole objects when measure phrases were primed prior to counting, making them accessible as alternatives to whole object labels. Finally, Experiment 4 taught children names for novel objects, and found that they do not count parts that are given unique labels or that have non-linguistic properties that suggest they are members of distinct object kinds (e.g., unique functions or physical affordances). Together, our results suggest that for children and adults alike, nominal concepts do not provide necessary and sufficient criteria for excluding parts from object kinds. To specify units of quantification--and do the work of sortals--concepts are contrasted with one another and enriched pragmatically. (Contains 7 figures.)

Globally, gender differences in education have been an area of policy concern, research, and development partnerships. The international agenda of gender equality has been adopted by national governments even in countries, such as Afghanistan, where predominant views are clearly at variance with this agenda. Attempts to analyse such conditions must be based on examination of gender and education in the broader political and cultural context. Gender issues have been a central theme in an EU-funded Master's programme in Educational Research and Development for Afghan students at Nangarhar University, conducted during 2008-2010. This article analyses the political and cultural context of gender in Afghanistan, which constitutes the framework for the Afghan students' understandings of gender and education. These are examined as expressed in texts produced by the students and in group interviews. On the basis of our analysis, the following tension is clear: the students are aware of the international agenda of gender equality in education, but at the same time they are concerned about problems in the practical application of this agenda in their own society and relate these concerns to their interpretations of principles of Islam and Afghan cultural traditions.

Unlike "homophonous" meanings, which are semantically unrelated (e.g., the use of "bat" to refer to a baseball bat and a flying rodent), "polysemous" meanings are systematically related to one another (e.g., the use of "book", "CD", and "video" to refer to physical objects, as in "the leather book", or to the intellectual content they contain, as in "the profound book"). But do perceived relations among polysemous meanings reflect the presence of generative lexical or conceptual structures that permit the meanings of these words to shift? If so, these structures may also support children's early representations of polysemous meanings. In four studies, we demonstrate (1) that four-year-old children can understand both the concrete and abstract meanings of words like "book," (2) that when taught a novel label for one of these meanings, children can readily understand an extension of that label to the other meaning, and (3) that extension does not occur between two homophonous meanings, which share a common phonological form but are otherwise unrelated. We conclude that the polysemous meanings of words like "book" rely on a common representational base early in development, and suggest that this may be the result of foundational, generative properties of the lexicon or conceptual system. (Contains 10 figures and 5 tables.)

Sexual violence within marriage (SVWM) is a major public health and human right issue and yet remains a much neglected research area, especially in Nepal. An exploratory study using free listing, in-depth case histories and causal flow analysis was conducted among two major ethnic groups in Nepal. Descriptive data collected from free listing indicate that about half of the married women aged 15 to 24 years reported ever experiencing SVWM. Data revealed that the underlying reasons for SVWM are complex and complicated due to the multiple forms and contexts in which it occurs. For many couples, multiple factors alongside, and within, their socioeconomic and cultural contexts contribute to the risk of experiencing SVWM. Major factors escalating the risk to SVWM include gender norms, economic dependence of women, poverty, alcohol consumption of husband, lack of knowledge, social stigma, and lack of supportive familial and social environment. Raising awareness about sexual violence is required for its prevention and for managing the consequences. Further research is required to identify the determinants, the effects of SVWM on sexual and reproductive health outcomes and to help programs develop the best strategies for dealing with SVWM among young couples. (Contains 3 tables.)

When we describe time, we often use the language of space ("The movie was long"; "The deadline is approaching"). Experiments 1-3 asked whether--as patterns in language suggest--a structural similarity between representations of spatial length and temporal duration is easier to access than one between length and other dimensions of experience, such as loudness. Adult participants were shown pairings of lines of different length with tones of different duration (Experiment 1) or tones of different loudness (Experiment 2). The length of the lines and duration or loudness of the tones was either positively or negatively correlated. Participants were better able to bind particular lengths and durations when they were positively correlated than when they were not, a pattern not observed for pairings of lengths and tone amplitudes, even after controlling for the presence of visual cues to duration in Experiment 1 (Experiment 3). This suggests that representations of length and duration may functionally overlap to a greater extent than representations of length and loudness. Experiments 4 and 5 asked whether experience with and mastery of words like "long" and "short"--which can flexibly refer to both space and time--itself creates this privileged relationship. Nine-month-old infants, like adults, were better able to bind representations of particular lengths and durations when these were positively correlated (Experiment 4), and failed to show this pattern for pairings of lengths and tone amplitudes (Experiment 5). We conclude that the functional overlap between representations of length and duration does not result from a metaphoric construction processes mediated by learning to flexibly use words such as "long" and "short". We suggest instead that it may reflect an evolutionary recycling of spatial representations for more general purposes. (Contains 1 table and 9 figures.)

Agile methodologies have become increasingly popular among software developers as evidenced by industrial participation at related conferences. The popularity of agile practices over traditional techniques partly stems from the fact that these practices provide for more customer involvement and better accommodate rapidly changing requirements, both of which are important in the current Internet-focused environment. This article describes the design and implementation of an independent study in agile software development methodologies. In this course, graduate students in computer science compared traditional software development life cycle models and their associated practices with those of agile methodologies. Students were introduced to Extreme Programming (XP), one of the best-known agile methodologies, by implementing a computer game. Then the students performed a literature review on one or more agile practices. Finally, they introduced XP into their respective research groups (wireless sensor networks, intelligent tutoring systems, and genetic algorithms). This article is a reflection of their experiences, along with those of the instructor. It should prove beneficial to two groups of educators: instructors who want to teach a course in agile methodologies and those individuals who develop their own software and want to learn a lightweight process model. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

Relation between education and development has been recognized in Nepal since the beginning of planned development efforts and the modern schooling at mass level. Both were initiated during 1950s. Beginning of Development Studies in MPhil and PhD in Education in School of Education, Kathmandu University focused exploring such relationships in a systematic manner. This reflective paper shares some of the ideas and experiences on comparative education and development while working and developing the program Development Studies. It has been realized that comparative education can provide an important frame to explore such relationships. Accordingly, attempts were made to develop the program Development Studies that derive from understanding and exploring the pattern of the everyday life of the people, their knowledge base and the meaning they give to aspects like education and development. The purpose was also to consider how state interventions a modernization/globalization interplay with local values and meanings. The paper discusses challenges and strengths achieved while working with Development Studies. Finally, some key points are drawn to establish the international and comparative perspective of Nepali practices and experiences.

In Nepal, children with low vision attend specialized schools for students who are totally blind and are treated as if they were totally blind. This study identified children with low vision and provided low vision devices to them. Of the 22% of the students in the school who had low vision, 78.5% benefited from the devices. Proper devices and counseling improved the quality of life of a significant number of these students. (Contains 4 tables.)

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the collections within digital libraries and repositories in India available in the public domain. Design/methodology/approach: The digital libraries and repositories were identified through a study of the literature, as well as internet searching and browsing. The resulting digital libraries and repositories were explored to study their collections. Findings: Use of open source software especially for the creation of institutional repositories is found to be common. However, major digital library initiatives such as the Digital Library of India use custom-made software. The collection size in most digital libraries and repositories is in a few hundreds. Practical implications: The paper highlights the state of digital libraries and repositories in India in late 2007. Originality/value: The paper is the first of its kind that attempts to identify and evaluate digital libraries and repositories in India. It also gives a comprehensive listing of digital libraries and institutional repositories in India available in the public domain.

This article explores the extent of, and factors associated with, sexual harassment of young female migrant workers in the carpet and garment factories in Kathmandu Valley. Information is drawn from a survey of 550 female workers aged 14 to 19 and 12 in-depth case histories. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were applied to identify the factors associated with harassment. The survey found that 1 in 10 young women had experienced sexual harassment or coercion. Those who were exposed to pornographic movies were more likely than those with no exposure to any kind of movies to report sexual harassment. Perpetrators included coworkers, boyfriends, employers, and relatives. Case histories revealed that the inability of young women to communicate effectively with their peers and sex partners, lack of self-esteem, job insecurity, and other socioeconomic problems made them vulnerable to these abuses. The results suggest the need for advocacy and a range of factory-based interventions. (Contains 4 tables.)

An approach to teaching business strategy formulation uses the thinking process tools of the theory of constraints: current reality tree for situational analysis, evaporating cloud and future reality tree to identify change outcomes, and prerequisite tree and transition tree to identify implementation strategies. (SK)

Surveyed college students about the quality of feedback they received at their service-learning workplace, their personal dispositions toward feedback, and the extent to which their key service learning goals were attained. Found evidence supporting the proposition that both the quality of feedback and students' dispositions to approach or avoid it positively predict attainment of learning goals. (EV)

Nine evaluations of projects of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) are described. Most are formative in nature, designed to improve the programs targeted and to increase stakeholder participation. Almost all were conducted in Africa. The descriptions of research methodology have many implications for educational evaluation. (SLD)

The Research and Engineering Apprenticeship Program of the Academy of Applied Science has funded several high school student summer internships to work within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso. Over the last nine years, young Mexican-American scholars have been recruited into STEM-specific (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) laboratories to cultivate and nurture their interest in research. This commentary describes vignettes from a successful program in which coauthoring students are paired with a graduate student to advance a molecular-level understanding of biomedical intervention by traditional phytoremedials (plant-based remedies) in neurodegenerative disease processes. Considering that the selected phytoremedials originate from Mexico, Latin America, and the Indian subcontinent and are familiar folklore (kitchen theraceuticals) to the participating Hispanic and Indian scholars, the research project provides an enhanced sense of importance, ownership, and enthusiasm. Eventually, it cements the bridge to a future STEM-related college education, engages in the nation's STEM capacity-building mission, and contributes to the nation's Hispanic science and technology workforce of tomorrow. (Contains 1 table.)

A theoretical explanation, in terms of a two-factor approach to a Person-Other-Issue (POX) Situation is offered, in an attempt to fill the void that exists in the face of the Heider-Newcomb controversy about POX balance. Validity and parsimony is demonstrated by applying it to some of the POX data reported in earlier studies. (Author/BL)

The work of Ladislav Kosc on dyscalculia is presented. His work on meanings, forms, terminology, diagnosis, correction principles, factors in mathematical ability, language dysfunctions, and publications are each included. (MNS)