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This paper elaborates some aspects of narrative learning—defined here as learning to tell stories and learning from, about and through narratives—in the context of primary‐age pupils who use English as an Additional Language (EAL). The paper introduces some principles to support their language development in classroom interaction. We argue that linguistically orientated research on metacognitive strategy development is not necessarily readily applied to EAL learners. After presenting a background on narrative, narrative development and social aspects of telling stories, we introduce an approach to narrative development which encourages a cycle telling and retelling of stories which provides EAL learners with layered opportunities for developing the metacognitive features of planning, remembering, understanding and reflecting on storytelling. This is enabled through the use of written ‘keywords’, which are used in conjunction with ‘story maps’ (which outline the narrative structure and content) together wi...

Cultural policy has been changing in similar ways across many countries in recent years, with these changes placing an increasing emphasis upon the use of “culture”, and particularly the “arts”, as instrumental tools for the attainment of non‐cultural, non‐arts, goals and objectives. It is argued that this process is closely related to a broader set of societal changes – specifically the establishment and acceptance of a commodified conception of public policy – and that the future shape of cultural policy cannot be fully understood without reference to these changes. The fact that the precise nature of both the cultural policy and societal changes that are taking place differ considerably between nation‐states implies that arguments concerning the “globalisation” of culture and cultural policy require reformulation to take into account the specific variations that are generated by governmental choices.

The various political and technological drivers that are currently prevalent within many educational institutions increasingly encourage educationalists to experiment with tools that promote e-learning. Many then engage in this activity in the belief that this will help in the development of more autonomous, responsible learners. Strategies for the integration of technology are, however, often less well researched. This paper, therefore, explores the relationship between pedagogy, ethics and technology, as three important constructs for the development of an e-learning strategy. It then proposes a framework that will allow future research to define more clearly how each of these concepts overlap, and to identify the impact that they have on each other. As a consequence, the framework provides insight into the mutual dependencies of pedagogy, ethics and technology, with the aim of avoiding ethical risks in developing e-teaching and e-learning.

In the era of globalization, one of the key factors for manufacturing machine builders/suppliers to remain competitive is their capability to provide cost-effective and comprehensive machine service and maintenance for their clients at anytime, anywhere. Previous research has highlighted the role of virtual engineering tools in the design and development life cycle of manufacturing machinery systems. Virtual engineering models created during the development phase can potentially be used to provide valuable functions for many other tasks during the operational phase, including service and maintenance support. This paper introduces an innovative Internet-enabled three-dimensional-based virtual engineering framework that can be used for such purposes. Specifically, it addresses a system architecture that is designed to facilitate the tight integration between virtual engineering tools and a set of Internet-based reconfigurable modular maintenance supporting tools. This system architecture has been verified by implementations using different toolsets atop of various Internet technologies (e.g. XML Web services and LabView's Datasocket). Implementation details and successful industrial-based test cases are also provided in this paper.

Research has demonstrated that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be used to bully and harass children on-line. Cyber-bullying and harassment can be deeply traumatic to the victim and can cause psychological harm. This article assesses possible legal solutions to this problem. The emphasis is on the criminal law, the more normal solution to the infliction of harm and distress to an individual. However, the article also examines whether the civil law provides assistance in this sphere.

A novel fibrous catalyst was used to destroy the pollutants in Kodak Non-Silver-Bearing (NSB) photographic processing effluents with high chemical oxygen demand (COD) value. The oxidation activity of the catalyst was evaluated in terms of COD reduction of the effluent. The effects of concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and effluent, amount of catalyst, reaction time and temperature on the COD reduction were studied. In addition, the combination of catalysis with UV treatment on the COD reduction of the effluent was also investigated. Based on the experimental results, room temperature is preferred for the catalytic oxidation of NSB effluent. It was found that COD reduction of the effluent depends on the amount of hydrogen peroxide added to the feed in relation to the mass of catalyst used. Significant COD reduction (up to 52%) is achieved after 4 hours of catalytic treatment. Extending the duration of catalysis up to 24 hours gives further slight decrease in COD value.

The file attached to this record is the authors final peer reviewed version. The final published version can be found on the publisher's website. http://www.informaworld.com/ Gypsies and Travellers are increasingly part of a debate by politicians and the media in the U.K. This discourse is not a benign reflection of events; instead it is part of a complex mechanism of control. There is a difficult relationship between the settled and travelling communities which inhibits political discussion of a strategy for site provision. In this context, the paper examines the links between discourse and control, by paying attention to Foucaultian notions of the ‘gaze’, amongst other explanations. Drawing on findings from analysis of the media, focus groups with Travellers and a case study in one local authority planning consultation exercise, the paper proposes a theoretical explanation for the link between the discourse used around Gypsies and Travellers and the control that is exercised over them, particularly in inhibiting their right to a travelling lifestyle.

The scarring model resulted in significant damage and elevated viscoelasticity of the lamina propria. Hyaluronan preparations may alter viscoelasticity in scarred rabbit vocal folds.Vocal fold scarring results in stiffness of the lamina propria and severe voice problems. The aims of this study were to examine the degree of scarring achieved in the experiment and to measure the viscoelastic properties after injection of hyaluronan in rabbit vocal folds.Twenty-two vocal folds from 15 New Zealand rabbits were scarred, 8 vocal folds were controls. After 8 weeks 12 of the scarred vocal folds received injections with 2 types of cross-linked hyaluronan products and 10 scarred folds were injected with saline. After 11 more weeks the animals were sacrificed. After dissection, 15 vocal folds were frozen for viscoelastic measurements, whereas 14 vocal folds were prepared and stained. Measurements were made of the lamina propria thickness. Viscoelasticity was measured on intact vocal folds with a linear skin rheometer (LSR) adapted to laryngeal measurements.Measurements on the digitized slides showed a thickened lamina propria in the scarred samples as compared with the normal vocal folds (p0.05). The viscoelastic analysis showed a tendency to stiffening of the scarred vocal folds as compared with the normal controls (p=0.05). There was large variation in stiffness between the two injected hyaluronan products.

Aggression towards health care staff has become the focus for research as well as for government intervention. Negative effects upon staff and organizations have been established, yet few detailed explanations are offered for this aggression, and none represents the patient's perspective. This paper presents a model from the patient's perspective that takes account of situational variables, while also focusing upon patient cognitions. It also considers physiological responses related to arousal that might underpin aggression in an anxiety-provoking situation. In a previous study the frequency with which aggression was preceded by some anxiety-provoking event and the extent to which assailants displayed diminished cognitive processing were established; these were incorporated into the model. Increased anxiety commonly experienced by patients can have a negative effect upon cognitive processing. Anxiety generates a hyper-vigilance for threatening stimuli, induces selective attentional bias for thre...

Flexible manpower lines (FMLs) are a form of flow process line in which operators are allocated 'walk cycles', i.e. a repetitive sequence in which to load and unload machine tools. The effective design of such lines is normally achieved with the expectation that operators without full walk cycles, i.e. those that do not require a full Takt time to accomplish, can complete their walk cycles at an adjoining FML. However, an alternative FML design strategy is possible in cases where no adjoining FML exists or it is not possible for operators to move between work areas. This strategy involves determining the minimum Takt time and the associated operator walk cycles at which the FML can operate under a fixed number of operators. To solve this type of problem, a genetic algorithm that make use of a novel crossover operator has been developed that can design FMLs. The genetic algorithm is capable of generating, for a specific Takt time and fixed number of operators, FMLs with high-quality, near-optimal operator walk cycles. Solutions for the fixed manpower case were then identified by performing multiple genetic algorithm runs to find the best walk cycles at various Takt times.

A step change has taken place in allocations policy in England with the recent adoption of choice-based letting (CBL). This centres on a customer-oriented approach with households responding to adverts. It requires the customer to indicate preferences based on social housing market information as opposed to landlords dictating an offer of a vacant property based on a measure of need. Innovative schemes by social housing organizations in the late 1990s provided the foundation for subsequent endorsement by the government. There have been many reasons for its adoption, including a greater customer orientation, tackling low demand, building sustainable neighbourhoods and improving organizational efficiency. Initial evaluation suggests positive benefits from the customer perspective of the lettings process (e.g. transparency), compared with traditional bureaucratic rationing systems. Nevertheless, there have been concerns on, for example, the impact on vulnerable groups and the extent to which CBL con...

This paper argues that fuzzy representations are appropriate in applications where there are major sources of imprecision and/or uncertainty. Case studies of fuzzy approaches to specific problems of medical diagnosis and classification are described in support of this argument. The case studies are in the areas of categorical consistency, diagnostic monitoring, and scoring. The solutions use a variety of fuzzy methods, including clustering, fuzzy set aggregation, and type-2 fuzzy set modeling of linguistic approximations. It is concluded that the fuzzy approach to the development of artificial intelligence in application systems in beneficial in these contexts because of the need to focus on uncertainty as a main issue.

Despite Labour's clear vision of a new form of local political leadership, the impact of the Local Government Act 2000 has been limited - but at the same time diverse. Local authorities have overwhelmingly selected the 'least change' option, but have elaborated the new models in a variety of ways. Drawing on case study data and a new institutionalist framework, the article looks beyond formal structures at the emerging practice of local political leadership. The government's structure-led approach has not delivered its 'ideal type' of local political leadership. The interaction of constitutions, contexts and capabilities is producing diverse experiences of political leadership and an uneven patterning of change and continuity. Future reform efforts should concentrate less upon the specification and imposition of formal structures and more upon facilitating local processes of institution-building.

Indonesia is currently the largest Muslim nation in the world; however, the understanding of when and especially how, Islam first reached maritime Southeast Asia is still far from clear. Written sources are sparse and often unreliable, archaeology is still in its infancy and the physical conditions in any case are not favourable to material survival. This article contributes to this debate by highlighting rich but unexploited epigraphic material found in a Colonial period archive in the University of Leiden. The archive is an extensive photographic documentation of the Islamic cemeteries of Aceh in north Sumatra, the location of some of the earliest Muslim mercantile polities in the region. The article is the first publication of the group of earliest locally produced tombstones from the polity of Samudera-Pasai. The article provides readings of these early epitaphs as well as exploring their material, manufacture and design, and the insights these provide into the multiple cultural traditions active in the area at the time. The article breaks new grounds in seeing these tombstones not simply as text – the dominant approach since the 19th century - but as “whole objects” within which the epigraphic and material data hold equal importance. The research was funded by a grant from the Committee for South East Asian Studies (British Academy) and a Tweedie Exploration Fellowship from the University of Edinburgh; work was also done during a period as an Affiliated Fellow of the International Institute of Asian Studies (Leiden). This work is being further developed for a future book on the material culture of death in Islamic Southeast Asia.

In preparing students to function as competent social workers, educational establishments have to be mindful both of the need to communicate the ideals and values of the profession and the requirement to produce practitioners who are capable of functioning productively within the organisational environment. It cannot be assumed that these two tasks are necessarily complementary. Feedback from former students suggests they feel less well prepared for the latter. This paper explores the way in which one Diploma in Social Work programme attempts to prepare its students for the realities of the organisational context of their work with service users. It focuses on a module which aims to teach students about some of the key tensions inherent in social welfare organisations by arranging for them to interview managers and practitioners in their chosen pathway setting. Their findings are analysed in relation to the theoretical teaching given at the start of the module. The positive feedback from the students sugg...

The provision of student housing since the post-Robbins expansion of higher education has followed no easily discernible policy path. With the post-1992 continued expansion of the sector, many questions are now being asked about student accommodation; not least as to by whom it should be provided and what the tenurial status of its occupants should be. However, central government policy on this issue seems unformulated or, at best, uncoordinated and recent statutory instruments granting exempt landlord status to two commercial providers of student housing give cause for concern. Rather than policy being translated into law, are we now facing a situation where, on an incremental and pragmatic basis, law will determine policy--and that on an issue which touches the lives of an increasing number of this nation's young people?

British local government is big business. It accounts for around 25 per cent of all public expenditure within Britain (about £80 billion a year in total) and is responsible for a wide range of services from allotments and adoption and fostering to zebra crossings and zoo licensing (Wilson and Game, 1998, p. 84; Wilson and Game, 1994, p. 26). In this context the role of local government in providing and supporting the arts may appear to be only a small element in the totality of what local government is concerned with providing.

Personal experience of an accident or ill-health might be expected to challenge a young person's sense of invulnerability when it comes to health risks. Such experiences might act as 'critical incidents' that drive home the message that 'it could indeed happen to me' and make the young person more concerned to avoid unnecessary health risks. But, is this 'rational' expectation borne out in practice? The research reported here investigates the extent to which such experiences constitute critical incidents—flashpoints in the lives of young people influencing their perceptions of health risks. In particular, it investigates how young people, aged 15–16 years, reflect on their personal experiences and the degree to which they believe the experiences have affected them. Based on survey research, focus groups and interviews conducted in the East Midlands of England, a diversity of responses is reported and discussed. The findings indicate that the objective features of critical incidents in themselves are not t...

This paper examines key aspects of the learning experiences of ten speech and language therapy (SLT) students on clinical placements, as revealed by an analysis of 102 narrative accounts. We argue that when students on placements tell stories of their learning experiences the process of recounting them can help them to reflect on and consolidate what they have learned and to have this learning validated by peer, clinician or tutor audiences. Thus, sharing learning through narrative communication is itself further learning from the original experience. We show how students evaluate their learning experiences, how their growing confidence is mediated by clinicians and how such narratives are shared in normal student interaction. Tutors might use the insights from narrative learning to raise students' awareness of their own learning, and thus to improve it.