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The purpose of this paper is to examine how Harry Messel, Harold Wyndham, L.C. Robson and Robert Menzies were instrumental in bringing about substantial change in science curriculum and infrastructure reform in NSW schools.

The paper relies on substantial archival research including materials never before examined or used by historians of education history. The paper is divided into sections, the first uses teacher surveys and identifies problems with science teaching in 1958, a key year in education history and each section after that looks at the contribution of Wyndham, Messel, Robson and Menzies in driving a new direction for science education.

The research found that Wyndham, Messel, Robson and Menzies each contributed a new dimension to the reform of science education in Australia. Their individual contributions were substantial, inter-related and interlocking but quite different. The paper argues that it is not adequate to look at science education reform purely as a means to introduce State Aid, rather science education reform was advocated as a means to ensure students had a scientific literacy going forward into a technologically driven future.

The research strikes a path through a vast primary source record to outline how individuals and science teachers more generally believed in science education reform as a mechanism to ensure students were better placed to enter a post-Sputnik world. As a result, known arguments around State Aid are only part of the story and not the main focus of the research. The aim is to supplement that knowledge by looking more at a broader picture for science reform for its own sake.

This paper takes an original approach to the history of curriculum change by providing a broader context for the State Aid debate, that is, by focussing on individual contributions to science education reform for its own sake and because science education was deemed necessary for student literacy in the future. At the same time it uses archival material never before accessed or used to tease out this history. The teachers’ surveys provide a unique insight into conditions for science teachers in the late 1950s. This material has not been accessed before and it provides a context upon which to superimpose the impact of the contributions of Wyndham, Messel, Robson and Menzies.

The origins of statistical information relating to the textile industry as to statistics generally are to be found mainly in the needs of Governments which, especially in the field of export and import trade, have collected information from the earliest days and for which, in the case of the United Kingdom, systematic trade statistics tabulated by goods and countries date from 1696.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of small business entrepreneurs’ relinquishment of control aversion and the impact of their interaction with external financiers on market connection.

Questionnaires were sent to the chief executive officers of small businesses in the manufacturing and professional services sectors. A total of 459 valid responses were analyzed in a structural equation model.

The attitude of small business entrepreneurs in relying on financiers’ advice is marked by control aversion. This fear of losing control creates information asymmetry, which in itself leads to decreased financing opportunities for small business entrepreneurs. The results of the study suggest that small firms seeking the aid of financiers will be provided with substantial additional information about the market. Issues pertaining to supply seem to be less relevant than those relating to demand, thus indicating that greater focus should be placed on the investment readiness of small businesses.

This study emphasizes the importance of the role of attitudes among SMEs in understanding capital market failure and credit rationing.

In 2008, a number of Southern African countries cultivated about 900,000 ha of Jatropha, with a number of biodiesel plants ready for production; however, none of the projects succeeded. In 2014, KiOR advanced biofuel Energy Company in the USA announced bankruptcy due to incompetent technology. Studies disclose that the reasons for biofuel plants failure are not only due to lack of incentives and unclear policies but also due to lack of economic feasibility and low production yields. This paper aims to review the techno-economy assessment of second-generation biofuel technologies. The purpose of this paper is to summarize specific techno-economic indicators such as production cost, technology efficiency and process life cycle analysis for advanced biofuel technology and to narrate and illustrate a clear view of what requires assessment to deploy a feasible advanced biofuel technology. This study also reviews assessment of biomass supply chain, feedstock availability and site selection criteria. The review also elaborates on the use of different processes, forecasting and simulation-modeling tools used in different techno-economic analysis studies. The review provides guidance for conducting a technical and economic feasibility study for the advanced biofuels energy business.

The aim of this review is, therefore, to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility studies for the establishment of viable industrial scale production of second-generation biofuels. It does so by grouping studies based on technology selection, feedstock availability and suitability, process simulation and economies as well as technology environmental impact assessment.

In conclusion, techno-economic analysis tools offer researchers insight in terms of where their research and development should focus, to attain the most significant enhancement for the economics of a technology. The study patterns within the scope of techno-economics of advanced biofuel reveal that there is no generic answer as to which technology would be feasible at a commercial scale. It is therefore important to keep in mind that models can only simplify and give a simulation of reality to a certain extent. Nevertheless, reviewed studies do not reach the same results, but some results are logically similar.

The originality of this article specifically illustrates important technical and economic indicators that should be considered when conducting feasibility studies for advance biofuels.

The physical health of people with mental illness may be neglected for a variety of reasons. This paper looks at the common physical health problems experienced by people with a dual diagnosis of substance misuse and serious mental illness, and suggests ways of assessing and managing them.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sources and use of social capital on small firm growth in an emerging economy. The study also examines the relationship between small firms’ human capital, internal resources and strategy on social capital sources used, and their impact on small firms’ growth in employment.

The study uses logistics regression and structural equation modelling to analyse data gathered from 441 small firms located in six regions of Ghana where approximately 81 per cent of all businesses are found.

Among the 16 sources of social capital examined, customers were found to be the most used source and the only social capital source that showed significant statistical association with firm growth in employment. Also, the study revealed that human capital, firm resources and strategy variables such as educational level of the owner-manager, firm size, location, firm involvement in internalisation and innovation are statistically significant with social capital sources such as accountants, banks, solicitors, business associates and chamber of commerce.

The findings of the study have implications for policy and practice in situations where government and private sector institutions mandated to support enterprise development appear to be the least social capital sources used by small firms. The findings also provide a better understanding of the use and impact of social capital sources on small firm growth in an emerging economy in Africa.

This study appears to be the first known research on small firms’ social capital that has examined 16 different social capital sources and shown how human capital, internal resources and firm strategy have influenced the use of social capital sources by small firms in an emerging economy.

This study aims to investigate whether “small- and medium-sized enterprises” (SMEs) benefit from their external accountants’ business advice through enhanced firm performance. Most SMEs draw on external support, and their main advisors are external accountants (Bennett and Robson, 1999). The resource-based view of the firm suggests that firms will seek external support if they perceive a gap in their internal resources.

Data were collected from a questionnaire mailed to a random sample of Australian SMEs, defined as businesses having between 5 and 200 full-time employees.

An analysis of 380 survey respondents confirms a positive relationship between the voluntary purchase of business advice and SME performance, and that SME performance is further enhanced when business advice is purchased jointly with auditing. These relationships apply to the small (5-49 employees) but not to the medium-sized (50-200 employees) businesses. Findings are consistent with smaller firms having narrower resource bases and thus a greater need to source business advice.

The accounting profession has long encouraged a broadening of its service base, and evidence that small businesses perceive a performance benefit from their accountants’ business advice provides support for the profession’s strategy.

This research extends the empirical literature investigating the link between the business advice of an external accountant and SME performance. It explains small firms’ demand for business advice by extending the application of the resource-based view of the firm and provides new evidence consistent with “knowledge spillover” from auditing to business advice in the small firm environment.

THE EARLY development of the aviation gas turbine was carried out using relatively conventional mineral oil lubricants. With further development of this engine, it became clear that mineral oils were unable to satisfy the demands placed upon the lubricant by the extremes of temperature met with in aviation gas turbine operation. Oxidative instability at high temperature and inadequate viscosity index were two of the prime considerations that triggered off the search for alternative fluids. This search soon revealed that the physical characteristics of a group of chemicals known as diesters offered the best available combinations of properties for use as jet engine lubricants.

Teaching sustainable development at the higher education level requires that existing curricula are supplemented with multi-disciplinary (and sometimes multi-national) collaboration and integrated thinking. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of a particular framework for business model innovation for sustainability-as-flourishing that is used as a boundary object in the context of interdisciplinary, peer-assessed distance learning. This study is positioned in the broader picture of enlarging curricular content so as to reflect the systemic and interconnected nature of socio-technical and economic developments. The motivation behind this study is the authors’ wish to achieve a deeper understanding of how students engage with the complex concept of sustainable business modelling, while using the flourishing business canvas (FBC).

An experiment was conducted on the use of the FBC as a boundary object among 52 engineering students at two universities. Data were provided by the following: iterations of the FBC; oral and written peer feedback; and an online survey.

Based on an evaluation of the experiment, this study shows that the FBC supports the use of multi-disciplinary, multi-national peer and distance learning in sustainability education.

This study used one test condition of multi-disciplinary, multi-national collaboration for peer and distance learning at one point in time. Additional tests, using the tools and approaches of this study, are needed.

Various tools and methods for use in education have been developed that support a new view of sustainability –sustainability-as-flourishing. Extant research focusses primarily on the development of tools and methods in this area. Not enough attention has been paid to the analysis of their implementation and use in higher education. This paper seeks to fill that research gap.

The main purpose of this article is to study the influence of cognitive tasks on mentoring provided and the moderating influence of professional teacher education.

This cross-sectional survey was based on a questionnaire that was sent to a total of 435 employees from 29 pre-schools in Norway. A total of 284 responses were returned, a response rate of 65.3 per cent. Two research hypotheses were formulated. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to develop three measurement models and structural equation modelling (SEM) based on multi-group analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The results revealed that cognitive tasks increase the occurrence of mentoring provided at work and professional teacher education moderates this relationship.

The use of convenience sampling and self-reports are discussed, especially related to representativeness and reporting biases.

The findings implicate a need for increased interdisciplinary co-operation both at work and in the teacher education.

This is an under-studied area and no previous research has used a confirmatory approach to investigate how cognitive tasks and professional education influence the occurrence of mentoring provided.