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The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student ratings and teacher ratings on a university-level writing assignment in order to investigate the extent to which students have the ability and wherewithal to accurately and reliably assess themselves on a finished writing product. The Pearson Product Moment coefficient was used to determine whether or not there was a statistical correlation between student scores and teacher scores while the Intra-Class Coefficient and Spearman Brown Prophecy formula were used to determine the degree of agreement between raters as well as amongst all of the raters for an average reliability score. In this case the results were very promising as it was found that student and teacher scores correlated very highly and demonstrated a strong degree of agreement. This suggests that self assessment may be used to assist students in this particular context to better understand the conventions of English writing and ultimately improve their overall writing ability.

The United Arab Emirates has made great strides in terms of its overall educational system with a variety of educational reforms to meet the nation's strategic vision. In this chapter, we utilize Hood's (1998) social cohesion/social regulation theory and DiMaggio and Powell's (1991) institutional theory to examine the evidence-informed teaching practice in the UAE. It is evident that the UAE educational model sits in the top two quadrants based on this chapter's analysis – a high social cohesion with high social regulation (i.e., “a hierarchist way”) and at times exhibiting fatalism with high social regulation and low social cohesion. Although the findings reveal substantial diversity in terms of enablers and barriers to evidence-informed practices, they provide a space to reflect on the complex cultural and social contexts behind such a diverse set of perspectives and responses.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an examination of the perceptions of two principals and two lead teachers regarding their own leadership styles, including how they define and perform their roles as leaders.

The research employed a case study design whereby two principals and two lead teachers (one of each from a government school (GS) and a private school in Abu Dhabi UAE) were interviewed over the course of one semester.

Results suggest that the two principals viewed themselves as succeeding in six domains – school climate, school leadership, personnel management, administration and school management, student management, and relationships with parents and the community – but that they desired to improve with regard to curriculum development and professional and in-service development. The two lead teachers primarily defined their leadership roles as providing assistance to others and modeling best practice and flexibility, and considered themselves bridges between other teachers and the administration, as well as task facilitators and task achievers.

The paper reveals that both principals and teachers in Abu Dhabi engage in a number of activities consistent with much of the literature on effective school leadership styles. However, the findings also shed light on several marked differences between private and GSs in the Emirate, a lack of genuine collaboration between principals and teachers, and possible constraints on school leadership caused by top-down administrative practices.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the broadband frequency response of the impedance matrix of wireless power transfer (WPT) systems comprising litz wire coils.

A finite-element (FE)-based method is proposed which treats the microstructure of litz wires by an auxiliary cell problem. In the macroscopic model, litz wires are represented by a block with a homogeneous, artificial material whose properties are derived from the cell problem. As the frequency characteristics of the material closely resemble a Debye relaxation, it is possible to convert the macroscopic model to polynomial form, which enables the application of model reduction techniques of moment-matching type.

FE-based model-order reduction using litz wire homogenization provides an efficient approach to the broadband analysis of WPT systems. The error of the reduced-order model (ROM) is comparable to that of the underlying original model and can be controlled by varying the ROM dimension.

Since the present model does not account for displacement currents, the operating frequency of the system must lie well below its first self-resonance frequency.

The proposed method is well-suited for the computer-aided design of WPT systems. It outperforms traditional FE analysis in computational efficiency.

The presented homogenization method employs a new formulation for the cell problem which combines the benefits of several existing approaches. Its incorporation into an order-reduction method enables the fast computation of broadband frequency sweeps.

During the 1990s the value to an intending professional accountant of undertaking a period of liberal (general) studies was promoted internationally by a number of individuals and organisations, including the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (the “Institute”). The Institute significantly changed its admissions policy for Chartered Accountants in 1996 and one change was to require four years of degree level study with a compulsory liberal studies component. This study surveys the perceptions of New Zealand accounting practitioners on the impact of this compulsory liberal component. The results of this study demonstrate that there is little support from accounting practitioners for IFAC’s claim that liberal education “can contribute significantly to the acquisition of professional skills”, including intellectual, personal and communication skills. In addition, the majority of respondents did not perceive any improvements in the professional skills of the staff that had qualified under the Institute’s current admissions policy. However, any perceived improvements were mainly attributed to the Institute’s admissions policy change. Notwithstanding the lack of support for the assertion that liberal education develops professional skills, there is a strong belief by respondents in the value of liberal education for intending professional accountants.

The purpose of this study is to compare the patrons of chain home centers and patrons of small hardware stores.

A questionnaire was administered to individuals residing in two adjacent metropolitan areas located in the US Midwest. Respondents were contacted via telephone and were asked to respond to questions addressing their hardware store/home center preferences and shopping activity.

Respondents' assessments of the importance of eight attributes relating to shopping experience were not able to differentiate between patrons of small hardware stores and patrons of large home centers. Furthermore, the type of hardware retailer that individuals most commonly patronize does not appear to affect their assessments of various types of hardware retailers stores nor the amount of time respondents spent during a typical visit to their most patronized home center/hardware store. Finally, the only demographic difference noted involved income – respondents who shopped most often at large home centers were found to have a significantly higher income than those who shopped most often at small hardware stores.

The results of this study indicate that, at least for the issues examined, there appears to be relatively little difference between the individuals who patronize chain home centers and those who patronize small hardware stores. Consequently, individuals' choices of hardware retailer to patronize appears to be more complex than anticipated.

The growth of chains in hardware retailing has not received the same degree of attention as chain stores in other areas of retailing.