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There is a growing awareness worldwide of the importance of the information available in Japanese scientific, technical and commercial literature. A survey of the demand for Japanese serial literature was carried out at the British Library Document Supply Centre in late 1985, and the results were compared with the demand for literature in general. Results suggest that the Japanese are more interested in western developments than other countries are in Japanese science and technology; in other words, the language barrier affects westerners far more than it affects the Japanese. Academic institutions are the predominant UK users of Japanese literature, followed closely by industry/commerce. With overseas users, most use comes from the industrial/commercial sector. A significant amount of Japanese scientific, technical and business literature is largely underused: Japanese journals seeking to expand their readership would need to consider increasing their English language content.

This paper aims to describe a method of teaching that is based on Novak's concept‐mapping technique.

The paper shows how concept mapping can be used to measure prior knowledge and how simple mapping exercises can promote the integration of teachers' and students' understandings in ways that are meaningful.

The concept‐mapping method facilitates quick and easy measures of student knowledge‐change so that teachers can identify the parts of the curriculum that are being understood and those that are not. This is possible even among very large student groups in the 50‐minute slots that are allocated to so much teaching in higher education.

Concept mapping is discussed in the wider context of student learning style. The styles literature has been criticised because it tends to encourage undue labelling of people or behaviours. The approach described here also uses “labels” to typify learning (using the terms non‐learning and rote or meaningful learning to identify different qualities of change).

The difference in this approach is that terms are attached to empirical measures of learning outcome, not to personal or psychological styles. Concept mapping makes learning visible so that the actual quality of the learning that has occurred can be seen and explored. Using concept mapping in the course of teaching means that learning is no longer a complex and intractable process, measurable only by proxy, but an observable phenomenon.

David Peace’s Red Riding quartet ( 1974; 1977; 1980; 1983 ) was published in the UK between 1999 and 2002. The novels are an excoriating portrayal of the violences of men, focusing on paedophilia and child murder, the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and, predominantly, the blurring of boundaries between the activities of police officers, criminals and entrepreneurs. This chapter aims to examine the way in which the criminal entrepreneur draws on socially constructed ideas of masculinity and the capitalist ideal in order to establish identity. This will be achieved through an examination of John Dawson, a character central to the UK Channel Four/Screen Yorkshire’s Red Riding Trilogy, the filmed version of the novels, first screened in 2009. The central role of networks of powerful men in creating space for the criminal entrepreneur and the cultural similarities between police officers and criminal entrepreneur will be explored.

Using the research approach of bricolage, the chapter provides a reflexive commentary on the films, drawing on a number of other texts and sources, including news accounts of featured events and interviews with the author David Peace and the series co-producer Jamie Nuttgens – an analysis of the texts, using a framework suggested by van Dijk (1993) and McKee (2003) features.

The centrality of the idea of hegemonic masculinity to the activities of both police officers, and criminals and businessmen and Hearn’s (2004) assertion that the cultural ideal and institutional power are inextricably linked are examined through an analysis of the role of Dawson (and his three linked characters in the novels) in the Red Riding Trilogy.

The chapter provides an analysis of one film series but could provide a template to apply to other texts in relation to topic.

The social implications of the findings of the research are discussed in relation to work on the impact of media representations (Dyer, 1993; Hall, 1997).

It is intended that the chapter will add to the growing body of academic work on the criminal entrepreneur and the ways in which media representation of particular groups may impact on public perception and construction of social policy.

In the summer of 1995, shortly after the UN launched the Decade for Human Rights Education,Henry Steiner, Director of Harvard University’s Law School Human Rights Program, provided added momentum for the campaign with these words of inspiration, “As little as two years ago, rare was the university whose curricula included human rights studies. Much has changed, to the point where one no longer questions why such studies should be offered but rather how they could be ignored.” While this is not entirely the case for the whole of universities spanning the globe, including Bulgaria, it does point favorably towards a growing mentality in the importance of human rights education. Grasping the significance of human rights education is an essential component for the full manifestation of human rights, and unfortunately, it is an element still missing. This, in a time when society should be moving to the next dimension‐beyond what we already know to be necessary to creating the reality that is, specific action towards implementation of human rights education. Perhaps then, it can only move us closer to fruition to question and unearth the road blocks to the realization of human rights education.

The purpose of this paper is to explain and develop a classification of cognitive structures (or typologies of thought), previously designated as spoke, chain and network thinking by Kinchin et al.

The paper shows how concept mapping can be used to reveal these conceptual typologies and endeavours to place the concept‐mapping method in the broader context of learning styles and learning theory.

The findings suggest that spoke structures are indicative of a naïve epistemology, or of “learning‐readiness”; chain structures are indicators of “goal‐orientation” and networks are indicators of expertise. Furthermore, change that comprises simple elaboration of existing spokes or chains is likely to be the result of surface learning styles and the emergence of networks indicative of deep learning. The utility of these different cognitive approaches is discussed.

The work is limited by the general lack of empirical testing, but the approach is presented as an important source of hypotheses for future research.

The practical implications of the research are considerable. First, concept mapping provides a framework for documenting and assessing understanding at “novice” and “expert” levels. Second, where definitive criteria can be developed from the learning styles literature, cognitive change in the course of learning can be evaluated to distinguish between deep versus surface or holist versus serialist approaches, for example.

The papers original and comprises a synthetic approach to the study of learning style and learning theory through the use of the concept‐mapping method. It has both practical and theoretical value because it suggests a new approach and is an important source of testable hypotheses.

Since the disintegration of Cold War international systemic bipolarity in 1989, the international community has witnessed the entrance of at least 30 new states, proclaiming their formal sovereignty by obtaining membership in the United Nations. As with the previous wave of UN membership enlargement following decolonization three decades earlier, this most recent burst of accessions reflected inter alia the power of nationalism to change the domestic and international political status quo. In some cases, horrendous violence at times approaching genocidal levels has accompanied these changes. Of ten boundaries among these new states remain under intense dispute. This persistence and intensification of movements for national self‐determination require that the prerequisites for a successful international strategy for peacefully regulating this type of change include accommodation of sovereign self‐determination for “aspiring” nations.

The human development index (HDI) and gender‐related development index (GDI) have become accepted as leading measures for ranking human well being in different countries. The purpose of this paper is to identify the planning policies that improve these indices and to also suggest modifications to the indices that yield more sensible policies.Design/methodology/approach – This paper solves the first‐best welfare problem in which the planner maximizes a development index subject to resource constraints.Findings – Planning strategies that maximize the HDI tend towards minimizing consumption and maximizing expenditures on education and health. Interestingly, such strategies also tend towards equitable allocations, even though inequality aversion is not modelled in the HDI. The paper shows that the GDI generates optimal plans with similar properties, and determine when the GDI and HDI generate consistent optimal plans. A problematic feature of the optimal plans is that the income component in the HDI (or GDI) does not play its intended role of securing resources for a decent standard of living. Rather, it acts to distort the allocation between health and education expenditure. The paper argues that it is better to drop income from the index. Alternatively, the paper considers net income, income net of education and health expenditures, as indicating capabilities not already reflected in the index. Finally, it compares how the modified indices and the HDI rank countries.Originality/value – The paper is believed to be the first to integrate development indices into national development planning.

EEVL, the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, is a gateway to engineering information on the Internet. After a brief outline of the need for such a gateway and the background to the EEVL project, this article looks at certain similarities and differences in the development of EEVL and various other subject based information gateways (SBIGs) such as ADAM, SOSIG, and OMNI, and similar services such as BUBL. EEVL’s present situation and future prospects are outlined.