Search results

This paper explores the reporting of the Russian American Company (RAC), from 1840 to 1863. Trading in fur, company fears of animal extinctions viewed from a monetary perspective led to early extinction reporting practice. These were not altruistic reports; they were generated by a wish to use natural resources. Despite the motivations, these reports present an example of successful extinction management by a for-profit company and a workable example of emancipatory extinction accounting.

Using thematic analysis, this study demonstrates how moving from transparency to accountability driven accounting can assist in biodiversity reporting, by exploring this historical business case of extinction management through the lens of Atkins and Maroun's (2018) extinction framework.

The application of the framework to the RAC's set of reports indicates that this offers a viable proposal for development of extinction management, providing a reporting tool for a for-profit company.

Exploring RAC's reports focusing on their extinction management processes and reporting, the paper contributes to the contemporary debate on the development of extinction reporting frameworks. These historical examples of extinction accounting, show extinction management and reporting is not a unique contemporary development in accounting. The research uses historical data as the empirical foundation for exploring applicability and further development of this extinction framework.

In this paper, we regard public procurement as an instrument used by the government for indirect support of enterprises. In this context, we have investigated the place that public procurement occupy in statebusiness interrelations. Using data from a large survey of Russian manufacturing enterprises conducted in 2009 we show that in Russia public procurement cannot be regarded as a component in the system of exchanges, and the extent of combination between direct and indirect support depends on the level of government. At the federal level direct and indirect instruments of government support complement each other. At the regional and local levels the effect of mutual complementation can be observed only in relations with firms, which conceal information about their ownership structure and are supposedly affiliated with regional and local bureaucrats. In relations with other firms at regional and local levels direct and indirect support substitutes each other.

It is almost to the day ten years since I had the honour of delivering before your Society the third of the Cantor Lectures for 1932. It is no less wise for the scientist than for the politician to remind himself of what he has said on previous occasions, so I read again what I had written then. Although it is part of my job in life to keep myself acquainted with advances in the study of nutrition I found myself wondering that so much had been learnt in these ten years. I was surprised to be reminded that nutrition experts at that time were unable to indicate more precisely than by a series of plus and minus signs what amounts of the more important vitamins are present in our common foods. Many other matters I discussed in those lectures brought home forcibly to me how inadequately prepared we would have been on what I may term the “ nutritional front,” had plans for feeding the people of this country for several years of war been called for in 1929. Comparisons between conditions prevailing during the warof 1914–18 and those existing to‐day constantly come to the mind of those whose experience covers both. But I will remind you of one great difference which is curiously rarely appreciated. In the last struggle the food position in Great Britain did not materially deteriorate until the latter part of 1917—after three years of war—and it was not found necessary to introduce rationing until February of 1918—a mere nine months before the Armistice. We are apt complacently to think our people were reasonably well fed for the latter part of that war period, and to point to the contrast with terrible conditions in Germany and Central Europe. What we often fail to recognise or even, perhaps, admit, is that, had the submarine campaign of 1918 continued for another year and become intensified to an extent comparable with what is being faced to‐day, we would probably have run into serious nutritional troubles because we had not then the scientific knowledge either to foresee them or to devise protective measures. The outbreak of the second world war in 1939 found us in an incomparably stronger position. It is true there were still disconcerting gaps in our knowledge, such, for example, as the lack of any trustworthy data as to the protein requirements of the adult man and woman, but, by and large, it was possible to draw up a basic plan for providing all categories of the population with food suitable for their nutritional requirements. The foundations of this plan were quantitative data, much of which had been acquired in very recent years. The importance of this basic plan lay in the fact that, whereas it was constructed in the first instance from these quantitative data concerning proteins, calories, vitamins and other nutrients, it could be developed in a variety of ways when it came to translation in terms of actual commodities. This gave it the quality of flexibility so essential if the plan were to be adaptable to changes in the quantities of individual foodstuffs available. We had something more than the estimates of requirements on which this basic plan was built. We had the invaluable information which Sir John Orr and others had collected from the surveys they had conducted during the four or five years before the war. This gave us a measure of the extent to which diets consumed in this country were nutritionally defective and in need of improvement. Moreover, it indicated quite clearly how important it would be to control the distribution of essential foods so that gross nutritional inequalities, revealed by these surveys, should be redressed as far as possible. The striking example of the success that has been achieved in this latter direction concerns the distribution of the liquid milk supply. Nutrition experts agree that the average consumption per head of the population ought to be not less than a pint a day. Before the war we drank about about half that quantity, but the curve relating volume consumed to income spent on food was disturbingly steep. Families spending more than 18s. a week per head on food were able to purchase nearly six pints a week for each member. Those who were unable to spare more than 5s. a week on their diet could not afford to purchase more than 1½ pints. It was clear at the beginning of the war, and even more obvious after the fall of Denmark and Holland, that there would be very great difficulties in the way of raising significantly the total milk consumption, much as that was to be desired. On the other hand, there was everything to be said for distributing more equably such supplies as were available. By one measure or another this has been achieved. The Milk in Schools Scheme, the National Milk Scheme, the Special Category Priority Scheme, each has served to flatten out the steep consumption income curve of pre‐war years. To‐day, we find that the poorest families covered by our surveys are drinking nearly 3½ pints of milk per head per week; the well‐to‐do families, scarcely more than 4½ pints. This naturally has raised a few grumbles from those who were fortunate enough before restrictions were imposed to be able to purchase all they wished to have, but we regard their troubles as trivial when we look at the benefits gained by the poorer people who have thus been enabled to get a fairer share of a food that has been aptly described as the keystone of the nutritional structure. If we look to the post‐war years—and it is one of the most heartening signs of the spirit in which we are waging this struggle against barbarism that so much attention is being paid to questions of reconstruction—we cannot see ourselves reverting to a state in which the consumption of milk can be seriously restricted by lack of purchasing power. The consumption of milk in one form or another must be raised. Our post‐war target should be a level 100 per cent. higher than the present figures, which, it may surprise you to learn, are actually higher than in 1939. But the curve must not be allowed to become steep again. Nearly a horizontal line, as it now is, its level must be raised without changing in shape. I believe that will be done. If it is, it will be a direct outcome of our nutrition policy during the present war. Those of us who have for many years studied experimental animals have long known of the profound effects of pre‐natal diet on the welfare of the mother and her offspring. Although there was every reason to believe that the same conditions would influence a woman and her child, precise information was curiously scanty. Here and there in the medical literature, suggestive records or observations could be gleaned, but there was not a convincing picture and much remained mere surmise. Largely as a result of the enthusiasm and enterprise of Miss Olga Nethersole, founder of the People's League of Health, an investigation was begun in London a year or so before the outbreak of war. I was privileged to serve on the Committee that directed the work. In all, no less than 5,000 women, typical of those coming for their confinements to the large London hospitals, were covered by the investigation. Approximately half the number of women were given vitamin and mineral supplements during the latter half of pregnancy; the supplements being in quantities likely to bring their total intake up to what scientists regard as desirable for that condition. The remainder were not so treated and served as controls. I will not give you the results in detail of this very comprehensive test, for they are about to be published in the medical press, but the chief finding was that the treated group showed a reduction in the incidence of toxæmic conditions and their sequelæ of such an order that, had the figures been applicable to the country as a whole—and, may I remind you that London has a relatively low toxæmia incidence by comparison with some other large towns?—the lives of no less than 10,000 women a year would have been saved.

The study aims at exploring the perspective of three English as a Foreign Language teachers after their year-long involvement in the Lesson Study project in the context of Kazakhstan in order to capture and list any perceived changes in teachers’ educational beliefs over the period of the Lesson Study intervention. The main argument of the study suggests that the school-based Lesson Study initiative is conducive to triggering changes in teachers’ educational beliefs, and thus, might lead to positive changes in school culture in Kazakhstani schools. Shaped following Hill et al., (1982) in Swales, 1990 hour-glass model of a research project (Swales, 1990), the article reflects the third concluding part of the Ph.D. thesis focusing on the implementation of the Lesson Study methodology in Kazakhstan.

The study adopts the qualitative research design and follows the narrative inquiry methodology. The three narrative interviews (Bauer, 1996) are utilized as the main method of data collection. The data were analyzed as text following a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2003), where emerging themes were identified employing data reduction and further sub-categorized through the conceptual and theoretical lenses of the study. The emerged categories reflecting the perceived shifts in teachers’ educational beliefs were dialectically linked to implications for school culture in Kazakhstani schools.

As data suggest, the respondents’ active engagement in the Lesson Study professional learning community and exercising leadership through implementing changes in their classroom practice has made a positive impact on teachers’ rethinking their teaching practice, attitudes to students and their learning, collegiality, and professional self-identification. We conclude that, if organized properly, Lesson Study has enormous potential to facilitate changes of teachers’ educational beliefs: from direct transmission beliefs toward constructivist beliefs, from restricted professionals’ beliefs toward reflective practitioner beliefs and attitudes, toward beliefs in the power of student’s voice, and collaboration. Those shifts are linked to establishing a more positive, child-friendly and rights-based school culture with teachers’ shared visions and capacity for innovation.

We acknowledge that the abundance of the reported positive changes or perceived shifts in teachers’ thinking might not be the indicators of actual changes in their beliefs. We emphasize that the study was carried in a controlled context, i.e. the three ELF teachers were constantly supported, and the teacher talk was systematically guided by a trained facilitator. Warned by Giroux et al. (1999), we are aware of the major challenge of the fundamental assumption of critical pedagogy that teachers are willing and able to undertake “the practice of analyzing their practice” (p. 27) voluntarily. Thus, the question remains open: if the facilitator’s support is eliminated, will the results point to the occurrence of the disruption and disorientation as a necessary condition for the beliefs change?

Carried out in the largely overlooked by the academic literature context of the Reform at Scale (Wilson et al., 2013) in Kazakhstan and building on the original combination of conceptual and theoretical lenses, the research contributes to the academic literature by connecting teachers’ educational beliefs, Lesson Study and school culture. The findings might be of value for the school leaders, educators, teacher trainers, and policymakers to advocate Lesson Study as a systematic approach to the whole-school improvement, as a tool to facilitate positive changes in school culture, as well as give impetus to studies employing the school culture perspective in developing Lesson Study impact evaluation tools.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from a case study of an action research project in the context of a secondary school in Kazakhstan where, for the first time in their teaching practice, three English as a Foreign Language teachers introduced student voice (Flutter and Rudduck, 2004) into their practice within the Lesson Study (LS) framework. The research aimed at conceptualizing Student Voice Space in LS as one of the valuable factors capable of triggering situations of disjuncture (disorienting dilemma, disruption) for teachers which could potentially lead to teacher’s transformative learning, educational beliefs change and improved practice.

The study adopts the qualitative research design and follows narrative inquiry methodology (Lyons and LaBoskey, 2002) with a series of narrative interviews (Bauer, 1996) as the main method of data collection within a single case study (Bassey, 1999) of an action research project. The data were analyzed as text following a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2003) where emerging themes were identified by means of data reduction.

The findings suggest that listening to student voice triggers teachers’ going through certain stages of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory including critical assessment of own assumptions, testing new options for behavior and reflecting critically on the teaching practice. Therefore, the authors suggest that Student Voice Space in LS is one of the important factors capable of triggering the teacher’s transformative learning. Moreover, it has an enormous potential not only to bring about positive changes in teachers’ practice but also challenge the ossified teachers’ educational beliefs, and thus, potentially, pave the way for a gradual change from “inappropriate beliefs” (Mayrhofer, 2019), or subconscious assumptions that lie in the core of teachers’ folk pedagogies (Torff, 1999), or taken-for-granted frames of reference (Mezirow, 2000) into true, justified or informed educational beliefs.

Further analysis of teachers’ narratives is required to elicit and categorize reported changes (shifts, transformations) concerning specific teachers’ educational beliefs, and draw a more clear line between student voice and its impact on the research lesson planning and its modification in LS. Finally, a supplementary study utilizing classroom observation methods is needed to explore if student voice intervention results in tangible (actual) changes in teachers’ classroom practice and educational beliefs, rather than potential transformations that are mainly reported in this study.

Carried out in the largely overlooked by the academic literature context of the Reform at Scale (Wilson et al., 2013) in Kazakhstan and building on the original combination of theoretical lenses, the research contributes to the academic literature aiming at illuminating “the black box of teachers’ learning” in Lesson Study (in Widjaja et al., 2017, p.358) since it is one of the rare studies attempting to connect teacher learning, student voice and Lesson Study (Warwick et al., 2019). Additionally, approaching teacher learning in Lesson Study from the transformative learning perspective combined with the literature on teachers’ educational beliefs and student voice, this study contributes to the further development of a shared vocabulary for discussing teacher learning in Lesson Study.

“When James Boswell returned from a tour of Corsica in 1765 he wrote: ‘It is indeed amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known.’ The same might be said today of Puerto Rico.” Thus began Millard Hansen and Henry Wells in the foreword to their 1953 look at Puerto Rico's democratic development. Four decades later, the same could again be said about the island.

Accidents resulting from poorly planned or setup work environments are a major concern within the construction industry. While traditional education and training of personnel offer well-known approaches for establishing safe work practices, serious games in virtual reality (VR) are increasingly being used as a complementary approach for active learning experiences. By taking full advantage of data collection and the interactions possible in the virtual environment, the education and training of construction personnel improves by using non-biased feedback and immersion.

This research presents a framework for the generation and automated assessment of VR data. The proposed approach is tested and evaluated in a virtual work environment consisting of multiple hazards. VR requires expensive hardware, technical knowledge and user acceptance to run the games effectively. An effort has been made to transfer the advantages VR gives to a physical setup. This is done using a light detection and ranging sensing system, which collects similar data and enables the same learning experiences.

Encouraging results on the participants’ experiences are presented and discussed based on actual needs in the Danish construction industry. An outlook presents future avenues towards enhancing existing learning methods.

The proposed method will help develop active learning environments, which could lead to safer construction work stations in the future, either through VR or physical simulations.

The utilization of run-time data collection and automatic analysis allows for better personalized feedback in the construction safety training. Furthermore, this study investigates the possibility of transferring the benefits of this system to a physical setup that is easier to use on construction sites without investing in a full VR setup.

We tend to think only in terms of man acting upon the inanimate world. If one is dealing with things or numbers then laws may be deduced, equations derived and, if the right question is asked, the correct answer will come. This is the technology of science, but what one has to remember is that science has for its object — things. It can bring to bear the force of the ‘big machines’, the strength of the trained and gifted individual, but what it cannot do is to unleash power.

Here is the long‐awaited fourth edition of Ralph De Sola's classic Abbreviations Dictionary. This updated edition of a work first published in 1958 is the largest, most complete compilation of its kind — a reference book far surpassing all others in the field. Mr. De Sola has expanded his work to include more than 130,000 definitions and entries — over 77,000 definitions, over 54,000 entries. The current edition offers abbreviations, acronyms, anonyms, contradictions, initials and nicknames, short forms and slang shortcuts, and signs and symbols covering disciplines which range from the arts to the advanced sciences and embrace all areas of human knowledge and activity.

There are many investigations in design methodologies, but there are also divergences and convergences as there are so many points of view. This study aims to evaluate to corroborate and deepen other researchers’ findings, dissipate divergences and provide directing to future work on the subject from a methodological and convergent perspective.

This study analyzes the previous reviews (about 15 reviews) and based on the consensus and the classifications provided by these authors, a significant sample of research is analyzed in the design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) theme (approximately 80 articles until June of 2017 and approximately 280–300 articles until February of 2019) through descriptive statistics, to corroborate and deepen the findings of other researchers.

Throughout this work, this paper found statistics indicating that the main areas studied are: multiple objective optimizations, execution of the design, general DFAM and DFAM for functional performance. Among the main conclusions: there is a lack of innovation in the products developed with the methodologies, there is a lack of exhaustivity in the methodologies, there are few efforts to include environmental aspects in the methodologies, many of the methods include economic and cost evaluation, but are not very explicit and broad (sustainability evaluation), it is necessary to consider a greater variety of functions, among other conclusions

The novelty in this study is the methodology. It is very objective, comprehensive and quantitative. The starting point is not the case studies nor the qualitative criteria, but the figures and quantities of methodologies. The main contribution of this review article is to guide future work on the subject from a methodological and convergent perspective and this article provides a broad database with articles containing information on many issues to make decisions: design methodology; optimization; processes, selection of parts and materials; cost and product management; mechanical, electrical and thermal properties; health and environmental impact, etc.