Teaching and Learning Politics: a Survey of Practices and Change in UK Universities

The paper presents the results of a survey of practices and change in respect of teaching and learning politics in UK universities for the period 1991/92–1994/95. It begins by contextualizing the survey; summarizing changes that occurred in higher education in the UK in the early 1990s and reviewing key strands in contemporary British literature on teaching and learning in higher education. Following a methods section, the findings of the survey are then presented. These suggest that, in 1994/95, UK politics departments were struggling to cope with increased student numbers and resource constraints whilst retaining a broadly traditionalist approach to teaching and learning. Implications of these findings are then considered in a short concluding discussion.     

Realities and mythologies of rape

He is author of Capitalism and the Welfare State; Clients and Constituents;and co-author of The Enabling State: Modern Welfare Capitalism in America;and Protecting Young Children from Sexual Abuse: Does Preschool Training Work?     

BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS AND THE DEMISE OF THE COMMONWEALTH TERTIARY EDUCATION COMMISSION

Abstract: In the early 1980s the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission functioned as a relatively independent, self-directed policy arena within the commonwealth bureaucracy. Policy outputs tended to be consistent and coherent over time. During the last three or four years, however, a number of federal departments succeeded in gaining control over aspects of tertiary education policy. This development was due partly to a changed economic environment which encouraged the growth of cross-sectoral programs, and partly to administrative reforms introduced by the Hawke government which fostered increased interdepartmental competition. The outcome was the fragmentation of the tertiary education policy process. The removal of CTEC and the creation of the Department of Employment, Education and Training is an attempt to reimpose a greater degree of coordination and integration upon tertiary education policy procedures.     

COMMUNITY COUNCILS IN SCOTLAND: SOME LESSONS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The concept of "community councils" is one which has gained increasing prominence in Scottish local government during the last few years. Their main function is simply to advise local councillors on the views of the local community. Our basic contention is that the local government system in New South Wales (and, probably, other states) could benefit from studying the Scottish experience.     

Rapid determination of carbohydrates in heroin drug seizures using capillary electrophoresis with short-end injection

A simple and rapid method for the analysis of carbohydrates in heroin samples by capillary electrophoresis utilizing a borate complexation method is described. Separations were performed using an uncoated fused silica capillary, 50 cm x 50 micro I.D. x 360 microm O.D. with an effective separation length of 9 cm. The system was run at 60 degrees C with an applied voltage of -8 kilovolts. Injection of each sample was for 1 sec at -50 mbar. UV detection was employed with the wavelength set at 195 nm. The background electrolyte consisted of 65 mM borate, pH 12.0. Samples and standards were prepared in the run buffer containing 2 mg/mL of mannose as an internal standard. Under these conditions a test mixture containing glucose, sucrose, lactose, mannitol and mannose as an internal standard was resolved within 5 min. The method was used to determine the concentration of carbohydrates in heroin seizure samples and synthetic heroin samples. The results were in good agreement with the reported values.     

Optimal Pricing of Court Services

Litigants are generally charged for using court services. The charges involved are usually set to achieve a combination of efficiency, equity and funding goals. This paper presents a simple model, based on regulated monopoly pricing, to address the question of how these charges should be set. We find that fixed fees generally form part of the optimal charging package, despite concerns about their regressive nature. Per-unit fees will also be used though they may be set below cost; in this case, a trade-off emerges and the fixed fee is used to achieve funding goals. Our model is a useful one for developing extensions from the nonlinear pricing literature.JEL K40, L50     

The New Forest Suicide Prevention Initiative (NFSPI)

A retrospective suicide study revealed that the Forestry Commission car parks in the New Forest in southern England were a previously unrecognized magnet for nonlocal suicides, attracting as high a proportion of "visitors" (35/43 in 1993-97) as among suicides who jumped from the cliffs at the infamous Beachy Head (39/48 in 1993-97). Over 95% of the car park suicides died from car exhaust gas poisoning. A multiagency initiative aimed to reduce the number of suicides in the 140 New Forest car parks where restricting access was impossible, and environmental issues paramount. Signs displaying the Samaritans' national telephone number were erected in the 26 car parks in which 50% of the car park suicides had occurred. Numbers, location, and residence of all car park deaths were monitored for 3 years. Corresponding changes in other forest registration districts were also monitored. During the 3-year intervention period the number of car park suicides fell significantly from 10/year, 1988-1997, to 3.3/year. The average annual total number of suicides in the New Forest registration district also decreased. No significant changes were found in comparable forest districts. The number of suicides in the New Forest car parks remained low during the 2 years following the evaluation.     

A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel: testing of a less destructive sampling methodology

Aspartic acid racemization has been found to be an accurate measure of age at death for recent forensic material. This paper examines the practicality of using acid etching of the tooth surface to extract amino acids from the enamel for racemization analysis. By serial etching of the tooth and contamination of the teeth with bovine serum albumin prior to etching, the ability of etching to remove contamination was assessed. The destructiveness of the method was visualized and quantified using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). By bleaching the teeth and by deeper etching it was possible to obtain more consistent values. While etching had little effect on the enamel at the macroscale, it did have an impact at the microscale. The quantities of enamel removed varied depending upon the tooth morphology, but were not large. Acid etching of enamel thus appears to be a promising new method for extracting proteins for amino acid racemization age estimation noninvasively.     

Excretion of Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol in sweat

The aims of this study were: first, to determine the accuracy of the Cameriere method for assessing chronological age in children based on the relationship between age and measurement of open apices in teeth and, second, to compare the accuracy of this method with the widely used Demirjian et al. method and with the method proposed by Willems et al. Orthopantomographs taken from white Italian, Spain and Croatian children (401 girls, 355 boys) aged between 5 and 15 years were analysed following the Cameriere, Demirjian and Willems methods. The difference between chronological and dental age was calculated for each individual and each method (residual). The accuracy of each method was assessed using the mean of the absolute values of the residuals (mean prediction error). Results showed that the Cameriere method slightly underestimated the real age of children. The median of the residuals was 0.081 years (interquartile range, IQR=0.668 years) for girls and 0.036 years for boys (interquartile range, IQR=0.732 years). The Willems method showed an overestimation of the real age of boys, with a median residual error of -0.247 years and an underestimation of the real age of girls (median residual error=0.073 years). Lastly, the Demirjian method overestimated the real age of both boys and girls, with a median residual error of -0.750 years for girls and -0.611 years for boys. The Cameriere method yielded a mean prediction error of 0.407 years for girls and 0.380 years for boys. Although the accuracy of this method was better for boys than for girls, the difference between the two mean prediction errors was not statistically significant (p=0.19). The Demirjian method was found to overestimate age for both boys and girls but the mean prediction error for girls was significantly greater than that for boys (p=0.024), and was significantly less accurate than the Cameriere method (p<0.001). The Willems method was better than that of Demirjian (p=0.0032), but was significantly less accurate than that of Cameriere (p<0.001).