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This book contains eight case studies of critical literacy in action in Victoria, Australia. The following papers are included: "Preface" (John Dewar Wilson); "Introduction" (Delia Bradshaw); "Making the Time and Space for Critical Literacy: Why Bother?" (Barbara Comber); "Questioning Text: Critical Literacy in an ALBE Classroom" (Fran O'Neill); "Critical Literacy and Numeracy in the Print Industry" (Helena Spyrou, Ivan Parrett); "Fairy Stories and Critical Literacy" (Clara Brack); "Developing Critical Writing Practices in a Community Education Setting" (Barbara Kamler); "'We Have To Learn to Say Things Very Clearly...'" (Michele Lucas); "Modelling Critical Literacy in Teacher Education" (Beverley Campbell); and "'Despite All My Rage, I'm Still a Rat in a Cage'" (Ray Misson). Among the topics discussed in the individual papers are the following: relationship between language use and power; workplace-related functional literacy; literacy as social practice; use of community texts; classroom literacy practice; critical questioning and writing; development of political and collective purposes for writing; interaction of students and teachers in literacy classrooms; techniques for encouraging students to "read between the lines"; conceptual development; text and context; critical writing. (MN)

These 15 papers cover a wide range of topics and perspectives on the work of Adult Literacy and Basic Education (ALBE) practitioners in Victoria, Australia, in the contemporary ideological and political context. A preface (John Wilson) and introduction (Delia Bradshaw) begin the anthology. The papers are as follows: "...A Critical-Transformative Approach to Social Reality..." (Claire Gardner); "Creating a Literacy Club" (Jean Mitchell); "The Literacy Support Teacher and the Negotiation of Cultures" (Joanne Bradford); "Two-Way Schooling" (Adrian Hyland); "Journal Extract" (Carmel Sullivan); "What Do You Believe Is the Role of Negotiation within an Adult Literacy/Numeracy Program?" (Meredith Greenwood); "Negotiating Curriculum in the Light of the Victorian Adult English Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Accreditation Framework" (Mary Unwin); "The Implications of the Framework and the Certificates of General Education for Adults on Current ALBE Teaching Practices: A Case Study" (Clare Carmichael); "An Adult Literacy Student Program" (Ruth Yule); "Teacher as Facilitator" (Pam Holderhead); "Journal Writing" (Sandra Field); "A Student Program" (Rhonda Martin); "The Journal of ALBE" (John Logos); "Another Way: Initial Assessment" (Bill Keenan); and "New Theories, 'New Times,' So Do We Still Need Critical Literacy?" (Kaye Elias). Some papers contain references. (YLB)

This book contains 13 chapters on issues related to the connections between learning and the economy. "Introduction" (David Bradshaw) provides an overview of the connection between work and learning. "Learning Does Pay" (Christopher Ball) explores this assertion about the value of human development. "Education and Training: An Historical Perspective" (Jon Ainger, Roy Harrison) concerns the search for radical solutions to improve education and training during the past 30 years. "Lifelong Learning: A Brave and Proper Vision" (Naomi Sargant) explores learning as a necessary entry-point to the information society. "Human Learning Potential" (Ken Richardson) looks at traditional views about human potential and how they have been modified by recent psychological research. "Learning Theory: Harnessing the Strength of a Neglected Resource" (David Bradshaw) argues that teachers should try to develop the right side of the brain. "Curriculum and Curriculum Process for a Changing World and an Uncertain Future" (Anne Jones) explores the type of curriculum necessary for now and for the future. "A Learning in Organizations Model" (Alan Jones) provides a model that combines adult learning theory with ideas about the learning organization. "Towards the Virtual Library: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Learning Resources in Higher Education" (Alasdair Paterson) explores the change in emphasis to management of information. "Structures and Funding" (Tony Cann) examines the leadership and funding necessary to realize a learning society. "Learning: A Qualified Success?" (John Hillier) deals with assessment of learning. "Towards a Strategy for Lifelong Guidance to Support Lifelong Learning and Work" (A. G. Watts, Stephen McNair) proposes guidance as a support for individuals within changing organizational structures. "A Strategy to Achieve Lifelong Learning" (Tony Webb) draws conclusions in policy terms on the strategy to achieve lifelong learning and suggests outputs of the education and training system in the next century. Notes on contributors and an index are appended. (YLB)

The endogenous lipids anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) play predominant signaling roles through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and at least one transient receptor potential channel (TRP). Additional structurally similar lipid signaling molecules that have cannabinoid-like (cannabimimetic) activity in which they produce similar cellular, physiological, and behavioral phenotypes as anandamide and 2-AG have recently been discovered. Like the endogenous cannabinoids, many of the actions of these structurally similar endogenous lipids are known to occur through both GPCRs and TRPs. The cannabimimetic lipid signaling molecules of N-arachidonoyl glycine, N-arachidonoyl dopamine, N-arachidonoyl serine, the family of N-acyl ethanolamines, and 2-acyl glycerols and their roles in cellular signaling and physiology are discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter describes the use of bone scintigraphy in children, detailing the radiation implications and highlighting accepted indications in current practice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter X of the Part Two of the book "Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life," edited by Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant is presented. It focuses on the life of the author as a mother and her profession in the academe. She shares stories to give a real sense of what her life as an academic mother has been like. She also cites her passion for her work and great love for her children as well.

Recent investigations on tsunami generation from submarine mass failures show that one of the most important factors influencing the source characteristics of the wave is the initial acceleration of the failure itself. In a number of these studies, a translational slide is modeled as a rigid body sliding down an inclined plane and basal resistance is neglected. In this paper, a similar rigid body model is proposed that incorporates basal resistance, which is related to the shear strength of the soil. Initial slide kinematics were investigated under two triggering mechanisms including overpressures at depth and rapid sedimentation. The model results show that soil behavior significantly influences the acceleration time history as well as the magnitude of the peak acceleration. The slide kinematics depend largely on the initial stress state and on the undrained residual shear strength of the soil along a potential failure surface, which highlights the importance of performing detailed geotechnical site investigations when assessing these geohazards. More research is needed to determine the influence of using more realistic basal friction models on the initial wave heights generated by submarine mass failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the objectives of the European Sea-Level Service (ESEAS) is to provide access to quality controlled European tide gauge data for research and other uses. The ESEAS quality control is based on a common set of procedures for the quality control of observed sea level data, which to a great extent can be referred to those specified by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission for the Global Sea Level Observing System. Quality control also extends to other information such as documentation of datum information, metadata, exchange format, application classification, and levels of quality control. In relation to tsunami-enabled tide gauges, quality control is related to the availability of data in real-time and the use of automatic control and analysis procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part 2, Chapter 8 of the book "Potato Biology and Biotechnology: Advances and Perspectives" is presented. It provides information on the potato-breeding strategy, which the process incorporates the type of germplasm, breeding methods and the new cultivars that will be propagated vegetatively. It also explains on how to achieve durable disease and pest resistance during the breeding season.

Biopharmaceuticals are the fastest growing sector of the pharmaceutical industry, currently accounting for ten per cent of total pharmaceutical sales, and over one third of drugs in development. They are frequently breakthrough products, where no effective treatment was available before. Biologic medicines are significantly more complex than chemical drugs, costing more to develop and manufacture Thus bioprocessing (devising the process and manufacturing the goods) is important both in its own right, as a high value manufacturing sector, and as a component of the overall biosciences sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Type I interferon-α(IFN-α) has proven to be a clinically effective antiviral and antineoplastic drug for 20 yr (1). Recently, pegylated forms of IFN-α have been commercially produced and have shown superior clinical efficacy to unpegylated IFN-α for reducing HCV viral load with less frequent dosing required for the patient (2,3). The superior clinical efficacy is probably derived from the enhanced serum half-life of the pegylated IFN-α in patients. However, pegylation also reduces the in vitro activity of the core IFN-α protein (4,5). Understanding the structural implications of pegylation on IFN-α activity is critical for biologically characterizing the commercial drug product. In vitro characterization provides a basis for establishing consistency in the manufacturing process for the precursor IFN-α and the final pegylated product. The better characterized the product is, the higher the confidence is for assessing and demonstrating comparability between pegylated products when comparing changes in process of manufacture, site of manufacture, or like-product from different sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invention, like scientific discovery, sometimes occurs through a heuristic search process where an inventor seeks a successful invention by searching through a space of inventions. For complex inventions, such as the airplane or model rockets, the process of invention can be expedited by an appropriate strategy of invention. Two case studies will be used to illustrate these general principles: the invention of the airplane (1799-1909) and the invention of a model rocket by a group of high school students in rural West Virginia in the late 1950's. Especially during the invention of the airplane, inventors were forced to make scientific discoveries to complete the invention. Then we consider the enterprise of artificial intelligence and argue that general principles of invention may be applied to expedite the development of AI systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early and consistent detection of abnormal conditions is important to the safe and efficient operation of complex industrial processes. Our research focuses on enabling the operators and engineers who control and maintain such systems to describe process conditions to software agents, deploy such agents to continuously monitor live process data, and receive appropriate notification from their personal agents concerning the process state. The resulting dynamic population of monitoring agents is managed by our agile computing framework according to policies that define computing and networking resource restrictions as well as user notification requirements and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is arguably the most crucial aspect of agent acceptability. At its simplest level, it can be characterized in terms of judgments that people make concerning three factors: an agent's competence, its benevolence, and the degree to which it can be rapidly and reliably brought into compliance when things go wrong. Adjustable autonomy consists of the ability to dynamically impose and modify constraints that affect the range of actions that the human-agent team can successfully perform, consistently allowing the highest degrees of useful autonomy while maintaining an acceptable level of trust. Many aspects of adjustable autonomy can be addressed through policy. Policies are a means to dynamically regulate the behavior of system components without changing code or requiring the cooperation of the components being governed. By changing policies, a system can be adjusted to accommodate variations in externally imposed constraints and environmental conditions. In this paper we describe some important dimensions relating to autonomy and give examples of how these dimensions might be adjusted in order to enhance performance of human-agent teams. We introduce Kaa (KAoS adjustable autonomy) and provide a brief comparison with two other implementations of adjustable autonomy concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While MPI is the most common mechanism for expressing parallelism, MPI programs remain poorly integrated in Unix environments. We introduce MPISH2, an MPI process manager analogous to serial Unix shells. It provides better integration capabilities for MPI programs by providing a uniform execution mechanism for parallel and serial programs, exposing return codes and standard I/O stream information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we define the concept of conversation policies: declarative specifications that govern communications between software agents using an agent communication language. We discuss the role that conversation policies play in agent communication, and suggest several subtypes of conversation policy. Our reasoning suggests, contrary to current transition net approaches to specifying conversation policies that conversation policies are best modeled as sets of fine-grained constraints on ACL usage. These constraints then define the computational process models that are implemented in agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chapter explains why poverty is important, including the conceptual and practical difficulties involved in defining poverty in Great Britain. Poverty is what philosophers describe as a categorical need, that is, a need which must be met in order for a person to develop properly as human being. There are two other reasons to be preoccupied with poverty. First, poverty is not merely a problem experienced by an individual or group. We all suffer from it. Poverty is associated with all the most important problems in our society. They are problems because they affect us all. Second, poverty is probably the best symptom of the failure of the welfare state. Although not all social security policies in the country, and certainly not in other European welfare states, are concerned exclusively with poverty relief, whatever the origins and intentions of social policies, it is still the most important goal of any welfare state to reduce poverty. If a welfare state fails to do so, then it is important to find out why. Thus poverty is an outcome measure of welfare state effort and the study of poverty is an important component in helping us to understand the performance of social security systems, wider distributional arrangements and welfare states. When debate about poverty reemerged in the late 1950s it did so with a new conceptualisation. Subsistence notions of poverty were castigated for having false scientific pretensions, being too harsh, focused merely on physical necessities and being incapable of an understanding of poverty which encompassed both Third World and advanced societies

Chapter 12, Section 3 of the book "Ecology and Landscape Development: A History of the Mersey Basin" is presented. It explores the existence of plants and animal communities for several millennia in Great Britain. It highlights several plants that are existing because of contained organic matter in the soil, making the plants fully developed and function that is capable of making a viable ecosystem.

Disturbance of land is an inevitable consequence of modern civilization which has resulted in a substantial "heritage" of degraded land on which the original ecosystems, plants, animals and soils have been totally destroyed. All that is left is skeletal soil material. The restoration of functional, self-sustaining ecosystems on these materials is a considerable challenge. The problems of plant habitat degradation that have to be overcome can be separated into three sets: physical, nutritional, and toxicity. Although some of the treatments involve major engineering-oriented manipulations, long term success depends on understanding, copying, and harnessing the ecological and microevolutionary processes that occur in natural succession. This success depends on overcoming all the specific problems that occur within a site, which in turn depends upon a proper appreciation of all that is critical to ecosystem function as well as the demographic and genetic processes of adaptation. Scientific progress in the restoration of derelict lands requires an understanding of successional sequence of colonization, species' autecology, and the dynamics of recruitment, and it is based on the population variability for metal tolerance or similar adaptive genetic criteria; therefore, both community and ecosystem level interactions among species must be investigated. Land restoration is therefore an acid test of our ecological understanding of adaptive processes at all three levels (communities, species, populations) in an integrative applied science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the essay 'London's Caf é Royal,' which deals with the Bohemian style of the Caf é Royal in London, England.

Laterality research with normal subjects is plagued by contradictory findings, stemming from the diversity of methods used. These may include reaction time (RT) or accuracy measures with an imposed speed or accuracy set, go/no-go or target/nontarget discriminations, identity, similarity or category matches, and perceptual matching of simultaneously presented stimuli vs matching a test item to a memorized target (with various retention intervals, one, many, or constantly changing targets). The stimuli may be easy or impossible to verbalize; they may be treatable as unitary wholes or as collections of discrete features or elements. The task and stimuli may be familiar or novel, easy or difficult, practiced or unpracticed, and presented in isolation or accompanied by another easy or difficult, verbal or nonverbal, concurrent task. Even superficial changes in or interpretations of instructions, or differences in methods of presentation or subject populations may alter findings. The effects of sensory modality, the nature of the task, and the problems of measurement will be considered in this chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents chapter 148 of the book "W. Somerset Maugham," edited by Anthony Curtis and John Whitehead. A reprint of writer Christopher William Bradshaw-Isherwood's introduction to the short story "The Book-Bag," by English author W. Somerset Maugham, published in the book "Great English Short Stories," is presented.

A part of the book "Jamaica Absolutely," edited by Arif Ali is presented. It explores the declaration of June a jazz month for Jamaica due to the success of the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival which is the first Caribbean festival held on June 17, 1991. It highlights how the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival became an annual event that is experienced by all major tourist places in Jamaica. It notes how the festival became a platform for many young stars including Jon Williams and Eric Alexander.

A preface of the book "Potato Biology and Biotechnology: Advances and Perspectives," edited by Dick Vreugdenhil is presented.

This chapter focuses on intersection of feminist concerns and administrative studies. Administrative studies, sometimes called business administration or organizational studies, is the academic discipline concerned with the characteristics and functioning of formal organizations. The roots of this discipline are twofold, reflecting a divide within the field between study of the behavior of individuals in organizational contexts or of organizations themselves within industries. The dominant discourses of inquiry are therefore characterized by essentially rational, objective explanations of social phenomena from a highly pragmatic orientation, rooted in the tradition of sociological positivism. The important intersection of feminist concerns and organizational issues, arguing that feminist theories are not solely about women, rather about the relationship between women and men, grounded in the cultural and social constructions that create ideas about appropriate gender roles. Using feminist theories as conceptual lenses can focus on the concerns of many "others," who otherwise would be passed over or marginalized by dominant organizational practices and discourses.

This article presents a preface to the book "Absent Fathers?" All research projects, certainly large empirical projects involving teamwork, have a natural history that affects the outcome in some way. In most publications arising from research, this story is never told. To set out to describe the course of the research process in a form other than the limited description of the methods routinely required, is to risk being seen as self-serving and irrelevant. However, in this project authors of the book could not avoid reporting what a devastating blow was the death of researcher Carol Stimson in a car crash on May 9, 1997. She had been the named research fellow in the application for funding to ESRC. She was then the principal researcher, responsible on a day-to-day basis for the management of the work. She was the one who had done most of the scholarship, much of the thinking, handled the external relations, was most advanced in the writing and was solely responsible for the qualitative part of the study, which focused on relationships between the fathers and their children.

This article presents chapter five of the book "John Skelton: The Critical Heritage Series," edited by Anthony S. G. Edwards. The article offers an excerpt from the book "The Life of St. Werburge of Chester," by poet Henry Bradshaw. The article also presents an excerpt from Bradshaw's book "The Life of St. Radegunde."

Invention, like scientific discovery, sometimes occurs through a heuristic search process where an inventor seeks a successful invention by searching through a space of inventions. For complex inventions, such as the airplane or model rockets, the process of invention can be expedited by an appropriate strategy of invention. Two case studies will be used to illustrate these general principles: the invention of the airplane (1799-1909) and the invention of a model rocket by a group of high school students in rural West Virginia in the late 1950's. Especially during the invention of the airplane, inventors were forced to make scientific discoveries to complete the invention. Then we consider the enterprise of artificial intelligence and argue that general principles of invention may be applied to expedite the development of AI systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tomorrow's world will be filled with agents embedded everywhere in the places and things around us. Providing a pervasive web of sensors and effectors, teams of such agents will function as cognitive prostheses-computational systems that leverage and extend human intellectual, perceptual, and collaborative capacities, just as the steam shovel was a sort of muscular prosthesis or the eyeglass a sort of visual prosthesis. While these heterogeneous cooperating entities may operate at different levels of sophistication and with dynamically varying degrees of autonomy, they will require some common means of representing and appropriately participating in joint tasks. Just as important, developers of such systems will need tools and methodologies to assure that such systems will work together reliably, naturally, and effectively, even when they are designed independently. In this talk I will describe some of the principles and applications that are important to the design and implementation of effective human-agent systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the term "glass ceiling," which is a barrier that applies to women as a group who are kept from advancing as quickly or as high in the organisation as their male counterparts because they are women. Slower career advancement is caused primarily by women's inability to gain the support of mentors. This barrier refers to invisible obstacles to career advancement, yet ones that are systemic or perceived in organisational practices.

Section 5 of the book "Ecology and Landscape: A History of the Mersey Basin" is presented. It explores the changing flora brought about by the difficult conditions of plants and animals in Mersey River, England. It highlights speedy recolonisation by the affected species if there will be damage of the environment and environment created by industrial activity that may be suitable for some species.

This article presents an introduction to the book "Absent Fathers?" One of the consequences of the changes that have been taking place in family form in recent decades is that non-resident fathers are now very prevalent. As many as one man in seven between the ages of 16 and 65 is a non-resident father and many others will have experienced living apart from their children. "Absent Fathers?" is based on a national survey of over 600 non-resident fathers in Britain as well as two in-depth studies using qualitative interviews. More fathers than expected want to have contact and fulfil their parental obligations, social, emotional and financial, but one is unsatisfactory without the others. "Absent Fathers?" suggests that policy makers seeking to enforce financial obligations need to recognize this and the emotional and moral turmoil that follows family separations, cohabitation breakdown or non-marital births.

Chapter 108 of the book "Laurence Sterne: The Critical Heritage" is presented. This chapter features an excerpt from the preface of the book "Ferdinand and Ordella" that was written by Priscilla Parlante, the pen name of Mrs. M.A. Cavendish-Bradshaw. r.