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Digital technology has become a central aspect of higher education, inherently affecting all aspects of the student experience. It has also been linked to an increase in behavioural, affective and cognitive student engagement, the facilitation of which is a central concern of educators. In order to delineate the complex nexus of technology and student engagement, this article systematically maps research from 243 studies published between 2007 and 2016. Research within the corpus was predominantly undertaken within the United States and the United Kingdom, with only limited research undertaken in the Global South, and largely focused on the fields of Arts & Humanities, Education, and Natural Sciences, Mathematics & Statistics. Studies most often used quantitative methods, followed by mixed methods, with little qualitative research methods employed. Few studies provided a definition of student engagement, and less than half were guided by a theoretical framework. The courses investigated used blended learning and text-based tools (e.g. discussion forums) most often, with undergraduate students as the primary target group. Stemming from the use of educational technology, behavioural engagement was by far the most often identified dimension, followed by affective and cognitive engagement. This mapping article provides the grounds for further exploration into discipline-specific use of technology to foster student engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a young, resource-constrained, technology-based start-up embarking on international sales, the choice of entry mode is a strategic decision of major importance. Yet within the emerging research stream of international entrepreneurship, curiously little attention has been devoted to the empirical analysis of foreign market entry forms. The authors address this important issue by analyzing the determinants of 398 export decisions taken from a U.K. survey of 246 technology-based start-ups with international activities. The findings show that the entry mode decision is necessarily a trade-off between the resources available and the support requirements of the customer. Issues of the innovativeness of the technology and the historic channel experience of the firm in its domestic market are particularly strong determinants of mode choice. The authors suggest that an organizational capability perspective on these firms' behavior offers a better explanation of their entry decisions than either transaction cost or stage theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this qualitative investigation, the authors report on the overseas expansion processes of technologically oriented U.K. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The findings provide further challenges to the incremental approach to internationalization; also, the authors put forward criticisms in relation to policymakers' current approach to categorizing internationalizing SMEs in the provision of trade assistance programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the misuse and abuse of modern technology in Great Britain. Topics mentioned include the importance of modern technology in acquiring meta and content data, the challenges in protecting the public from security threats while safeguarding their freedom of expression and privacy and the battle among telecommunication companies, social media and state agencies over the jurisdiction and control of information.

The South East of England is Britain's 'problem region' of unsettled administrative and political arrangements centred on a dense web of generally small settlements and their complex interrelations. Surrounding and tied to the international finance and political centres of London, much of the rest of the semirural South East region nevertheless exhibits a degree of polycentricity. Notably, within the South East of England are a series of 'high-tech' hot spots critical to future UK economic growth. However, the achievement of significant growth in and around high-tech spaces is challenging, given the context of semirurality and historic infrastructure shortfalls in some of these locations. Growth is therefore associated with significant planning dilemmas, a situation which has prompted the introduction of 'soft' planning spaces as a means to transcend sclerotic governance structures and planning policy stasis. Yet, these subregional arrangements may also represent a vehicle for the reassertion of territory, refracting and reinforcing local political conflict rather than cultivating an unambiguous form of postpolitics. We illustrate these issues with regard to the emergence of the 'Science Vale UK' area in southern Oxfordshire, and consider some of the broader implications of planning for growth in such a distinctive settlement pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article reports the findings of an empirical study of patent suits involving non-practicing entities (NPEs) in the U.K. between 2000 and 2010. Overall, we find that NPEs are responsible for 11% of all patent suits filed in the UK during this period. Though this is a small percentage by US. standards, our study suggests that patent trolling might not be as uniquely American as conventional wisdom suggests. We also find little support for many common explanations for Europe's relative scarcity of NPE activity. For example, we find that NPEs litigating in the UK. overwhelmingly assert high-tech patents—even more so, in fact, than their US. counterparts—despite higher barriers to software patentability in Europe. Our study does, however, tend to support fee-shifting as a key reason for the UK.'s immunity to NPEs. We see evidence that the UK.'s loser-pays legal regime deters NPEs from filing suit, while at the same time encouraging accused infringers to defend claims filed against them. UK. NPE suits are initiated by potential infringers more often than by NPEs; rarely end in settlement; very rarely end in victory for NPEs; and, thus, result in an attorney's fee award to the potential infringer more often than a damages award or settlement payment to the patentee. Together, these findings tend to support patent reform bills pending in the U.S. that would implement a fee-shifting regime for patent suits, and may also serve to lessen concerns that Europe's forthcoming Unified Patent Court will draw NPEs to Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents recent research assessing the impact of the financial crisis on young and established technology-based small firms (TBSFs) and considers whether their ability to contribute to economic growth is being affected by ongoing problems in obtaining external finance. It reports on original findings from a survey of 100 TBSFs undertaken in late 2010 as well as 20 in-depth interviews with a range of finance providers. The surviving TBSFs exhibited considerable demand for external finance since 2007, particularly for working capital and early stage R&D, sought mainly from banks, but also with younger TBSFs seeking business angel finance and innovation grants and more mature TBSFs seeking venture capital finance. However, both debt and equity finance have become harder to access for TBSFs, particularly for early stage funding and for more R&D intensive firms, hampering their growth potential. Where external finance has been available, the terms and conditions set by providers were often unacceptable to business owners. The paper concludes that the smooth operation of the finance escalator has proved difficult to achieve under recent financial conditions and identifies a number of breakpoints relating to TBSFs which government policy needs to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have cited significant gaps in our knowledge regarding the early stages of vision formation in the radical innovation context and have emphasised the importance of further investigation in this area. As such, this paper aims first to build on the extant literature on organizational, project and Market Vision in order to construct a measure for Technology Vision through theory construction, scale development and modeling. The second goal is to help firms to better understand what the underlying components of Technology Vision are in order to offer themselves the best possible chance of success with the development of radically new, high-tech products. Based on samples of firms involved with radical innovation research and development in high-tech sectors in North America and the United Kingdom, conceptual and measurement studies conducted herewith suggest there are five factors related to Technology Vision: Technology Vision benefits, Technology Vision efficiency, Technology Vision magnetism, Technology Vision specificity, and infrastructure clarity. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of these components of Technology Vision and discusses the need to understand its relationship with Market Vision and the performance of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at a workshop sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Resarch Councils of Great Britain, and the Transgenic Research Project of China on Tilling and Associated Technologies is presented. It mentions that the main focus of the workshop was cereal crops. The workshop featured Brad Till, formerly manager of the Seattle Tilling Project (STP) and Helen Tsai, the manager of the Tilling Core.

The article focused on the study which investigates the role of learning technologies associated with teaching and learning in higher education (HE). Discussions are made on e-learning and information technology (IT), as tools for replacing the traditional learning experience in HE. It informs that the study was conducted by the two Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) of the Great Britain. It also mentions that the implications for HEIs allows new technologies automatically makes their institutions. It states that HE is on the threshold of which is being transformed through the application of learning technologies.

Technological development in the last 20 years has had a significant input into what is policed and how such policing takes place. This article seeks to explore the policing of a part of the counter-culture in the United Kingdom, the so-called 'New Age Traveller', and in doing so highlight the impact of technology in relation to public order control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of new technology into news operations can affect working practices and often raises concerns about the impact on quality of output. Such is the case with videojournalism, an example of multiskilling enabled by new technology, where a solo newsgatherer acts as both reporter and camera operator. This article reports on a study into the introduction of videojournalism into three UK regional television newsrooms. It argues that 'quality' is a contested concept, influenced by professional and commercial imperatives. The notion of professional competence is also seen as a site of tension, critical to the discourse of professionalism, affecting negotiations around the values and identities of journalists. New technology is seen to contain the potential to improve as well as diminish quality of journalism and affect interpretations of journalists' traditional role as watchdogs of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of manufacturing employment to lower cost economies has meant that countries like the UK have sought to promote innovation in areas such as biotechnology. The emergence of the ‘bioeconomy’, however, has been highly uneven, with concentrations of activity in certain countries and particular regions in those countries. In the UK, for example, there are four major concentrations of the bioeconomy. Each of these concentrations exhibit distinct patterns of knowledge and spatial inputs into the innovation process, meaning that it is important to consider the knowledge–space dynamic in and of each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the figure of the "user" is deployed to imagine the assembling of location-based mobile phone technologies in the context of UK policy. Drawing on the sociology of expectations, we address the performativity of the "user" in the think tank Demos' publication Mobilisation. In the process, we analyze how discourses about users enact particular futures that feature arrangements of, for example, persons, mobile phone technologies, and political institutions. We present two narrative strategies operating in Mobilisation: first, the purification of the social and technological in the portrayal of futures and their impediments; second, how existing, emergent, and future users serve as "narrative joints", reconnecting the social and technological in the enactment of preferred policy trajectories. In conclusion, we explore Mobilisation as a 'catalogue of expectations' in which the representation of a multiplicity of users is itself performative, enacting a particular future policy terrain while bracketing off others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report on survey and focus group data relating to the activities and perceptions of learning with Web 2.0 technologies of students aged between 11 and 16 years in 27 UK secondary schools. The study confirms that these learners had high levels of access to Web 2.0 technologies and that Web 2.0 activities were prolific. However, patterns of use were complex. The types of activity evidenced by the study suggest that learners can be categorised into four main groups: (1) researchers: mainly in terms of reading with little evidence of critical enquiry or analytical awareness; (2) collaborators: mainly with respect to file sharing, gaming and communicating; (3) producers and (4) publishers: mainly in terms of sharing experience through social networking sites. Whilst most expressed an interest in using online technologies to support familiar school activities, such as presentations or for communication, learners seemed cautious about other values associated with Web 2.0 tools, such as the shared construction of knowledge in a public format. Few learners were familiar with the complete spectrum of Web 2.0 activities and only a small number were engaging in more sophisticated activities, such as producing and publishing self-created content for wider consumption. There was little evidence of groundbreaking activities and only a few embryonic signs of criticality, self-management or metacognitive reflection. The paper concludes that these higher order thinking skills need to be encouraged and supported in any attempt to use Web 2.0 for learning in formal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the application of the Web 2.0 to geographic and geospatial information technologies. It mentions the usefulness of the said web to its users in tracking, searching and tagging their respective favorite web pages and cites the constant upgrades of the said web. It details on the web's applicability and integrability to the standards in gathering geographic-related data and notes that this web application is currently used in Great Britain. Furthermore, the features and the types of the geographic and geospatial applications of the web are also highlighted.

With the aid of a geographical information system, our paper constructs a three stage least squares simultaneous equation model to investigate the interrelationships between the interregional flows of human capital, and the innovation dynamism of a region. In order to do this, we model the interregional migration behaviour of high quality British university graduates from university into first employment, and we relate these human capital flows to both the labour market characteristics and the knowledge characteristics of the employment regions. This is done for all industries and separately for just high technology industries. Our results indicate that for England and Wales there is a two-way causality between the interregional human- capital employment-migration flows of recent university graduates and the in- novation performance of regions. However, the results for Great Britain as a whole depend on whether London is included and Scotland is excluded. We find little or no support for the argument that the presence of local universities or small firms promotes regional innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is a collective process that entails the coordination of distributed knowledge across diverse organizations. Technology infrastructures provide innovation systems with governance mechanisms to create and sustain complementarities across otherwise dispersed competences. The paper presents innovation platforms as a specific case of technology infrastructure. Operating strategically at the interface between the public and the private sectors, platforms enable capacity- and capability-building for individuals, teams and organizations. Illustrative evidence on innovation platforms in the United Kingdom and Italy confirms the importance of institutional responsiveness to stimulate variety and ensure coordination in the context of collective innovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines moves towards the creation of a Union Learning Rep (ULR) network within Connect, the union for UK communications sector management and professional staff. Focusing on a large communications company (CommCo), the article argues that ULRs need not be limited to campaigning for basic skills training. They also have a role in a high tech industry with well-developed training programmes and a highly qualified workforce. As 'learning signposts' and advocates, ULRs can assist members in navigating the range of learning options presented by the employer, advise members on opportunities available outside the workplace, raise the profile of training and learning on the union's bargaining agenda, develop new layers of activists and recruit new members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the specifications of education and credentials of information technology (IT) workers. According to human capital theory, there is a close relationship between education, skills and the success of the labor market. However, other theorists hold that educational credentials may limit access to good jobs, and prevents passage to jobs where skills are learned. In countries such as Canada and Great Britain, IT groups have sought to have government legislation recognize job credentials in order to pursue social closure. It is concluded that in the case of IT, educational credentials are significant, not because of the skills and knowledge, but because they show an ability and willingness to learn.

This paper draws upon a survey of the life science and biotechnology regions of Oxford, Central Scotland and South West England to examine the innovation and embeddedness traits of the regions. The insights into the compositional weaknesses and strengths of the regions suggest opportunities and threats for the future development of the UK's life sciences and biotechnology. The discussion moves forward debates on biotechnology, regional innovation, regional economic development and policy by posing research questions relating to the gap of knowledge of two under-researched regions, the need for a differentiated view of regions and a public policy approach tailored towards them, as well as the prospects of 'engineering' high-tech regions. Some of the highlighted policy challenges are common to the three regions, while others are region-specific and reflect the variations of regional make-up and stage of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Victorian era, a fiercely competitive industry emerged to build and operate Britain's railways. Many of the design and construction skills required were still fairly rudimentary, and were typically developed through practical experience. The resulting mix of entrepreneurship and new technology reshaped the landscape, but often in ways which proved hazardous for passengers. Minor accidents were commonplace, and a number of major failures occurred, one such being the collapse of the Tay Bridge, in 1879. Events in the ten years prior to this disaster still have some resonance today. Ambitions to exploit new technology are not always matched by foresight in the planning, financing or management of projects. Contracts may be based on wrong assumptions, and prove difficult to enforce. Once a project has gathered momentum, those working on it may fear that any attempt to draw attention to risks or defects will be seen as disloyal. When work is completed, it cannot be assumed that formal inspections will reveal potential flaws, or that those using the technology will appreciate the need to follow the procedures laid down for them. Some possible parallels with recent experiences in NHS computing are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings from a 4-year study on the UK National Health Service on the introduction of a national programme for information technology.1 This is the largest civil IT programme worldwide at an estimated technical cost of £6.2 billion over a 10-year period. An institutional analysis of our historical and empirical data from six NHS organisations identifies growing fragmentation in the organisational field of healthcare, as past and present institutional logics both fuel and inhibit changes in the governance systems and working practices of healthcare practitioners. This is further complicated by new institutional logics that place the citizen at centre stage of the NPfIT, in a move to promote patient choice and public value.Journal of Information Technology (2007) 22, 235–247. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jit.2000102 Published online 31 July 2007 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imperatives on contemporary organizations to adapt to an increasingly uncertain and turbulent environment are intense. The pace of change is at least as great in the public as the private sector, with technology being integral to the UK government's modernization agenda. Resilience refers to the ability of individuals and organizations to cope with change through a continuous process of renewal. Much research on resilience is uncritical, normative and written from a detached perspective that emphasizes the agency of senior management. In contrast, this paper provides an ethnographically based account of resilience at the middle level of a large, public sector bureaucracy. Finding itself under increasing pressure to move away from its traditional, technically oriented role, the IS function sought to reinvent itself as a strategic driver of business transformation. The development of a business process reengineering methodology was seen as the key to operationalizing this new role. Although innovation in IS methodology can be problematic, here it was brought off successfully. This was attributed to several factors, including the adoption of a participative action research approach and the commitment of IS management. Above all, the sense of crisis prevailing at the outset of the initiative was decisive. Crises present a major challenge to organizational sense-making; here, a resilient ‘discourse of renewal’ was kindled with the impending threat interpreted positively as a proactive opportunity to develop the new strategic identity. The paper concludes with some critical reflections on the limits of managerial agency and the notion of resilience as a designable capacity.Journal of Information Technology (2007) 22, 59–68. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jit.2000086 Published online 5 December 2006 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the study conducted on the significance of information technology (IT) to the choice made and decisions taken of Police Service in Great Britain. Results showed that the way in which people in companies go about deciding , acquiring and introducing large-scale IT initiatives are a matter of social interaction influenced by meanings and interpretations. It shows that the country's Police Service makes for a fairly unique sphere of operation and they have similarities with other areas of activity specifically public sector environments.

The article discusses the significance of business agility to information technology in Great Britain. It notes that business agility is a new paradigm which is considered as a solution for maintaining competitive advantage during times of uncertainty and turbulence in the business environment. Business agility is considered as a vital tool to survive in the competitive world. Businesses should be agile and capable of sensing and responding to both predictable and unpredictable events in the market. They should develop information technology (IT) solutions for the rapidly changing business environment.

• This paper originated from empirical research conducted by the authors whilst researching into the success factors for high technology SMEs in the Central Technology Belt (CTB) during 2004. The CTB is an area designated by central government for a range of investment and assistance through 'Advantage West Midlands', the relevant regional development agency. The region, from Central Birmingham through Redditch and Bromsgrove to Worcester and Malvern, is the location for numerous automotive component companies, the Rover Group and the Longbridge sites. This paper addresses how these SMEs, and indeed the rest of the UK automotive industry, could be affected by EMU. • Our initial analysis suggests that on balance their concerns may actually be unfounded and that the benefits would outweigh the costs. Now that there are no longer separate national automotive industries (merely the European market), our continued use of sterling actually inhibits activity in the UK. We would also benefit from lower, more stable interest rates, improved access to market financing, the removal of exchange rate risk and, depending on the entry rate, a more stable operating environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the start of operation of Sizewell B. The plant first achieved criticality in January 1995, and was synchronized to the grid in February. Full power was first achieved in June and the plant formally entered commercial operation in September 1995. The construction of Sizewell B marked a move from Great Britain-designed gas cooled reactors to what was seen as the international mainstream: light water reactors. Sizewell B was to be the first of four identical plants. The intention was that the design should use the best available technology but would seek to follow, not to lead. It is clear that not all these plans came to fruition. In particular, Sizewell remains the lone Great Britain civilian PWR. In addition, reviewing the plant design after ten years, it is also clear that the plant did end-up leading in a number of aspects of its design and can claim to be the earliest example of an evolutionary advanced PWR.

In the UK, approaches to developing, encouraging and extending children’s’ thinking are of considerable professional interest. Teachers and researchers have explored a number of different strategies. These are categorized in recent Department for Education and Skills (DFES) guidance into three broad areas: philosophical, cognitive intervention, and brain-based learning approaches. Within all these approaches, spoken language has been identified as essential for collaborative learning of any kind and in some, information technology is also seen as a potentially supportive collaborative medium (McGuiness, 1999). This paper takes the form of a case study of children aged 10–11, from two Primary schools and considers the place of diagrammatic software in supporting children’s’ exploration and representation of ideas. The case study provides some concrete examples of ways in which the children made links between their discussion of ideas and their visual record. Children were recorded as they worked together to produce their map and as they reported to their peers on its completion. Data were collected over a six week period using observational schedules, field notes, and pupil feedback. The analysis of maps themselves was a central concern as this as techniques for this are not yet fully established, although some significant work is available (e.g. Mavers et al., 2002) The study showed the ease with which all pupils adapted to the use of the software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an Anglo-French study of high-tech and mid-tech vs. low-tech firms as neo-contingency analysis of recruitment and selection. The objective of this article is to provide a new perspective on how technology, culture, and five recruitment and selection practices are approached through an Anglo-French sample of 163 firms. A neo-contingency approach has formulated the development of quantitative and qualitative data analysis. In recent years there has been a considerable degree of interest in the notion of the different approaches to human resources management in diverse organizational settings. Differences are found between firms in the two countries, France and Great Britain; nonetheless, these differences do not argue that recruitment and selection policies and practices are universally applicable. Rather, technology intensity and cultural factors tend to shape the five human resource practices studied. It encourages more neo-contingency-type research in order to reach a better understanding of management studies in different organizational industrial and national settings.

This paper is based on a review of current literature and addresses issues relating to communication and information technology (C&IT) provision in UK higher educational institutions from a number of perspectives. Suggests that potentially technology can improve the learning environment, but may not yet be the best medium for all situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production and commercialisation of Genetically Modified Foods (GMF) is considered to be highly controversial. On the one hand, food biotechnology promises better quality products and a cleaner environment but. on the other hand, the development of genetically modified organisms is questionable from an ethical and safety point of view. The paper attempts to identify and analyse the main differences between the US and the UK food biotechnology industry and market. A comparative customer survey is also presented, highlighting the different customer perceptions in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the data integration technologies in exploration and production of oil industries in Great Britain. Importance of Information Technology in the operation of oil industries; Presentation on the application of technologies in the information process; Importance of data integration in the information transfer.

This paper argues for integrated culture and language study in institution-wide language programmes (IWLPs) atUK universities.Building on the assumption that all foreign language learning at university level should to be based on the principles of LSP (languages for specificpurposes) teaching, the paper suggests that culture learning should be an integralcomponent of language modules for non-specialist learners,who are increasingly likely to need culture skills in the university and the workplace. The culture focus, it is argued, will not only support linguistic competence and learner autonomy, but will also give coherence to and raise the profile of institution-wide language schemes. In combining culture and language learning, a skills-oriented and learner-centredapproach is suggested. The paper goes on to discuss the targets, skills and materials of culture-integrated language learning and suggests a framework for adapting existing curricula and materials to independent culture and language study.Particular emphasis is given to the use of information technology and the Internet in supporting autonomous culture and language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the concepts of flexibility for organizations to cope with the changing competitive conditions in Great Britain. Degree of confusion and looseness associated with flexibility; Application of the concepts of flexibility to the interpretation of the North Sea oil technology; Performance of inflexible technology.

Discusses ‘smart cards’ as electronic cash carriers. Examines technological innovations such as the Mondex ‘electronic purse’ in the UK, where card values can be topped up by telephone. Forecasts that in the next few years, physical cash will be replaced as a main medium for transactions by ‘e-cash,’ which is cheaper to manufacture, more portable, and more versatile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the curricular responses of educational institutions to high unemployment. Future unemployment rates are expected to be influenced by high technology and job loss in developed nations due to new developments in the world economy. Also cited are factors that led to the demise of the full employment goals of liberal democracies including the U.S. and Great Britain. Survival skills and contextual awareness are mentioned by writer Anthony Gordon Watts as possible curricular objectives.

Critics argue that Britain has failed to exploit and turn to commercial advantage its high quality scientific research and that its culture and its educational system reflect an anti-industrial prejudice which has contributed to the nation's decline. This article seeks to refute these arguments in so far as the record of the universities is concerned. It points out the major contribution which university science made in the two World Wars and the extent to which funding declined in the inter-War and post-War periods. It quotes a range of evidence to illustrate the reluctance of large sections of British industry to employ technologically trained graduates in the post-War period and shows how failures of government policy contributed to the Brain Drain. It contrasts the willingness of the US at Federal and State levels to invest in scientific research to produce technological advance with British reluctance to do so. Finally it describes how, even in the face of a failure of leadership by successive British governments to invest appropriately in British science, there is a new enthusiasm in British universities for exploiting scientific research for technological progress whether in the development of new high tech companies or in R and D work within university laboratories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of high technology in citizenship and employment in Great Britain. The variability of the dividend depending on the performance of the national economy would provide everyone with an additional incentive to take part in the producing economy, over and above the wages they might receive. The overall reduction of wages which could increase work opportunities would take place gradually as new age groups come on to the market. The low-wage cure for youth unemployment would inevitably lead to displacement of some older workers at first, and it is admittedly difficult to foresee the counter-measures necessary to deal with the problem of having dividend-receivers and non-dividend receivers competing in the same labor markets with different reserve prices.

Information Technology (IT) has an increasingly important part to play in the improvement of public management. But conventional ways of managing IT have proved disappointing. "Management by contract' with either internal staff or external providers, promises beneficial change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an account of information technology developments for economic and social historians, since 1966. The leading force in the development of networked resources for Great Britain's higher education is the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Directly supported by the four higher education funding bodies, JISC supports initiatives designed to generate, catalogue, disseminate, and encourage the use of electronic resources in all areas of Great Britain's higher education. A major new initiative that promises great benefits to all who study past societies is the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). Charged with collecting, describing, and preserving electronic data derived from research and teaching in a broad range of disciplines, the role of the AHDS is further defined as promoting good practice for depositors and archives, and encouraging the secondary use of deposited data. The Arts and Humanities Data Service, although the newest, is not the only data service funded by JISC The other services may not offer the same subject focus as the AHDS but they also offer resources useful to historians, although those resources are concentrated in the modern period.

Pedagogical tools are needed that link multidisciplinary nanoscience and technology (NST) to multiple state-of-the-art applications, including those requiring new fabrication routes relying on green synthesis. These can both educate and motivate the next generation of entrepreneurial NST scientists to create innovative products whilst protecting the environment and resources. Nanoporous silicon shows promise as such a tool as it can be fabricated from plants and waste materials, but also embodies many key educational concepts and key industrial uses identified for NST. Specific mechanical, thermal, and optical properties become highly tunable through nanoporosity. We also describe exceptional properties for nanostructured silicon like medical biodegradability and efficient light emission that open up new functionality for this semiconductor. Examples of prior lecture courses and potential laboratory projects are provided, based on the author's experiences in academic chemistry and physics departments in the USA and UK, together with industrial R&D in the medical, food, and consumer-care sectors. Nanoporous silicon-based lessons that engage students in the basics of entrepreneurship can also readily be identified, including idea generation, intellectual property, and clinical translation of nanomaterial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]