scholarly journals The COVID-19 exams fiasco across the UK: four nations and two windows of opportunity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Kippin ◽  
Paul Cairney
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Windows Of Opportunity ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

AbstractAll four UK and devolved governments performed a ‘U-turn’ on their COVID-19 school exams replacement policies. After cancelling exams, they sought teacher estimates on their grades, but supported an algorithm to standardise the results. When the results produced a public outcry over unfair consequences, they initially defended their decision but reverted quickly to teacher assessment. We explain these developments by comparing two ‘windows of opportunity’ overseen by four separate governments, in which the definition of the problem, feasibility of each solution, and motive of policymakers to select one over the other lurched dramatically within a week of the exams results. These experiences highlight the confluence of events and choices and the timing and order of choice. A policy solution that had been rejected during the first window, and would have been criticised heavily if chosen first, became a lifeline during the second. As such, while it is important to understand why the standardisation process went so wrong, we focus on why the policymaking process went so wrong.

‘Disability’ and ‘Discrimination’ in the Context of Disability Discrimination Legislation: The UK and Australian Acts Compared

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Functional Limitations ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Disability Discrimination ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Positive Feature ◽  
The Government ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time

Both the Commonwealth of Australia and the UK now have in place anti-disability discrimination legislation. In the example of the Commonwealth, that legislation reflected a positive desire by the community and the government to eliminate disability discrimination in public life. In the UK on the other hand, the legislation introduced represented something of a compromise between activists, who wanted stronger legislation, and the government who up until that point had wanted none. Historically anti-discrimination legislation in both jurisdictions has been similarly structured; containing similar grounds of discrimination and also a similar conceptualisation of discrimination. However, partly no doubt as a result of government antipathy, the UK model of legislation departs from the model used in earlier antidiscrimination legislation in a number of key respects: the legislation contains a new conceptualisation of discrimination; and, it introduces for the first time in antidiscrimination legislation a general ‘defence’ of justification for all forms of discrimination. Additionally, the definition of ‘disability’ employed in the Act is very narrow, concentrating upon a person's functional limitations in relation to ‘normal’ activities. The purpose of this article is to contrast the concepts of ‘disability’ employed in the Acts, and to consider the effectiveness of both the ‘traditional’ and the new conceptualization of discrimination contained in the Commonwealth and UK Acts respectively. While disability under the UK Act is reflective of the government's antipathy to the new legislation, the reconceptualization of discrimination is, on the whole, a positive feature, moving away from the principle that equality equals ‘sameness’, to one which gives recognition to disadvantage and places an explicit, positive, obligation on employers to redress that disadvantage. Other areas of difference between the two Acts — such as in the area of ‘defenses’, the development of enforceable Standards (under the Commonwealth Act), and methods of enforcement will be covered in a subsequent article.

Immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in positively stained frozen sections

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-169
Author(s):  
K. T. Tokuyasu
Keyword(s):  
Surface Tension ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Thin Layers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Positive Staining ◽  
Frozen Sections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ultrathin Frozen Sections ◽  
Definition Of

During the past investigations of immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in ultrathin frozen sections, we found that the degree of negative staining required to delineate u1trastructural details was often too dense for the recognition of ferritin particles. The quality of positive staining of ultrathin frozen sections, on the other hand, has generally been far inferior to that attainable in conventional plastic embedded sections, particularly in the definition of membranes. As we discussed before, a main cause of this difficulty seemed to be the vulnerability of frozen sections to the damaging effects of air-water surface tension at the time of drying of the sections.Indeed, we found that the quality of positive staining is greatly improved when positively stained frozen sections are protected against the effects of surface tension by embedding them in thin layers of mechanically stable materials at the time of drying (unpublished).

Das Ende der Postdemokratie, den Pessimismus überwinden.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (188) ◽  
pp. 487-494
Author(s):  
Daniel Mullis
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Windows Of Opportunity ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The One

In recent years, political and social conditions have changed dramatically. Many analyses help to capture these dynamics. However, they produce political pessimism: on the one hand there is the image of regression and on the other, a direct link is made between socio-economic decline and the rise of the far-right. To counter these aspects, this article argues that current political events are to be understood less as ‘regression’ but rather as a moment of movement and the return of deep political struggles. Referring to Jacques Ranciere’s political thought, the current conditions can be captured as the ‘end of post-democracy’. This approach changes the perspective on current social dynamics in a productive way. It allows for an emphasis on movement and the recognition of the windows of opportunity for emancipatory struggles.

From the “Judicialization of Politics” to the “Politicization of Justice” in the UK and Switzerland

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-135
Author(s):  
Lucia Della Torre
Keyword(s):  
General Rule ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Field ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Judicialization Of Politics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Migration Law

Not very long ago, scholars saw it fit to name a new and quite widespread phenomenon they had observed developing over the years as the “judicialization” of politics, meaning by it the expanding control of the judiciary at the expenses of the other powers of the State. Things seem yet to have begun to change, especially in Migration Law. Generally quite a marginal branch of the State's corpus iuris, this latter has already lent itself to different forms of experimentations which then, spilling over into other legislative disciplines, end up by becoming the new general rule. The new interaction between the judiciary and the executive in this specific field as it is unfolding in such countries as the UK and Switzerland may prove to be yet another example of these dynamics.

The New Historicism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Levinson
Keyword(s):  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The World ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
Critical Turn ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 2 studies the relationship between historicism and Romanticism. It locates the two between Enlightenment materialism, on one side, and Marxian historical and dialectical materialism, on the other. In so doing, it isolates a paradox of materialism—namely, its production of the very concepts that undo it. These include the ideas of knowing as dissociated conceptual activity, and consciousness as absolute negativity. Romanticism and historicism, it is argued, represent solutions to a common problem—a claim defended through a reading of Wordsworth’s sonnet “The world is too much with us.” In considering how we position ourselves in relation to past literature, the chapter evaluates the choices between contemplation and empathy, knowledge and power, blame and defense. As such, it represents the first move in a self-critical turn on the new historicist method that had shaped the author’s—and part of the field’s—work in the previous decade.

Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Systems Biology ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Product Innovation ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714, when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world’s largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable. For example, the Best Paper Awards in 2012 for a record-setting three journals—the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Academy of Management Perspectives—were about crowdsourcing. In spite of the interest in crowdsourcing—or perhaps because of it—research on the phenomenon has been conducted in different research silos within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. The book aims to assemble papers from as many of these silos as possible since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. The papers provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both the private and public sectors.

scholarly journals Language Family Engineering with Product Lines of Multi-level Models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan de Lara ◽  
Esther Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Arbitrary Number ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Modelling Languages ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractModelling is an essential activity in software engineering. It typically involves two meta-levels: one includes meta-models that describe modelling languages, and the other contains models built by instantiating those meta-models. Multi-level modelling generalizes this approach by allowing models to span an arbitrary number of meta-levels. A scenario that profits from multi-level modelling is the definition of language families that can be specialized (e.g., for different domains) by successive refinements at subsequent meta-levels, hence promoting language reuse. This enables an open set of variability options given by all possible specializations of the language family. However, multi-level modelling lacks the ability to express closed variability regarding the availability of language primitives or the possibility to opt between alternative primitive realizations. This limits the reuse opportunities of a language family. To improve this situation, we propose a novel combination of product lines with multi-level modelling to cover both open and closed variability. Our proposal is backed by a formal theory that guarantees correctness, enables top-down and bottom-up language variability design, and is implemented atop the MetaDepth multi-level modelling tool.

MONARCHS, TRAVELLERS AND EMPIRE IN THE PACIFIC'S AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Sujit Sivasundaram
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islanders ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Global History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
A Site

AbstractThe Pacific has often been invisible in global histories written in the UK. Yet it has consistently been a site for contemplating the past and the future, even among Britons cast on its shores. In this lecture, I reconsider a critical moment of globalisation and empire, the ‘age of revolutions’ at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century, by journeying with European voyagers to the Pacific Ocean. The lecture will point to what this age meant for Pacific islanders, in social, political and cultural terms. It works with a definition of the Pacific's age of revolutions as a surge of indigeneity met by a counter-revolutionary imperialism. What was involved in undertaking a European voyage changed in this era, even as one important expedition was interrupted by news from revolutionary Europe. Yet more fundamentally vocabularies and practices of monarchy were consolidated by islanders across the Pacific. This was followed by the outworkings of counter-revolutionary imperialism through agreements of alliance and alleged cessation. Such an argument allows me, for instance, to place the 1806 wreck of the Port-au-Prince within the Pacific's age of revolutions. This was an English ship used to raid French and Spanish targets in the Pacific, but which was stripped of its guns, iron, gunpowder and carronades by Tongans. To chart the trajectory from revolution and islander agency on to violence and empire is to appreciate the unsettled paths that gave rise to our modern world. This view foregrounds people who inhabited and travelled through the earth's oceanic frontiers. It is a global history from a specific place in the oceanic south, on the opposite side of the planet to Europe.

scholarly journals Exploring International and Inter-Sector Differences of Social Enterprises in the UK and India

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5870
Author(s):  
Philipp Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Shape Features ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) describes a new entrepreneurial form combining the generation of financial and social value. In recent years, research interest in SE increased in various disciplines with a particular focus on the characteristics of social enterprises. Whereas a clear-cut definition of SE is yet to be found, there is evidence that culture and economy affect and shape features of SE activity. In addition, sector-dependent differences are supposed. Building on Institutional Theory and employing a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, this study sheds light on the existence of international and inter-sector differences by examining 161 UK and Indian social enterprises. A content analysis and analyses of variance were employed and yielded similarities as well as several significant differences on an international and inter-sector level, e.g., regarding innovativeness and the generation of revenue. The current study contributes to a more nuanced picture of the SE landscape by comparing social enterprise characteristics in a developed and a developing country on the one hand and different sectors on the other hand. Furthermore, I highlight the benefits of jointly applying qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Future research should pay more attention to the innate heterogeneity among social enterprises and further consolidate and extend these findings.

scholarly journals Advancing UK Regulatory Science Strategy in the Context of Global Regulation: a Stakeholder Survey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Cruz Rivera ◽  
Barbara Torlinska ◽  
Eliot Marston ◽  
Alastair K. Denniston ◽  
Kathy Oliver ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pay For Performance ◽  
Regulatory Science ◽  
International Strategy ◽  
Free Text ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Accurate Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Healthcare Innovation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Medium Enterprises

Abstract Background The UK’s transition from the European Union creates both an urgent need and key opportunity for the UK and its global collaborators to consider new approaches to the regulation of emerging technologies, underpinned by regulatory science. This survey aimed to identify the most accurate definition of regulatory science, to define strategic areas of the regulation of healthcare innovation which can be informed through regulatory science and to explore the training and infrastructure needed to advance UK and international regulatory science. Methods A survey was distributed to UK healthcare professionals, academics, patients, health technology assessment agencies, ethicists and trade associations, as well as international regulators, pharmaceutical companies and small or medium enterprises which have expertise in regulatory science and in developing or applying regulation in healthcare. Subsequently, a descriptive quantitative analyses of survey results and directed thematic analysis of free-text comments were applied. Results Priority areas for UK regulatory science identified by 145 participants included the following: flexibility: the capability of regulations to adapt to novel products and target patient outcomes; co-development: collaboration across sectors, e.g. patients, manufacturers, regulators, and educators working together to develop appropriate training for novel product deployment; responsiveness: the preparation of frameworks which enable timely innovation required by emerging events; speed: the rate at which new products can reach the market; reimbursement: developing effective tools to track and evaluate outcomes for “pay for performance” products; and education and professional development. Conclusions The UK has a time-critical opportunity to establish its national and international strategy for regulatory science leadership by harnessing broader academic input, developing strategic cross-sector collaborations, incorporating patients’ experiences and perspectives, and investing in a skilled workforce.

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