Poverty, Minorities, and Respect for Law

Students spend most of their waking hours with their teachers and peers, who are considered to be the significant others, that influence their learning motivation and school life. Whether a student likes to go to school or not, whether she can adjust in school and engage in all learning activities, whether she can get good grades or fail depend not only on herself, but on the significant others. In this study, the aim is to find out how and in what ways teachers and peers influence adolescents in their academic life. Forty-one articles were reviewed to discuss around four research questions: What kinds of influences do peers have on adolescents in the academic context? In what ways do teachers’ high expectations affect the students? What kind of teacher-student relationships do students perceive in order to have positive attitudestowards school and have satisfying outcomes? What aspects in adolescents’ academic life are influenced by teachers’ self-efficacy? Teachers and peers are important motivators in students’ academic life. When the school, teacher and parents are aware of the influences from peers and teachers, they are given a chance to improve the factors involved so that students can learn best in a supportive atmosphere and environment

Two sided markets, competitive bottlenecks and exclusive contracts

We provide a framework for analyzing two-sided markets that allows for different degrees of product differentiation on each side of the market. When platforms are viewed as homogenous by sellers but heterogeneous by buyers, we show that “competitive bottlenecks” arise endogenously. In equilibrium, platforms do not compete directly for sellers, instead choosing to compete indirectly by subsidizing buyers to join. Sellers are left with none of the gains from trade. Despite this, it is sellers who choose to purchase from multiple platforms (multihome). Finally, the role of exclusive contracts to prevent multihoming is explored

Preparing Preservice Teachers for the Experimental Design and Data Analysis SOL\u27s

Many elementary teachers find teaching the science Standards of Learning (SOL) difficult [1, 2]. Some are even threatened by them. Of particular concern are the SOLs related to experimental design, handling data, and the scientific method. A possible reason for this discomfort is because many of these elementary teachers have had limited-to-no exposure to experimentation. As one of the activities included under a recent National Science Foundation Science Teachers Enhancement Project (STEP) grant awarded to Hampton University in conjunction with Virginia Union University and St. Paul\u27s College, we included a teacher science fair competition. A special workbook/text was developed for this project and used to guide teachers through the research process; from observation, and hypothesis formation and testing through the evaluation of data and drawing conclusions from the experiment. Twenty-two teachers from the Richmond metropolitan area and King and Queen County developed individual projects (laboratory research), and prepared written reports and display boards to present their results. Projects were adjudicated by staff at the Science Museum of Virginia in a formal competition for teachers. Several teachers admitted that this was the first time that they had actually performed a full experiment. All participants agreed, at. the end, that they had a much better understanding of the process, and would be better able to teach it to their students. This successful activity is being submitted to the review panel as a reproducible model which affords preservice teachers an opportunity to strengthen their research skills. It can also make teachers feel more confident, and equip them to do a better job of teaching this block of SOLs

A summary of AFCRL passive-sphere development efforts and experience

Falling spheres for meteorological rocket soundin

Sleep apnoea and its impact on public health

In 1997 we published a systematic review on the health effects of obstructive sleep apnoea and the effectiveness of treatment with CPAP. This generated much controversy and considerable correspondence. About half the letters received by the authors suggested that the paper was just stating the obvious, the other half that the paper was completely inaccurate. To help clarify our findings this paper will discuss the public health impact of sleep apnoea and the rationale behind systematic reviews

The drug bargaining game: Pharmaceutical regulation in Australia, CHERE Discussion Paper No 51

Many countries, including Australia, regulate the price consumers pay for pharmaceuticals. In this paper, the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is modelled as a multi-stage game played between the regulator and pharmaceutical firms. Conditions are derived under which vertically differentiated firms are regulated and a number of issues are discussed. These include efficiency, regulated firm profitability, leakage, and price discrimination. An extension examines the introduction of new drugs and concludes that if all the benefits of a new drug are to be realised, then existing agreements and transfers (per-unit subsidies) need to be renegotiated.Pharmaceuticals, Australia