Can price transparency contribute to more affordable patient access to medicines?

No abstract available

Perceptions of pedagogy for employability at a transnational university

The pressure on higher education institutions to produce graduates ready to enter national or international labour markets with the requisite transferable skills to perform graduate level jobs has never been greater. The role of higher education in supporting the knowledge economy by adhering to employability led curricula is, however, a contentious one. Countries need a highly educated and skilled population to both use and disseminate knowledge, and research centres such as universities are vital in the creation of new knowledge and the adaptation of existing knowledge to suit local, national and international demands. While education policy may be guided by national governments and their economic, social and cultural ideals, there are counter arguments to the employability agenda. It has been argued that many highly specific skills can only be developed in genuine work situations, not in the classroom. It is also unclear how or whether the explicit teaching of employability skills improves performance in the workplace. The promotion of the employability agenda could be seen as eroding more traditional roles of higher education, including providing opportunities for individual betterment and the promotion of cultural understanding, liberal views, diversity and open-mindedness, especially where education policy seemingly promotes economic imperialism, and where responsibility for employment and employability is shifted primarily to individuals. This qualitative case study draws on reflections on teaching and learning from students and lecturers on undergraduate degree courses at Westminster International University, Tashkent, a transnational university in Uzbekistan. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as the tool for analysis, this ongoing research is investigating lecturers’ and students’ understandings of employability pedagogy, how employability pedagogy is integrated in curricula of different undergraduate degree courses, and how lecturers mobilise their perceptions of employability pedagogy to construct classroom activity systems

‘Because sometimes your failures can also teach you certain skills’: Lecturer and student perceptions of employability skills at a transnational university

This exploratory study investigates lecturers’ and students’ understanding of the concepts and language underpinning higher education strategies of developing employability skills. While a solid grounding in discipline-specific knowledge and skills is what most graduate degrees aim at providing, employability skills are increasingly becoming an important factor when evaluating prospective employees. Embedding the acquisition of employability skills into higher education courses has emerged as a response to industry demands for work-ready graduates. The forces of internationalisation and globalisation mean that employers the world over are looking for graduates with additional soft skills, abilities and achievements. The context for this study is Westminster International University, Tashkent (WIUT), a transnational university in Uzbekistan. By means of a qualitative case study, the views of lecturers and students were investigated and common themes and perspectives identified. The main findings indicate that although students and lecturers share similar perspectives on the importance of employability skills, the purpose of employability focused pedagogy is not easily communicated to students. Furthermore, students feel that a more systematic approach to recognising and demonstrating employability skills would help them in their transition from education to work

Understanding academic language using the science that makes the news

This article reports on a study examining changes that scientific texts undergo when they are re-written for different audiences. The study tracks the language and semiotic transformations made to original texts as they travel across different spaces and times, and offers suggestions for pedagogical applications in an EAP context

Lecturer and student perceptions of employability skills at a transnational university

This is an EdD Institution Focused Study which investigates, in a localised context, lecturers’ and students’ understanding of the concepts and language underpinning Higher Education strategies of developing employability skills. The context is Westminster International University, Tashkent (WIUT), a transnational university in Uzbekistan. In the 21st century it has become widely recognised that employability skills are a valuable asset that graduates must acquire to secure graduate level employment. The embedding of employability skills into course and curriculum design is aimed at reducing the perceived shortfall in the ability of graduates to perform tasks needed in the workplace. While a solid grounding in discipline-specific knowledge and skills is what most graduate degrees aim at providing, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) Employer Skills Survey 2011 ranked employability skills as the most important factor when evaluating job applicants. The forces of internationalisation and globalisation mean that employers the world over are looking for graduates with additional skills in areas such as social intelligence, cross-cultural competency and transdisciplinarity. Using an interpretive and constructivist system of qualitative data analysis, this study will generate new perspectives on the concept of employability skills, with implications for practitioners in transnational educational institutions

High temperature, short term tensile strength of C6000/PMR-15 composites

Tensile tests were conducted on 0 unidirectionally reinforced Celion 6000 graphite fibers in PMR-15 polyimide matrix. Tensile strengths for coupons subjected to short and long term uniform temperatures were obtained. Thick coupons, heated on one side to produce significant transient through thickness temperature gradients, were tested and compared to the strength of specimens with uniform temperature distributions. All coupons were radiantly heated and reached maximum test temperatures within 15 sec. Tensile loads were applied to the coupons after 15 sec of elevated temperature exposure. Loading rates were selected so that specimen failures occurred within a maximum of 45 sec after reaching the test temperature. Results indicate that significant tensile strength remains beyond the material post cure temperature

Complex permeability of soft magnetic ferrite polyester resin composites at frequencies above 1 MHz

Composite soft magnetic materials consist of magnetic particles in a non-magnetic matrix. The properties of such materials can be modelled using effective medium theory. Measurements have been made of the complex permeability of composites produced using ferrite powder and polyester resin. The success of various effective medium expressions in predicting the variation of complex permeability with composition has been assessed

Combinatorial batch codes

In this paper, we study batch codes, which were introduced by Ishai, Kushilevitz, Ostrovsky and Sahai in [4]. A batch code specifies a method to distribute a database of [n] items among [m] devices (servers) in such a way that any [k] items can be retrieved by reading at most [t] items from each of the servers. It is of interest to devise batch codes that minimize the total storage, denoted by [N] , over all [m] servers. We restrict out attention to batch codes in which every server stores a subset of the items. This is purely a combinatorial problem, so we call this kind of batch code a ''combinatorial batch code''. We only study the special case [t=1] , where, for various parameter situations, we are able to present batch codes that are optimal with respect to the storage requirement, [N] . We also study uniform codes, where every item is stored in precisely [c] of the [m] servers (such a code is said to have rate [1/c] ). Interesting new results are presented in the cases [c = 2, k-2] and [k-1] . In addition, we obtain improved existence results for arbitrary fixed [c] using the probabilistic method

Proof of concept - Community Land Trusts

This ‘proof of concept’ report seeks to examine and quantify the progress made by Community Land Trusts (CLTs) now that there are a significant number of homes on the ground. Through the evidence of the case studies it will also look at the lessons learnt

Proofs for free - parametricity for dependent types

Reynolds' abstraction theorem shows how a typing judgement in System F can be translated into a relational statement (in second order predicate logic) about inhabitants of the type. We obtain a similar result for pure type systems: for any PTS used as a programming language, there is a PTS that can be used as a logic for parametricity. Types in the source PTS are translated to relations (expressed as types) in the target. Similarly, values of a given type are translated to proofs that the values satisfy the relational interpretation. We extend the result to inductive families. We also show that the assumption that every term satisfies the parametricity condition generated by its type is consistent with the generated logic