International comparisons of R&D effort: The case of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry

The Canadian federal government, anxious to stimulate innovation, announced recently a policy objective for the economy: the attainment of industrial research expenditures reaching 1.5 percent of the gross national product. The proposed substantial increase over the current level is rationalized by comparison with economy-wide research intensities (GERD/GNP) in other OECD countries.This paper questions the economic validity and policy relevance of international aggregate comparisons. It argues that inter-country comparisons should take place at individual industry levels where technologies are similar and proposes a methodology for formulating R&D spending targets of this kind. The procedure is to estimate a model of the determinants of R&D intensity with data from several “criterion countries” and employ the results to “predict” a specific industry's research intensity in another country.In this paper such a model is formulated for the pharmaceutical industry of seven OECD countries. Plausible parameter estimates are derived and used to “forecast” the research intensity of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry. It is found that given the predominance of foreign ownership, the nature of patent protection and the level of other relevant variables in Canada, the performance of this sector is much above the OECD-derived standard; this Canadian industry presumably does not require governmental attention to its R&D activities.     

Towards a Participatory Multimedia Learning Model

The purpose of this paper is to present a participatory multimedia learning model that can be used in designing multimedia learning environments that support an active learning process and creative participation. Participatory multimedia learning can be defined as learning with systems that enable learners to produce part of the learning materials themselves. The aim of the model is to represent the human information processing system and to support the transformation of free cognitive resources into a germane cognitive load needed for knowledge construction. The paper also elaborates on the results of an empirical study examining the effectiveness of student-generated illustrations. Finnish elementary school students (N = 187) learned about the human immune system by interacting with multimedia learning materials. Students performed better on a retention test when they generated their own illustrations by drawing and when explanations were presented as animations, compared to students who received only textual material or generated illustrations from images offered.     

Relative Age Effect and Gender Differences in Physical Education Attainment in Norwegian Schoolchildren

The relative age effect (RAE) refers to that children born early in their year of birth show higher performance compared to children born late in the same cohort. The present study evaluated whether RAE exists within non-competitive physical education (PE) attainments, change in RAE magnitude with age, and possible gender differences. The results show a drop in PE attainment and a difference in number of high and low marks between the first and second half-year. Of the pupils who attained the highest mark, 73% were born in the first 6 months. In lower-secondary school, RAEs were larger in girls compared with boys. A possible explanation for the results is that the PE-teachers might be inspired by product-oriented criteria.     

Semantic Models of Host-Immigrant Relations in Norwegian Education Policies

Education has continuously been regarded as a vital tool in Norwegian policymakers' immigrant integration agendas. This study analyzes semantic structures substantiating the policy language of historical Norwegian immigrant education policies from their inception in 1973 until today (2013). The analysis is framed by Kronenfeld's linguistic anthropological theory “semantic extensionism”. Four distinct semantic models are identified through the historical period. Each model comprises specific overall policy programs, education system characters, teaching methods, and parameters for equality output evaluations. We show how the core semantic structures of each model, and the changes between them, derive from three interacting factor domains: (1) semantic inclusion and contrast relations, (2) pragmatic characteristics of practice fields, and (3) broader welfare state policy histories.     

Double consonants in English: graphemic,morphological, prosodic and etymological determinants

What determines consonant doubling in English? This question is pursued by using a large lexical database to establish systematic correlations between spelling, phonology and morphology. The main insights are: Consonant doubling is most regular at morpheme boundaries. It can be described in graphemic terms alone, i.e. without reference to phonology. In monomorphemic words, consonant doubling depends mostly on the word ending. Certain endings correlate with double consonants (e.g. <er> as in <summer>), while others correlate with single consonants (e.g. <it> as in <visit>). What is more, it is the graphemic form of the word ending that determines the presence or absence of double consonants: The word endings <-ic> and <-ick>, for example, are homophonous, but the former almost always occurs with single consonants (e.g. <panic>), the latter with double consonants (e.g. <derrick>). That makes graphemic word endings peculiar entities: Like suffixes, they are recurring and they have distributional properties—but unlike suffixes, they have no morphosyntactic or semantic function.     

Negotiated silence: the management of the self as a moral subject in young Ethiopian women's discourse about sexuality

In Ethiopia, as in many other countries, moral discourses about female sexuality in general, and pre- and extramarital sexual experience in particular, create an environment that discourages women from engaging in open dialogue about their sexuality and their past or future sexual experience. In the study of induced abortion among unmarried women in Addis Ababa on which this paper rests, women describe a situation in which they are both surrounded by silence about sexual issues and forced to remain silent themselves. This paper investigates the nature of, and conditions for, this silence and the ways in which it is socially brought about and negotiated. In particular, it explores the ways through which young, unmarried women who have undergone abortion seek to reconcile seemingly contradictory, condemning discourses about premarital sex and more general codes addressing social, as well as moral, propriety and integrity. The discussion highlights that, while issues of sexuality are silenced, neither the silence nor the silencing power of dominant, gendered moral discourses is absolute. Moreover, silence may also be jointly produced and negotiated in social discourse fraught with moral objectives and ends.