Al-Muhaddithat

Linguists, Semitists, historians, and biblical scholars will welcome two new research aids by Charles R. Krahmalkov. A specialist in Northwest Semitic languages and epigraphy, the author has produced brief, accessible, and innovative analyses of the Phoenician language and its vocabulary. Since 1970, Krahmalkov has published fundamental studies elucidating Phoenician-Punic grammar and syntax. Transliterated Punic texts are among the least intelligible in the surviving corpus of Northwest Semitic. Krahmalkov has long pondered the Punic passages of Plautus' Poenulus and the Neo-Punic stelae in Latin letters from Tripolitania, and his achievements have made these vocalized texts fundamental for grammatical description of Phoenician and Punic.1 Both books are accessible to specialists and educated non-specialists. All Semitic texts are transliterated, and the writing is clear and precise, avoiding technical jargon and needless formalism. Examples almost invariably include transliteration, English translation, and morphological or phonological analysis. When the author comments on a form or construction, he cites complete phrases or sentences (in transliteration and English translation) in support of the analysis. Italic capitals transliterate Phoenician letters; Latin letters are transliterated with boldface lowercase roman type.2 The reader can discern the textual base of both the grammar and the lexicon from the reference lists (PPD 19-21; PPGK xvi-xix).3 Most published texts are represented, with some omissions.4 Krahmalkov generally follows established readings, but offers several brilliant new restorations and alternative readings. Specialists may find some readings open to question. The limited bibliographical citations make these works truly a personal statement.5 Scholarly consensus is inconsistently represented, compelling readers to weigh the evidence by comparison with other grammars and lexica. I will review the grammar first, then the dictionary, despite the reverse order of publication.

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The authors begin their prologue with the pertinent question, `Does the world really need another book about Richard Feynman'. My immediate response was `No' because Mehra ( The Beat of a Different Drum) has given a biography for the physicist, Gleick ( Genius) has given a detailed general biography accessible to the interested layperson, and Feynman himself has given an insight to his mischievous and precocious pranks with his two volumes of anecdotes ( Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?), a gentle but accurate introduction to his science and philosophy in QED and The Character of Physical Law and, of course, the wonderful three-volume set of Lectures on Physics. There are others too, but these stand out. Unlike Feynman's approach to physics, which allowed for all possible histories to contribute to the final process, this book traces a single history in strict chronological order. It is very conventional. It also seemed very familiar; there were very few stories about Feynman I had not read before, and here they are retold rather than reinterpreted, the early chapters in particular seeming to rely heavily on Mehra's book, the later ones drawing more widely but reiterating many of Feynman's own anecdotes. Alongside the biography there are some clear and concise explanations of the physics. These are generally very good indeed. I thought the discussion of the absorber theory, developed by Wheeler and Feynman in the 1940s, was particularly well done, and the final chapter, on `Physics after Feynman', really did give a feel for the impact of this man's work on physics at the most fundamental and universal level. There are a few black and white photographs of Feynman in the centre of the book and a couple of sketches elsewhere (including, of course, some Feynman diagrams) but I was disappointed not to see a picture of the famous Feynman van (especially since the author made a pilgrimmage to see it while in Pasadena). Each chapter ends with a list of references and there is a short bibliography at the end of the book. In some ways I was disappointed with the book. It added nothing to my knowledge of Feynman, and little to my appreciation of his work. Feynman is certainly one of my heroes in physics, and this book was an excuse for some hero worship, which is in its own way fine, but I don't think it really got under the skin of the man. It is certainly well written, an easy and enjoyable read, but it takes all existing stories at face value and is totally uncritical. It does capture the excitement and adventure of A Life in Science (its subtitle) and is the sort of book to fire up the imagination of a sixth-former who has heard something about this eccentric genius and wants to learn a little more, but if you've read the books listed earlier you will find nothing new here. Having said that, I must of course add that I devoured the book in three days, and if you are looking for an easy diversion to remind you what a wonderful physicist Feynman was, then this can be enjoyed like easy-listening music.

In mining large, high-dimensional sparse featured datasets, it is important to reduce the dimensionality for efficient processing. Some methods of reducing the features include conventional feature selection and extraction methods, frequent item support-based methods, and optimal feature selection approaches. In earlier chapters, we discussed feature selection based on frequent items. In the present chapter, we combine a nonlossy compression scheme with genetic algorithm-based feature selection in arriving at a scheme that results in efficient feature selection. In the process, we provide an overview of methods of feature selection, feature extraction, genetic algorithms, etc. We implement the proposed scheme of efficient optimal prototype selection using genetic algorithms that combines compressed data classification performance as a fitness function. We demonstrate working of the scheme by implementing it on a large dataset bringing out insights, and sensitivity of genetic operators is shown as a movement of cloud of solution space as the parameters vary. We provide notes on relevant literature and a list of references at the end of the chapter.

This chapter concerns the homogeneous equation where p : [a, b] → ℝ is continuously differentiable, q : [a, b] → ℝ and ⍴: [a, b] → ℝ are continuous, p(x) > 0 and ⍴(x) > 0, for all x in [a, b], and λ is a real constant. The equation generalises (H) of section 4.2 and L denotes the operator that was defined in that section. Further, we shall impose the same homogeneous boundary conditions, namely: where A 1, A 2, B 1, B 2 are constants (A 1, B 1 not both zero and A 2, B 2 not both zero). A value of the constant λ, for which (SL), together with (α) and (β), has a solution y = y(x) which is not identically zero on [a, b], is called an eigenvalue of (SL), (α), (β), and such a non-zero solution y = y(x) is called an eigenfunction of (SL), (α), (β) (‘corresponding to the eigenvalue λ’). Our discussion will bring together much of the work in earlier chapters, from Green's functions, the correspondence between integral and differential equations and the existence-uniqueness theorems for the latter, to the use of the Calculus of Variations, of the Fredholm Alternative Theorem and of the Expansion Theorem for symmetric kernels. We should like to stress the importance of the material in this chapter for applications, especially in physics. The Note following Exercise 5 below gives an important example. Others can be found via the list of references in the Bibliography.

The publication of a fourth edition of this book testifies to the ready market that the authors have found. However, it has to be said that the book is very much for a North American readership. The target group, according to the authors, is advanced undergraduates and lay people seeking an introduction to the science and technology of seeds. The lay people, it should be added, are most likely to be the technical operatives in the seed industry in the USA. This group is of a considerable size compared with its counterpart in western Europe, and the same could be said of the advanced undergraduate population. This is a reflection of the scale of production in the USA, which is the world’s number one producer of maize and soyabean, and second only to China in wheat production. The crop areas are vast, and there is an appetite for innovation, as evidenced by the widespread use of genetically modified maize, soyabean and cotton. The authors describe the book as being in two parts, the first nine chapters present the seed, in the authors’ words, as a biological system, and the second nine chapters cover more technological aspects relating to the use of seeds in crop production. The seed science chapters of the book on flowering, seed formation, chemistry, ecology, germination, dormancy and deterioration combine a generalized overview that is appropriate to the target audience, with details from specific references that may not always help the student or lay reader. For example, the significance of the details of embryogeny could well escape the reader more interested in the technicalities of seed production. The extensive use of primary references is seen in several places in the earlier chapters, such as the subsection on the effect of soil fertility on seed development, which includes reference to detailed work on six different crops without a clear picture emerging. Although commendable in trying to present the evidence, such a treatment does not always leave the reader with a framework on which to build the technology. In view of the target readership, one wonders how useful the long lists of references at the end of the chapters will be. Sometimes, when seeking to put over principles, a few crucial references and perceptive reviews, as well as an author’s own opinions on importance and emphasis, can be more illuminating. The 11 chapters on technological aspects, including those on testing seed viability (Chapter 6) and seed vigour (Chapter 8), usefully bring together what is done in the laboratory and the practical business of producing quality seed for the grower. It is here that the authors’ considerable experience of US agriculture comes to the fore. We might have expected, for a 2001 publication, some inclusion of the use of GMOs and their detection, and the application of molecular methods to detect seed‐borne pathogens. The authors, as indicated in the section on genetic purity testing, are well aware of DNA‐based technologies, but are intent on describing what is used now, rather than what might be used. The presentation of the book is not lavish; for example, the photographs, all of which are black and white, are not always entirely clear. The figures vary in the font used and in their presentational style, with, at times, an excess of information. There are a few typographical errors, one of which, in the viability equation, matters beyond appearance. The glossary and the index are both useful and well done, adding to the value of this text as a reference book for seed technology practitioners.

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The Literature of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Part VIII, 1999–2001

Chapter Three - The Literature of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Part XI, 2008–2009

This is a German book about the role of radioactivity in the Earth sciences, but most of the text is in English. It starts with a Vorwort written in smooth academic German and follows with a Preface in a not‐so‐smooth English translation. “Um der Originalitat der Beiträge willen wurde auch Zweisprachigkeit angestrebt.”1 (Page v.)The book is a symposium of 12 articles by 15 authors, with a brief introduction by Robley D. Evans. In the first article, ‘Radioactivity of the Lithosphere,’ J. A. S. Adams discusses the abundance, the distribution, and the effects of radioactive isotopes in the Earth's crust. His summary suffers from too much reliance on previously published summaries; Rankama (1054), for instance, is invoked 14 times. Natural and artificial radioactivity of the oceans and its implications for oceanography are knowledgeably covered by F. F. Koczy and J. N. Rosholt in a long article with the basic data neatly summarized at the end. Next, Erik Eriksson gives a brief review of the radioactivity of groundwaters and the use of radioactive tracers in studies of groundwater movement. W. R. Eckelmann attempts to summarize the fundamentals, methods, and salient results of nuclear age determination in 12 pages and necessarily leaves much unsaid. There follows a chapter in German by H. Israël, discussing radon in the soil and in the atmosphere, often making good use of mathematics, and briefly considering atmospheric radioactivity contributed by nuclear bomb tests. O. Haxel and G. Schumann give a clear and critical discussion, in German, of cosmic‐ray‐produced radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere, at the Earth's surface, and in meteorites. Then Bert Bolin, in English again, outlines the application of radioactive isotopes to the study of the motion of the atmosphere. He emphasizes theoretical considerations, wending his way nimbly through a difficult field. The deposition of radioactive isotopes on atmospheric aerosols and the behavior of these aerosols are discussed in a lengthy and thorough German article by Christian E. Junge. (The interested student may prefer to read Junge's book Air Chemistry and Radioactivity, 1963, in English.) In the article ‘Radioactive Precipitations and Fall Out,’ L. Facy covers essentially the same topic in English, but from a French physicist's point of view. He has apparently labored without the benefit of an English‐speaking editor. There follows a long chapter by A. T. Krebs and N. G. Stewart on the biological effects of radioactivity, in English with German overtones. This reviewer is not qualified to weigh the biological contents of the article, but the style is rough. It was startling to learn from Figure 2, page 250, that an unspecified ‘Anti‐Nausea‐Mittel’ is about 10,000 times more alpha active than ‘Schmutz von einem Londoner Dach.’ (Is radioactivity good for mal de mer? We'll take the dirt on London roofs.) G. Schumann's chapter, entitled ‘Meßmethoden,’ gives a thorough basic coverage of the techniques and methods of radioactivity measurement, but has a list of references which is typographically forbidding. The final article, by A. Ehmert, covers geophysical aspects of cosmic radiation, its intensity, and its interaction with the Earth's magnetic field thoroughly and clearly in German. It is, perhaps, the most readable of all the chapters. The book closes with a brief appendix giving the radioactive series of uranium and thorium, a Namenverzeichnis, a Sachverzeichnis (Deutsch‐Englisch), and a Subject Index (English‐German). ” … a subject index in the two languages will facilitate the study of the book.“ (Page vii.)

In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its markers of ambiguity—its riddles and enigmas—which are interconnected like a cobweb. In this article, the researcher develops a literary hermeneutic model for interpreting any literary narrative text, based on the conceptual arsenal of literary hermeneutics and narratology. The model is called ‘divinatory’, since it is inspired by Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea for ‘divinatory hermeneutics’ and Roland Barthes’ ‘hermeneutic code’, and it is applied on a very enigmatic short story by Julio Cortázar. The theoretical premise of the article also argues for the benefits of studying the complex systems of literary identities in literary texts and of re-establishing hermeneutics of literature as a ‘hermeneutics of literary identities’.
 Due to its unique ambiguity, Cortázar’s famous short story “Las babas del diablo” has numerous interpretations and too many title translations: after Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie, it is known as “Blow-Up” in English, but also “The Devil’s Drool”, “The Devil’s Cobweb”, “The Cobweb/Kiss of St. Michael’s Summer”, and “The Thread of the Virgin” in other languages. Therefore, its unriddling divinatory interpretation provides an excellent initial interpretative model for any fictional narrative text. By analyzing the hermeneutically encoded aspects of its main narrative factors—the story and its discourse, narrator/s and focalization, narrative time and space, as well as intertextual connections—this interpretation finds that the short story’s search for the identities of its subjects and events is, in fact, a search for the hermeneutic identity of meaning.
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 Publication history note: This is the first publication of this essay in its English translation. This translated version has also been significantly updated and modified. Its first introductory theoretical parts are shortened to half their original length. All parts of the model-defining thesis and the structural composition in the main body of the text remain the same, but the application parts are extended, updated, and modified to match and elaborate on the English translation of the analyzed short story, which greatly differs from the previously analyzed Macedonian one. The reference list is updated accordingly. The previous version of the essay has been published only in Macedonian: firstly, in Kjulavkova, K. (2005) Hermenevtika na kniževnite identiteti [A Hermeneutics of Literary Identities]. In Dijalog na interpretacii [Dialogue of Interpretations], K. Kjulavkova, J. Bessier, and Ph. Daros (eds.), Skopje, Ǵurǵa, pp. 61–115; later, for instance, in Kjulavkova, K. (2006) Hermenevtika na identiteti [Hermeneutics of Identi-ties]. Kumanovo, Makedonska rizinica, pp. 61–104.

7R12. Vibration of Strongly Nonlinear Discontinuous Systems. Foundations of Engineering Mechanics. - VI Babitsky (Dept of Mech Eng, Louborough Univ, Louborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK) and VL Krupenin (Inst of Machine Stud, Russian Acad of Sci, Moscow, 101830, Russia). Springer-Verlag, Berlin. 2001. 399 pp. ISBN 3-540-41447-9. $99.00.Reviewed by J Angeles (Dept of Mech Eng and Center for Intelligent Machines, McGill Univ, 817 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, PQ, H3A 2K6, Canada).Strongly nonlinear systems are defined by the authors well into the body of their book, on page 76—while the Index has a pointer to page 34, no mention of the term is found in that page—but this definition is limited to conservative systems. Then a whole section, 4.6, is devoted to this kind of system, which, again, is limited to systems with excitation derived from a potential. Special attention is given in this section to systems of the threshold type. Briefly stated, to understand what a “strongly nonlinear mechanical system” is, the reader must be aware of what a “weakly nonlinear system” is. One thus must conclude that a strongly nonlinear system is one whose nonlinear terms cannot be neglected or approximated to a first order, without losing the essence of the system behavior. The discontinuous nature of the nonlinearity, moreover, prevents the linearization of the nonlinear term. The book is authoritative, but of a rather limited scope. The main motivation of the authors is the study of what they call “vibro-impact systems,” ie, systems excited by impact loading, as those found in machinery for rock-crunching. However, the authors fail to include examples of a much broader scope and modern interest. Such systems occur in gear transmissions due to the unavoidable backlash of gears. The study of impact in these systems is of current research interest, with books devoted to their study, eg, that by Pfeiffer and Glocker (1996). These systems show, in some instances, a chaotic behavior, which is a recognized source of noise in automotive transmissions. Other instances where impact loading leads to serious performance deterioration is found in mechatronic systems, where frequent velocity reversals make backlash a source of discontinuous perturbations. Moreover, systems with discontinuous characteristics have been studied for some time, within a system-theoretic context, eg, (Flu¨gge-Lotz, 1968), but the authors appear too focused on the Russian literature to cite the rich literature in English on the topic. The authors focus on methods developed by themselves, apparently, in the seventies. In fact, the book is admittedly the English translation of an original book in Russian, but the authors do not disclose the bibliographical information of that original. Most likely, the original book was published in the early eighties. The methods favored by the authors are of the paper-and-pencil type—some would say “analytic,” but this qualifier is, in this reviewer’s opinion, a misnomer—and hence, limited to models that are crude approximations of actual systems. These methods are of academic interest, but it is dangerous to overstate their relevance in light of contemporary tools for simulation, such as Matlab’s Simulink Toolbox. The book would have a more permanent value if it had taken into account modern software and hardware for scientific computations. Not a word is said of algorithms for simulation, which have been developed first and foremost to cope with nonlinear systems, whether with weakly or with strongly nonlinear features. In this vein, it is worth citing Strang (1988): “Solving a problem no longer means writing down an infinite series or finding a formula like Cramer’s rule, but constructing an effective algorithm.” In coping with the periodic response of systems, the authors hint to an algorithm for solving the integral Fredholm equation thus resulting. However, they mislead the reader into believing that the solution of the underlying system of N linear equations in N unknowns, “may be solved using the [sic] Cramer’s rule.” In fact, Cramer’s rule is inapplicable in practice, by virtue of the combinatoric nature of the number of floating-point operations it requires. This number, roughly N+1!, becomes prohibitively large for even moderate values of N, like N=25. Technical issues apart, the layout of the book is unusual, to say the least. For starters, the book is divided into three chapters and 10 sections, with a continuous section numbering across chapters. Moreover, while the equation display is highly acceptable—an unusual feature for books typeset in Word—some pages lack right justification, which makes the layout look weird. The bibliography is admittedly limited to the essential references. However, there is a discontinuity here, for the bibliography, made up of 204 references, is limited and outdated—the former because, with counted exceptions, the bibliography includes only Russian works; the latter because the most recent entry is of 1983. To compensate this, the book includes an “Additional Bibliography,” of 40 additional entries, with some works published outside of Russia. These references appear to be listed without citation, although this feature is difficult to verify, mainly because the reference list follows an awkward ordering: the first reference cited is entry [49], followed by [56], and so on. If a numbering of references is to be followed, then each reference should be numbered in order of citation! The figures, in turn, appear without a caption, and composed figures, with parts referred to as A), B), etc, sometimes lack their appropriate label. Otherwise, the English is not standard. For example, what is known as the “impulse response” of a linear system, is referred to as the system “Green function.” This is not technically wrong, but looks unfamiliar, especially because Green functions, in the English literature, usually pertain to the solutions of boundary-value problems in a space domain, more so than to solutions of initial-value problems in the time domain. Then, what is known in English as “rational functions” are labeled in the book as “meromorphic functions.” A search of the term in Maple, for example, under “topic,” led to a bulky number of entries, none of which bears the “meromorphic” qualifier. A few such entries bear the name “rational,” however. It would have been convenient to have the English translation proofread by a specialist with knowledge of the usual terminology in English. All in all, it is difficult to recommend this monograph as a valuable reference of contemporary relevance.

Education is internationally understood to be a fundamental human right that offers individuals the opportunity to live healthy and meaningful lives. Evidence from around the world also indicates that education is vital for economic and social development, as it contributes to economic growth and poverty reduction, sustains health and well-being, and lays the foundations for open and cohesive societies (UNESCO, 2o14). In recognition of the vital importance of education, governments across the globe have made a substantial effort to expand and improve their education systems, as they strive to meet the Education for All goals, adopted by the international community in 1990. These efforts have borne remarkable results; it is estimated that the number of out-of-school children has halved over the last decade (ibid, p. 53). However, there are still serious barriers to overcome, particularly in terms of access, completion and learning (Krishnaratne, White, & Carpenter, 2013). Access to education - particularly for girls, poor children and children in conflict-affected areas - remains a crucial issue. The 2013 Global Monitoring Reports claims that an estimated 57 million children are still out of school, over half of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO, 2014, p.53).1 Furthermore, despite increases in enrolment numbers, there has been almost no change since 1999 in the percentage of students dropping out before the end of the primary cycle. The evidence also indicates that many children enrolled in school are not learning. Recent estimates suggest that around 130 million children who have completed at least four years of school still cannot read, write or perform basic calculations (UNESCO, 2014, p. 191). Many governments have attempted to address this worrying situation, while also improving efficiency and reducing costs within the education sector, by decentralising decision-making processes. Decisions about curricula, finance, management, and teachers can all be taken at one or more of several administrative levels: centrally at the national or federal state level, by provinces/regions within a country, by districts or by schools. The devolution of decision-making authority to schools has been widely adopted as the preferred model by many international agencies, including the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), as it is assumed that locating decision-making authority within schools will increase accountability, efficiency and responsiveness to local needs (Gertler, Patrinos, & Rubio-Codina, 2008). Often described as 'school-based' or 'community based' management, the devolution of decision-making authority to schools includes a wide variety of models and mechanisms. These differ in terms of which decisions are devolved (and how many), to whom decision-making authority is given, and how the decentralisation process is implemented (i.e., through 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' processes). School-based decision-making can be used to describe models in which decisions are taken by an individual principal or head teacher, by a professional management committee within a school, or by a management committee involving local community members. This last model may simply imply an increased role for parents in the management and activities of the school, or it may result in more active provision of training and materials to empower broader community involvement (Krishnaratne et al., 2013). The devolved decisions can be financial (e.g. decisions about how resources should be allocated within a school; decisions about raising funds for particular activities within a school; etc.), managerial (e.g. human resource decisions, such as the monitoring of teacher performance and the power to hire and fire teachers; decisions relating to the management of school buildings and other infrastructure; etc) or related to the curriculum and/or pedagogy (e.g. decisions related to the articulation of a school's curriculum; decisions about how elements of a national curriculum will be taught and assessed within a given school; etc.). In order to support the process of decision-making, many models involve some means of providing information to community members on the performance of an individual school (or school district) relative to other schools (Barrera-Osorio & Linden, 2009). All of these models and mechanisms are considered to potentially increase accountability and responsiveness to local needs by bringing local community members into more direct contact with schools, and to increase efficiency by making financial decisions more transparent to communities, thereby reducing corruption and incentivising investment in high quality teachers and materials. For the purposes of this review, 'school-based decision-making' includes any model in which at least some of the responsibility for making decisions about planning, management and/or the raising or allocation of resources is located within schools and their proximal institutions (e.g. community organisations), as opposed to government authorities at the central, regional or district level. The 'intervention' considered within this review, therefore, is any reform in which decision-making authority is devolved to the level of the school. Within this broad definition, we anticipate that the available evidence will relate to the three main mechanisms outlined above: (1) devolving decision-making around management to the school level; (2) devolving decision-making around funding to the school level; and (3) devolving decision-making around curriculum, pedagogy and other aspects of the classroom environment to the school level. School-based decision-making is widely promoted by donors in lower-income countries as a means for improving educational quality and is often taken up enthusiastically by national governments. Both generally articulate the ultimate outcome of school-based decision-making models as being a positive change in student outcomes (including but not restricted to learning outcomes). In addition to learning outcomes (most often measured through standardised tests of cognitive skills), there are many other possible student learning outcomes which may be valued by schools, donors and governments, such as improved student ability to demonstrate psychosocial and 'non-cognitive' skills. Changes in student aspirations, attitudes (such as increased appreciation of diverse perspectives) and behaviours (such as the adoption of safe sex practices) could also be considered important educational outcomes. However, it is clear that devolving decision-making to the level of the school does not lead directly to such outcomes. Rather, school-based decision-making is likely to impact on outcomes via a number of causal pathways. Reforms that increase accountability and responsiveness to local needs are assumed to lead to positive stakeholder perceptions of (and engagement in) educational provision, which, in turn, is expected to increase enrolment, attendance and retention and to reduce corruption within schools. It is also presumed that increased accountability will encourage schools to make recruitment decisions on the basis of teacher performance, rather than mechanically relying on qualifications or allowing for nepotism to interfere. Such personnel practices, in turn, are seen to lead to reduced teacher absenteeism, increased teacher motivation and, ultimately, improvements in the quality of teaching within schools. It is also assumed that local communities will encourage schools to adopt more locally relevant curricula, which can then have a positive impact on the quality of teaching and student opportunities to learn. At the same time, decentralised funding mechanisms and other reforms aimed at increasing efficiency within schools, particularly when combined with efforts to increase community participation, are presumed to result in more resources being available to schools, another important factor in improving educational quality (Krishnaratne et al., 2013). Increased efficiency is, in turn, assumed to affect the cost of educational provision, a proximal outcome highly valued by governments in less well-resourced settings. School-based decision-making mechanisms, therefore, result in a number of proximal (or intermediate) outcomes, in addition to the final outcomes mentioned above. These proximal outcomes include increased enrolment, improved equality of access, improved attendance, improved retention, improved progression, and higher quality educational provision. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that decentralisation reforms may actually have unintended and sometimes negative effects in certain political and economic circumstances (Banerjee et al., 2008; Bardhan & Mookherjee, 2000, 2005; Carr-Hill, Hopkins, Lintott, & Riddell, 1999; Condy, 1998; Glassman, Naidoo & Wood, 2007; Pherali, Smith & Vaux, 2011; Rocha Menocal & Sharma, 2008; Rose, 2003; Unterhalter, 2012). Decentralising decision-making may lead to elite capture at the local level and/or further corruption within school systems, for example, or may limit educational opportunity for marginalised ethnic groups. There is some consensus in this literature that decentralisation is only likely to have a positive impact on outcomes when (a) there is clear government policy and/or regulations about the powers and role played by different agencies and stakeholders; (b) there are sufficient financial resources available within the system; and (c) there is some form of democratic culture (see De Grauwe et al., 2005; Lugaz et al., 2010; Pherali et al., 2011). This body of evidence highlights the contingency of the effects of decentralisation, linked to important interactions between formal structures of decision-making and informal structures of power and authority within bureaucracies, communities and schools. In addition to the ways in which enabling or constraining conditions and circumstances can alter the outcomes of school-based decision-making reforms, it is clear that differences in implementation can also affect outcomes. Those vested with the authority to make decisions on behalf of the school must have the capacity and knowledge to make such decisions, or their decisions are unlikely to have a positive impact on outcomes (World Bank, 2004). Furthermore, each link in the causal chain rests on certain assumptions which must be met in order for a change in the location of decision-making to have the desired effect(s). For instance, the assertion that involving parents and community members in the hiring and firing of teachers (an 'accountability' mechanism employed in many contexts) will improve quality of teaching rests on the assumption that (a) parents and community members will be able to identify high quality teachers who should be retained and/or rewarded and (b) the incentives provided will positively impact student learning. This is not always achieved. In some contexts, teacher incentive schemes have been found to have a negative impact on overall student learning, if, for instance, they create perverse incentives for teachers to block the enrolment of low-performing students in order to maintain high average test scores within their classrooms (Glewwe, Ilias, & Kremer, 2003). The impact of school-based decision-making models is, therefore, likely to differ depending on a wide variety of implementation factors, relating to the objective of the reform, the particular decisions that are devolved, the individuals given decision-making authority and the nature of the decision-making process. Figure 1 (below) is a visual depiction of our understanding of the causal pathways, contributing factors and underlying processes that appear to affect the impact of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes. Our conceptual framework is not presented here as a definitive map of the existing evidence. Rather, it is proposed as a 'working hypothesis' to help guide the implementation of this review (Oliver, Dickson & Newman, 2012, p. 68). As such, we have used the framework to generate specific review questions and define our review methodology (as recommended by Anderson et al., 2011). We plan to significantly revise, modify and potentially simplify (or disaggregate) the framework during the review process, in order to more accurately reflect the current body of evidence related to school-based decision-making in lower-income contexts. This may include articulating separate theories of change for some of the individual mechanisms, depending on the evidence available. Conceptual Framework Source: Original Although the rhetoric around decentralisation suggests that school-based management has a positive effect on educational outcomes, there is limited evidence from low-income countries of this general relationship. In reality, much of the decentralisation literature focuses exclusively on the proximal outcomes of school-based decision-making (described above). This is likely due to the relative ease of measuring such outcomes, as well as the shorter time period generally required to identify impact on intermediate outcomes. Evidence from the U.S. suggests that there can be a time lag of up to 8 years between the implementation of a school-based management model and any observable impact on student test scores, although intermediate effects may be more rapidly identifiable (World Bank, 2007, p. 13). This may explain why studies with different time scales have found mixed evidence around the impact of school-based management models on student learning outcomes (Barrera-Osorio & Linden, 2009; Jimenez & Sawada, 2003; Sawada & Ragatz, 2005). As a result of these trends within the empirical literature, existing reviews on school-based decision-making have also tended to focus on proximal outcomes (e.g. Guerrero, Leon, Zapata, Sugimaru, & Cueto, 2012, on teacher absenteeism; Petrosino, Morgan, Fronius, Tanner-Smith, & Boruch, 2012, on student enrolment). There are very few that consider the full range of relevant outcomes, including student learning. Those that do have tended to focus exclusively on one particular mechanism (e.g. Bruns, Filmer & Patrinos, 2012, on accountability reforms), rather than considering the full range of school-based decision-making models. The comprehensive reviews that do exist (e.g. Santibanez, 2007; World Bank, 2007) need updating, as they (a) rely on literature that is now nearly ten years out of date, (b) focus almost exclusively on Central America, referencing almost no evidence from other low- or middle-income countries, and (c) do not report the use of systematic searches, critical appraisal and statistical synthesis of study effect sizes. There is, therefore, a need for a current globally-comprehensive systematic review of the impact of school-based decision making on a wide range of educational outcomes. Furthermore, existing reviews on this topic tell us almost nothing about why school-based decision-making has positive or negative effects in different circumstances. The exclusive focus on evidence collected through impact evaluations and quasi-experimental designs has significantly limited the policy relevance of these reviews as this approach has (a) resulted in a very small (<60) number of studies and (b) prevented any analysis of the conditions and circumstances under which school-based decision-making models can have a positive impact. We anticipate that the outcomes of this review will be useful for a wide range of stakeholders. In particular, policy-makers, at both the national and supranational levels, will benefit from the evidence linking decentralised decision-making processes to a wide range of potential outcomes and the analysis of underlying conditions that affect impact. School-based management is a key component of education reform across the world, and it is a particular focus of education activities sponsored by many of the core development agencies, including the World Bank, USAID and DFID. It is, therefore, crucial that we gain deeper understanding of how school-based decision-making affects a broad range of educational outcomes in both positive and negative ways and how such models can be strengthened and improved. The timing of this review will help to increase the potential impact of the results, as it coincides with ongoing conversations within the development community around the most appropriate focus (and strategies) for the next round of international development goals post-2015 (see http://post2015.org/; http://www.beyond2015.org). This review aims to answer the following overarching review question: What is the evidence around how decentralising decision-making to the school level affects educational outcomes in low and middle income contexts (LMICs)? The primary objective of the study, therefore, is to gather, assess and synthesise the existing evidence around how the decentralisation of decision-making to schools affects a broad range of educational outcomes in LMICs (question 1 above). This objective will be accomplished by examining the results of causal studies (e.g. those with an appropriate counterfactual) that consider the impact of at least one model of school-based decision-making on any of the proximal or final outcomes depicted in the conceptual framework above. Such analysis will allow us to report on all relevant quantitative measures of educational outcomes. Although we recognise that focusing on quantitative studies may preclude our ability to discuss outcomes usually considered harder-to-measure, we anticipate that the results will be useful, both for illuminating the ways in which school-based decision-making models do impact outcomes and for highlighting the current gaps in the evidence base. We also aim to draw conclusions about why particular models of school-based management work in some lower-income country contexts (and not in others), in order to make determinations about the particular contextual and implementation factors which act as barriers to – or enablers of – effective outcomes (question 2 above). This objective will be accomplished by examining evidence collected through a broader range of studies, including but not limited to that obtained from the included studies referenced in response to question 1. Given the broader scope of this second review question, studies do not need to be causal in nature in order to be included. In addition to examining the overall (positive and negative) effects of decentralisation processes on outcomes, we aim within this review to examine how changes in decision-making processes might impact differentially on diverse groups within societies. We are particularly concerned with groups which have historically experienced poor service delivery and/or demonstrated poor educational outcomes (e.g. marginalised or low-performing students). This will be accomplished by examining: (1) whether the interventions outlined in the included studies specifically target particular populations and (2) whether the included studies report any sub-group analysis for such populations. These objectives will be accomplished through the implementation of a high quality systematic review, relying on existing methodological guidance from the Campbell Collaboration and the EPPI-Centre at the Institute of Education (e.g. Becker et al., undated; Gough, Oliver & Thomas, 2012; Hammerstrom, 2009; Shadish & Myers, 2004). As this review aims to both aggregate the demonstrated effects of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes and draw conclusions around the conditions and circumstances that can affect outcomes, we have elected to conduct a mixed methods review, following the guidelines developed by Snilstveit (2012) for 'effectiveness plus' systematic reviews in international development. As such, we will use our conceptual framework throughout the review to guide the search strategy, decisions regarding the inclusion and exclusion of studies, coding, and synthesis. In keeping with 'effectiveness plus' review methodology, we will also consider different kinds of evidence in relation to our two review sub-questions. As the first review question is an 'effectiveness' question, studies included for synthesis will need to have an appropriate comparator or control group (or to have employed an appropriate method of constructing a counterfactual or control for confounding during analysis). However, a broader range of evidence, including studies based on qualitative data, will be reviewed in response to the second sub-question, as other methods are likely to be particularly useful for clarifying which external conditions and/or implementation factors may substantially affect outcomes. Studies will be included in the review if they meet the following selection criteria. We will be looking exclusively at evidence related to primary and secondary schools in LMICS. Studies of both public and private sector provision will be included. In order to be included, studies must be based in at least one context classified the of a given as or to the World We will evidence collected in LMICs located within Central and or the We have 'school-based decision-making' for the purposes of this There two for this (1) As impact has been used only in the literature, we it important to use a broad in order to capture of literature to to the review and (2) constraining our search to only particular models of school-based decision-making, we it likely that we potentially across models which may be found to have a impact on particular outcomes. Given the need for we have elected to include any study that an at least one of the three school-based decision-making mechanisms outlined in the conceptual framework school management reforms, funding reforms, or This is likely to include a of particular such as school management school and school and of models has not been developed a as to allow for the broader possible range of potentially In to the first review question, we are likely to between groups in which no school-based decision-making reform has been attempted and groups in which some school-based decision-making reform has been We may also between groups in which different school-based decision-making reforms have been attempted (e.g. funding reforms school management Both will be included, although they will be from one another during synthesis. must be in between the interventions must have been implemented during the same time and, in between a reform group and a must reflect the same time groups are not a for inclusion in relation to the second review As school-based models of decision-making can a wide range of outcomes positive and we will not be studies on the basis of a of outcomes. However, for inclusion in to both review studies must the between school-based decision-making and at least one educational outcome equality of access, increased or student learning as by test scores, psychosocial and Studies are which at the level of the or at community or (e.g. district) level, as well as the level of the school. Studies based on these different methods and of will be in the synthesis (see Studies will be in relation to this question which do not quantitative information on proximal or final outcomes, or which groups at country level or Given the wide of studies likely to be included in the review, we will assess the of all included studies to synthesis of (see studies in to the second review question will need to meet the of and out in the to on the of in order to be included for synthesis. Studies of any and studies with will be included. However, during coding, the specific will be for each included study, that we can consider differences that are likely to affect synthesis. As members of our are in and we to include studies in any of these Studies in other will be are available. We will include and literature, including and process in the empirical evidence (such as and empirical studies and/or negative results and the will also be included. The first four search will be at the of the review process. systematic reviews will first be through the of the EPPI-Centre of Education and the Campbell Collaboration The for any potentially relevant reviews will be for potentially We will then conduct searches, with the support of our at the in the following and These resources have been they are likely to evidence that is relevant to the review questions while also a wide range of We have also made an effort to include resources that are likely to help us identify literature and literature within contexts. In we will search for potentially relevant in the following Education International of of Development of Education Education World World and World We will also out to a small of who are to have widely on school-based management, in order to if there might be potentially relevant studies that have been completed but are not systematic reviews (e.g. et al., have a of relevant studies on education decentralisation in countries to We will limit and to However, we will search of existing literature reviews (e.g. Santibanez, and World Bank, 2007) and systematic reviews (e.g. et al., to identify relevant literature, including studies before the search has been all potential and will be into and a will be We will then the process of and studies (described in more we have on our of studies for quality we will our final search by the of all included studies – and the of and to of our included studies – in order to identify any key that we might have during the any such are they will be included to quality on the of the we have a of terms which to be used in the main in to The of search terms in 1 has been developed through an process. members of the review proposed a of mechanisms and which have the literature on school-based management in test search then in and the decentralisation this of some terms for and LMICs and the since The test search in the and in search in the primary school of of these all of the by the first two searches, then by the review to generate further search terms for inclusion in the final search Our final search will be the following search In order to be by the studies must at least one from each in the or the In allowing for searches, terms will also be as terms in the search These terms by the

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edited by Kevin Moses Springer-Verlag (2002) 282 pages. ISBN 3-540-42590-X £97.50/$149Knowledge of Drosophila eye development has grown almost exponentially over the past few decades. Not only are the mechanisms that account for the formation of this multifaceted structure intrinsically interesting in their own right, but they have also contributed enormously to our understanding of general developmental paradigms and molecular pathways. The explosion in research into the Drosophila eye was sparked principally by the groups of Seymour Benzer and Gerry Rubin, and it is primarily their offspring who have contributed the chapters to the recent volume Drosophila Eye Development (Vol. 37 in the series Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation), edited by Kevin Moses.Each chapter in the book is a stand-alone review making it possible to readup on individual topics. These range from the earliest establishment of the eye-field to retinal connections, colour vision and Drosophila as a model for disease, and together give a fairly comprehensive overview of the current areas of interest in this field. Reading the book from cover to cover is slightly problematic. There was quite a lot of repetition in the early chapters, which describe early patterning genes; TGF-β and Hedgehog signalling featured in several places too. These chapters created a modicum of confusion since the conclusions seemed to differ slightly. Beyond these early chapters we were hooked by a wide range of contributions that each touch on a different problem. Particularly refreshing were those topics that we had not come across in other reviews, such as the evolution of colour vision and applications to human disease modelling. The latter chapter starts with a good, succinct overview of some of the major contributions made through studies of the eye and would be a useful chapter to give to upper-level undergraduates to illustrate the diversity of applications of this model.The book, therefore, provides a valuable introduction to an important paradigm in developmental biology. As a whole it might not be of immediate relevance to cell biologists, although chapters on regulation of growth and proliferation, protein stability, and programmed cell death would be of interest to cell and developmental biologists alike. In addition there is one gem by Don Ready about the emergence of form in the eye, which describes the progression in cell shapes and cell contacts that occur as the eye develops. This short essay highlights some of the amazing changes in cell morphology and considers how these could contribute forces that shape the geometrical regularity of the Drosophila compound eye.There is a danger that the book will become dated as the field progresses,and so those chapters with a well-rounded historical perspective are likely to be the ones that better stand the test of time. Some of the chapters tend to focus on the most recent findings, whereas others, even amongst the better known topics, manage to achieve a balance between the two. Occasionally, we found ourselves wanting more debate on the differing current models and controversies, but the extensive reference lists should allow readers to explore these for themselves. The quality of figures used to illustrate each chapter also varies considerably. Those comparing vertebrate and Drosophila eye development are exceptionally good, particularly the colour diagrams. The chapter on cell death is also nicely illustrated, but in some others the figures are thin on the ground, which makes sections a bit dry or hard to follow.With contributions from many key researchers in the field, this book provides an excellent reference text for those already working with the Drosophila eye and, for those about to, it conveys a fascination for the eye and the intricacy of its development. The only major shortcoming is its cover price (almost £100), which means that a book that many might like to have on their personal bookshelves will instead be confined largely to library shelves.