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This chapter provides an introduction to the problematic notion of teaching excellence in higher education, which is a focus of this collection. It draws on an extensive review of relevant literature to explore how teaching excellence is defined and conceptualised and what factors underpin different conceptions. It notes that definitions are disparate, often context-specific and are influenced by a range of different ‘players’. It then examines how different conceptualisations play out at the macro, meso and micro levels and highlights the tensions between performative and transformative notions of teaching excellence. It notes the move from ‘surface’ to ‘deep’ excellence and efforts to articulate a more holistic conception of teaching excellence that emphasises the relational, emotional and moral dimensions of teaching. It suggests that, rather than seeking singular definitions and conceptions, it may be more useful to talk of ‘teaching excellences’, to reflect a stratified and plural sector, a diverse student body and different disciplinary families. Equally, it argues for further investigation of the intersections of teaching excellence with other key drivers of institutional change, such as student engagement and well-being, inclusion and diversity, widening participation and retention and success.

Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education researchers than would be expected. We argue that the international higher education field of research is ripe for further application of Bernstein’s theoretical ideas. Through reference to our own and that of others, we illustrate five key affordances of Bernstein’s theoretical framework. First, it provides a unique approach that leads researchers to pose formerly unthinkable questions and encourages the development of new knowledge to address them. Second, Bernstein’s valuable concepts raise questions about the specific but inter-related macro- (societal), meso- (organisational) and micro- (individual) level processes involved in producing (in)equalities. Bernsteinian analysis can help to identify how inequalities emerge from and can be addressed at these levels. Third, we contend that the approach encourages empirical exploration of the ways in which education may be disruptive of the social order. Fourth, we suggest Bernstein’s concepts can be adapted to capture the complexity of intersecting inequalities in a way that allows the object of analysis to determine what inequalities are foregrounded. Finally, we argue that concepts help to orientate questions around inequality and social justice in a way that does not over-determine answers.

Building on the proposition that Bernstein's ideas are due for a revival in higher education research, the call for studies in which theory is put to use and for policy studies to engage in textual analysis, this chapter argues for the affordances of the theoretical underpinnings of Bernstein's pedagogic device and critical discourse studies in investigating connections between policy and practice. Drawing on the sociology of pedagogy and applied linguistics, this chapter aims to explore the theoretical complementarities of the chosen approaches for exploring how policy ideas move through time and space. A focus on the notion of recontextualisation enables an understanding of how influences beyond the discipline itself, including policy discourses, can shape learning, teaching and assessment practices. The illustrating case examines policy on learning and teaching and how these ideas are recontextualised from national policy through to institutional policy and individual practices. The critical or questioning angle of both approaches in seeing ideas, including policy, as never value-free but as situated within their sociopolitical context can shed light on how policy ideas make their way into universities and in whose interests.

The purpose of the research is to concentrate on the most important smart metropolitan applications which are smart living, smart security and smart maintainable. In that, Power management and security is a most important problem in the current metropolitan situation.

A smart metropolitan area utilizes recent innovative technologies to improve its living, security and maintainable. The aim of this study is to recognize and resolve the difficulties in metropolitan area applications.

The main aim of this study is to reduce the metropolitan foremost energy consumption, to recharge the electric vehicles and to increase the lifetime of smart street lights.

The hybrid renewable energy street light applies smart resolutions to substructure and facilities in rural and metropolitan areas to create them well. This study will be applying smart metropolitan solar and wind turbine street light using renewable energy for existing areas. In future, the smart street light work will be implemented everywhere else.

This study aims to develop a curriculum guide model to upgrade the construction supervision practices, considering evolving challenges and thereby the next normal of the industry.

Both qualitative and quantitative research designs were adopted to identify productivity-related challenges that can be addressed through effective supervision in construction. Meetings, discussions, workshops and surveys were conducted among construction experts to systematically develop the competencies of construction supervision. The necessary mapping models were used to identify the level of outcomes for each competency element along with the learning domains and programme outcomes.

A curriculum guide model consisting of 64 competency elements has been introduced with corresponding assessment weightages and mapping outcomes. Using this model, a new training programme has been designed and tested with weightage percentages on learning domains.

Although the scope of the study is limited to Sri Lanka, the findings can be interpreted for critical learning in other developing countries too.

The study outcomes are expected to make a high impact on improving the standards of vocational training education in the country, thereby upgrading the current industry practices.

The developed guide model is expected to be a valuable tool for training providers/organisations in upgrading their programmes/practices with the scope of productivity improvement. The obtained mapping outcomes are significant for the evolving next normal situations in teaching, learning and assessment methods with regard to construction supervision practices.

The performance-based utilisation of labour resources is a decisive function for developing characteristics of the next normal in the construction industry. Based on the industry's needs, this study aims to develop a framework for the systematic process of labour performance evaluations and labour grading towards achieving higher productivity in construction operations.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied through a comprehensive literature review, surveys and experts' discussions to develop a set of labour training elements of outcomes. Problem-focused and action-oriented communication approaches were used throughout the study to produce detailed steps for the systematic evaluations of labour performance.

The study has presented a framework consisting of a set of labour training elements of outcomes with the relative weights, as well as the detailed procedures to assess labour competencies towards the calculations of labour performance score values and labour grading.

Although the scope of the study is limited to the Sri Lankan context, the findings may be tested in other countries for upgrading their performance improvement practices of labour operations.

The study outcomes will strengthen the construction management practices for the successful implementation of labour training and performance evaluations at construction sites, and also contribute to upgrading the vocational training programmes in the country towards the next sustainable normal.

The developed framework can be a functional tool for the construction industry that provides a mechanism to show the detailed cross-section of each labourer's performance and values, and also displays their roles and responsibilities to accelerate the next normal in the construction industry.

Achieving the goals of the sustainable development strategy and Egypt’s vision 2030 depends mainly on the existence of sources of funds. And since Egypt faces a great challenge in obtaining finance, then analyzing the drivers of financial development is a vital issue and there is a persistent need to shed light on the key obstacles for it. Thus, this paper aims to empirically assess the impact of natural resources, foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows, education and clean energy sources on financial development in Egypt using the data of the 1971–2014 period.

The paper uses auto-regressive distributed lag and Toda-Yamomoto approaches to fulfill the purpose.

Empirical results signify that all variables except natural endowments stimulate financial development which can suggest the presence of the natural resources curse in Egypt. Moreover, the feedback effect between financial development and FDI is recognized. Clean energy sources cause financial development and natural endowments. Financial development causes natural endowments and FDI leads to the deployment of more clean energy resources.

Several crucial policy implications are suggested based upon these results as improving the quality and quantity of education and encouraging both domestic and foreign investors by providing several incentives. Moreover, the government has to enhance green finance through financing solar energy projects and other environmentally friendly projects.

It is the first research for Egypt that explores natural resource-financial development nexus using time series analysis according to our information, and two important variables are included in the model which is clean energy sources and FDI. Then, although several studies examined the impact of financial development on clean energy no empirical study before assessed the impact of clean energy on financial development.

In the context of rapid change in higher education, there is a great demand for powerful theory and methods to address key issues, particularly related to teaching and learning. This chapter traces the uptake of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) in higher education studies in South Africa to make sense of how and why this theory has become so popular. LCT draws on the works of Bernstein and Bourdieu to provide a powerful theoretical and analytical toolkit with which to analyse social practices. In the chapter, we argue that the attraction of this theory is that it attends to a ‘knowledge blindness’ whereby much higher education research, particularly that focussed on teaching and learning, fails to consider the nature and effects of the discipline or field being learned. The use of this theory is illustrated in the chapter by reference to a number of publications. In doing so, we illustrate the importance of conceptual tools that allow an interrogation of what we are teaching, who we are teaching and how this social practice takes place.

This paper aims to investigate the microstructure, hardness and tribological properties of hypoeutectic (Al-7Si) matrix reinforced with fixed quantities of 3 Wt.% graphite (Gr) and x Wt.% SiCp (x = 3, 6 and 9) hybrid composites.

The composites were fabricated by stir cast technique. The microstructure, hardness and tribological measurements were carried out on the base alloy and composites. The tribological investigation was carried out on pin-on-disc wear testing machine under dry sliding condition.

The wear rate decreases with the increase of SiCp into A356-3Gr composites. The composite containing A356-9SiCp-3Gr had better hardness and good wear resistance compared to the base alloy. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electro dispersive spectrometry (EDS) images were used to study the reinforcement distribution and worn-out surface of the specimens.

The present paper brings out a clear picture of the various events that take place under the worn-out surfaces leading to the generation of mechanical mixed layer.

The purpose of this paper is to produce Al6061 metal matrix composites reinforced with silicon carbide (SiC) and graphite particulates and study their wear behavior and also to develop artificial neural network model to predict the mass loss of hybrid composites.

The hybrid composites were produced by using stir casting process. The experiments were conducted based on the central composite rotatable design matrix using pin‐on‐disc wear testing machine. The set of data collected from the experimental values were used to train a back propagation (BP) learning algorithm with one hidden layer network. In artificial neural network (ANN) training module, four input vectors were used in the construction of proposed network namely, weight percentage of SiC particles, weight percentage of graphite particles, applied load and sliding distance. Mass loss was the output to be obtained from the proposed network. After training process, the test data collected from the experimental values were used to check the accuracy of proposed ANN model.

The results show that the well trained one hidden layer network have smaller training errors and much better generalization performance and can be successfully used for the prediction of mass loss of hybrid aluminium metal matrix composites.

In this paper the ANN method was adopted to predict the mass loss of hybrid composites. It was found that artificial neural network can be successfully used for prediction of mass loss of composites.