Block (or intensive) teaching is used by many management schools, but the factors that drive students to choose (or avoid) block subjects are not well understood. This paper reviews the research findings on intensive teaching and analyses the factors which predict student choice between different teaching formats, based on an analysis of qualitative and quantitative survey data. If studying one subject at a time, a majority of students appear to prefer a less intensive format. However the results show that three factors influence students' likelihood to choose the block format: their experience with the format, their perception of their ability in a particular subject and their concurrent subject load. There are also subject specific differences in student preferences. Implications for block scheduling and for actions to address perceived disadvantages of the block method are addressed.

We extend the group theoretic notions of transfer and stable elements to graded centres of triangulated categories. When applied to the centre Z*(Db(B) of the derived bounded category of a block algebra B we show that the block cohomology H*(B) is isomorphic to a quotient of a certain subalgebra of stable elements of Z*(Db(B)) by some nilpotent ideal, and that a quotient of Z*(Db(B)) by some nilpotent ideal is Noetherian over H*(B).

Let µ be Radon measure on Rd which may be non doubling. The only condition that µ must satisfy is the size condition µ(B(x, r)) ≤ Crn for some fixed n є (0, d). Recently, Tolsa introduced the spaces RBMO(µ) and Hatb1.∞ (µ), which, in some ways, play the role of the classical spaces BMO and H1 in case u is a doubling measure. In this paper, the author considers the local versions of the spaces RBMO(µ) and Hatb1.∞ (µ) in the sense of Goldberg and establishes the connections between the spaces RBMO(µ) and Hatb1.∞ (µ) with their local versions. An interpolation result of linear operators is also given.