Summary and evaluation

The geographical analysis of the Savannah Zones of north-eastern Nigeria revealed a basic insight on the differentiated development at the meso-regional level: The northern districts had a much lower population increase than the average. It was already arid land before the dramatic reduction of precipitation since the late 1960s. The quality of the soil for farming is rather poor despite specific minerals which give grass during the very short growing season a higher nutritional value than further south. Through studies at the local level, it became evident that on one side this is an area of out-migration of the local population but on the other side we have to register the influx of migrants from the even more dryer northern districts including Niger Republic. The rate of urbanisation in Nigeria increased rapidly from 15 to 36 %. Northern capitals like Kano and Maiduguri multiplied their number of inhabitants seven times but were overtaken by Gombe’s growth. In any case they are centres of social and cultural change as the preliminary findings of H. BALZEREK concerning the boom-town Gombe revealed. But social tensions seem to be inevitable as religious movements not only in big towns like Kano but even in Gombe were already analysed by WATTS (1993, 61). The bearer/ carriers of this movement are landless people who did not migrate to new land in the country side, they are hoping for new jobs in an urban environment. The social structure has changed since the time of the old Hausa towns, but their reliance on surplus of labour force appears to have continued

Grantee Workshops Evaluation Summary

The McCune Charitable Foundation hosted 5 workshops in June 2016 to understand better if and how grantee organizations see themselves as interconnected change agents within the system of nonprofits in New Mexico. The foundation also sought to:* Share with attendees what the foundation has learned since rolling out its 2014 strategic plan * Create opportunities for all participants (including foundation staff) to see themselves as part of an interconnected ecosystem * Create opportunities for participants to make the connections between their work more visible and to network across organizations and sectors * Learn from participants the challenges and opportunities that working together within an ecosystem-like frame presents.Two overarching questions guided the workshops:1. How do we make the ways in which we are connected visible? 2. Once visible, how do we make these connections actionable

ScratchMaths: evaluation report and executive summary

Since 2014, computing has been part of the primary curriculum. ‘Scratch’ is frequently used by schools, and the EEF funded this trial to test whether the platform could be used to improve pupils’ computational thinking skills, and whether this in turn could have a positive impact on Key Stage 2 maths attainment. Good computational thinking skills mean pupils can use problem solving methods that involve expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could execute – for example, recognising patterns. Previous research has shown that pupils with better computational thinking skills do better in maths. The study found a positive impact on computational thinking skills at the end of Year 5 – particularly for pupils who have ever been eligible for free school meals. However, there was no evidence of an impact on Key Stage 2 maths attainment when pupils were tested at the end of Year 6. Many of the schools in the trial did not fully implement ScratchMaths, particularly in Year 6, where teachers expressed concerns about the pressure of Key Stage 2 SATs. But there was no evidence that schools which did implement the programme had better maths results. Schools may be interested in ScratchMaths as an affordable way to cover aspects of the primary computing curriculum in maths lessons without any adverse effect on core maths outcomes. This trial, however, did not provide evidence that ScratchMaths is an effective way to improve maths outcomes

Summary of the nondestructive evaluation session

Advanced material systems and designs require improved nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques for quality control, failure analysis and properties monitoring. Some advanced NDE techniques such as infrared scanning systems, laser holographic applications and the use of the Mossbauer effect are outlined. Applications of these techniques are discussed for evaluating the new space shuttle external insulation materials, aircraft structures and engine components, and precursors to crack initiation and growth

A user-centered approach to rushes summarisation via highlight-detected keyframes

We present our keyframe-based summary approach for BBC Rushes video as part of the TRECVid Summarisation benchmark evaluation carried out in 2007. We outline our approach to summarisation that uses video processing for feature extraction and is informed by human factors considerations for summary presentation. Based on the performance of our generated summaries as reported by NIST, we subsequently undertook detailed failure analysis of our approach. The findings of this investigation as well as recommendations for alterations to our keyframe-based summary generation method, and the evaluation methodology for Rushes summaries in general, are detailed within this paper

A comparative study of online news retrieval and presentation strategies

We introduce a news retrieval system on which we evaluated three alternative presentation strategies for online news retrieval. We used a user-oriented and task-oriented evaluation framework. The interfaces studied were Image, giving a grid of thumbnails for each story together with query-based summaries presented as tooltips, Summary, which displayed the summary information alongside each thumbnail, and Cluster, which grouped similar stories together and used the same display format as Image. The evaluation showed that the Summary Interface was preferred to the Image Interface, and that the Cluster Interface was helpful to users with a set task to complete. The implications of this study are also discussed in this paper

Summary of the Commissioning Better Outcomes Evaluation

The aim of the evaluation is to improve the understanding of SIBs, by capturing learning at all stages of the development process and building an evidence base for the SIB model and its application in different contexts. The contract is divided into two parts: delivering a robust evaluation that provides evidence on the impact of SIBs and highlights good practice; and disseminating the learning from this evaluation through a range of outputs and sharing processes. The evaluation is also being undertaken throughout the nine year life of the CBO Fund in order to ensure that learning from the evaluation process feeds into the continuous improvement of the Fund, its processes and its impact

Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education Summary Evaluation

The purpose of this monograph is to highlight the development of CAPE and its effects through the multiple inquiry lenses trained on the program over its first six years. The story is one of development and learning by school communities, teachers, and artists as they became increasingly and more deeply involved in arts-integrated instruction. It is also a story of increasingly tangible and measurable effects on student learning as the program matured