Identifying harmonic attributes from online partial discharge data

Partial discharge (PD) monitoring is a key method of tracking fault progression and degradation of insulation systems. Recent research discovered that the harmonic regime experienced by the plant also affects the PD pattern, questioning the conclusions about equipment health drawn from PD data. This paper presents the design and creation of an online system for harmonic circumstance monitoring of distribution cables, using only PD data. Based on machine learning techniques, the system can assess the prevalence of the 5th and 7th harmonic orders over the monitoring period. This information is key for asset managers to draw correct conclusions about the remaining life of polymeric cable insulation, and prevent overestimation of the degradation trend

Promoting Learning by Inducing and Scaffolding Cognitive Disequilibrium and Confusion through System Feedback

Learners frequently experience uncertainty about how to proceed during learning. These experiences cause learners to enter a state of cognitive disequilibrium and its affiliated affective state of confusion. Cognitive disequilibrium and confusion have been found to frequently occur during complex learning and provide opportunities for deeper learning. In the current thesis, a learning environment that induces confusion was investigated. In the environment, learners engaged in a dialogue on scientific reasoning with an animated pedagogical agent. Confusion was induced through false feedback provided by the tutor agent (e.g., when learners responded correctly and were told their response was incorrect). Self-reports of confusion during the training session indicated that false feedback was an effective method for inducing confusion. False feedback was also found to increase learners’ ability to apply this knowledge to new and novel situations, under certain conditions. Implications for the design of learning environments are also discussed

Explaining Levels of Customer Satisfaction with First Contact with Jobcentre Plus: results of qualitative research with Jobcentre Plus Staff

This report is a follow up to the First Contact Customer Survey (Research Report 504). As a result of ongoing difficulties accessing data for sampling purposes, the initial plan to undertake qualitative follow-up research with customers was abandoned in favour of research with staff to explore process-related issues which might explain customer responses. The research was undertaken in September and October 2008 and included telephone interviews with senior staff combined with face-to-face interviews and structured observations with staff in Contact Centres, Jobcentres and Benefit Delivery Centres in four Jobcentre Plus regions. Findings relate specifically to staff perceptions of customer satisfaction with first contact

Interventions to Regulate Confusion during Learning

Confusion provides opportunities to learn at deeper levels. However, learners must put forth the necessary effort to resolve their confusion to convert this opportunity into actual learning gains. Learning occurs when learners engage in cognitive activities beneficial to learning (e.g., reflection, deliberation, problem solving) during the process of confusion resolution. Unfortunately, learners are not always able to resolve their confusion on their own. The inability to resolve confusion can be due to a lack of knowledge, motivation, or skills. The present dissertation explored methods to aid confusion resolution and ultimately promote learning through a multi-pronged approach. First, a survey revealed that learners prefer more information and feedback when confused and that they preferred different interventions for confusion compared to boredom and frustration. Second, expert human tutors were found to most frequently handle learner confusion by providing direct instruction and responded differently to learner confusion compared to anxiety, frustration, and happiness. Finally, two experiments were conducted to test the effectiveness of pedagogical and motivational confusion regulation interventions. Both types of interventions were investigated within a learning environment that experimentally induced confusion via the presentation of contradictory information by two animated agents (tutor and peer student agents). Results showed across both studies that learner effort during the confusion regulation task impacted confusion resolution and that learning occurred when the intervention provided the opportunity for learners to stop, think, and deliberate about the concept being discussed. Implications for building more effective affect-sensitive learning environments are discussed

Conceptualising leadership in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand

The New Zealand Teachers Council Te Pouherenga Kaiako o Aotearoa is pleased to publish this occasional paper focused on leadership in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand. The project that led to this publication grew out of a desire of the Council’s Early Childhood Education Advisory Group to promote some action on leadership development specifically for ECE. Whereas there is a well-developed leadership strategy for the school sector there is no equivalent support for teachers in ECE. Yet it is well established in the literature that an effective professional learning community is most likely to result from leadership that has learning as the central focus. Thus the absence of a cohesive leadership strategy was seen as a significant risk to professional initiatives supporting quality teaching in ECE

Development of an Integrated Governance Strategy for the Voluntary and Community Sector

This report on governance provides a framework for thinking about how policy makers, funders,regulators and advisers can all work with Board members and staff to enhance the effectiveness of nonprofit organisations. It was commissioned by the Active Community Unit (ACU) of the Home Office, in parallel with other reviews designed to improve the capacity of the voluntary and community sector, at a time when the sector plays an increasingly important role in the delivery of services using public funds. That role has recently been investigated in two Government reports, the Cross Cutting Review carried out by the Treasury, and the Strategy Unit review of charities and nonprofits. Our report proposes actions of three types: some that can be taken immediately, some that require further discussion with key interests, and some integration with the other ACU reviews. Taken together they provide the starting point for an evolving strategy to improve governance across the sector. We recommend ACU chairs a group charged with the responsibility for planning and implementing this. Our focus is on governance as 'the systems and processes concerned with ensuring the overall direction, supervision and accountability of an organisation'. This is often taken to mean the way that a Board, management committee or other governing body steers the overall development of an organisation, where day-to-day management is in the hands of staff or volunteers. Sometimes, of course, the committee and volunteers are the same. They – like all governing bodies – have to balance the interests of the organisation and those they are trying to serve, while being conscious of financial and legal responsibilities, and the requirements of funders and other supporters

Moral hazard and dynamics of insider ownership stakes

In this paper, I analyze the ownership dynamics of N strategic risk-averse corporate insiders facing a moral hazard problem. A solution for the equilibrium share price and the dynamics of the aggregate insider stake is obtained in two cases: when agents can credibly commit to an optimal ownership policy and when they cannot commit (time-consistent case). In the latter case, the aggregate stake gradually adjusts towards the competitive allocation. The speed of adjustment increases with N when outside investors are risk-averse, and does not depend on it when investors are risk-neutral. Predictions of the model are consistent with recent empirical findings.Corporate insiders, moral hazard, ownership dynamics