Premium Incentives to Drive Wellness in the Workplace: A Review of the Issues and Recommendations for Policymakers

Outlines trends in workplace wellness programs; healthcare reform law provisions allowing greater financial incentives for employees; policy considerations for vulnerable populations, privacy issues, and affordability of coverage; and recommendations

Young Women's Perceptions and Experiences of Becoming a Research Physicist

The research presented here focuses on young women's (under 30 years of age) views of their future careers in physics research and the barriers and constraints they have already experienced and those they anticipate in the future. This research is timely because of girls' increasing success in educational achievement throughout school and university levels. Our initial survey of female members of the Institute of Physics showed that only 15% of young women under 30 said they encountered barriers in their careers compared to 45% of women over 30 years. However the young women described situations that clearly were barriers and were gender related, but they didn–t recognize them as such. The initial survey detected a drift away from research careers in the over 30s and so this research sought explanations for this by examining the younger women's perceptions of future careers

Using mirror and other internal surveys in order to improve student experience

This article is the first stage of a project which considers how best to use the data collected from mirror surveys and other internal student surveys to enhance the student experience, with a subsidiary aim of thereby enhancing National Student Survey (NSS) scores. The second stage, which is underway at present, combines the theoretical basis and debate explored in this article with detailed statistical analysis of internal and external survey results, to provide a greater evidential basis for decision-making and strategic planning. The research was supported as a 2011-12 Learning Development Project, at City University London, and is intended to inform educational discussion and strategy. The interim findings discussed below are readily transferable to other disciplines and other universities. Universities have put a great deal of effort into improving student satisfaction, but not always with measurable results. Throughout the existence of the NSS, universities have experienced significant variance between student satisfaction as represented by internal measures and the levels of satisfaction reported in the NSS. This has been the case even when the internal measures take the form of mirror surveys, i.e. surveys which mirror or closely resemble the questions on the current version of the NSS. Although general morale factors and events beyond a university’s control may play a strong role in the scores, they do not necessarily explain the differences, especially where the internal questions are based on those from the NSS. Both measures may be an accurate representation of student satisfaction but measuring subtly different factors, or other influences may be operating. By examining this issue, this project aims to enable better planning for the future and the development of appropriate, tailored responses to issues. The interim findings reflect examples of best practice and next steps for the strategic use of such data, including free-text comments

Chapter 7: Institutional Support

The OTiS (Online Teaching in Scotland) programme, run by the now defunct Scotcit programme, ran an International e-Workshop on Developing Online Tutoring Skills which was held between 8–12 May 2000. It was organised by Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Out of this workshop came the seminal Online Tutoring E-Book, a generic primer on e-learning pedagogy and methodology, full of practical implementation guidelines. Although the Scotcit programme ended some years ago, the E-Book has been copied to the SONET site as a series of PDF files, which are now available via the ALT Open Access Repository. The editor, Carol Higgison, is currently working in e-learning at the University of Bradford (see her staff profile) and is the Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Transport integration - an impossible dream?

Transport Integration and an Integrated Transport Policy have been widely espoused for many years, yet remain an ambiguous and ill-defined concept. After featuring strongly in the 1998 Transport Policy White Paper, recently transport integration has received less emphasis. However it appears it is set for a return under the new Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis.This paper explores the meaning of Integrated Transport. It concludes that there is no point in attempting to identify a single definition, but that there are overlapping layers of meaning, with higher levels incorporating lower, or narrower, understandings of the term Integrated Transport. This exploration of meanings of integration is a development of initial work (Potter and Skinner 2000) and is important as the alternative meanings lead to different transport policy responses. These meanings include: - Locational Integration: being able to easily change between transport modes (using Interchanges) - this is about services connecting in space - Timetabling Integration: Services at an interchange connect in time. - Ticketing Integration: Not needing to purchase a new ticket for each leg of a journey - Information Integration: Not needing to enquire at different places for each stage of a trip - or that different independent sources are easily connected - Service Design Integration: That the legal, administrative and governance structures permit/encouraging integration - Travel Generation Integration: Integrating the planning of transport with the generators of travel (particularly integration with land use planning) Furthermore, there are inherent tensions which make transport integration difficult to achieve. Only limited progress has been achieved in the UK since the 1998 White Paper, and even in Germany, with their strong transport policy structures, integration has failed (Schöller-Schwedes, 2009). This exploration of meanings will also explore the tensions involved as there is a danger of the UK chasing again a flawed concept

Using a collaborative robot to the upper limb rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is a relevant process for the recovery from dysfunctions and improves the realization of patient's Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Robotic systems are considered an important field within the development of physical rehabilitation, thus allowing the collection of several data, besides performing exercises with intensity and repeatedly. This paper addresses the use of a collaborative robot applied in the rehabilitation field to help the physiotherapy of upper limb of patients, specifically shoulder. To perform the movements with any patient the system must learn to behave to each of them. In this sense, the Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm makes the system robust and independent of the path of motion. To test this approach, it is proposed a simulation with a UR3 robot implemented in V-REP platform. The main control variable is the resistance force that the robot is able to do against the movement performed by the human arm.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MULTIPAYER ONLINE ROLE-PLAYING GAME BASED ON HISTORY

History is a compulsory subject in the education syllabus in Malaysia. Historical learning plays a vital part in developing a student, in terms of spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual growth. There are numerous studies conducted which shows the lack of interest in learning history among students. History is perceived as boring by students with numerous facts and texts to be remembered and memorized. The lack of pictures to depict the events happened in the past do not help, either. However, interactive contents are able to help students understand and learn history better. Students, who are usually teenagers and young adults, usually fare better when they can learn in an interactive environment. Digital game can enable a student to “relive” history by telling its storyline. Computer games are immersive, interactive and sometimes addictive. The interaction between player and the game components, such as hardware and software, defines these qualities. A game is highly immersive if it can capture a player‟s imagination in its interactive world with different characters, storylines, strategies and design. In this paper, a finding is done from a preliminary analysis on problems faced when teaching and learning history, students‟ response and reaction for game-based learning and the ability. An investigation is carried out using questionnaire and interview, involving 40 respondents, which are mainly student and parents from different schools in Ipoh, Perak. The key findings from this investigation are problems faced by students when learning history and their reaction towards game-based learning (GBL). The product of this project has been developed and successfully tested by users from various students