Wissensstandsanalyse zum Verbraucher- und Ernährungsverhalten bei ökologischen Lebensmitteln mit Einbezug der Außer-Haus-Verpflegung

Die vorliegende Studie enthält einen umfassenden Überblick zur nationalen wie internationalen Verbraucherforschung für Öko-Lebensmittel. Insgesamt wurden 562 Publikationen basierend auf 338 wissenschaftlichen Studien aus dem Zeitraum Januar 2000 bis Juni 2011 zu den Themengebieten Determinanten des Verbraucherverhaltens, Verbrauchersegmentierung, Produkt-, Preis-, Kommunikations- und Distributionspolitik sowie Außer-Haus-Verzehr analysiert und hinsichtlich ihrer Datengrundlage und Methodik bewertet. Die Betrachtung der einschlägigen englisch- und deutschsprachigen Literatur lieferte Erkenntnisse zum Wissensstand über die Verbraucherforschung für Öko-Lebensmittel und ermöglichte die Identifizierung relevanter Forschungslücken für Deutschland, die richtungsweisend für die zukünftige Forschung ist. Insgesamt ergab sich eine hohe Publikationsdichte insbesondere in den letzten vier Jahren. Zu den zahlenmäßig am häufigsten behandelten Themengebieten gehören die Determinanten des Verbraucherverhaltens, die Produktpolitik sowie die Preispolitik. Dennoch sind auch hier viele gänzlich unbearbeitete Fragestellungen, bspw. zu den Geschmackspräferenzen unterschiedlicher Verbraucher-gruppen, zu umweltfreundlichen Verpackungen sowie zur Preiskenntnis und Preispsychologie des Konsumenten, zu finden. Darüber hinaus konnten innovative Aspekte der Trendforschung zum Thema Öko-Lebensmittel ausgemacht werden. Andere Themengebiete wie zum Beispiel Kommunikationspolitik und Außer-Haus-Verzehr sind bisher kaum untersucht. Die Status-Quo-Analyse wurde mit den Ergebnissen aus einer Online-Befragung und einem Experten-Workshop ergänzt, um die Relevanz der identifizierten Forschungslücken einzuschätzen und den Forschungsbedarf aus Praktiker- und Expertensicht zu ermitteln. Aus dieser umfassenden Analyse konnten konkret Empfehlungen für zukünftige Forschungsschwerpunkte in Deutschland abgeleitet werden

Two-phased knowledge formalisation for hydrometallurgical gold ore process recommendation and validation

This paper describes an approach to externalising and formalising expert knowledge involved in the design and evaluation of hydrometallurgical process chains for gold ore treatment. The objective was to create a case-based reasoning application for recommending and validating a treatment process of gold ores. We describe a twofold approach. Formalising human expert knowledge about gold mining situations enables the retrieval of similar mining contexts and respective process chains, based on prospection data gathered from a potential gold mining site. Secondly, empirical knowledge on hydrometallurgical treatments is formalised. This enabled us to evaluate and, where needed, redesign the process chain that was recommended by the first aspect of our approach. The main problems with formalisation of knowledge in the domain of gold ore refinement are the diversity and the amount of parameters used in literature and by experts to describe a mining context. We demonstrate how similarity knowledge was used to formalise literature knowledge. The evaluation of data gathered from experiments with an initial prototype workflow recommender, Auric Adviser, provides promising results

Beyond Manpower Planning: ROA's Labour Market Model and its Forecasts to 2002

This paper describes the forecasting model of the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), which has been developed for making forecasts about developments of the labour market position of different types of education with respect to the Dutch labour market. Every two years, ROA compiles forecasts of changes in the labour market in the medium term, differentiated by a large number of economic sectors, occupational classes and types of education to illustrate the meaning of the information. The paper aims particularly to describe the objectives, the basic principles, the theoretical foundations and the structure of ROA''s forecasting approach and the major labour market indicators in more detail. The forecast labour market developments for the types of education up to the year 2002 will also be presented. Due to the low level of aggregation used, these forecasts provide very useful information for people who are involved in decisions about educational investments.education, training and the labour market;

Multimedia information technology and the annotation of video

The state of the art in multimedia information technology has not progressed to the point where a single solution is available to meet all reasonable needs of documentalists and users of video archives. In general, we do not have an optimistic view of the usability of new technology in this domain, but digitization and digital power can be expected to cause a small revolution in the area of video archiving. The volume of data leads to two views of the future: on the pessimistic side, overload of data will cause lack of annotation capacity, and on the optimistic side, there will be enough data from which to learn selected concepts that can be deployed to support automatic annotation. At the threshold of this interesting era, we make an attempt to describe the state of the art in technology. We sample the progress in text, sound, and image processing, as well as in machine learning

A STUDY OF HOW MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN HONG KONG CATER FOR STUDENTS’ INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers cater for students’ individual differences in the context of a reform-based Mathematics curriculum, using the topic ‘Similar triangles’. A group of six Hong Kong secondary schools in different locations, and with different banding and setting policies, took part in the study. The students were in the age-group 12 to 13 years. A naturalistic research design, without any interference from the researcher, was chosen to examine teacher behaviour. The emphasis was on observing, describing, interpreting and exploring events in the complex setting of the classroom, via a case study approach. Data were collected from the six teachers through interviews, questionnaires, and video and audio recording of five to six lessons for each teacher. There was also one focus group interview with students from each teacher’s classes. This research reports on how the methods suggested in the Curriculum Guide for catering for individual differences were implemented in the classroom. In general, the teachers involved: (1) attempted to check students’ prior knowledge, but only a small number of students was involved; (2) asked questions at different levels, but did not know about the students’ learning progress; (3) chose content which was most likely to follow the textbook; (4) were unable to vary the focus to help students to learn; and (5) could not identify what was hindering students in working out problems during seatwork. This study indicates that teachers are using their own methods to try to solve the problem of catering for student diversity, but the approaches they employ are not of a high enough quality to help students. Also, the ways in which teachers catered for individual differences in students varied considerably. This was found to depend on: the learning atmosphere; the opportunities created for student responses; variations in the scaffolding used; and the level of students’ motivation for learning. It is strongly recommended that teachers open their minds to contacts outside the classroom to refresh their teaching repertoire, and try to use some new methods which are related to the theories discussed in this research. Also, it is suggested that policy makers could build on the teachers’ experiences to enhance their ability to handle student diversity

Does Conservation Status Matter if You’re Ugly? An Experimental Survey of Species Appeal and Public Support

Wildlife conservation is of the utmost importance to the preservation of a healthy planet, with the extinction of wild animals increasing at previously unseen rates. However, conservation is also becoming increasingly difficult without strong public support, and this often varies in extent and success when it comes to different species and taxa. There is considerable research investigating how the physical characteristics of species affect public support of their conservation. Results suggest species seen as more charismatic, or even more likeable, are more likely to gain support for their conservation, regardless of conservation status. This study aimed to identify whether conservation status, and concern for it, is as important of a consideration for endangered species that are not seen as simply likeable or appealing, or whether this tends to be more ignored for such species. We found that for the treatments/species we chose in our experiment, and in the context we distributed the survey in, their conservation status was a more significant factor than their perceived appeal when it came to public support for their conservation. These results have implications for wildlife conservation efforts, as it shows that appeal is not always the most important factor when attempting to garner support, and that influencing the perception of concern for certain species may be a more effective avenue than relying on appeal for successful wildlife conservation

Teachers’ Perception of the Trade/Entrepreneurship of the New Senior Secondary Education Curricula

The paper studied teachers’ perception of the trade/entrepreneurship subjects that form a central part of the new senior secondary school curriculum in Nigeria. It used a 35/7 matrix questionnaire to identify and rank teachers’ perception of the 34 trades/entrepreneurship subjects. A total of 53 teachers drawn from the four distinct fields of study (Science & mathematics, Technology, Humanities, and Business Studies) participated in the study. Simple statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients were used for data analysis. Result showed different ratings of the trade subjects and two prominent determinants of choice of trade subjects. The study recommended some considerations for staging trade subjects in school. Keywords: Trade/entrepreneurship, curriculum, teacher perceptio

Diversifying assessment across the ‘Two Cultures’: student-produced podcasts in Geography

Since 2008, following growing collective interest in learning technologies and pedagogy, Geography and History departments at Northumbria and Newcastle Universities have successfully incorporated student-generated podcasting into a mixture of science, humanities and social science modules across all undergraduate levels. This paper presents a number of innovative examples using this approach, with the aim of promoting student creativity and analytical skills in ways different from traditional report- or essay-based assessments. It goes on to consider some of the advantages and challenges of this alternative assessment mode, from both student and tutor perspectives, across the science-humanities divide