Brief Therapy: The Process of Change and Episodes of Care

Brief therapy seems to be all the rage today. In most countries, third party payers, government health bodies, and service provider agencies are increasingly demanding “cost-benefit” or “cost-effectiveness” support for all outpatient psychotherapy. Employers supporting employee assistance programs, to help workers through life difficulties, are equally interested in the most time-effective interventions to retain valued employees and restore their productivity. In truth, it is the rare client who wouldn’t choose a treatment promising the quickest resolution to their distress. Yet, what is brief therapy, and is the pressure to practice it causing more problems for practitioners than the approach promises to fix? Are there any central factors to guide us in this pressure-toproduce environment

Correlating Infall with Deuterium Fractionation in Dense Cores

We present a survey of HCO+ (3-2) observations pointed towards dense cores with previous measurements of N(N2D+)/N(N2H+). Of the 26 cores in this survey, five show the spectroscopic signature of outward motion, nine exhibit neither inward nor outward motion, eleven appear to be infalling, and one is not detected. We compare the degree of deuterium fractionation with infall velocities calculated from the HCO+ spectra and find that those cores with [D]/[H] > 0.1 are more likely to have the signature of inward motions than cores with smaller [D]/[H] ratios. Infall motions are also much more common in cores with masses exceeding their thermal Jeans masses. The fastest infall velocity measured belongs to one of the two protostellar cores in our survey, L1521F, and the observed motions are typically on the order of the sound speed.Comment: Accepted to Ap

Topological Optimization of the Evaluation of Finite Element Matrices

We present a topological framework for finding low-flop algorithms for evaluating element stiffness matrices associated with multilinear forms for finite element methods posed over straight-sided affine domains. This framework relies on phrasing the computation on each element as the contraction of each collection of reference element tensors with an element-specific geometric tensor. We then present a new concept of complexity-reducing relations that serve as distance relations between these reference element tensors. This notion sets up a graph-theoretic context in which we may find an optimized algorithm by computing a minimum spanning tree. We present experimental results for some common multilinear forms showing significant reductions in operation count and also discuss some efficient algorithms for building the graph we use for the optimization

Higher and Further Education Students' Income, Expenditure and Debt in Scotland 2007-08

This report presents findings from the second study of the income, expenditure and debt of students studying higher education (HE) and further education (FE) in Scotland in 2007-08. The study was commissioned by the Scottish Government and conducted by the Scottish Centre for Employment Research at the University of Strathclyde Business School in conjunction with colleagues from the Business School and Department of Economics of the University of Glasgow. The aim of the study is to examine Scottish-domiciled higher and further education students' finances, particularly their income, expenditure, debt and savings, and their attitudes to the financing of study in Scotland. Where appropriate this data is then compared to the findings of the previous 2004-05 Scottish survey as well as a control group of young Scots who are not students

A critical perspective on learning outcomes and the effectiveness of experiential approaches in entrepreneurship education: do we innovate or implement?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical appraisal of how experiential approaches can more effectively enhance the achievement of desired learning outcomes in entrepreneurship education. In particular, the authors critique whether actual learning outcomes can be profitably used to measure effectiveness; and consider how student performance can be evaluated through the twin lenses of implementation or innovation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors undertook a review of both traditional and experiential approaches to entrepreneurship education. In addition to comparing these approaches, the authors critiqued a number of “taken for granted” assumptions regarding the effectiveness of experiential approaches to entrepreneurship education and made recommendations. Findings – Although there is a large body of research on experiential approaches towards entrepreneurship education, the authors know little about how these approaches contribute towards the effective achievement of desired learning outcomes. Whilst many authors claim that such approaches are effective, such assertions are not supported by sufficient robust evidence. Hence the authors need to establish more effective student performance evaluation metrics. In particular: first, whether actual learning outcomes are appropriate measures of effectiveness; and second, the authors should evaluate student performance through the lenses of the two “Is” – implementation or innovation. Practical implications – Whether actual learning outcomes are used as a measure of effectiveness at all needs to be critiqued further. Implementation involves doing things that are determined by others and matching against their expectations, whereas innovation comprises producing multiple and varied solutions that respond to change and often surprise. Originality/value – Through revisiting the discussions on the art and the science of entrepreneurship education, this paper represents an initial critical attempt – as part of an ongoing study – to fill a gap in entrepreneurship education research. The paper, therefore, has significant value for students, entrepreneurship educators and policy-makers

Constructive Misalignment? Learning outcomes and effectiveness in teamwork-based experiential entrepreneurship education assessment

Objectives: Despite extensive research on experiential entrepreneurship education (EEE), we know little about how these approaches contribute towards effective achievement of learning outcomes (LOs), particularly in terms of opportunity discovery and exploitation. We critically appraised how experiential approaches enhance the achievement of learning outcomes (LOs) in teamwork-based entrepreneurship education assessment. Prior Work: Extant EEE research tends to focus upon “good practice”, rather than establishing its impact upon students. The argument for experiential approaches is two-fold but with a missing third fold (Scott et al, 2016): (1) ‘Traditional’ programmes, which rely upon lectures or other directed, non-experiential approaches to entrepreneurship education, are not effectively achieving their objectives, or these objectives are not ambitious enough to achieve effective outcomes; (2) Experiential approaches are an interactive, participative, realistic, viable and potentially more effective alternative to these ‘traditional’ approaches and include, for example, simulation etc; and (3) There is a lack of evidence on their effectiveness, though with some relatively recent exceptions, alongside a continuing debate about whether entrepreneurship can even be taught. Approach: We adopted an exploratory qualitative analysis of reflective diaries to achieve our objectives. Data were gathered from a purposive and convenience sample of reflective diaries, an individual assessment element of three Masters-level modules (modules 1, 2 and 3), in which there are also group business ideas generation presentations and a report. We subjected the text to rigorous content analysis (Silverman, 2004, 2010; Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008; Curtis and Curtis, 2011), which often adds a positivistic epistemological flavour to qualitative research, and our text was partially quantified to enable in-depth qualitative analysis. Results: Our analysis of student reflective diaries revealed that, while a number of LOs were met in relation to teamwork and communication, those related to innovation (i.e. generating a business idea) were much more modest. Yet, students experienced negative aspects which have become learning opportunities, such as linguistic-cultural challenges and overcoming nonparticipation/freeriding. Although Biggs (2003) has argued the need for constructive alignment in course design, in fact some of these unexpected LOs suggest the possibility that constructive misalignment could, in certain circumstances (e.g. experiential entrepreneurship education), be a positive pedagogical outcome. Implications and Value: There is, however, still little evidence that EEE is more effective than other approaches that have traditionally been adopted