Analyzing Alternative Learning Centers: Challenges and Opportunities for Maintaining Student Retention

The purpose of this study was to examine what strategies alternative learning centers utilize for student retention. A case study was used to learn about the ways one public school located in the Upper Midwest provided resources and developed relationships with students in an alternative learning center setting. Students attending alternative learning centers are typically high-risk high-need students who do not have many social supports in their educational settings. The participant in this study is a high-level administrator who has over 30 years of experience in the public school system, including participation in the creation of the modern alternative learning center in their area. The findings imply that positive school environments as well as respectful positive relationships are necessary in the retention and maintenance of students at alternative learning centers. Environmental as well as social factors prohibit the typical alternative learning center student from being successful in school. If these relationships and environmental factors are not met students do not typically stay in school

Analyzing Alternative Learning Centers: Challenges and Opportunities for Maintaining Student Retention

The purpose of this study was to examine what strategies alternative learning centers utilize for student retention. A case study was used to learn about the ways one public school located in the Upper Midwest provided resources and developed relationships with students in an alternative learning center setting. Students attending alternative learning centers are typically high-risk high-need students who do not have many social supports in their educational settings. The participant in this study is a high-level administrator who has over 30 years of experience in the public school system, including participation in the creation of the modern alternative learning center in their area. The findings imply that positive school environments as well as respectful positive relationships are necessary in the retention and maintenance of students at alternative learning centers. Environmental as well as social factors prohibit the typical alternative learning center student from being successful in school. If these relationships and environmental factors are not met students do not typically stay in school

A single-phase gadolinium-doped ceria cathode for highly efficient CO₂ electrolysis

High-temperature solid-oxide CO2 electrolysers enable high-efficiency conversion of electrical energy to valuable fuels and chemicals and as such facilitate a sustainable-energy technology. Conventional cermet-based fuel electrodes used in such solid-oxide cells (SOCs) like nickel-yttria-stabilized zirconia (Ni-YSZ) suffer from morphological degradation and destructive carbon deposition. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in employing single-phase ceria-based fuel electrodes, which are known to exhibit excellent carbon deposition resistance. Under sufficiently reducing conditions, doped ceria (substituted with trivalent cations such as samarium or gadolinium to generate mobile oxygen vacancies) becomes a mixed ionic-electronic conductor, showing appreciable electronic conductivity. Here, we show for the first time stable high performance in CO2 electrolysis using a ceria-based SOC. The single full cell incorporating a 10 mol% gadolinium-doped ceria (GCO) fuel electrode delivers a current density as high as 1.51 A cm−2 at 800 °C during pure CO2 electrolysis, which is the best electrode performance reported to date among all-ceramic cathode materials. We demonstrate that the electrode performance in CO2 electrolysis is linked with the electronic conductivity, and hence, with the electronic charge carrier concentration in GCO. The results of the present work pave the way for development of robust, nickel-free SOCs for direct CO2 electrolysis.</p

Lederskap som kulturskaper - Samspillet mellom den formelle leder og organisasjonskultur

Denne bacheloroppgaven utforsker hvordan formelle ledere kan fremme og opprettholde en positiv organisasjonskultur. Gjennom teoretisk rammeverk og en narrativ litteraturstudie, belyser den strategier for effektivt lederskap og deres innvirkning på organisasjonskulturen, med fokus på transaksjons- og transformasjonsledese, samt Telos Leadership Lens (TLL). Oppgaven gir innsikt i hvordan ledere kan integrere disse strategiene for å fremme engasjement og forbedre arbeidsmiljøet. Studien konkluderer med at en kombinasjon av ledelsestilene er avgjørende for å balansere kortsiktige og langsiktige mål, og understreker viktigheten av formålsdrevet ledelse for å bygge en sterk og etisk organisasjonskultur

Missouri National Recreational River, Natural Resource Condition Assessment

Executive Summary As a unit in the National Park Service (NPS), Missouri National Recreational River (MNRR) is responsible for the management and conservation of natural resources within its boundaries. This mandate is supported by the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, which directs the NPS to: conserve the scenery and natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. In 2003, NPS Water Resources Division received funding through the Natural Resource Challenge Program to systematically assess watershed resource conditions in NPS units, establishing the Watershed Condition Assessment Program. This program, now titled the Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program, aims to provide documentation about the current conditions of important park resources through a spatially explicit, multi-disciplinary synthesis of existing scientific data and knowledge. Findings from the NRCA, including the report and accompanying map products, will help MNRR managers to: develop near-term management priorities, engage in watershed or landscape scale partnership and education efforts, conduct park planning (e.g. Resource Stewardship Strategy), report program performance (e.g. Department of the Interior’s Strategic Plan ―land health goals, Government Performance and Results Act). Specific project expectations and outcomes for the MNRR NRCA are listed in Chapter 3. For the purpose of this NRCA, NPS staff identified key resources that are referred to as ―components‖ in the project framework and throughout the assessment. The components selected include natural resources and processes that are currently of the greatest concern to park management at MNRR. The final project framework contains nine resource components, along with measures, stressors, and reference conditions for each. This study involved reviewing existing literature and data for each of the components in the framework and, where appropriate, analyzing the data in order to provide summaries or to create new spatial or statistical representations. After gathering data regarding current condition of component measures, those data were compared to reference conditions (when possible) and a qualitative statement of condition was developed. The discussions in Chapter 4 represent a comprehensive summary of available information regarding the current condition of these resources. These discussions represent not only the most current published literature, but also unpublished park information and, most importantly, the perspectives of park experts. Nearly every component in MNRR is affected by the altered flow regime from the post-dam Missouri River and, with that, the conditions of most park resources (as indicated by the measures defined in the project framework) are of moderate or significant concern. These condition designations are largely a product of the ―pre-dam‖ reference condition assigned to nearly every MNRR component. When comparing the current condition of a resource that has been drastically altered by damming to its pre-dam condition, it is almost always worse off today. However, while the Missouri River ecosystem has endured large changes since dam construction, there are several individual components that are recovering and doing well with the given circumstances. Differing uses and interests of the Missouri River (e.g. preservation, recreation, electricity generation, navigation, etc.) further complicate MNRR’s ability to restore the Missouri River to its pre-dam condition. However, several components ( e.g. flow regime, aquatic and terrestrial habitats, erosional and depositional processes) are drivers of the entire ecosystem, and restoration of these components would have a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem. Overall, the Missouri River ecosystem is complex and while several components are considered to be of moderate or significant concern, their actual condition (when considering the the condition of the Missouri River ecosystem) is often times of lower concern

Road Trauma in Teenage Male Youth with Childhood Disruptive Behavior Disorders: A Population Based Analysis

Donald Redelmeier and colleagues conducted a population-based case-control study of 16-19-year-old males hospitalized for road trauma or appendicitis and showed that disruptive behavior disorders explained a significant amount of road trauma in this group

Impact of partial liberalization of driver's license regulations on the driving behavior of people with epilepsy: experience from Croatia

Until 2005 Croatia had a driving ban for people with epilepsy (PWE) on antiepileptic therapy. To investigate the impact of partial liberalization of legislation, the results of polling performed in 1999 and 2009 were compared. The results revealed that in 1999, despite the driving ban, 46.9% of respondents had a driver's license, whereas in 2009, the majority of respondents with a driver's license (60.2%) fulfilled the requirement criterion of 2 years' remission. In both pollings, one-third of respondents answered that they were driving less often than other drivers. The rate of PWE who were driving was inversely proportional to the seizure rate. In 2009 a greater proportion stated that they drove motorcycles, and few PWE (<5%) declared they were driving more often than others. The inefficiency of rigid legislation and indicators of self-restraint of PWE may be arguments in favor of liberalization, but liberalization should be accompanied by appropriate education programs

Norwegian carbon plantations in Tanzania: Towards sustainable development?

This study was conducted in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. The objective was to investigate how the emergent carbon market through the Kyoto Protocol had lead the Norwegian company Green Resources AS to acquire large tracts of land for the establishment of carbon sequestration projects. By using the approach of political ecology and a set of minimum human-rights principles applicable to large-scale land acquisitions and leases. The aim was to investigate the impacts of Green Recourses projects on land tenure and local livelihoods. This was done by identifying the historical and present use of land as to further assess the effects of these projects on local social and economic development. With amongst others the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a guide, the aim was to investigate to what extent these projects had been able to live up to its dual goals of mitigating climate change and promoting sustainable development, and where inconsistencies were found, to identify possible obstacles. The methods used were amongst others semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, observations and literature reviews. Most of the changes of the utilization of land in the study area were a result of long-term political and economical policies from before and after the independence. This has lead to large tracts of land being allocated away to foreign private investors. In the long run, abandoning much of the village land may have implications for future generations, but also for local and national food security. The villages visited had received several social and economic benefits from the project, but issues regarding working conditions and salaries, question its sustainability. Furthermore, the study found that global win-win discourses and narratives regarding carbon offset forestry, have dominated the development of this blue print to solve global problems in environment and development. The narratives encountered in this case study also reflect this.EKOSIASA (ENGOPA