Use of swivel desks and aisle space to promote interaction in mid-sized college classrooms

Traditional designs for most mid-sized college classrooms discourage 1) face-to-face interaction among students, 2) instructor movement in the classroom, and 3) efficient transitions between different kinds of learning activities. An experimental classroom piloted during Spring Semester 2011 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill uses clusters of stationary desks that swivel 360-degrees and aisle space to address these challenges. The findings from a study involving ten courses taught in the room suggest that there is a need for designs that not only promote quality interactions but also facilitate movement between small group work, class discussion, and lecture

An empirical assessment of innovation practices of quantity surveying firms in Ghana

Innovation is ascertained to be a major driver of growth of the productivity of a firm. This has spurred the interest of many researchers to study and harness the adoption of innovation. Extant literature indicates that some professional services offered by the quantity surveying (QS) firms are not needed by the client, or may be outdated. Consequently, the QS firms have to develop the stamina to challenge the existing unnecessary and unwanted or outdated practices and implement innovative practices. What is more alarming is that the QS firms are rated to have a low disposition towards the adoption of innovation. This established context propelled the need for empirically assessing the innovation practices amongst the QS firms in Ghana. A quantitative research approach was employed for this study and a census sampling technique was adopted. A total of 43 questionnaires were administered to the entire population and 24 were retrieved. The current level of innovation practices amongst the Ghanaian QS firms was interpreted using Rogers’ innovation diffusion theory. The results indicated that QS firms in Ghana are early adopters of process innovation, product/technological innovation and business system innovation. The study showed that QS firms adopt innovation practices in rendering their services and even though they do not initiate new ideas, they are the first to adopt the ideas initiated by the innovators. This study has drawn attention to the assessment of innovation practices and increasing the knowledge base of innovation practices in Ghanaian QS firms

Implications of Cannabis Use and Heavy Alcohol Use on HIV Drug Risk Behaviors in Russian Heroin Users

Cannabis and heavy alcohol use potentially increase HIV transmission by increasing risky drug behaviors. We studied 404 subjects entering treatment for heroin dependence, in St. Petersburg, Russia. We used the HIV Risk Assessment Battery (RAB) drug subscale to measure risky drug behavior. Although all heavy alcohol users had risky drug behaviors, their drug RAB scores did not differ from non-heavy alcohol users in unadjusted or adjusted analyses. Cannabis use was significantly associated with drug RAB scores in unadjusted analyses (mean difference 1.7 points) and analyses adjusted for age, sex, and employment (mean difference 1.3 points). When also adjusting for stimulant use, the impact of cannabis use was attenuated and no longer statistically significant (mean difference 1.1 points). Because of the central role of risky drug behaviors in the Russian HIV epidemic, it is important to understand how the use of multiple substances, including cannabis and alcohol, impacts risky drug behaviors

Diversification in evolutionary arenas : Assessment and synthesis

Understanding how and why rates of evolutionary diversification vary is a central issue in evolutionary biology and ecology. The concept of adaptive radiation has attracted much interest, but is metaphorical and verbal in nature, making it difficult to quantitatively compare different evolutionary lineages or geographic regions. In addition, the causes of evolutionary stasis are relatively neglected. Here we review the central concepts in the evolutionary diversification literature and bring these together by proposing a general framework for estimating rates of diversification and quantifying their underlying dynamics, which can be applied across clades and regions and across spatial and temporal scales. Our framework describes the diversification rate (d) as a function of the abiotic environment (a), the biotic environment (b) and clade-specific phenotypes or traits (c); thus d~a,b,c. We refer to the four components (a-d) and their interactions collectively as the 'Evolutionary Arena'. We outline analytical approaches to this conceptual model that open up new avenues for research, and present a case study on conifers, for which we parameterise the general model. We also discuss three conceptual examples based on existing literature: the Lupinus radiation in the Andes in the context of emerging ecological opportunity and fluctuating fragmentation due to climatic oscillation; oceanic island radiations in the context of archipelago isolation and island formation and erosion; and biotically driven radiations of the Mediterranean orchid genus Ophrys. The results of the conifer case study are consistent with the long-standing scenario that large niches, lack of competition, and high-rates of niche evolution differentially promote diversification, but these results go further by quantifying the statistical interactions between variables representing these three drivers. The conceptual examples illustrate how using the synthetic Evolutionary Arena framework results in highlighting gaps in current knowledge, and thus help to identify future directions for research on evolutionary radiations. In this way, the Evolutionary Arena framework promotes a more general understanding of variation in evolutionary rates by making quantitative results comparable between case studies, thereby allowing new syntheses of evolutionary and ecological processes to emerge

Intestinal ischemia after cardiac surgery: analysis of a large registry.

Intestinal ischemia after cardiac surgery is a rare but severe complication with a high mortality. Early surgery can be lifesaving. The aim was to analyze the incidence, outcome, and risk factors for these patients

Effects of CO 2 and nutrient availability on mineral weathering in controlled tree growth experiments

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94968/1/gbc911.pd