Te Ahurei a Rangatahi sexual health programme: An evaluation

The Maori and Psychology Research Unit was engaged in August 2001 to evaluate a sexual health programme delivered by Te Ahurei a Rangatahi. Established in 1997, Te Ahurei a Rangatahi is a community based charitable trust that delivers a variety of programmes to Rangatahi

An empirical study of the “prototype walkthrough”: a studio-based activity for HCI education

For over a century, studio-based instruction has served as an effective pedagogical model in architecture and fine arts education. Because of its design orientation, human-computer interaction (HCI) education is an excellent venue for studio-based instruction. In an HCI course, we have been exploring a studio-based learning activity called the prototype walkthrough, in which a student project team simulates its evolving user interface prototype while a student audience member acts as a test user. The audience is encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback. We have observed that prototype walkthroughs create excellent conditions for learning about user interface design. In order to better understand the educational value of the activity, we performed a content analysis of a video corpus of 16 prototype walkthroughs held in two HCI courses. We found that the prototype walkthrough discussions were dominated by relevant design issues. Moreover, mirroring the justification behavior of the expert instructor, students justified over 80 percent of their design statements and critiques, with nearly one-quarter of those justifications having a theoretical or empirical basis. Our findings suggest that PWs provide valuable opportunities for students to actively learn HCI design by participating in authentic practice, and provide insight into how such opportunities can be best promoted

Finding the ‘Sweet-Spot’ of Mechanised Felling Machines

Understanding how stand and terrain parameters impact the productivity of harvesting machines is important for determining their optimum use. Productivity studies in forest operations are often carried out on new equipment, or on equipment being used in new conditions. Such information is normally presented as a productivity or efficiency function; that is, a regression equation that best represents the data. Most studies establish that piece size is the dominant predictor that impacts overall productivity. A common concept, know as the ‘piece-size law’, is that productivity increases at a decreasing rate with increasing piece size. What is not well understood is the upper limit to this piece-size law. That is, as the trees get ‘too’ large, the machine starts to struggle and we can expect a decrease in productivity. Four different mechanised felling machines were studied in New Zealand radiata pine plantations. Using more complex non-linear equations it was possible to identify an ‘optimum’ piece-size for maximum productivity, whereby this ‘sweet-spot’ piece size for all machines is considerably smaller than their maximum. Unexpectedly, productivity tended to decrease gradually, not drop off suddenly beyond the optimum. Using more complex statistical functions when correlating piece size to productivity will help identifying the ‘sweet-spot’

Self-Reported Responses to Player Profile Questions Show Consistency with the Use of Complex Attentional Strategies by Expert Horseshoe Pitchers

The advantages on an external focus of attention have been demonstrated for a variety of sport tasks. The constrained action hypothesis (Wulf et al., 2001) argues that focusing externally on the movement effect results in the use of automated processes for movement control. In contrast, focusing internally in an attempt to control the movements of the body disrupts normally automated processes and degrades performance. Research on experts, however, suggests that they may adopt more complex attentional strategies. The present study provided a unique opportunity to examine expert horseshoe players’ attentional strategies as indicated by their self-reported responses to questions included in a National Horseshoe Pitchers Association (NHPA) player profile questionnaire. Responses submitted by 83 top NHPA players were examined to determine the frequency of references to the use of internal and external focus points and identify categories related to attentional strategies. Results indicated that the large majority of players reported using focus points that are consistent with an external focus of attention and that their thoughts corresponded to one or more categories related to technique, mental focus or concentration, general success, use of external focus cues, and emotional control. The findings are consistent with the view that experts may adopt complex attentional strategies that encompass both an external focus and thoughts about a variety of other performance related factors

Self Management and Telehealth: Lessons Learnt from the Evaluation of a Dorset Telehealth Program

Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group

The crisis of public sector trade unionism: evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

This article contends that there is a growing, if uneven, crisis in public sector trade unionism masked by relatively high membership figures that obscure a weakening of trade unions in the workplace, leaving hollowed out organisation vulnerable to further legislative and employer-led onslaughts. The weakening is not inevitable but to overcome it requires a refocusing of organising efforts on the everyday concerns of members such as understaffing and the provision of better public services. Only with an engaged membership will national issues and wider campaigns have material force. Having outlined a general argument, the article takes as illustrative the nature and performance of trade unions, and particularly UNISON, during the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

A Constructive Heuristic Approach for Single Airport Slot Allocation Problems

With growth in air transportation expected to continue, the mitigation of operational inefficiency and consequent delays is becoming increasingly important. Slot allocation, as a means of demand management at congested airports, has a significant impact on wider airport operations. This requires sophisticated approaches, to intelligently allocate scarce airport resources to unevenly distributed traffic demand for the use of airport facilities. This paper presents a novel heuristic approach to solve the single airport slot allocation problem. The approach has been tested on real-world data from three medium-sized airports. We introduce a constructive heuristic framework which is able to generate feasible solutions to the model. Within this framework, a number of ordering heuristics are developed to order slot requests to be scheduled, and an allocation algorithm is developed to allocate slots to a request determined by the ordering heuristic. Experimental results suggest that the order in which slot requests are scheduled has a significant impact on the solution quality

Feed size and texture influence propionic and butyric acid concentrations and Escherichia coli populations in the pig gastrointestinal tract

Natural approaches are now being considered to replace antimicrobials to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance development. This has put the new emphasis on using diet to control bacterial infections in pigs, some of which having recently demonstrated a zoonotic disease potential

Molecular serotyping and virulence potential of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from bovine, swine and human in the province of Quebec

Listeria monocytogenes (L mono) cause rare but critical diseases, particularly for at risk population that include pregnant women. Food-borne origin of listeriosis is clearly recognised only since 1984. Since then, a great number of grouped cases occurred and milk or meat products, particularly pork meat, were implicated. Management of this zoonotic pathogen considers all strains as at equal risk. Recently a new perspective for characterisation of strain virulence was allowed since unaltered sequence of InlA was recognised as a key for strain virulence