The Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery of the Middle Atlantic Bight and Southern New England Waters

Summer flounder, Paralichthys dentatus, scup, Stenotomus chrysops, and black sea bass, Centropristis striata, cooccur within the Middle Atlantic Bight and off southern New England and are important components of commercial and recreational fisheries. The commercial otter trawl fishery for these species is primarily a winter fishery, whereas the recreational fishery takes place between late spring and autumn. The otter trawl fishery generally targets summer flounder, and less frequently scup, while black sea bass occurs as bycatch. Trips in which all three species were present yielded highest aggregate landings per unit of effort (LPUE) levels and occurred more often than trips landing only one or two species. More than 50% of the trips in the trawl fishery landed at least two of the three species. In contrast, greater than 75% of the recreational landings of each species occurred as a result of trips landing only one species. Differences in the fisheries resulted from the interactions of seasonal changes in species distributions and gear selectivity. (PDF file contains 18 pages.

Civic Tolerance among Honors Students

The large literature on the impact that college has on student attitudes and values, which includes work by researchers such as Astin, Newcomb, Pascarella and Terenzini, also includes studies that have focused specifically on the effects of a college education on student tolerance (Hall & Rodeghier; Henderson-King; Lawrence & Licari; Rich; Taylor; Whitt, Edison, Pascarella, Terenzini, & Nora). This literature, however, contains virtually nothing on the impact that honors has on the social attitudes of honors college students. Thus, neither of Pascarella’s and Terenzini’s massive 1991 and 2005 reviews of the research literature on the effects of college on student values cited any studies that focused on the attitudinal or social consequences of an honors education. This absence is surprising since, for the past half-century, a substantial number of our country’s brightest students have enrolled in honors programs (Long; Shushok; Willingham)

Civic Tolerance among Honors Students

The large literature on the impact that college has on student attitudes and values, which includes work by researchers such as Astin, Newcomb, Pascarella and Terenzini, also includes studies that have focused specifically on the effects of a college education on student tolerance (Hall & Rodeghier; Henderson-King; Lawrence & Licari; Rich; Taylor; Whitt, Edison, Pascarella, Terenzini, & Nora). This literature, however, contains virtually nothing on the impact that honors has on the social attitudes of honors college students. Thus, neither of Pascarella’s and Terenzini’s massive 1991 and 2005 reviews of the research literature on the effects of college on student values cited any studies that focused on the attitudinal or social consequences of an honors education. This absence is surprising since, for the past half-century, a substantial number of our country’s brightest students have enrolled in honors programs (Long; Shushok; Willingham)

An inductive exploration of group learning and knowledge generation through group reflection and psychoanalysis

This thesis aims to explore a rather simple question in relation to the process of how knowledge is generated within the organisational group. The question posed and pursued using an inductive methodological approach is "how do groups learn?"This deceptively simple and almost child-like question has helped me to engage with a wide range of philosophical and methodological approaches to group learning and knowledge generation. By using such a straightforward notion I have been able to construct a sophisticated research project which posits a range of conclusions and responses to my original question and demonstrates the complexity of organisational learning in general. The conclusions I generated reveal a series of discrete interconnections between the individual, the group and an enmeshed series of psychological processes which both assist and prevent groups from generating knowledge and learning.Along with generating a number of new insights into how groups learn, this simple question has enabled me to construct and propose a new theoretical framework for group learning and knowledge generation. The framework itself sets out to explore some of the most basic taken-for-granted notions of our Western world-view, ideas which form the bedrock of our epistemological certainty and which are hardly ever held up to critical scrutiny

A review of the leader approach for delivering the rural development programme for England: a report for Defra

This report, commissioned by the Rural Communities Policy Unit at Defra, sets out the findings of a review of the Leader approach in England. The focus of the review is the impact of Leader in contributing to the delivery of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in England, in order to inform the future Leader approach to delivering rural policy. The research is primarily based on a review of existing literature and in-depth qualitative research with Local Action Groups and other stakeholders involved in delivering or benefiting from the Leader approach. The review focuses on four key issues: 1) Evidence to support the rationale for use of EU resources to enable rural development – justifying intervention for the current programme and informing choices about interventions in the next programme 2) Evidence on the extent to which interventions have been effective to date and where future resources can be targeted 3) Evidence to provide an assessment of the impact of RDPE spend (2007-13) on outcomes – with reference to delivery mechanisms 4) Evidence to support prioritisation of activities to be funded under the next programme mapped against the six EU wide priorities for 2014-2020 and inform decisions about future delivery models

LEADER as a vehicle for neo-endogenous rural development in England

LEADER emphasises neo-endogenous approaches where local rural development relies as much as possible on “bottom-up” activities. This research shows that the mainstreaming of LEADER saw certain compromises regarding the philosophical aspiration to give greater weight to local issues, local resources and local engagement. However, many LAGs learned to apply flexibility to meet local opportunities and challenges demonstrating how LEADER can empower local actors. Future challenges require LEADER to be more integrated with other rural policies and for the procedural elements to be simplified, especially for the smaller projects that have been found to make real impact at a very local level

The Materiality of Information System Planning Maturity to Project Performance

Research for this paper suggests that there is still an alarming lack of success of IS projects in industry today. Two critical success factors that have been examined to date are project manager performance and IS planning maturity. However, the previous studies have bypassed the relative impact of the two factors in combination. This study proposes and empirically tests a model that examines the relationships between project manager performance and IS planning maturity and their relationship to project success. The results indicate that IS planning maturity is empirically linked positively to project success and to project manager performance. Additionally, the performance of the project manager is also positively related to project outcome. The implication for practitioners is that project management is not an activity limited only to the duration of the development of the IS product but project management must have broader implications for organization management

‘From where I'm looking it just seems like two people have missed the boat…’: Understanding set behaviour from a socioanalytic perspective.

Accounts of practice within the action learning literature tend to omit the more mundane session-to-session details of the inner-workings of the action learning set. As well as concentrating on the problem, individuals in all sets spend some of their time in unproductive interpersonal exchanges. These exchanges may be considered trivialities and not worthy of mentioning within an account of practice. The behaviour could, however, hold the key to understanding how the action learning group manages its unconscious anxieties associated with problem solving. In this article, using empirical research from his PhD dissertation, the author explores how the insights developed by Wilfred Bion (1962) on groups, their unconscious behaviour and the anxiety of problem solving can help both action researchers and set participants better understand the working of their sets

‘Normally I'd get really agitated, but I just laughed!’: What do participants reflect upon on a Transactional Analysis/Mindfulness based anger management programme?

Most anger management group programmes utilise Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness Based Treatments (MBT’s) in their interventions. This study uses Transactional Analysis (TA) and mindfulness within an Action Learning (AL) framework to help promote behavioural change. The paper explores how participants report phenomenological change throughout a 10-week anger management programme. The research examines participants weekly ‘check-ins’ as they reflected on their angry behaviours, their interpersonal relationships and the development of mindfulness techniques as a way to regulate their angry emotions. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to help provide insight of these narratives. The research suggests when used in combination, Transactional Analysis, AL and mindfulness seem to be an effective approach to the management of anger. Over time and with increased knowledge of TA, participants begin to understand their behaviour and inter-personal relationships from new perspectives, creating the opportunity for change