Assessment of Professional Competence in a Construction Management Problem-based Learning Setting

This paper discusses the congruence between problem-based learning (PBL) and competencybased assessment and describes how competency based assessment has been implementedin a professional construction management programme. The design andunderlying principles of assessment approaches used to determine students' professionalcompetence through use of professional standards to frame learning and assessment arediscussed. Through presentation of preliminary findings of a case study that explores staffand student experiences in the construction management programme, the authors describethe issues and challenges they have encountered in implementing competencybased assessment in a PBL programme within the context of higher education

Preferred Learning styles: the case of students at a satellite campus in the Middle East’

The education of international students has long been a focus for universities in the major English speaking destination (MESD) countries of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Studying for and successfully completing a qualification from a university in an MESD country is viewed positively by international students, and universities in such countries have shown a significant increase in the number of enrolled international students. The provision of education by MESD universities is not confined by national borders and increasingly universities are developing satellite campuses in a number of locations. These satellite campuses provide an MESD country university qualification to two distinct groups of students. Firstly, local students are attracted to study an international qualification in their home country as this eliminates the costly experience and personal upheaval of studying overseas. Secondly, the creation of a satellite campus of a university based in an MESD country will attract expatriate students and also other international students from the immediate area. This research is focused on international students studying undergraduate programmes at a satellite campus of a United Kingdom university located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the Middle East. The study is set within the context of those students’ preferred learning styles and experiences. Focusing on issues of pedagogy, the study is based on the suggestion that international students will experience a Introduction Understanding how individuals learn has been of academic interest for a number of years. However, with current attention focusing on the importance of the knowledge society, the understanding of learning becomes more critical. Gold and Smith (2003:1) argue that learning is the key factor for survival, sustainability and competitive advantage at the level of the individual, the organization and the nation. Nevertheless, understanding learning is not a straightforward process. Merriam (2001:38) emphasize that the knowledge base of learning comprises a myriad of theories, models, sets of principles and explanations. This paper explores one aspect of learning from a cognitive perspective, by examining differences in the student learning process. The context for the study is tourism and hospitality students studying at a satellite range of new and unfamiliar teaching and assessment methods and consequently have to make a substantial adjustment in terms of their learning styles in order to succeed in a Western university. This paper examines the individual and collective preferred learning style of a sample of international students studying tourism and hospitality in the Middle East. The work analyses the links between ethnic origins and preferred learning style, suggesting that preferred learning styles should be taken into consideration when developing curriculum which is accessed by international students

Telling partners about chlamydia: how acceptable are the new technologies?

BACKGROUND Partner notification is accepted as a vital component in the control of chlamydia. However, in reality, many sexual partners of individuals diagnosed with chlamydia are never informed of their risk. The newer technologies of email and SMS have been used as a means of improving partner notification rates. This study explored the use and acceptability of different partner notification methods to help inform the development of strategies and resources to increase the number of partners notified. METHODS Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 40 people who were recently diagnosed with chlamydia from three sexual health centres and two general practices across three Australian jurisdictions. RESULTS Most participants chose to contact their partners either in person (56%) or by phone (44%). Only 17% chose email or SMS. Participants viewed face-to-face as the "gold standard" in partner notification because it demonstrated caring, respect and courage. Telephone contact, while considered insensitive by some, was often valued because it was quick, convenient and less confronting. Email was often seen as less personal while SMS was generally considered the least acceptable method for telling partners. There was also concern that emails and SMS could be misunderstood, not taken seriously or shown to others. Despite these, email and SMS were seen to be appropriate and useful in some circumstances. Letters, both from the patients or from their doctor, were viewed more favourably but were seldom used. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that many people diagnosed with chlamydia are reluctant to use the new technologies for partner notification, except in specific circumstances, and our efforts in developing partner notification resources may best be focused on giving patients the skills and confidence for personal interaction.The study was funded by the Australian Federal Government Department of Health and Ageing Chlamydia Pilot Program of Targeted Grants

Solubilities of selected compounds in supercritical fluids

Thesis (B.S.) in Chemical Engineering--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1983.Bibliography: leaf 49.Microfiche of typescript. [Urbana, Ill.] : Photographic Services, University of Illinois, U of I Library, [1983]. 2 microfiches (57 frames) : negative ; 11 x 15 cm

Location-based density and differentiation– adding attraction variables to space syntax

[EN] The central variables in any urban model are distance and attraction (Wilson 2000). Space syntax research has contributed to the development of new geometric descriptions and measures of distance that have proven successful when it comes to capturing pedestrian movement. However, the description and measurement of attractions has not been central to the field. An important exception is the development of Place Syntax analysis, which concerns new methodologies and software that opens for analysis not only of different kinds of accessibilities in the street network in itself, but also analysis of the accessibility within the network to different forms of attractions, for instance, residents or retail (Ståhle et al 2005). Place Syntax analysis is a generic form of analysis, why we may choose to analyse the accessibility to particular socio-economic attractions, but we may also conceive of a model of ‘pure’ spatial form – a kind of architectural model of the city. For instance, Place Syntax analysis has been applied in different kinds of density analysis, transforming density measures from area-based measures to location-based measures (Ståhle et al 2005). In this paper, we extend such spatial attraction to not only include the variable of density but also diversity and present results from an extensive empirical study including four European cities, paving the way towards a more complete architectural model of the city including both the analysis of distance and attractions.Marcus, L.; Berghauser Pont, M.; Stavroulaki, G.; Bobkova, J. (2018). Location-based density and differentiation– adding attraction variables to space syntax. En 24th ISUF International Conference. Book of Papers. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1379-1389. https://doi.org/10.4995/ISUF2017.2017.5706OCS1379138

Water Quality Trends Following Anomalous Phosphorus Inputs to Grand Bay, Mississippi, USA

Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) is a 7500 ha protected area in Jackson County, MS. In 2005, a levee breach at a fertilizer manufacturing facility released highly acidic and phosphate—rich wastewater into the reserve. A second spill occurred in September 2012 following Hurricane Isaac. We used orthophosphate (PO43-) concentrations to categorize the 2 events, post— events, and non—impact periods between the 2 spills. We examined spatial and temporal patterns in nutrients, chlorophyll, pH, and other parameters within and between monitoring stations. After the first event, pH at the Bangs Lake water quality station decreased to 3.7 and PO43- increased to over 4 mg P/l. Orthophosphate returned to background concentrations near the detection limit after approximately one year. Sampling 3 weeks after Hurricane Isaac showed PO43- concentrations over 1 mg P/l in Bangs Lake. Elevated PO43- levels were detected at other monitoring locations for 3—5 months, depending on distance from the fertilizer facility. Multiple comparison tests of trends within stations showed that both events had statistically similar PO43- concentrations, although the magnitudes and the time to return to baseline concentrations differed between stations. Temporal patterns of other nutrients had apparent long—term trends, particularly chlorophyll a, which showed an increase from 18—56% depending on station. This study provides a rare description of decadal water quality trends in a shallow, temperate estuary in response to discrete spill events. The results provide new information on the effects of phosphorus inputs to nitrogen—limited systems, having management implications for Gulf Coast estuaries

Better than nothing? Patient-delivered partner therapy and partner notification for chlamydia: the views of Australian general practitioners

BACKGROUND Genital chlamydia is the most commonly notified sexually transmissible infection (STI) in Australia and worldwide and can have serious reproductive health outcomes. Partner notification, testing and treatment are important facets of chlamydia control. Traditional methods of partner notification are not reaching enough partners to effectively control transmission of chlamydia. Patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT) has been shown to improve the treatment of sexual partners. In Australia, General Practitioners (GPs) are responsible for the bulk of chlamydia testing, diagnosis, treatment and follow up. This study aimed to determine the views and practices of Australian general practitioners (GPs) in relation to partner notification and PDPT for chlamydia and explored GPs' perceptions of their patients' barriers to notifying partners of a chlamydia diagnosis. METHODS In-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 40 general practitioners (GPs) from rural, regional and urban Australia from November 2006 to March 2007. Topics covered: GPs' current practice and views about partner notification, perceived barriers and useful supports, previous use of and views regarding PDPT.Transcripts were imported into NVivo7 and subjected to thematic analysis. Data saturation was reached after 32 interviews had been completed. RESULTS Perceived barriers to patients telling partners (patient referral) included: stigma; age and cultural background; casual or long-term relationship, ongoing relationship or not. Barriers to GPs undertaking partner notification (provider referral) included: lack of time and staff; lack of contact details; uncertainty about the legality of contacting partners and whether this constitutes breach of patient confidentiality; and feeling both personally uncomfortable and inadequately trained to contact someone who is not their patient. GPs were divided on the use of PDPT--many felt concerned that it is not best clinical practice but many also felt that it is better than nothing.GPs identified the following factors which they considered would facilitate partner notification: clear clinical guidelines; a legal framework around partner notification; a formal chlamydia screening program; financial incentives; education and practical support for health professionals, and raising awareness of chlamydia in the community, in particular amongst young people. CONCLUSIONS GPs reported some partners do not seek medical treatment even after they are notified of being a sexual contact of a patient with chlamydia. More routine use of PDPT may help address this issue however GPs in this study had negative attitudes to the use of PDPT. Appropriate guidelines and legislation may make the use of PDPT more acceptable to Australian GPs.The Australian Federal Government Department of Health and Ageing Chlamydia Pilot Program of Targeted Grants funded the study

Cognitive function in childhood and lifetime cognitive change in relation to mental wellbeing in four cohorts of older people

Background: poorer cognitive ability in youth is a risk factor for later mental health problems but it is largely unknown whether cognitive ability, in youth or in later life, is predictive of mental wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cognitive ability at age 11 years, cognitive ability in later life, or lifetime cognitive change are associated with mental wellbeing in older people.Methods: we used data on 8191 men and women aged 50 to 87 years from four cohorts in the HALCyon collaborative research programme into healthy ageing: the Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, the National Child Development Survey, and the MRC National Survey for Health and Development. We used linear regression to examine associations between cognitive ability at age 11, cognitive ability in later life, and lifetime change in cognitive ability and mean score on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and meta-analysis to obtain an overall estimate of the effect of each.Results: people whose cognitive ability at age 11 was a standard deviation above the mean scored 0.53 points higher on the mental wellbeing scale (95% confidence interval 0.36, 0.71). The equivalent value for cognitive ability in later life was 0.89 points (0.72, 1.07). A standard deviation improvement in cognitive ability in later life relative to childhood ability was associated with 0.66 points (0.39, 0.93) advantage in wellbeing score. These effect sizes equate to around 0.1 of a standard deviation in mental wellbeing score. Adjustment for potential confounding and mediating variables, primarily the personality trait neuroticism, substantially attenuated these associations.Conclusion: associations between cognitive ability in childhood or lifetime cognitive change and mental wellbeing in older people are slight and may be confounded by personality trait difference

Semi-automatic segmentation of myocardium at risk in T2-weighted cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Background: T2-weighted cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has been shown to be a promising technique for determination of ischemic myocardium, referred to as myocardium at risk (MaR), after an acute coronary event. Quantification of MaR in T2-weighted CMR has been proposed to be performed by manual delineation or the threshold methods of two standard deviations from remote (2SD), full width half maximum intensity (FWHM) or Otsu. However, manual delineation is subjective and threshold methods have inherent limitations related to threshold definition and lack of a priori information about cardiac anatomy and physiology. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop an automatic segmentation algorithm for quantification of MaR using anatomical a priori information. Methods: Forty-seven patients with first-time acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction underwent T2-weighted CMR within 1 week after admission. Endocardial and epicardial borders of the left ventricle, as well as the hyper enhanced MaR regions were manually delineated by experienced observers and used as reference method. A new automatic segmentation algorithm, called Segment MaR, defines the MaR region as the continuous region most probable of being MaR, by estimating the intensities of normal myocardium and MaR with an expectation maximization algorithm and restricting the MaR region by an a priori model of the maximal extent for the user defined culprit artery. The segmentation by Segment MaR was compared against inter observer variability of manual delineation and the threshold methods of 2SD, FWHM and Otsu. Results: MaR was 32.9 +/- 10.9% of left ventricular mass (LVM) when assessed by the reference observer and 31.0 +/- 8.8% of LVM assessed by Segment MaR. The bias and correlation was, -1.9 +/- 6.4% of LVM, R = 0.81 (p < 0.001) for Segment MaR, -2.3 +/- 4.9%, R = 0.91 (p < 0.001) for inter observer variability of manual delineation, -7.7 +/- 11.4%, R = 0.38 (p = 0.008) for 2SD, -21.0 +/- 9.9%, R = 0.41 (p = 0.004) for FWHM, and 5.3 +/- 9.6%, R = 0.47 (p < 0.001) for Otsu. Conclusions: There is a good agreement between automatic Segment MaR and manually assessed MaR in T2-weighted CMR. Thus, the proposed algorithm seems to be a promising, objective method for standardized MaR quantification in T2-weighted CMR