Wave Energy Infrastructure Assessment in Oregon

OWET commissioned this gap analysis to assess the infrastructure needs of ocean renewable energy and compare those needs against the existing and planned infrastructure capabilities in Oregon. The Wave Energy Infrastructure Assessment in Oregon report summarizes the results of the assessment performed by Advanced Research Corporation and is intended to serve as a reference resource for a variety of readers: suppliers, wave energy developers, state and regional governments,economic development authorities, and educational institutions. This report identifies a set of prioritized, recommended actions to resolve infrastructure gaps, thereby supporting the development of wave energy products and services in Oregon

Current Knowledge and Considerations Regarding Survey Refusals: Executive Summary of the AAPOR Task Force Report on Survey Refusals

The landscape of survey research has arguably changed more significantly in the past decade than at any other time in its relatively brief history. In that short time, landline telephone ownership has dropped from some 98 percent of all households to less than 60 percent; cell-phone interviewing went from a novelty to a mainstay; address-based designs quickly became an accepted method of sampling the general population; and surveys via Internet panels became ubiquitous in many sectors of social and market research, even as they continue to raise concerns given their lack of random selection. Among these widespread changes, it is perhaps not surprising that the substantial increase in refusal rates has received comparatively little attention. As we will detail, it was not uncommon for a study conducted 20 years ago to have encountered one refusal for every one or two completed interviews, while today experiencing three or more refusals for every one completed interview is commonplace. This trend has led to several concerns that motivate this Task Force. As refusal rates have increased, refusal bias (as a component of nonresponse bias) is an increased threat to the validity of survey results. Of practical concern are the efficacy and cost implications of enhanced efforts to avert initial refusals and convert refusals that do occur. Finally, though no less significant, are the ethical concerns raised by the possibility that efforts to minimize refusals can be perceived as coercive or harassing potential respondents. Indeed, perhaps the most important goal of this document is to foster greater consideration by the reader of the rights of respondents in survey research

Status update on GPS integrity failure modes and effects analysis

GPS integrity anomalies have long been of great concern to the civil and military GPS communities for safety-of- life operations. The FAA, USCG, and their international counterparts have focused on how to accomplish integrity monitoring for safety-of-life services through the use of receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM), widearea and local-area augmentation systems such as WAAS and LAAS, maritime differential GPS (DGPS) and nationwide differential GPS (NDGPS). The military is preparing to certify PPS RAIM receivers and is in the process of developing the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS). Integrity failure modes need to be understood in order to develop a proper monitoring capability. The main objectives of the GPS Integrity Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (IFMEA) project are to identify GPS integrity monitoring requirements, examine GPS failure data in order to identify integrity failure modes, examine the causes and effects of the failures, as well as their probability of occurrence, determine the impact of integrity anomalies on users, and recommend preventive actions. The IFMEA project is focused on integrity anomalies that are due to hardware and software failures in the satellite vehicles (SVs) and Operational Control System (OCS). This paper provides a status update on the GPS IFMEA effort which is jointly funded by the Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB), the GPS Joint Program Office (JPO), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The IFMEA project began in 2002 under IGEB stewardship funding. Through the IFMEA project, Aberration Characterization Sheets (ACS) have been developed and updated for all GPS satellites through the Block IIR generation and work is now beginning on Block IIR-M, IIF, and the Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) for the OCS. There is a need by those in the user community who are developing safety of life systems to be able to easily research GPS integrity anomaly data. In support of this effort, the IFMEA team is developing a database of all GPS service anomalies that can be accessed by type of anomaly, satellite number, satellite block affected, magnitude of error, date of occurrence, and duration of event. An effects analysis for WAAS and LAAS is being conducted to determine the impact on these augmentation systems from integrity anomalies. Finally, the IFMEA project is evaluating signal quality monitoring (SQM) algorithms to ensure proper detection of integrity anomalies and identify any design constraints or modifications to the GPS SV and OCS to either prevent failures that degrade integrity or provide protection from any adverse operational impact. This work is referenced in other ION papers [1] and [2]. The benefits of this work are to gain a better understanding of integrity anomalies, their probability of occurrence, and how to monitor for them. This information is essential to the design of differential GPS networks to support safety of life operations and will assist in meeting international commitments to describe GPS performance. The work performed under this study also will provide a technical basis to update the SPS and PPS Performance Standards and help develop recommendations for improvements to future GPS satellites and the operational control system

Evaluating the quality of social work supervision in UK children's services: comparing self-report and independent observations

Understanding how different forms of supervision support good social work practice and improve outcomes for people who use services is nearly impossible without reliable and valid evaluative measures. Yet the question of how best to evaluate the quality of supervision in different contexts is a complicated and as-yet-unsolved challenge. In this study, we observed 12 social work supervisors in a simulated supervision session offering support and guidance to an actor playing the part of an inexperienced social worker facing a casework-related crisis. A team of researchers analyzed these sessions using a customized skills-based coding framework. In addition, 19 social workers completed a questionnaire about their supervision experiences as provided by the same 12 supervisors. According to the coding framework, the supervisors demonstrated relatively modest skill levels, and we found low correlations among different skills. In contrast, according to the questionnaire data, supervisors had relatively high skill levels, and we found high correlations among different skills. The findings imply that although self-report remains the simplest way to evaluate supervision quality, other approaches are possible and may provide a different perspective. However, developing a reliable independent measure of supervision quality remains a noteworthy challenge