Desirable ICT Graduate Attributes: Theory vs. Practice

The majority of ICT graduates must begin their careers by successfully fulfilling the requirements advertised within online recruitment sites. Although considerable research into employer requirements is commonly undertaken when preparing curricula, studies investigating how well the graduate attributes on which curricula are based match those required by employers have been limited in terms of the techniques used. This study employs an innovative approach of analyzing online ICT employment advertisements in Australia and the United States to determine the key attributes sought by ICT employers, together with the most commonly required skill groupings. A position-based wrapper system was developed to extract the advertisement data, which was then analyzed using a text mining package. The results are benchmarked against those from standard ICT curricula produced by academic and professional bodies. The findings suggest that employers place greatest emphasis upon experience and technological skills; although current curricula meet these requirements, their emphases warrant revision. There also appear to be differences between professional body curricula and the ISCC ’99 curriculum which was produced by industry and academia, with the latter appearing to match employment market demands more closely

Managing sustainability in the seafood supply chain: The confused or ambivalent consumer

The economic, social and environmental benefits of doing business sustainably are now well established, with many industries fully embracing and integrating sustainable practices. However, some industries are facing greater challenges and struggling to embrace sustainable practices. For example, the issue of sustainability within the seafood industry is highly topical, with a 2014 Google search on the term “sustainable fish” scoring over 37.4 million hits. Despite a groundswell of discussion and action within the seafood industry, the current literature on seafood sustainability remains emergent. While consumers are the stakeholder group that arguably has the most potential interest, the actions of all other stakeholders within the industry affect choices available to them. Accordingly, this paper reviews the current literature and seeks to identify how each stakeholder defines and seeks to manage the issue of seafood sustainability. Several sources of confusion, ambiguity and conflict in the field (including gaps in current research) are evident. Consumers are either confused or ambivalent about sustainability with respect to seafood and there is a lack of consensus on what sustainability means across the seafood supply chain, with differing perspectives across the various stakeholders involved with the industry including governments, NGOs, the seafood industry itself (producers, processors, and distributors), and consumers. The review provides an understanding of consumers and other stakeholder perspectives with respect to the sustainability of seafood and provides a basis for developing strategies to reduce ambiguity, promote clarity and shared understandings regarding sustainable seafood, and also opportunities to increase knowledge, potentially leading to more sustainably managed seafood supply chains

The Implementation of an Automated Assessment Feedback and Quality Assurance System for ICT Courses

Providing detailed, constructive and helpful feedback is an important contribution to effective student learning. Quality assurance is also required to ensure consistency across all students and reduce error rates. However, with increasing workloads and student numbers these goals are becoming more difficult to achieve. An automated feedback system, referred to as the Automated Feedback Generator (AFG), has therefore been designed and developed with the aim of providing superior quality assurance and efficiency in both assessing student assignments and providing feedback. Unlike existing automated marking and feedback software, AFG aims to allow educators to perform the entire process of student feedback generation for any assessment type. The AFG system is investigated across two introductory ICT courses: general ICT and programming. The aim is to demonstrate that AFG provides a more effective means for providing student feedback than alternative manual and automated approaches. This is achieved by comparing AFG with these alternatives and demonstrating that it offers quality control, efficiency and effectiveness benefits whilst generating consistent feedback from a student perspective. An empirical approach is employed using attitudinal data. T tests are used to test hypotheses comparing three feedback generation approaches: AFG, manual and a more complex automated approach. The results show that feedback from AFG was perceived to be constructive, helpful and with error levels less than or equal to those for other course feedback approaches; students also found feedback to be consistent with that produced by the more complex alternatives

Palaeoproterozoic orogenic gold style mineralization at the Southwestern Archaean Tanzanian cratonic margin, Lupa Goldfield, SW Tanzania: Implications from U–Pb titanite geochronology

The Lupa Goldfield, situated at the southwestern Tanzanian cratonic margin, comprises a network of auriferous quartz veins and greenschist facies mylonitic shear zones cutting a suite of Archaean–Palaeoproterozoic granitic–gabbroic intrusions. The existing geochronological database points to a protracted, but episodic 1.96–1.88 Ga magmatic history that is broadly coincident with the 2.1–1.8 Ga Ubendian Orogeny. Molybdenite, pyrite and chalcopyrite samples from mineralized quartz veins and mylonitic shear zones yield Re–Os model ages that range from 1.95 to 1.88 Ga, whereas ca. 1.88 Ga pyrite with gold bearing inclusions and sampled from the host mylonitic shear zone suggest that gold occurred relatively late in this hydrothermal history. The ca. 1.88 Ga gold event is recorded at all five of the studied prospects, whereas the relationship between gold and the disparately older 1.95 and 1.94 Ga Re–Os molybdenite ages is unclear. New U–Pb metamorphic titanite dating of a foliated Archaean granite sample (ca. 2.76 Ga) suggests that the onset of ductile deformation within the Lupa Goldfield occurred at ca. 1.92 Ga, and some ca. 40 Myr prior to auriferous and brittle–ductile mylonitic shear zones at ca. 1.88 Ga. Early ductile deformation is not associated with gold mineralization, but the ductile deformation fabrics and, in particular the development of rheologically weak chloritic folia, may have acted as zones of pre-existing weakness that localized strain and influenced the geometry of later auriferous mylonitic shear zones. The large age difference between U–Pb zircon and titanite ages for the Archaean granite sample is in contrast to new U–Pb titanite ages for the Saza Granodiorite (1930 ± 3 Ma), which are only slightly outside of analytical uncertainty at the 2σ level with a previously reported U–Pb zircon age for the same sample (1935 ± 1 Ma). These new age results, together with previously reported U–Pb and Re–Os ages, highlight the protracted magmatic, hydrothermal and structural evolution of the Lupa Goldfield (1.96–1.88 Ga). They are also consistent with other palaeo-convergent margins where orogenic gold style mineralization occurs relatively late in the orogen's tectono-thermal history

The effect of nucleation of surface slip on the flow and fracture of beryllium final report

Nucleation effect of surface slip on beryllium flow and fractur

Phosphorus and zinc fertilization: beneficial management practices for corn in Manitoba

Non-Peer ReviewedYear 1 and 2 results of a research project are presented for two P fertilization studies, one with crop rotation and the other with residue management. The objectives of the two studies were to evaluate i) corn response to spring side-banded P and Zn fertilizer when corn follows canola versus soybeans, ii) corn response to fall banded and spring side-banded P fertilizer in strip tillage and conventional tillage. Each study was established at two locations in 2014 and 2015 with canola and soybeans grown as preceding crops for the rotation study, and fall conventional and strip tillage for the residue management study. The rotation study included a control (no P) and two rates of P (27 and 54 lb P2O5/ac) in the form of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) (11-54-0) or Microessentials MESZn (12-40-0-10-1) side-banded (2” to the side and 1” below the seed) during corn planting in the spring of 2015 and 2016. The residue management study treatments included a control (no P), two rates of P (27 and 54 lb P2O5/ac) in the form of MAP, applied either in the fall as a deep band (4 – 5”) with the strip till unit or in the spring as a side-band with the corn planter. Preliminary results for the rotation study showed a substantial early season vegetative response to all fertilizer P treatments, resulting in an 85-110% increase in biomass compared to the control, especially in corn following canola. Silking date was advanced by 3-7 days with application of starter P. At harvest, all starter P treatments reduced kernel moisture by 2-3% in corn following canola only, and there was a 10% yield increase in grain yield with the high rate of MAP compared to the control, regardless of preceding crop. Preliminary results for the residue management study showed that spring side-banded P treatments increased early season biomass by 77-81% and silking date was advanced by 3 days at 2 site-years, compared to the control. At harvest, fertilizer P reduced kernel moisture by 1-2% at both sites in 2016, and spring side-banded P out-yielded the control and fall applied treatments by 5%, regardless of tillage system

Agreeing on meaning: a fundamental sharing of health information

Topic: A preliminary study on the reproducibility of results when mapping terms from an existing terminology to SNOMED CT post-coordinated expressions is described. Background: Implementing SNOMED CT requires a strategy for migrating existing systems and data that currently use other terminologies as well as ensuring that SNOMED CT contains suitable content that covers the domain. Mapping terms from these terminologies to SNOMED CT is one element of such a strategy. Snapper is a tool designed to assist in this complex task and enable the creation of quality mappings. Methods: Ten terms from the ANZICS diagnosis codes were selected to be mapped according to specified guidelines. The resulting mapping expressions were compared with each other and discussions were conducted with the mapping participants to determine issues they encountered during the process. Results: Consistency was easily achievable with mapping to single concepts, but was more difficult when mapping to post-coordinated expressions. The difficulties were traced to a lack of specificity in the supplied guidelines resulting in uncertainty in structuring the representation of compound concepts

Continuity of heavy Rydberg behaviour in the ungerade ion-pair states of H 2

Heavy Rydberg behaviour and absolute quantum defects are reported for resonances in the ungerade manifold of H2 above the (1s, 3l) dissociation limit. The continuity of the vibrational progression of the B\u27\u27B-bar state through the crossing with the 3p asymptote is demonstrated and a predominantly diabatic picture of the vibrational motion emerges, indicating that the ion-pair resonances possess little 61Σu+ state character