Understanding Community Learning and Development Practitioners’ Engagement with Information Communications Technology

Community Learning and Development (CLD) practitioners in Scotland have been responsible for supporting people to use Information Communications Technology (ICT) since the 90s. The ubiquitous nature of ICT means that the people and communities we work with, and ourselves, need to understand how we engage with this. However, there is a complex policy landscape and limited research around ICT in CLD and this is affecting how we can use this effectively. Since the term CLD includes different professions, it can be described as pluralistic and there are different philosophies that inform practice. This would indicate that there are shared epistemologies which can form a broad body of practice research, but this is not yet fully realised. This research explores models which can be used to identify shared epistemologies and start discussion about how we practise, specifically around using ICT. The research used mixed methods under a constructivist/interpretivist paradigm to understand how CLD practitioners at Dundee Carers Centre engage with ICT. The findings from this research are not intended to give definitive findings, but to support CLD practitioners to reflect on practice and generate discussion around using ICT. Whilst this research was completed in 2014, it can be used to inform and develop practice during the COVID-19 pandemic

Honors and Intercollegiate Athletics

Can there be anything more graceful and more athletically inspiring than a downhill slalom racer carving between the gates and proceeding at stunning speeds to vie for a medal? As a passionate skier, my personal favorites are downhill races and ski jumps, but whether it be ice dancing, figure skating competitions, triathlons, or even snowboarding, the recent Vancouver Olympics, in all of their international pomp and circumstance, reminds us of the place of athletic competitions in defining our humanness. It is exactly as the lead author, Sam Schuman, would have it in his well-written essay: the limits but also the glories of physical achievement, the role of hard work, and the importance of others in anything that we achieve, teamwork being essential to even individual events since there is always a support group behind even the single competitor. How regrettable, then, that Professor Schuman chose to organize his essay, despite his opening disclaimers, around the medium of intercollegiate sports in his paean to athleticism. While it is true that he also gives a passing nod to intramural competitions and personal athletic prowess, the images that he conjures, at least to this Texas denizen, run more to “Saturday Night Lights” than to “Downhill Racer.” In taking the tack that he has, he has underlined, in my mind, one of the true catastrophes of American culture; in the process, the message of what athleticism can truly mean has been curiously obscured. The catastrophe is that we have become a society of observers, and this is perhaps nowhere more evident than in our relationship to intercollegiate athletics and its “grown-up” manifestation, professional sports. The fact, for example, that the recent Super Bowl activities registered the largest viewing audience in TV history, now surpassing the last television episode of M*A*S*H, is certainly worth noting (National Football League: Super Bowl XLIV website). We historians look for societal markers of the status and health, past and present, of our national community, and for me the increasing popularity of Super Bowl Sunday, much like the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, marks a turning point in American civilization. Guantanamo threatens, from my perspective, the rule of law, a hallmark of our national identity and character. Super Bowl Sunday is similarly enervating. In all of the hoopla surrounding the Super Bowl, we have taken what is essentially an utterly trivial pursuit (does it make one iota’s worth of difference to the human situation whether the New Orleans Saints or the Indianapolis Colts win or lose?) played out by grossly overpaid performers, and we have turned it into an artificially constructed “cosmic event.” Is even one child helped by this competition to climb out of poverty or ignorance? Is a senior citizen provided with even a modicum of improvement to her wellbeing in her declining years? Is any nation nudged toward greater accommodation and a more peaceful co-existence with its neighbors? Is any municipality (with the possible exception of Miami) assisted in its economic doldrums? (Vancouver, just for the record, has been left with a billion dollar tax hangover.) We are essentially saying, as a society, that it is perfectly fine, first of all, to focus nationally and obsessively on a completely inconsequential occurrence and, secondly, to be thoroughly passive observers in the process. Athleticism has become simply a spectator phenomenon. And where does it all start? I do not need to stress that, as Pavlovian mammals, we are conditioned to “Superbowlism” in our college or even our high school years. We are encouraged to believe that the victory of my university team over your university team is a matter of supreme importance. It simply is not

The Cost of Implementing HIPAA in Private Physicians\u27 Offices in South Carolina

HIPAA - the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability act of 1996 is the largest government action in healthcare since Medicare. Since the passage of the HIPAA legislation, estimated cost of implementation has ranged from $3.8 billion to$45 billion for the implementation of the privacy rules. This study examines the cost on implementing HIPAA in private physicians\u27 offices in South Carolina. The study selected the medical specialties of family practice, general practice, obstetrics & gynecology, and pediatrics. The study compares and analyzes cost of rural vs. urban physician practices, by specialty, and by type of entity when implementing privacy rules

Challenges and Choices: Modelling New Zealand’s Long-term Fiscal Position

This working paper provides further detail on the modelling behind Challenges and Choices – New Zealand’s Long-Term Fiscal Statement, published on 29 October 2009. Building on the first Statement of 2006, we construct two main fiscal scenarios over a 40- year horizon. The historic trends scenario allows historic and current spending and revenue settings to interact with changing demography. The sustainable debt scenario applies a fiscal constraint on non-benefit spending so that Crown net debt follows the Government’s medium-term fiscal targets. The modelling innovations introduced this time do not alter the basic structure and principles of the Long-term Fiscal Model, but instead provide insights into government spending: public sector productivity growth and the growth of the basket of services each person receives. These innovations enable us to illustrate the effects of tradeoffs between broad spending categories in a constrained fiscal environment. In the 2009 Statement, these policy changes are combined into three possible scenarios for obtaining a sustainable fiscal position. The paper also illustrates the sensitivity of the fiscal position to small changes in the demographic, macroeconomic and fiscal modelling assumptions.Population, projections, social expenditure, fiscal costs, New Zealand

AN INTERACTIONIST APPRAISAL OF IMPRESSION FORMATION: The "Central Trait" Hypothesis Revisited

This article examines the nature of first impressions from the interactionist perspective. A modified H. H. Kelley design (1950) of student-teacher interaction was employed with a sample of 195 college students. The fi ndi ngs demonstrate the overall complexi ty of the impressi on-form ing process as we II as i IIustrate the Ii mitations of the warm-cold variable in predicting actual behcvior , Several central traits are observed to be operative in impression formation. These traits are observed to be a function both of preinformation and response alternatives in the odjecrive checklist, Symbolic and observational presentation is found to be more influencial in forming impressions with behavioral implications than those formed solely by observational exposure. Both consideration of the context of interaction and central trait identification appear necessary to specify the behavioral component of impressions.http://web.ku.edu/~starjrn

Nonlinear sub-cyclotron resonance as a formation mechanism for gaps in banded chorus

An interesting characteristic of magnetospheric chorus is the presence of a frequency gap at $\omega \simeq 0.5\Omega_e$, where $\Omega_e$ is the electron cyclotron angular frequency. Recent chorus observations sometimes show additional gaps near $0.3\Omega_e$ and $0.6\Omega_e$. Here we present a novel nonlinear mechanism for the formation of these gaps using Hamiltonian theory and test-particle simulations in a homogeneous, magnetized, collisionless plasma. We find that an oblique whistler wave with frequency at a fraction of the electron cyclotron frequency can resonate with electrons, leading to effective energy exchange between the wave and particles

Neural nets versus logistic regression: A comparison of each model\u27s ability to predict commercial bank failures

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_proceedings/1081/thumbnail.jp

Development and Reliability of a 7×15m Repeated On-Ice Sprint Test for Female Ice Hockey Players

International Journal of Exercise Science 14(6): 666-676, 2021. The purpose of this investigation was to design and examine the reliability of a 7×15m repeated on-ice skating sprint test for female ice hockey players. Seventeen women ( ± SD age, height and body mass = 21 ± 2 years, 166.2 ± 6.4 cm and 61.9 ± 7.7 kg, respectively) completed 7 consecutive on-ice sprints of 15m repeated every 15s. Two trials of the test were performed on the same day and then repeated on a different day approximately 1 week later for a total of 4 trials. The fastest 15m time, mean time for 7 sprints and total sprint time collapsed across all 4 trials was 2.96 ± 0.12s, 3.05 ± 0.13s and 21.35 ± 0.89s, respectively. There were no significant differences between trials for any variable. Typical error (TE), coefficient of variation (%CV) and intra-class coefficients (ICC) for the fastest 15m time, mean of 7 sprints, and total time were ICC = 0.77, TE = 0.06s and %CV = 2.1; ICC = 0.91; TE = 0.04s and %CV = 1.4; and, ICC = 0.91; TE = 0.29 and %CV = 1.4 for all 4 trials, respectively. Players in the forward position had a faster mean 15m time and lower total time compared to those in the defensive position (p \u3c 0.05). These findings show that a 7×15m repeated on-ice sprint test for varsity women ice hockey players was reliable. It was also found that forwards had a better mean of 7 sprint time and faster total time compared to players in the defensive position