Cost-Effectiveness of Stronger Woodframe Buildings

We examine the cost-effectiveness of improvements in woodframe buildings. These include retrofits, redesign measures, and improved quality in 19 hypothetical woodframe dwellings. We estimated cost-effectiveness for each improvement and each zip code in California. The dwellings were designed under the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project. Costs and seismic vulnerability were determined on a component-by-component basis using the Assembly Based Vulnerability method, within a nonlinear time-history structural-analysis framework and using full-size test specimen data. Probabilistic site hazard was calculated by zip code, considering site soil classification, and integrated with vulnerability to determine expected annualized repair cost. The approach provides insight into uncertainty of loss at varying shaking levels. We calculated present value of benefit to determine cost-effectiveness in terms of benefit-cost ratio (BCR). We find that one retrofit exhibits BCRs as high as 8, and is in excess of 1 in half of California zip codes. Four retrofit or redesign measures are cost-effective in at least some locations. Higher quality is estimated to save thousands of dollars per house. Results are illustrated by maps for the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions and are available for every zip code in California

Costing Distance Ed: Experience-Based Practices

To respond creatively to the many new opportunities of distance education, the educational community can benefit from a comprehensive view of the distance learning system.   The Process Model for Program Analysis outlines a five-step process to examine all aspects of the system:  Input, Purpose, Method, Implementation, and Feedback.  Inputs include physical and faculty resources, while assumptions include educational philosophy and culture.  Purpose includes specific objectives and the intended audiences for the program.  Method includes the medium used to convey ideas and the process used to put them together including expenditures.  Implementation combines purpose, method, and estimated costs to conduct the actual program.  Feedback includes follow-up with students and the community, cost-benefit analysis, and adaptation based on the research findings

Teaching with Technology in the Modern Classroom: A Learning Systems Model

Rapid advances in technology, an expanding non-traditional student body, and paradigm shifts are profoundly changing education. With Federal initiatives targeting ways to help students, educators feel the pressure to do more teaching with technology. However, educators may tend to adapt a piecemeal approach, without recognizing the wider implications for education as a total system. The Learning Systems Model expands and tailors a process model for teaching that identifies the interrelated components of education at the levels of individual, institution, and the wider society. In particular, elements within the model emphasize the needs of a multicultural and diverse student body, as well as the implications of utilizing technology as a tool in education. The discussion ends with specific teaching skills and techniques to help the educator adapt to the modern classroom

Wireless Technologies For Marketing And Management Professionals

Wireless technology is rapidly expanding market in business. A survey of literature and executives in Colorado indicates extensive use of cell phones predominating in all businesses.  Secondary wireless technology (wireless mouse, LAN, keyboards, PDA) is gradually expanding. The future holds additional expansion in Hot Spots for use away form the home/office environment.  Major concerns with wireless technology involve both security and standardization, which will determine expanded use in the future

Mentorship Theory And Current Practice: A Study Of Executives In The Greater Denver Region

Mentoring is increasingly seen as a critical skill for modern business. It builds on a team concept that represents a win-win situation for the organization as a whole, for the mentor, and for the mentee.  Mentoring focuses on work-related needs of the company while building the skills of individual employees. Our study incorporates an extensive literature review on best practices in mentoring, along with the results from interviews with 395 business executives in the Denver region. The discussion builds on a series of interviews conducted between 1998 and 2001 with executives who have had served as a mentor for at least one mentee.In examining mentorship theory and practice, we will focus initially on the challenge and expectations of mentoring programs within organizations, and how specific organizations face these issues.  We will next consider the purpose of a mentoring program, looking at the objectives of the organization as well as of the various individual participants. The method for mentorship practice includes program dimensions such as the size, levels of formality, attitudes of those involved, and the various mentorship roles.  Finally, we report how the mentee participants rated their experience

Maximizing the Distance Education Learning Environment: Using Technology for Mind Expansion

Administrators may believe that distance education merely involves taking existing readings, exercises, handouts, and posting them to the Web. Such an approach, while cost-effective, is not effective. A new world of distance education also demands new thinking. How the process is designed, delivered, integrated, and supported are key components to a complete distance education system. The meaningful transition to a-education has just begun. To determine measures of effectiveness and efficiency requires innovations in social and political thought, even more than mere technology. The distance education process requires feedback from the professor, from the student, and from the wider community, especially businesses who hire the graduates. E-learning and higher education are reaching new heights and are changing the functions of the university. E-learning has changed the ground rules of everything including time, distance, and pedagogy. We now have new ways to reach and interact with students, present rich-content in courses, and deliver the technologies of the smart classroom to students wherever they are in the world

Student Public Speaking - Creating With Confidence Breaking Through Barriers

The rise of the information age has intensified the need for improved communication. As employers increase the use of teams and telecommuting in the workplace, the need for improved communication also accelerates both in written and oral modes. For oral communication or public speaking, a review of recent literature indicates this renewed emphasis, with numerous articles highlighting the need coming from disciplines ranging from accounting to science, as well as such specialized subgroups as Black educators. Additionally, more and more people are incorporating technology into their presentations, breaking the limitations of projectors, screens, and flipcharts

Competencies For Managing Unstructured Information In The Knowledge Evolution: A Rocky Mountain Regional Study Of CEO Perspectives

For modern managers to remain competitive in the information age, they must capture and leverage knowledge. An Integrative Model of Knowledge Management can provide a way of visualizing the interrelated elements for an effective knowledge-management system. This original model builds on a Rhetorical Process Model of Communication, which considers both objective and subjective elements within human communication. In addition, it clarifies the purpose and method elements at the center for any effective knowledge system.  Knowledge builds relationships among people who are willing to share what they know for the good of the organization. Organizations that fully develop the human potential of their people grow in economic value.  Within the theoretical dimensions of the Model, this study incorporates the preliminary findings from interviews with 429 executives in the Rocky Mountain region

Improving Loss Estimation for Woodframe Buildings. Volume 2: Appendices

This report documents Tasks 4.1 and 4.5 of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project. It presents a theoretical and empirical methodology for creating probabilistic relationships between seismic shaking severity and physical damage and loss for buildings in general, and for woodframe buildings in particular. The methodology, called assembly-based vulnerability (ABV), is illustrated for 19 specific woodframe buildings of varying ages, sizes, configuration, quality of construction, and retrofit and redesign conditions. The study employs variations on four basic floorplans, called index buildings. These include a small house and a large house, a townhouse and an apartment building. The resulting seismic vulnerability functions give the probability distribution of repair cost as a function of instrumental ground-motion severity. These vulnerability functions are useful by themselves, and are also transformed to seismic fragility functions compatible with the HAZUS software. The methods and data employed here use well-accepted structural engineering techniques, laboratory test data and computer programs produced by Element 1 of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project, other recently published research, and standard construction cost-estimating methods. While based on such well established principles, this report represents a substantially new contribution to the field of earthquake loss estimation. Its methodology is notable in that it calculates detailed structural response using nonlinear time-history structural analysis as opposed to the simplifying assumptions required by nonlinear pushover methods. It models physical damage at the level of individual building assemblies such as individual windows, segments of wall, etc., for which detailed laboratory testing is available, as opposed to two or three broad component categories that cannot be directly tested. And it explicitly models uncertainty in ground motion, structural response, component damageability, and contractor costs. Consequently, a very detailed, verifiable, probabilistic picture of physical performance and repair cost is produced, capable of informing a variety of decisions regarding seismic retrofit, code development, code enforcement, performance-based design for above-code applications, and insurance practices

Healthcare workers' willingness to work during an influenza pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To estimate the proportion of healthcare workers (HCWs) willing to work during an influenza pandemic and identify associated risk factors, we undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis compliant with PRISMA guidance. Databases and grey literature were searched to April 2013, and records were screened against protocol eligibility criteria. Data extraction and risk of bias assessments were undertaken using a piloted form. Random-effects meta-analyses estimated (i) pooled proportion of HCWs willing to work and (ii) pooled odds ratios of risk factors associated with willingness to work. Heterogeneity was quantified using the I(2) statistic, and publication bias was assessed using funnel plots and Egger's test. Data were synthesized narratively where meta-analyses were not possible. Forty-three studies met our inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis of the proportion of HCWs willing to work was abandoned due to excessive heterogeneity (I(2) = 99.2%). Narrative synthesis showed study estimates ranged from 23.1% to 95.8% willingness to work, depending on context. Meta-analyses of specific factors showed that male HCWs, physicians and nurses, full-time employment, perceived personal safety, awareness of pandemic risk and clinical knowledge of influenza pandemics, role-specific knowledge, pandemic response training, and confidence in personal skills were statistically significantly associated with increased willingness. Childcare obligations were significantly associated with decreased willingness. HCWs' willingness to work during an influenza pandemic was moderately high, albeit highly variable. Numerous risk factors showed a statistically significant association with willingness to work despite significant heterogeneity between studies. None of the included studies were based on appropriate theoretical constructs of population behaviour