Public accountability: The perceived usefulness of school annual reports

Annual reports are an important component of New Zealand schools’ public accountability. Through the annual report the governance body informs stakeholders about school aims, objectives, achievements, use of resources, and financial performance. This paper identifies the perceived usefulness of the school annual report to recipients and the extent to which it serves as an instrument of accountability and/or decision-usefulness. The study finds that the annual report is used for a variety of purposes, including: to determine if the school has conducted its activities effectively and achieved stated objectives and goals; to examine student achievements; to assess financial accountability and performance; and to make decisions about the school as a suitable environment for their child/children. Nevertheless, the study also finds that other forms of communication are more important sources of information about the school than the annual report which is seen to fall short of users’ required qualities of understandability, reliability and readability. It would appear imperative that policy makers review the functional role of the school annual report which is a costly document to prepare. Further, school managers need to engage in alternative means to communicate sufficient and meaningful information in the discharge of public accountability

Evaluating an online support package delivered within a disability unemployment service: study protocol for a randomised controlled feasibility study

Background Mental health problems such as anxiety and depression are known to be higher in those who are unemployed. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a recognised support for people with such problems and can improve the ability of people to get back to work.<p></p> Methods/design Participants with symptoms of low mood will be recruited from the disability employment service, Remploy. Participants will receive either immediate or delayed access to an online CBT-based life skills intervention, the “Living Life” package. The primary end point will be at 3 months when the delayed group will be offered the intervention. This feasibility study will test the trial design and assess recruitment, retention, acceptability and adherence, as well as providing efficacy data.<p></p> Discussion The study will inform the design and sample size for a future full randomised controlled trial (RCT) which will be carried out to determine the effectiveness of the online package in improving mood and employment status.<p></p&gt

Referring-expression generation using a transformation-based learning approach

A natural language generation system must generate expressions that allow a reader to identify the entities to which they refer. This paper describes the creation of referring-expression (RE) generation models developed using a transformation-based learning approach. We present an evaluation of the learned models and compare their performance to the performance of a baseline system, which always generates full noun phrase REs. When compared to the baseline system, the learned models produce REs that lead to more coherent natural language documents and are more accurate and closer in length to those that people use.Engineering and Applied Science

IMPROVED WASTE MANAGEMENT IN COSTA RICA\u27S URUCA RIVER BASIN

This project, prepared for the Ministerio del Ambiente y Energia (MINAE) in San Jose, Costa Rica, examined methods to monitor industrial waste management practices while raising community knowledge about cleaner production. The following report describes our development of an online questionnaire, a waste estimation model and a brochure encouraging proper waste management within commercial centers. Through the use of technology, our project aims to enhance MINAE\u27s ability to monitor the waste generation and disposal techniques of Costa Rican businesses

Exploring the relationship between outer space and world politics: English School and regime theory perspectives

This thesis uses regime theory and the English School of International Relations (and particularly the social constructivist reformulation by Buzan in From International to World Society: English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation 2004) to address the question: Why have actors decided to cooperate on outer space issues, and what does that cooperation tell us about wider international politics and international society. Rational actors have at times determined that it is in their interest to coordinate activity for outer space. This coordination has led (either intentionally or unintentionally) to the creation of international regimes, and those regimes have conversely come to exert influence over actors' interests and behavior over time. Processes within international society (such as the rise, evolution, and decline of international society institutions, and shifts between pluralism and solidarism) also influence - and are influenced by - outer space politics. The thesis focuses on five case studies: geosynchronous orbit, the International Space Station, Global Navigational Satellite Systems, the company Sea Launch, and comets and asteroids. Pre-existing outer space treaties ("diffuse regimes") have established basic understandings between states about governance over outer space, and implicit or explicit regimes have also evolved to facilitate coordination amongst actors on the specific issue-areas of each case study. The tools used by regime theorists help explain the development of these various regimes and the relationship between them; however, because of regime theory's relatively narrow focus (on actors' rational interests in specific issue-areas) it provides few insights into how outer space politics are embedded in wider world politics and international society. An English School approach expands the analysis and puts into perspective how the Space Race was mutually constitutive of Cold War pluralist international society, and how space cooperation and commercialization over time also reflected and reinforced globalization and cooperative international society. However it is extremely difficult to operationalize the English School in order to draw more specific explanatory conclusions about individual case studies. It is necessary to use both approaches together to develop a thorough explanation of actors' behavior with regards to outer space politics, as well as an understanding of how outer space politics relate to wider world politics

Managing Decision Making and Times Scales in Jointly Reported Cases

Offences which are required to be jointly reported to the Procurator Fiscal (PF) and the Children’s Reporter can be found here. In deciding whether to prosecute a child who has been jointly reported, COPFS (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service) will liaise with the Children’s Reporter (as per their joint agreement) and will take into account a number of factors including for example sufficiency of evidence, the offending history of the accused, the severity of the offence and the public interest

Changing Forests in a Warming World

Severe fires can dramatically alter the future growth of a spruce forest. A severe fire is likely to change the forest to one dominated by broadleaf deciduous trees, especially in drier places.York's Knowledge Mobilization Unit provides services and funding for faculty, graduate students, and community organizations seeking to maximize the impact of academic research and expertise on public policy, social programming, and professional practice. It is supported by SSHRC and CIHR grants, and by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. [email protected] www.researchimpact.c

Evaluation of Sova's Lincolnshire Offender Mentoring scheme

In January 2014 a team of researchers from the University of Lincoln undertook an evaluation of Sova’s Lincolnshire Offender Mentoring Programme (LOM). LOM is run in partnership with Lincolnshire Probation Trust. LOM works to address the multiple barriers faced by disadvantaged offenders. The project offers community mentoring and a range of intervention activities that aim to enable its participants to realise their full potential and reduce re-offending. The researchers interviewed 12 participants, which included 6 LPT staff, 2 Sova staff, 2 mentors and 2 offenders. Despite LOM being in its infancy, the research found that Sova and LPT had developed an effective inter-agency partnership with excellent levels of communication. The research also found the LOM is valued by both LPT staff and offenders and that it helped improve the service offered to offenders. Whilst the sample size of the research is relatively small there was evidence to suggest that LPT staff and offenders thought LOM had a positive impact on offenders’ behaviour. The research concludes that LOM should continue to be supported and further extended to other suitable offenders who would clearly benefit from the programme

Behavioral Deficits and Axonal Injury Persistence after Rotational Head Injury Are Direction Dependent

Pigs continue to grow in importance as a tool in neuroscience. However, behavioral tests that have been validated in the rodent model do not translate well to pigs because of their very different responses to behavioral stimuli. We refined metrics for assessing porcine open field behavior to detect a wide spectrum of clinically relevant behaviors in the piglet post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). Female neonatal piglets underwent a rapid non-impact head rotation in the sagittal plane (n=8 evaluable) or were instrumented shams (n=7 evaluable). Open field testing was conducted 1 day prior to injury (day −1) in order to establish an individual baseline for analysis, and at days +1 and +4 after injury. Animals were then killed on day +6 after injury for neuropathological assessment of axonal injury. Injured piglets were less interested in interacting with environmental stimuli and had a lower activity level than did shams. These data were compared with previously published data for axial rotational injuries in neonatal piglets. Acute behavioral outcomes post-TBI showed a dependence on the rotational plane of the brain injury, with animals with sagittal injuries demonstrating a greater level of inactivity and less random usage of the open field space than those with axial injuries. The persistence of axonal injury is also dependent on the rotational plane, with sagittal rotations causing more prolonged injuries than axial rotations. These results are consistent with animal studies, finite element models, and studies of concussions in football, which have all demonstrated differences in injury severity depending upon the direction of head impact rotation