Knowledge Enhanced Notes (KEN)

To aid the creation and through-life support of large complex engineering products, organisations are placing a greater emphasis on constructing complete and accurate records of design activities. Current documentary approaches are not sufficient to capture activities and decisions in their entirety and can lead to organisations revisiting and in some cases reworking design decisions in order to understand previous design episodes. This paper presents an overview of the challenges in creating accurate, re-usable records of synchronous design activities, enhancing the through-life support of engineering products, followed by the development of an information capture software system to address these challenges. The main objectives for the development of the Knowledge Enhanced Notes system are described followed by the techniques chosen to address the objectives, and finally a description of a use-case for the system. Whilst the focus of the KEN System was to aid the creation and through-life support of large complex engineering products through constructing complete and accurate records of design activities, the system is entirely generic in its application to synchronous activities

Production Response to Increased Imports: The Case of U.S. Sugar

This paper considers how the welfare of U.S. sugar producers can be affected by the use of production controls in the presence of rising sugar imports and falling sugar prices, taking into account the negative externalities associated with U.S. sugar production. Even if production controls are used, producer welfare can be affected negatively under rising imports.import quota, production quota, supply management, U.S. sugar, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, F13, F14, Q17,

Innovation Systems: Implications for agricultural policy and practice

Farmers and businesses need to adapt constantly if they are to survive and compete in the rapidly evolving environment associated with the contemporary agricultural sector. Rethinking agricultural research as part of a dynamic system of innovation could help to design ways of creating and sustaining conditions that will support the process of adaptation and innovation. This approach involves developing the working styles and practices of individuals and organizations and the incentives, support structures and policy environments that encourage innovation. Previous efforts to support agricultural sector innovation largely targeted agricultural policy and research organizations. The systems approach recognizes that innovation takes place through the interaction of a broader set of organizations and activities. These patterns of interaction and working styles and practices – or institutions as they are referred to by social scientists – need to adapt continuously if they are to meet the changing demands of the evolving agricultural sector. Institutional learning is central to this process and will ensure research organizations remain relevant and continue to introduce innovations that impact positively on the livelihoods of the poor.innovation, systems, agricultural Research, adaptation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Minstrels in the drawing room: music and novel-reading in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walter Scott, and George Eliot

"Minstrels in the Drawing Room" is an investigation of the representation of musical listening in the nineteenth-century novel. Theoretical accounts of the novel have tended to see it as a universal form, one that opportunistically subsumes all others as its represented content; descriptions of the novel's implied audience often interpret novel-reading as an essentially absorptive activity linking private reading to public belonging through an act of identification. For the writers I discuss here, however, musical listening is interesting because it is a rival mode of shared aesthetic experience that, before the advent of sound recording, was necessarily social. This dissertation draws on recent developments in the history of reading and media theory to describe how novels by three central figures of the European novelistic canon - Goethe, Scott, and Eliot - turn to musical listening to reflect upon the ways in which the absolutely open nature of the novel's mode of address is nevertheless prone to limitation. The dissertation thus complicates often all-or-nothing theories of novel-reading, offering instead a description of how novels model a distanced identification between reader and text

Reality therapy for marital and family systems counseling

Reality therapy and choice theory have been applied to many counseling settings. The following work will review available literature and theory as to how choice theory is applied to marital and family systems counseling, including a review of the foundational concepts of reality therapy, characteristics of a counselor that practices reality therapy, needs profiles, needs genograms, and the reality therapy solving circle

Analysis of the Impact of Implementing Interdisciplinary Pods on Student Achievement in Georgia Middle Schools

With the increasing demands for middle schools to meet Annual Yearly Progress and the Annual Measurable Objective levels of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) middle school principals are faced with decisions to incorporate the appropriate middle school instructional model. This study examined the longitudinal achievement data of sixth and seventh grade reading, English language arts, and math on the Georgia Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) in 20 middle schools from 2008 – 2011 in a large suburban school district in Georgia. Of the schools, two implemented a junior high model, six implemented an interdisciplinary pod model, and twelve implemented an interdisciplinary team model. The student achievement data was collected from the School Performance Summary Reports that are compiled by the Georgia Department of Education for the years 2008 – 2011. Three of the research questions were designed to examine if a particular type of instructional model used by the middle schools influenced student achievement. After testing each of three hypotheses it was determined that there was no significant difference in academic achievement for reading, English language arts, or math when compared to the instructional model. Nor was there a significant difference between the instructional model and its implementation in either sixth or seventh grade. iii This study also asked a fourth question that evaluated the perception of middle school principals and the instructional model. This was accomplished using a survey that was developed specifically for this study. Based on the answers provided by the principals, it was establish that there was no significant difference between the perception of middle school principals and student achievement. However, the majority of the principals indicated that they preferred one model to another. Additionally, the majority of the principals agreed that the instructional model used at their school was based on external influences and that they would choose to change to an interdisciplinary pod model if given the opportunity

AN EXPERIMENT IN CONTINGENT VALUATION AND SOCIAL DESIRABILITY

Social desirability (SD) represents the problem of subjects responding with social norms rather than individual values. This paper briefly surveys the SD literature and considers its relevance for contingent valuation (CV) studies. In an empirical study, undergraduate students were administered the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, as well as CV questions. High SD scores were hypothesized to imply a greater likelihood of offering a protest reason for a zero bid and to increase bids for socially desirable commodities. While all hypotheses were not supported, the empirical results suggest that SD can influence CV responses and should not be dismissed prematurely.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,