More effective agricultural water protection (TEHO project 2008-2010)

TEHO project is focused on agricultural water protection issues in the area of southwest Finland, which cover around 12000 farms and 20 % of Finnish arable land

Generating effective project scheduling heuristics by abstraction and reconstitution

A project scheduling problem consists of a finite set of jobs, each with fixed integer duration, requiring one or more resources such as personnel or equipment, and each subject to a set of precedence relations, which specify allowable job orderings, and a set of mutual exclusion relations, which specify jobs that cannot overlap. No job can be interrupted once started. The objective is to minimize project duration. This objective arises in nearly every large construction project--from software to hardware to buildings. Because such project scheduling problems are NP-hard, they are typically solved by branch-and-bound algorithms. In these algorithms, lower-bound duration estimates (admissible heuristics) are used to improve efficiency. One way to obtain an admissible heuristic is to remove (abstract) all resources and mutual exclusion constraints and then obtain the minimal project duration for the abstracted problem; this minimal duration is the admissible heuristic. Although such abstracted problems can be solved efficiently, they yield inaccurate admissible heuristics precisely because those constraints that are central to solving the original problem are abstracted. This paper describes a method to reconstitute the abstracted constraints back into the solution to the abstracted problem while maintaining efficiency, thereby generating better admissible heuristics. Our results suggest that reconstitution can make good admissible heuristics even better

Scottish academic publications implementing an effective networked service (SAPIENS) project

This article describes the aims and continuing progress of the Scottish Academic Periodicals Implementing an Effective Networked Service (SAPIENS) project which has been running at the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Digital Library Research since September 2001. Initially funded for two years, the project has been extended until October 2004. The rationale behind SAPIENS is the concern that small Scottish publishers, operating on limited budgets, are in danger of finding themselves marginalised in the modern information environment. The project's primary objectives are to explore the viability of, and launch, an electronic publishing service to assist small-scale Scottish publishers of academic and cultural periodicals to publish online. It has achieved these aims by implementing a demonstration service which is gradually moving into an operational mode, delivering current journals

Are self-employment training programs effective? Evidence from Project GATE

In 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration implemented Project GATE, an experimental demonstration program designed to provide free self-employment assistance to individuals interested in starting their own business. This paper uses data from Project GATE to examine the efficacy of public self-employment training programs in the modern U.S. economy. Our analyses show that GATE led to significant improvements in the post-training outcomes of treatment group participants who were unemployed at the time of application. Particularly, GATE had a significant positive impact on new business starts and sustainability for unemployed participants five years after random assignment. For those who were unemployed at random assignment, GATE also led to higher employment likelihood and higher total earnings five years after random assignment. GATE had no impact, however, for participants who were employed, self-employed, or out of the labor force at the time of application.self-employment; small business; unemployment; workforce development; SEA; Project GATE

Teacher Evaluator Training & Certification: Lessons Learned From the Measures of Effective Teaching Project

Makes recommendations for the design and implementation of programs to train and certify principals in conducting teacher evaluations, including content, format, and length of training, scoring practice, and criteria for certification tests

Successful teachers in schools in challenging circumstances

Full report of research project - August 2004 (49 pages). The project aim was to find out what makes a teacher successful and effective in schools in challenging circumstances, and what teachers thought constitutes challenging circumstances

Experiential Learning in Industrial/Organizational Psychology: A Case Study

Experiential learning is considered a powerful tool for learning in college. Community-based research is one type of experiential learning that has been used to learn research skills in a variety of social science disciplines. The current case study was conducted as an experiential learning research project. A team of six students and a professor from a small Midwestern college conducted community-based research with a large agribusiness company headquartered near the college. The goal of the project was to create an effective employee-selection process for this firm and to provide an effective learning experience for students. This included development of a situational judgment test, cognitive ability testing, and personality assessment. The article focuses on steps taken to organize a community- based research project, the steps required to develop an effective selection process, and an evaluation of the experience from students, the community partners, and faculty

Tool for Effective Project Task Organization

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá správou diplomových prací a organizací činnosti při jejich tvorbě. Cílem bylo navrhnout a vytvořit systém pro studenty a vedoucí. Výsledkem je webová aplikace implementovaná v jazyce Ruby s použitím frameworků Rails a Bootstrap. Aplikace vedoucím umožňuje mít přehled o aktivitě studentů prostřednictvím týdenních reportů. Studentům nabízí možnost spolupráce mezi sebou a sdílení informací a motivace.This bachelor's thesis deals with management of bachelor's and master's theses. The main goal was to design and develop system for students and supervisors. The result is a web application implemented in Ruby using Rails and Bootstrap frameworks. The application provides supervisors with overview of students' activity by weekly reports. It allows students to cooperate and share information and motivation.

Dispute Resolution in International Project Finance Transactions

This essay discusses how the legal practice in international financial problems has slowly evolved towards a better recognition of international arbitration in the field of project financing. While it is useful to compare the different types of dispute resolution mechanisms that are to be considered by participants for the implementation of their contracts, it is this author\u27s view that international arbitration is the most effective means of resolving international project finance transactions. Indeed, the assessment of the most effective forum cannot dismiss what this author considers as an essential feature of international project financing, i.e., its transactional unity. As a result, international arbitration is the most appropriate mechanism to deal with corollary specificities of international project financing, such as multi-party disputes. The business, and possibly, legal unity of international project finance transactions therefore determines the resolution of the disputes arising with respect to those transactions