Improving further education provision for learners from minority ethnic groups: a review of the evidence

This paper summarises the findings from a review carried out by the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy (NRDC) for the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) between April and September 2007. The study sought to summarise what is known about the participation of those from minority ethnic groups in Further Education (FE) and to identify effective practice in helping them to achieve

Best practice statement : use of ankle-foot orthoses following stroke

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHSQIS) leads the use of knowledge to promote improvement in the quality of health care for the people of Scotland and performs three key functions. It provides advice and guidance on effective clinical practice, including setting standards; drives and supports implementation of improvements in quality, and assessing the performance of the NHS, reporting and publishing findings

Foundation Focus: Job Creation, Job Preservation or Job Loss? The Future of Europe\u27s Labour Market

This issue of Foundation Focus looks at the state of play of the European labour market and what governments, social partners and companies are doing to overcome the crisis. Over the last few years, many jobs have been lost, and mass unemployment has become the reality in some Member States. Eurofound’s latest European Quality of Life Survey points to growing inequalities and social exclusion. At the same time, the EU remains committed to the idea of creating and maintaining high-quality jobs. So where are these jobs going to come from? And is job quality being compromised in the attempt to cut costs and maintain competitiveness? All this and more in this issue of Foundation Focus

Wages: A working conditions and industrial relations perspective

[Excerpt] This paper looks at wages from two different angles: from the perspective of individual employees, discussed in conjunction with their working conditions, and from the perspective of the industrial relations system. After a brief overview of EU-level policy developments with a potential impact on national level pay determination, this report gives a comparative overview of the levels of collective wage setting and how they are set throughout Europe and goes on to report on reforms, changes or debates linked to these processes between the different actors at both the Member State and the European level in 2011 and 2012. This includes, for instance, debates on potential changes of indexation mechanisms in Belgium, Luxembourg and Cyprus, as a result of the Commission’s recommendations within the Euro Plus Pact. While in some countries (Estonia, Bulgaria) social partners resumed collective bargaining (either on wages or on minimum wages) and came to agreements, in other countries (Lithuania, Romania), no agreements could be reached. Some changes in the way collective bargaining is organised were recently introduced in Spain, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Information on these issues stems from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). Furthermore, this paper also summarises the current changes and debates among the social partners and governments in relation to the setting and the level of minimum wages across Europe. It then looks into the area of ‘working poor’, that is people who are in employment but still at risk of poverty. To what extent do governments and social partners put forth policy responses to address the issue of in-work-poverty? And to what extent did the crisis have an impact? In order to answer these questions, the paper draws on Eurofound research on the situation of the ‘Working poor’. Finally the paper presents a collection of recent ‘information updates’ from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) on various issues in relation to pay from Member States

Best Practice Statement : Use of Ankle-Foot Orthoses Following Stroke

The development of this Best Practice Statement (BPS) was a collaboration between NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS), National Centre for Prosthetics and Orthotics, University of Strathclyde and a multidisciplinary group of relevant specialists. NHS QIS is a strategic health board which has a lead role in supporting the NHS in Scotland to improve the quality of healthcare. It does this by producing advice and evidence in a number of different formats, including BPS. These statements reflect the commitment of NHS QIS to sharing local excellence at a national level, and the current emphasis on delivering care that is patient-centred, cost-effective and fair. As part of a scoping exercise commissioned by NHS QIS in 2007, allied health professionals (AHPs) across Scotland identified the use of AFOs following stroke in adults as a clinical improvement priority. Orthotic intervention following stroke has been recognised as a treatment option for many years, but there is wide variation in current practice, and a lack of evidence-based research to determine the optimal rehabilitation programme for individuals following stroke. Stroke is the most frequent cause of severe adult disability in Scotland, with approximately 8,500 diagnoses of first-ever stroke each year, and more than 70,000 individuals affected by the condition. A recent Scottish Government strategy document confirms stroke as a national clinical priority for the Scottish NHS. In addition to developing a BPS and sharing this with healthcare professionals across Scotland, the initiative also sought to develop resource material to support the implementation of the BPS and to share the work internationally. In order to inform the development of the BPS a systematic literature review on AFO use following stroke was undertaken, including work of both a qualitative and quantitative nature. The full literature review, together with recommendations for future research, was included in the BPS. As it was felt that many medical professionals and AHPs may be unfamiliar with the principles underpinning orthotic practice, additional educational resources that would improve understanding of the reasons why the recommendations were being made were developed and included in the BPS. In addition to the full BPS, the key recommendations were summarised as a two-page 'quick reference guide' for ease of use in a clinical setting

An Improvement Study of the Decomposition-based Algorithm Global WASF-GA for Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization

The convergence and the diversity of the decompositionbased evolutionary algorithm Global WASF-GA (GWASF-GA) relies on a set of weight vectors that determine the search directions for new non-dominated solutions in the objective space. Although using weight vectors whose search directions are widely distributed may lead to a well-diversified approximation of the Pareto front (PF), this may not be enough to obtain a good approximation for complicated PFs (discontinuous, non-convex, etc.). Thus, we propose to dynamically adjust the weight vectors once GWASF-GA has been run for a certain number of generations. This adjustment is aimed at re-calculating some of the weight vectors, so that search directions pointing to overcrowded regions of the PF are redirected toward parts with a lack of solutions that may be hard to be approximated. We test different parameters settings of the dynamic adjustment in optimization problems with three, five, and six objectives, concluding that GWASF-GA performs better when adjusting the weight vectors dynamically than without applying the adjustment.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Machiasport on Historic Machias Bay, Coast of Maine

A pamphlet highlighting scenic areas around the Machias Valley, including Birch Knoll Cottage, Buck\u27s Harbor, Howard\u27s Mountain, Howard\u27s Bay, Starboard\u27s Cottage, and the Machias River, circa 1903

Influence of Quality Improvement Activities and Direct Selling Through Mediated Partnership Model on Supply Chain, Farm-Gate Price and Indonesian Households Specialty Coffee Farmers' Income

The low farm-gate price of agricultural commodities is commonly caused by low quality and complicated value chain. Quality improvement and direct selling through Mediated Partnership Model (Motramed) are conducted to increase farm-gate price and bargaining power of smallholder farmers. In Indonesia, Motramed has been applied in several coffee producing regions, such as Flores, Kintamani and East Java. This research aimed to understand the influence of quality improvement and direct selling activities through Motramed on market chain, farm-gate price and household coffee farmers' income in Indonesia. This research was conducted in Kintamani in 2013. This research also used farm-gate data in several specialty coffee producing regions, including Flores (Bajawa and Ruteng), Kintamani and East Java that collected during 2010 and 2011. I incorporated both quantitative and qualitative research methods to explore and analyse the data. Household farmer survey, semi-structured interview with coffee stakeholders including farmers, collectors, exporters, government officials and NGOs; and field observation were used for collecting the data. The research shows that quality improvement activity in the farm level and direct selling through Motramed ha

Improvement of Napier Grass Silage Nutritive Value by Using Inoculant and Crude Enzymes From Trichoderma Reesei and Its Effect on in Vitro Rumen Fermentation

This research was aimed to evaluate the effect of inoculant and crude enzyme of Trichoderma reesei on fermentation quality and rumen digestibility of napier grass silage. This research consisted of two stages. The first stage was fermentation quality using a completely randomized design with three treatments and six replications. The second stage was rumen fermentability using a randomized block design with three treatments and six replications. The treatments of both stages were: T0= control of napier grass silage (Hi-fer+), T1= control + T. reesei inoculant at the level of 2.13 x 107 cfu/kg, and T2= control + crude enzyme from T. reesei at the level of 11.4 unit/kg. Napier grass silage were kept at room temperature and opened 21 d after fermentation. The result of the first stage experiment showed that T2 decreased (P<0.01) dry matter, organic matter, crude fiber, and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and also increased (P<0.05) crude protein, total digestible nutrient (TDN), pH, acetic acid, and propionic acid of napier grass silage while T1 decreased (P<0.01) NDF and increased (P<0.05) propionic acid. The result of the second stage experiment showed that there were no significant differences in rumen pH, in vitro dry matter and organic matter digestibility, total VFA, proportion of VFA, ratio of acetic to propionic acids, and also NH3. It is concluded that the addition of crude enzyme from T. reesei could improve fermentation quality of napier grass silage with decreasing NDF and increasing TDN but did not affect rumen fermentability

Nebraska Seed Focus March 2008

Determination of Dormant Seed in Native Grass Seed Improvement Conference The Distinguished Service Award Nebraska Crop Improvement Association Annual Meeting Minutes NCIA Board Reorganize