A case study of the Ellison model's use of mentoring as an approach toward inclusive community building

The Ellison Executive Mentoring Inclusive Community Building (ICB) Model is a paradigm for initiating and implementing projects utilizing executives and professionals from a variety of fields and industries, university students, and pre-college students. The model emphasizes adherence to ethical values and promotes inclusiveness in community development. It is a hierarchical model in which actors in each succeeding level of operation serve as mentors to the next. Through a three-step process—content, process, and product—participants must be trained with this mentoring and apprenticeship paradigm in conflict resolution, and they receive sensitivity and diversity training through an interactive and dramatic exposition. ^ The content phase introduces participants to the model's philosophy, ethics, values and methods of operation. The process used to teach and reinforce its precepts is the mentoring and apprenticeship activities and projects in which the participants engage and whose end product demonstrates their knowledge and understanding of the model's concepts. This study sought to ascertain from the participants' perspectives whether the model's mentoring approach is an effective means of fostering inclusiveness, based upon their own experiences in using it. The research utilized a qualitative approach and included data from field observations, individual and group interviews, and written accounts of participants' attitudes. ^ Participants complete ICB projects utilizing The Ellison Model as a method of development and implementation. They generally perceive that the model is a viable tool for dealing with diversity issues whether at work, at school, or at home. The projects are also instructional in that whether participants are mentored or serve as apprentices, they gain useful skills and knowledge about their careers. Since the model is relatively new, there is ample room for research in a variety of areas including organizational studies to determine its effectiveness in combating problems related to various kinds of discrimination. ^

An indexing structure and application model for vehicles moving on road networks

Moving objects database systems are the most challenging sub-category among Spatio-Temporal database systems. A database system that updates in real-time the location information of GPS-equipped moving vehicles has to meet even stricter requirements. Currently existing data storage models and indexing mechanisms work well only when the number of moving objects in the system is relatively small. This dissertation research aimed at the real-time tracking and history retrieval of massive numbers of vehicles moving on road networks. A total solution has been provided for the real-time update of the vehicles' location and motion information, range queries on current and history data, and prediction of vehicles' movement in the near future. ^ To achieve these goals, a new approach called Segmented Time Associated to Partitioned Space (STAPS) was first proposed in this dissertation for building and manipulating the indexing structures for moving objects databases. ^ Applying the STAPS approach, an indexing structure of associating a time interval tree to each road segment was developed for real-time database systems of vehicles moving on road networks. The indexing structure uses affordable storage to support real-time data updates and efficient query processing. The data update and query processing performance it provides is consistent without restrictions such as a time window or assuming linear moving trajectories. ^ An application system design based on distributed system architecture with centralized organization was developed to maximally support the proposed data and indexing structures. The suggested system architecture is highly scalable and flexible. Finally, based on a real-world application model of vehicles moving in region-wide, main issues on the implementation of such a system were addressed. ^

Evaluating Effects of Everglades Restoration on American Crocodile Populations in South Florida Using a Spatially-Explicit, Stage-Based Population Model

The distribution and abundance of the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) in the Florida Everglades is dependent on the timing, amount, and location of freshwater flow. One of the goals of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is to restore historic freshwater flows to American crocodile habitat throughout the Everglades. To predict the impacts on the crocodile population from planned restoration activities, we created a stage-based spatially explicit crocodile population model that incorporated regional hydrology models and American crocodile research and monitoring data. Growth and survival were influenced by salinity, water depth, and density-dependent interactions. A stage-structured spatial model was used with discrete spatial convolution to direct crocodiles toward attractive sources where conditions were favorable. The model predicted that CERP would have both positive and negative impacts on American crocodile growth, survival, and distribution. Overall, crocodile populations across south Florida were predicted to decrease approximately 3 % with the implementation of CERP compared to future conditions without restoration, but local increases up to 30 % occurred in the Joe Bay area near Taylor Slough, and local decreases up to 30 % occurred in the vicinity of Buttonwood Canal due to changes in salinity and freshwater flows.

On the possible implementation of nondirective teaching for English class in post secondary public schools in China

The paper explores how Chinese English teachers assume appropriate roles in applying nondirective teaching model to classrooms. After reviewing the current situation of English teaching and learning in China, it introduces the nondirective teaching model and its characteristics. Then, it focuses on the implementation of nondirective teaching model at the public schools in China. Finally it discusses the essential role that nondirective teaching model plays in helping students become powerful learners on English learning.

Vocabulary learning through use of the picture-word inductive model for young English learners in China: A mixed methods examination using Cognitive Load Theory

English has been taught as a core and compulsory subject in China for decades. Recently, the demand for English in China has increased dramatically. China now has the world's largest English-learning population. The traditional English-teaching method cannot continue to be the only approach because it merely focuses on reading, grammar and translation, which cannot meet English learners and users' needs (i.e., communicative competence and skills in speaking and writing). ^ This study was conducted to investigate if the Picture-Word Inductive Model (PWIM), a new pedagogical method using pictures and inductive thinking, would benefit English learners in China in terms of potential higher output in speaking and writing. With the gauge of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), specifically, its redundancy effect, I investigated whether processing words and a picture concurrently would present a cognitive overload for English learners in China. ^ I conducted a mixed methods research study. A quasi-experiment (pretest, intervention for seven weeks, and posttest) was conducted using 234 students in four groups in Lianyungang, China (58 fourth graders and 57 seventh graders as an experimental group with PWIM and 59 fourth graders and 60 seventh graders as a control group with the traditional method). No significant difference in the effects of PWIM was found on vocabulary acquisition based on grade levels. Observations, questionnaires with open-ended questions, and interviews were deployed to answer the three remaining research questions. A few students felt cognitively overloaded when they encountered too many writing samples, too many new words at one time, repeated words, mismatches between words and pictures, and so on. Many students listed and exemplified numerous strengths of PWIM, but a few mentioned weaknesses of PWIM. The students expressed the idea that PWIM had a positive effect on their English teaching. ^ As integrated inferences, qualitative findings were used to explain the quantitative results that there were no significant differences of the effects of the PWIM between the experimental and control groups in both grade levels, from four contextual aspects: time constraints on PWIM implementation, teachers' resistance, how to use PWIM and PWIM implemented in a classroom over 55 students.^

A Case Study of the Ellison Model's Use of Mentoring as an Approach Toward Inclusive Community Building

The Ellison Executive Mentoring Inclusive Community Building (ICB) Model is a paradigm for initiating and implementing projects utilizing executives and professionals from a variety of fields and industries, university students, and pre-college students. The model emphasizes adherence to ethical values and promotes inclusiveness in community development. It is a hierarchical model in which actors in each succeeding level of operation serve as mentors to the next. Through a three-step process--content, process, and product--participants must be trained with this mentoring and apprenticeship paradigm in conflict resolution, and they receive sensitivitiy and diversity training, through an interactive and dramatic exposition. The content phase introduces participants to the model's philosophy, ethics, values and methods of operation. The process used to teach and reinforce its precepts is the mentoring and apprenticeship activities and projects in which the participants engage and whose end product demontrates their knowledge and understanding of the model's concepts. This study sought to ascertain from the participants' perspectives whether the model's mentoring approach is an effective means of fostering inclusiveness, based upon their own experiences in using it. The research utilized a qualitative approach and included data from field observations, individual and group interviews, and written accounts of participants' attitudes. Participants complete ICB projects utilizing the Ellison Model as a method of development and implementation. They generally perceive that the model is a viable tool for dealing with diversity issues whether at work, at school, or at home. The projects are also instructional in that whether participants are mentored or seve as apprentices, they gain useful skills and knowledge about their careers. Since the model is relatively new, there is ample room for research in a variety of areas including organizational studies to dertmine its effectiveness in combating problems related to various kinds of discrimination.

An Indexing Structure and Application Model for Vehicles Moving on Road Networks

Moving objects database systems are the most challenging sub-category among Spatio-Temporal database systems. A database system that updates in real-time the location information of GPS-equipped moving vehicles has to meet even stricter requirements. Currently existing data storage models and indexing mechanisms work well only when the number of moving objects in the system is relatively small. This dissertation research aimed at the real-time tracking and history retrieval of massive numbers of vehicles moving on road networks. A total solution has been provided for the real-time update of the vehicles’ location and motion information, range queries on current and history data, and prediction of vehicles’ movement in the near future. To achieve these goals, a new approach called Segmented Time Associated to Partitioned Space (STAPS) was first proposed in this dissertation for building and manipulating the indexing structures for moving objects databases. Applying the STAPS approach, an indexing structure of associating a time interval tree to each road segment was developed for real-time database systems of vehicles moving on road networks. The indexing structure uses affordable storage to support real-time data updates and efficient query processing. The data update and query processing performance it provides is consistent without restrictions such as a time window or assuming linear moving trajectories. An application system design based on distributed system architecture with centralized organization was developed to maximally support the proposed data and indexing structures. The suggested system architecture is highly scalable and flexible. Finally, based on a real-world application model of vehicles moving in region-wide, main issues on the implementation of such a system were addressed.

Organic matter deposition/resuspension in a one-dimensional physical-biogeochemical model. A modelling study

The shallow water configuration of the gulf of Trieste allows the propagation of the stress due to wind and waves along the whole water column down to the bottom. When the stress overcomes a particular threshold it produces resuspension processes of the benthic detritus. The benthic sediments in the North Adriatic are rich of organic matter, transported here by many rivers. This biological active particulate, when remaining in the water, can be transported in all the Adriatic basin by the basin-wide circulation. In this work is presented a first implementation of a resuspension/deposition submodel in the oceanographic coupled physical-biogeochemical 1-dimensional numerical model POM-BFM. At first has been considered the only climatological wind stress forcing, next has been introduced, on the surface, an annual cycle of wave motion and finally have been imposed some exceptional wave event in different periods of the year. The results show a strong relationship between the efficiency of the resuspension process and the stratification of the water column. During summer the strong stratification can contained a great quantity of suspended matter near to the bottom, while during winter even a low concentration of particulate can reach the surface and remains into the water for several months without settling and influencing the biogeochemical system. Looking at the biologic effects, the organic particulate, injected in the water column, allow a sudden growth of the pelagic bacteria which competes with the phytoplankton for nutrients strongly inhibiting its growth. This happen especially during summer when the suspended benthic detritus concentration is greater.

The Policy Dystopia Model:an interpretive analysis of tobacco industry political activity

BACKGROUND: Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA's social and public health costs; most have not drawn on the unique resource represented by internal tobacco industry documents. Building on this literature, including systematic reviews, we develop a critically informed conceptual model of tobacco industry political activity. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We thematically analysed published papers included in two systematic reviews examining tobacco industry influence on taxation and marketing of tobacco; we included 45 of 46 papers in the former category and 20 of 48 papers in the latter (n = 65). We used a grounded theory approach to build taxonomies of "discursive" (argument-based) and "instrumental" (action-based) industry strategies and from these devised the Policy Dystopia Model, which shows that the industry, working through different constituencies, constructs a metanarrative to argue that proposed policies will lead to a dysfunctional future of policy failure and widely dispersed adverse social and economic consequences. Simultaneously, it uses diverse, interlocking insider and outsider instrumental strategies to disseminate this narrative and enhance its persuasiveness in order to secure its preferred policy outcomes. Limitations are that many papers were historical (some dating back to the 1970s) and focused on high-income regions. CONCLUSIONS: The model provides an evidence-based, accessible way of understanding diverse corporate political strategies. It should enable public health actors and officials to preempt these strategies and develop realistic assessments of the industry's claims.

Investigation into a best practice model for providing an integrated user experience with mobile cloud applications

Mobile Cloud Computing promises to overcome the physical limitations of mobile devices by executing demanding mobile applications on cloud infrastructure. In practice, implementing this paradigm is difficult; network disconnection often occurs, bandwidth may be limited, and a large power draw is required from the battery, resulting in a poor user experience. This thesis presents a mobile cloud middleware solution, Context Aware Mobile Cloud Services (CAMCS), which provides cloudbased services to mobile devices, in a disconnected fashion. An integrated user experience is delivered by designing for anticipated network disconnection, and low data transfer requirements. CAMCS achieves this by means of the Cloud Personal Assistant (CPA); each user of CAMCS is assigned their own CPA, which can complete user-assigned tasks, received as descriptions from the mobile device, by using existing cloud services. Service execution is personalised to the user's situation with contextual data, and task execution results are stored with the CPA until the user can connect with his/her mobile device to obtain the results. Requirements for an integrated user experience are outlined, along with the design and implementation of CAMCS. The operation of CAMCS and CPAs with cloud-based services is presented, specifically in terms of service description, discovery, and task execution. The use of contextual awareness to personalise service discovery and service consumption to the user's situation is also presented. Resource management by CAMCS is also studied, and compared with existing solutions. Additional application models that can be provided by CAMCS are also presented. Evaluation is performed with CAMCS deployed on the Amazon EC2 cloud. The resource usage of the CAMCS Client, running on Android-based mobile devices, is also evaluated. A user study with volunteers using CAMCS on their own mobile devices is also presented. Results show that CAMCS meets the requirements outlined for an integrated user experience.

Vocabulary Learning through Use of the Picture-Word Inductive Model for Young English Learners in China: A Mixed Methods Examination Using Cognitive Load Theory

English has been taught as a core and compulsory subject in China for decades. Recently, the demand for English in China has increased dramatically. China now has the world’s largest English-learning population. The traditional English-teaching method cannot continue to be the only approach because it merely focuses on reading, grammar and translation, which cannot meet English learners and users’ needs (i.e., communicative competence and skills in speaking and writing). This study was conducted to investigate if the Picture-Word Inductive Model (PWIM), a new pedagogical method using pictures and inductive thinking, would benefit English learners in China in terms of potential higher output in speaking and writing. With the gauge of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), specifically, its redundancy effect, I investigated whether processing words and a picture concurrently would present a cognitive overload for English learners in China. I conducted a mixed methods research study. A quasi-experiment (pretest, intervention for seven weeks, and posttest) was conducted using 234 students in four groups in Lianyungang, China (58 fourth graders and 57 seventh graders as an experimental group with PWIM and 59 fourth graders and 60 seventh graders as a control group with the traditional method). No significant difference in the effects of PWIM was found on vocabulary acquisition based on grade levels. Observations, questionnaires with open-ended questions, and interviews were deployed to answer the three remaining research questions. A few students felt cognitively overloaded when they encountered too many writing samples, too many new words at one time, repeated words, mismatches between words and pictures, and so on. Many students listed and exemplified numerous strengths of PWIM, but a few mentioned weaknesses of PWIM. The students expressed the idea that PWIM had a positive effect on their English teaching. As integrated inferences, qualitative findings were used to explain the quantitative results that there were no significant differences of the effects of the PWIM between the experimental and control groups in both grade levels, from four contextual aspects: time constraints on PWIM implementation, teachers’ resistance, how to use PWIM and PWIM implemented in a classroom over 55 students.

Development and Application of a Multi-dimensional Strategy for Measuring Fidelity of Implementation of a Districtwide Intervention

This symposium describes a multi-dimensional strategy to examine fidelity of implementation in an authentic school district context. An existing large-district peer mentoring program provides an example. The presentation will address development of a logic model to articulate a theory of change; collaborative creation of a data set aligned with essential concepts and research questions; identification of independent, dependent, and covariate variables; issues related to use of big data that include conditioning and transformation of data prior to analysis; operationalization of a strategy to capture fidelity of implementation data from all stakeholders; and ways in which fidelity indicators might be used.

The Economic Case for Electric Mining Equipment and Technical Considerations Relating to their Implementation

Underground hardrock mining can be very energy intensive and in large part this can be attributed to the power consumption of underground ventilation systems. In general, the power consumed by a mine’s ventilation system and its overall scale are closely related to the amount of diesel power in operation. This is because diesel exhaust is a major source of underground air pollution, including diesel particulate matter (DPM), NO2 and heat, and because regulations tie air volumes to diesel engines. Furthermore, assuming the size of airways remains constant, the power consumption of the main system increases exponentially with the volume of air supplied to the mine. Therefore large diesel fleets lead to increased energy consumption and can also necessitate large capital expenditures on ventilation infrastructure in order to manage power requirements. Meeting ventilation requirements for equipment in a heading can result in a similar scenario with the biggest pieces leading to higher energy consumption and potentially necessitating larger ventilation tubing and taller drifts. Depending on the climate where the mine is located, large volumes of air can have a third impact on ventilation costs if heating or cooling the air is necessary. Annual heating and cooling costs, as well as the cost of the associated infrastructure, are directly related to the volume of air sent underground. This thesis considers electric mining equipment as a means for reducing the intensity and cost of energy consumption at underground, hardrock mines. Potentially, electric equipment could greatly reduce the volume of air needed to ventilate an entire mine as well as individual headings because they do not emit many of the contaminants found in diesel exhaust and because regulations do not connect air volumes to electric motors. Because of the exponential relationship between power consumption and air volumes, this could greatly reduce the amount of power required for mine ventilation as well as the capital cost of ventilation infrastructure. As heating and cooling costs are also directly linked to air volumes, the cost and energy intensity of heating and cooling the air would also be significantly reduced. A further incentive is that powering equipment from the grid is substantially cheaper than fuelling them with diesel and can also produce far fewer GHGs. Therefore, by eliminating diesel from the underground workers will enjoy safer working conditions and operators and society at large will gain from a smaller impact on the environment. Despite their significant potential, in order to produce a credible economic assessment of electric mining equipment their impact on underground systems must be understood and considered in their evaluation. Accordingly, a good deal of this thesis reviews technical considerations related to the use of electric mining equipment, especially ones that impact the economics of their implementation. The goal of this thesis will then be to present the economic potential of implementing the equipment, as well as to outline the key inputs which are necessary to support an evaluation and to provide a model and an approach which can be used by others if the relevant information is available and acceptable assumptions can be made.

Supporting the Model-Driven Development of Real-time Embedded Systems with Run-Time Monitoring and Animation via Highly Customizable Code Generation

This paper presents a vision that allows the combined use of model-driven engineering, run-time monitoring, and animation for the development and analysis of components in real-time embedded systems. Key building block in the tool environment supporting this vision is a highly-customizable code generation process. Customization is performed via a configuration specification which describes the ways in which input is provided to the component, the ways in which run-time execution information can be observed, and how these observations drive animation tools. The environment is envisioned to be suitable for different activities ranging from quality assurance to supporting certification, teaching, and outreach and will be built exclusively with open source tools to increase impact. A preliminary prototype implementation is described.

What's in it for us? A case study research about micro sense making processes through the eyes of front line employees, during culture change implementation

Abstract How employees make sense of change is a very complex process. Recently, academics have neglected to research sense making activities in a micro culture implementation context, through the eyes of front line employees. In contrast to a macro view, a micro perspective limits researchers to only look at an individual, departmental or group level. By doing so, we can zoom in on the details of sense making processes that employees use in their daily work life. A macro (organisational) view is based on the notion that there is a general integrated culture that can be found in all organisational units and departments. It is assumed that culture can be researched by using the entire organisation as one single research entity. This thesis challenges this assumption. In case of planned change it is usually the management community who are in charge of the change intervention. Because of their formal hierarchical position, they have the power to abort or initiate change programs. It is perhaps therefore that researchers tend to be focused on the management community rather than on lower level organisational members, such as front line employees. Apart from the micro view, scholars also neglected to research culture change implementation through the eyes of front line employees. This thesis is an attempt to fill these two gaps that currently exists in academic change management publications. The main research question is therefore: From a micro point of view how do front-line employees make sense of the impact of culture change, during the implementation phase? This thesis starts with a literature review which exposes the two main gaps. The most important outcome of this review is that only 2% of the research articles dealt with culture implementation, through the eyes of front line employees. A conceptual research model is built on the integrated sense making theory of Weber and Manning (2001) and the micro variables of Raelin and Cataldo (2011). These theories emphasize elements of sense making in a daily working context. It is likely that front line employees can identify themselves with research elements such as tasks, skills practices, involvement and behaviour. Front line employees were selected, because as lower level organisational members they are usually the change recipients. They are further away from the change initiating scene (usually the management of an organisation) and form a potential sense making ‘hotspot’ that could provide new academic insights. In order to carry out the primary research, two case organisations were selected in the leisure industry. A participative case study research method was chosen. This meant that the researcher worked in the concerning departments of the case organisations. The goal was to observe and interview front line employees, while they were performing their jobs. The most important advantage of this approach is that the researcher temporarily becomes one with the organisation and is therefore able to acquire both formal and informal narratives that front line employees use during sense making activities. It was found that front line employees make sense of organisational change by using a practical approach. They make sense of the change program by carrying out new tasks, developing new skills and sharing best practices. The most noticeable conclusion was that sense making activities predominantly take place at an individual level in relation to change acceptance. Organisational members tend to create a mental equation in order to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages. They evaluate whether the concerning change program is beneficial to them or not. For future research a sense making scheme model is suggested that is based on two methods: an introspection and an action method.