Learner-focused evaluation cycles : facilitating learning using feedforward, concurrent and feedback evaluation

There is a growing trend to offer students learning opportunities that are flexible, innovative and engaging. As educators embrace student-centred agile teaching and learning methodologies, which require continuous reflection and adaptation, the need to evaluate students’ learning in a timely manner has become more pressing. Conventional evaluation surveys currently dominate the evaluation landscape internationally, despite recognition that they are insufficient to effectively evaluate curriculum and teaching quality. Surveys often: (1) fail to address the issues for which educators need feedback, (2) constrain student voice, (3) have low response rates and (4) occur too late to benefit current students. Consequently, this paper explores principles of effective feedback to propose a framework for learner-focused evaluation. We apply a three-stage control model, involving feedforward, concurrent and feedback evaluation, to investigate the intersection of assessment and evaluation in agile learning environments. We conclude that learner-focused evaluation cycles can be used to guide action so that evaluation is not undertaken simply for the benefit of future offerings, but rather to benefit current students by allowing ‘real-time’ learning activities to be adapted in the moment. As a result, students become co-producers of learning and evaluation becomes a meaningful, responsive dialogue between students and their instructors.

Monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions to children

Food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing is recognized as an important factor influencing food choices related to non-communicable diseases. The monitoring of populations' exposure to food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions, and the content of these promotions, is necessary to generate evidence to understand the extent of the problem, and to determine appropriate and effective policy responses. A review of studies measuring the nature and extent of exposure to food promotions was conducted to identify approaches to monitoring food promotions via dominant media platforms. A step-wise approach, comprising ‘minimal’, ‘expanded’ and ‘optimal’ monitoring activities, was designed. This approach can be used to assess the frequency and level of exposure of population groups (especially children) to food promotions, the persuasive power of techniques used in promotional communications (power of promotions) and the nutritional composition of promoted food products. Detailed procedures for data sampling, data collection and data analysis for a range of media types are presented, as well as quantifiable measurement indicators for assessing exposure to and power of food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions. The proposed framework supports the development of a consistent system for monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions for comparison between countries and over time.

Implementation of a better choice healthy food and drink supply strategy for staff and visitors in government owned health facilities in Queensland, Australia

Objective The present paper reports on a quality improvement activity examining implementation of A Better Choice Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy for Queensland Health Facilities (A Better Choice). A Better Choice is a policy to increase supply and promotion of healthy foods and drinks and decrease supply and promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor choices in all food supply areas including food outlets, staff dining rooms, vending machines, tea trolleys, coffee carts, leased premises, catering, fundraising, promotion and advertising. Design An online survey targeted 278 facility managers to collect self-reported quantitative and qualitative data. Telephone interviews were sought concurrently with the twenty-five A Better Choice district contact officers to gather qualitative information. Setting Public sector-owned and -operated health facilities in Queensland, Australia. Subjects One hundred and thirty-four facility managers and twenty-four district contact officers participated with response rates of 48·2 % and 96·0 %, respectively. Results Of facility managers, 78·4 % reported implementation of more than half of the A Better Choice requirements including 24·6 % who reported full strategy implementation. Reported implementation was highest in food outlets, staff dining rooms, tea trolleys, coffee carts, internal catering and drink vending machines. Reported implementation was more problematic in snack vending machines, external catering, leased premises and fundraising. Conclusions Despite methodological challenges, the study suggests that policy approaches to improve the food and drink supply can be implemented successfully in public-sector health facilities, although results can be limited in some areas. A Better Choice may provide a model for improving food supply in other health and workplace settings.

An evaluation of different features and learning models for anomalous event detection

The huge amount of CCTV footage available makes it very burdensome to process these videos manually through human operators. This has made automated processing of video footage through computer vision technologies necessary. During the past several years, there has been a large effort to detect abnormal activities through computer vision techniques. Typically, the problem is formulated as a novelty detection task where the system is trained on normal data and is required to detect events which do not fit the learned ‘normal’ model. There is no precise and exact definition for an abnormal activity; it is dependent on the context of the scene. Hence there is a requirement for different feature sets to detect different kinds of abnormal activities. In this work we evaluate the performance of different state of the art features to detect the presence of the abnormal objects in the scene. These include optical flow vectors to detect motion related anomalies, textures of optical flow and image textures to detect the presence of abnormal objects. These extracted features in different combinations are modeled using different state of the art models such as Gaussian mixture model(GMM) and Semi- 2D Hidden Markov model(HMM) to analyse the performances. Further we apply perspective normalization to the extracted features to compensate for perspective distortion due to the distance between the camera and objects of consideration. The proposed approach is evaluated using the publicly available UCSD datasets and we demonstrate improved performance compared to other state of the art methods.

Internet-enabled tourism entrepreneurs. International entrepreneurial values elicited through repertory test and laddering analysis

Although the tourism industry has been dramatically altered due to the Internet, there has been limited research published about international entrepreneurial values and Internet use in tourism firms. The findings of this study point to a relationship between the values of Internet-enabled international entrepreneurs in small-sized to medium-sized enterprises and the inclination of the firm to develop and initiate international activity. The findings of this study suggest that Internet-enabled tourism entrepreneurs share similar construct values. Two effective but underutilized qualitative methods were used in this study. The first method, repertory test, is an efficient technique for exploring constructs in decision making; the second method, laddering analysis, facilitates understanding of the perceived consequences and personal values guiding behaviour.

Regulating integrated advertising

This chapter approaches integrated advertising as a practice that is continuous with advertising history, rather than a phenomenon associated with new technologies. Competition for technology-enabled audiences in expanding media and entertainment markets is nonetheless an important factor in the turn to integrated advertising and marketing strategies in recent years. While integrated advertising provides solutions for advertisers, it is problematic for media consumers because it is not always distinguishable from surrounding program content and clearly identifiable as advertising. It creates opportunities for advertisers to fly below the radar of citizen and consumer awareness of commercial and political influences in media content, and for this reason has been constrained by regulation. Media regulators have come to play an important role in striking a balance between public and private interests in commercial media by setting and adjudicating the limits of integrated advertising practices. This chapter looks at how broadcasting regulators have responded to the challenges of regulating integrated advertising in commercial radio in three different territories (United States, United Kingdom and Australia). It draws attention to the ways in which integrated advertising simultaneously drives innovation in media genres and forms, as well as de-regulation of the influence exercised by advertisers in commercial media content.

Consumer perceptions of trade show effectiveness : scale development and validation within a B2C context

Purpose This paper develops and estimates a model to measure consumer perceptions of trade show effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected at three separate B2C trade shows. Study 1 (n=47) involved field interviews with data subjected to qualitative item generation and content analysis. Study 2 data (n=147) were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and item-total correlation to identify a preliminary factor structure for the effectiveness construct and to test for reliability. In Study 3 (n=592), confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken to more rigorously test the factor structure and generalise across industries. Validity testing was also performed. Findings A three-dimensional factor structure for assessing consumer visitors’ perceptions of trade show effectiveness was produced incorporating research, operational, and entertainment components. Research limitations/implications Data were collected in Australia and results may not generalise across cultural boundaries. Practical implications The resulting measurement model may be used as a reliable post-hoc diagnostic tool to identify areas of trade show effectiveness where specific performance improvements are needed. Results indicate that exhibitors and organisers of B2C trade shows should consider effectiveness as a multidimensional phenomenon with entertainment, product / industry research, and the facilitation of purchase decision-making processes and problem resolution being key objectives for consumer attendees. These elements of effectiveness should each be addressed by exhibitors and organisers in planning their displays and events. Originality/value This is the first study to provide an empirically valid model for assessing trade show effectiveness from the consumer visitor’s perspective.

Perceptions of the built environment and associations with walking among retirement village residents

Housing options, such as retirement villages, that promote and encourage healthy behaviors are needed to accommodate the growing older adult population. To examine how environmental perceptions relate to walking, residents of retirement villages in Perth, Australia, were sampled, and associations between a wide range of village and neighborhood environmental attributes and walking leisurely, briskly, and for transport were examined. Perceived village features associated with walking included aesthetics (odds ratio [OR] = 1.72), personal safety (OR = 0.43), and services and facilities (OR = 0.80), whereas neighborhood attributes included fewer physical barriers (OR = 1.37) and proximate destinations (OR = 1.93). Findings suggest that locating retirement villages in neighborhoods with many local destinations may encourage more walking than providing many services and facilities within villages. Indeed, safe villages rich with amenities were shown to be related to less walking in residents. These findings have implications for the location, design, and layout of retirement villages.

Repetition and nonrepetition of past actions and repetition of past nonactions

It is a comparative study between English and Chinese in expressing repetition and nonrepetition of past actions and in expressing repetition of past nonactions.

On Chinese Modal Particle A (啊) : A Pragmatic and Semantic Study

Chinese modal particles feature prominently in Chinese people’s daily use of the language, but their pragmatic and semantic functions are elusive as commonly recognised by Chinese linguists and teachers of Chinese as a foreign language. This book originates from an extensive and intensive empirical study of the Chinese modal particle a (啊), one of the most frequently used modal particles in Mandarin Chinese. In order to capture all the uses and the underlying meanings of the particle, the author transcribed the first 20 episodes, about 20 hours in length, of the popular Chinese TV drama series Kewang ‘Expectations’, which yielded a corpus data of more than 142’000 Chinese characters with a total of 1829 instances of the particle all used in meaningful communicative situations. Within its context of use, every single occurrence of the particle was analysed in terms of its pragmatic and semantic contributions to the hosting utterance. Upon this basis the core meanings were identified which were seen as constituting the modal nature of the particle.

Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders, Volume 3 : Interventions for Addiction

"Interventions for Addiction examines a wide range of responses to addictive behaviors, including psychosocial treatments, pharmacological treatments, provision of health care to addicted individuals, prevention, and public policy issues. Its focus is on the practical application of information covered in the two previous volumes of the series, Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders. Readers will find information on treatments beyond commonly used methods, including Internet-based and faith-based therapies, and criminal justice interventions. The volume features extensive coverage of pharmacotherapies for each of the major drugs of abuse-including disulfiram, buprenorphine, naltrexone, and others-as well as for behavioral addictions. In considering public policy, the book examines legislative efforts, price controls, and limits on advertising, as well as World Health Organization (WHO) efforts. Interventions for Addiction is one of three volumes comprising the 2,500-page series, Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders. This series provides the most complete collection of current knowledge on addictive behaviors and disorders to date. In short, it is the definitive reference work on addictions."--publisher website

A comparative study of the semi-elastic and fully-elastic MapReduce models

MapReduce is a computation model for processing large data sets in parallel on large clusters of machines, in a reliable, fault-tolerant manner. A MapReduce computation is broken down into a number of map tasks and reduce tasks, which are performed by so called mappers and reducers, respectively. The placement of the mappers and reducers on the machines directly affects the performance and cost of the MapReduce computation in cloud computing. From the computational point of view, the mappers/reducers placement problem is a generation of the classical bin packing problem, which is NP-complete. Thus, in this paper we propose a new heuristic algorithm for the mappers/reducers placement problem in cloud computing and evaluate it by comparing with other several heuristics on solution quality and computation time by solving a set of test problems with various characteristics. The computational results show that our heuristic algorithm is much more efficient than the other heuristics and it can obtain a better solution in a reasonable time. Furthermore, we verify the effectiveness of our heuristic algorithm by comparing the mapper/reducer placement for a benchmark problem generated by our heuristic algorithm with a conventional mapper/reducer placement which puts a fixed number of mapper/reducer on each machine. The comparison results show that the computation using our mapper/reducer placement is much cheaper than the computation using the conventional placement while still satisfying the computation deadline.

The impact of personal identity and intimacy on the use of social media

Personal identity and intimacy levels change over time and this can influence the way consumers buy and use goods and services. This thesis examined how levels of personal identity and intimacy influence the use of social media by consumers of different ages. A survey of 208 users of facebook demonstrated that consumers with weak levels of personal identity use social media to increase their identity and popularity, while consumers with strong levels of personal identity use social media for self-expression. Consumers with high intimacy levels use social media for socian connection and social investigation.

Motion planning and stochastic control with experimental validation on a planetary rover

Motion planning for planetary rovers must consider control uncertainty in order to maintain the safety of the platform during navigation. Modelling such control uncertainty is difficult due to the complex interaction between the platform and its environment. In this paper, we propose a motion planning approach whereby the outcome of control actions is learned from experience and represented statistically using a Gaussian process regression model. This model is used to construct a control policy for navigation to a goal region in a terrain map built using an on-board RGB-D camera. The terrain includes flat ground, small rocks, and non-traversable rocks. We report the results of 200 simulated and 35 experimental trials that validate the approach and demonstrate the value of considering control uncertainty in maintaining platform safety.

Laser-camera data discrepancies and reliable perception in outdoor robotics

This work aims to promote integrity in autonomous perceptual systems, with a focus on outdoor unmanned ground vehicles equipped with a camera and a 2D laser range finder. A method to check for inconsistencies between the data provided by these two heterogeneous sensors is proposed and discussed. First, uncertainties in the estimated transformation between the laser and camera frames are evaluated and propagated up to the projection of the laser points onto the image. Then, for each pair of laser scan-camera image acquired, the information at corners of the laser scan is compared with the content of the image, resulting in a likelihood of correspondence. The result of this process is then used to validate segments of the laser scan that are found to be consistent with the image, while inconsistent segments are rejected. Experimental results illustrate how this technique can improve the reliability of perception in challenging environmental conditions, such as in the presence of airborne dust.