Teachers’ Constructs Of Effective Classroom Practice: Variations Across Career Phases.

This paper outlines a theoretical framework which offers an explanation of the complexity of how teachers define their effectiveness in relation to their classroom practice. The research from which this framework emerged was a two-year, mixed method study of 81 primary and secondary school teachers. The use of repertory grid interviews combined with a number of other methods is unique in a study of teachers’ practice and, from the elicited constructs, seven key themes emerged. These themes, analysed in relation to three broad career phases, indicate a number of issues important for teachers as they transfer from early-to-late career.

Senior Managers’ Perspectives of Leading and Managing Effective, Sustainable and Successful Partnerships

Formal and informal partnerships have become key features of education policy and practice in many countries and managing such collaborative arrangements is an important dimension of the role(s) of leaders of educational organizations. Recent research has shown both the tensions and conflict that can develop in partnerships as well as the opportunities and benefits of partnership working for organizations and individuals. This article focuses on the characteristics of partnerships that contribute to their effectiveness, sustainability and success, filling a gap in the literature on educational partnerships. The research data emanate from a qualitative study of partnership working in England. The study used a grounded approach and inductively linked characteristics of partnerships found in the partnership literature with empirical data from a case study of a subregional partnership of education and training organizations. This combined evidence is used to conceptualize partnership as a continuum of weak to strong forms of partnership and to develop a table of characteristics which underpin such partnerships. The findings reveal the extent to which trust, networks, norms and values support effective, sustained and successful partnerships. These characteristics are differentiated and may fluctuate during the lifecourse of a partnership but remain fundamental features of partnership working and significantly contribute to the strength and effectiveness of partnerships.

Effective-fourth-order resonator based MASH bandpass sigma-delta modulators

Two novel effective-fourth-order (eighth-order) resonator based MASH (MultistAge noise SHaping) bandpass Σ-Δ modulators are introduced at the behavioural level and subsequently examined by simulations utilising the ALTA SPW environment. The considered bandpass configurations have in their loop filter a cascade of standard second-order resonator structures in order to achieve appropriate noise shaping. The quantisation noise in each stage is suppressed by feeding the error of each section into the input of the following stage. It is demonstrated in this paper that the quadruple effective-first-order cascade configuration has significantly better performance as well as conforming more closely with theory in comparison with the effective-second-order effective-second-order cascade. The superior performance of the former can be attributed to the cumulative effect of the multi-bit outputs as well as the presence of more notch filters.

Physical Education or Playtime: which is more effective at promoting physical activity in primary school children?

Background School physical education (PE) and playtime provide important opportunities for physical activity (PA). However, little research has assessed PA during primary school PE using accelerometry or compared PA during different lesson types. There is also a lack of research comparing PA during PE and playtime, despite suggestions that playtime promotes more PA. The primary aim of this study was to determine which types of PE lesson are most facilitative of PA. The secondary aim was to determine whether children are more active during PE or playtime. Methods Descriptive and fitness data were assessed in 20 children aged 8-9years from a single school. Over eight consecutive weeks PA was assessed during PE lessons, which were classified as either team games or movement activities. At the mid-week of data collection playtime PA was also assessed. PA was assessed using accelerometry and the percentage of time spent in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) calculated. Paired t-tests were used to compare MVPA during movement lessons and team games lessons and during PE and playtime. Results Children spent 9.5% of PE lessons in MVPA and engaged in significantly more MVPA during team games (P < 0.001). MVPA was also significantly higher during PE than playtime (P < 0.01). Conclusions Children do not engage in sufficient PA during PE, but are most active during team games lessons; whilst PA during playtime is lower than PE. Interventions to increase PA during both PE and playtime are therefore required. PE interventions should target games lessons as they dominate the curriculum, encourage most PA and present the greatest potential for change. Playtime interventions should encourage participation in active games through the provision of playground equipment and markings.

The Wilderness Expedition: An effective life course intervention to improve young peoples well-being and connectedness to nature

It is well understood that wilderness expeditions improve well-being; however, there is little supporting quantitative data. The aim of this study was to measure the impact of wilderness expeditions on self-esteem (SE) and connectedness to nature (CN) and assess whether benefits varied according to participant and expedition characteristics. SE and CN were assessed pre– and post–wilderness expeditions in 130 adolescents using Rosenberg’s SE scale and the state CN scale. Two-way ANOVA revealed significant increases in SE and CN (p < .001) as a result of single expeditions. There was also an interaction effect of expedition and gender on SE (p < .05). Males had a higher SE at the start but female SE increased most. Linear regression revealed that living environment, gender, and the length and location of the expedition did not contribute to changes in SE and CN. Regular contact with natural environments will improve adolescent well-being, with the largest improvements in females.

VPPs information needs for effective operation in competitive electricity markets

The large increase of renewable energy sources and Distributed Generation (DG) of electricity gives place to the Virtual Power Producer (VPP) concept. VPPs may turn electricity generation by renewable sources valuable in electricity markets. Information availability and adequate decision-support tools are crucial for achieving VPPs’ goals. This involves information concerning associated producers and market operation. This paper presents ViProd, a simulation tool that allows simulating VPPs operation, focusing mainly in the information requirements for adequate decision making.

Analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in fish: evaluation of a quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe extraction method

QuEChERS method was evaluated for extraction of 16 PAHs from fish samples. For a selective measurement of the compounds, extracts were analysed by LC with fluorescence detection. The overall analytical procedure was validated by systematic recovery experiments at three levels and by using the standard reference material SRM 2977 (mussel tissue). The targeted contaminants, except naphthalene and acenaphthene, were successfully extracted from SRM 2977 with recoveries ranging from 63.5–110.0% with variation coefficients not exceeding 8%. The optimum QuEChERS conditions were the following: 5 g of homogenised fish sample, 10 mL of ACN, agitation performed by vortex during 3 min. Quantification limits ranging from 0.12– 1.90 ng/g wet weight (0.30–4.70 µg/L) were obtained. The optimized methodology was applied to assess the safety concerning PAHs contents of horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus), chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus), sardine (Sardina pilchardus) and farmed seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Although benzo(a)pyrene, the marker used for evaluating the carcinogenic risk of PAHs in food, was not detected in the analysed samples (89 individuals corresponding to 27 homogenized samples), the overall mean concentration ranged from 2.52 l 1.20 ng/g in horse mackerel to 14.6 ± 2.8 ng/ g in farmed seabass. Significant differences were found between the mean PAHs concentrations of the four groups.

Estimating Effective Slowdown of Tasks in Energy-Aware Clouds

Consolidation consists in scheduling multiple virtual machines onto fewer servers in order to improve resource utilization and to reduce operational costs due to power consumption. However, virtualization technologies do not offer performance isolation, causing applications’ slowdown. In this work, we propose a performance enforcing mechanism, composed of a slowdown estimator, and a interference- and power-aware scheduling algorithm. The slowdown estimator determines, based on noisy slowdown data samples obtained from state-of-the-art slowdown meters, if tasks will complete within their deadlines, invoking the scheduling algorithm if needed. When invoked, the scheduling algorithm builds performance and power aware virtual clusters to successfully execute the tasks. We conduct simulations injecting synthetic jobs which characteristics follow the last version of the Google Cloud tracelogs. The results indicate that our strategy can be efficiently integrated with state-of-the-art slowdown meters to fulfil contracted SLAs in real-world environments, while reducing operational costs in about 12%.

Space-time monitoring of prescribed burnt soils performance – an effective tool for forest management

Among the most important measures to prevent wild forest fires is the use of prescribed and controlled burning actions in order to reduce the availability of fuel mass. However, the impact of these activities on soil physical and chemical properties varies according to the type of both soil and vegetation and is not fully understood. Therefore, soil monitoring campaigns are often used to measure these impacts. In this paper we have successfully used three statistical data treatments - the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test followed by the ANOVA and the Kruskall-Wallis tests – to investigate the variability among the soil pH, soil moisture, soil organic matter and soil iron variables for different monitoring times and sampling procedures.

A New Heuristic Providing an Effective Initial Solution for a Simulated Annealing approach to Energy Resource Scheduling in Smart Grids

An intensive use of dispersed energy resources is expected for future power systems, including distributed generation, especially based on renewable sources, and electric vehicles. The system operation methods and tool must be adapted to the increased complexity, especially the optimal resource scheduling problem. Therefore, the use of metaheuristics is required to obtain good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. This paper proposes two new heuristics, called naive electric vehicles charge and discharge allocation and generation tournament based on cost, developed to obtain an initial solution to be used in the energy resource scheduling methodology based on simulated annealing previously developed by the authors. The case study considers two scenarios with 1000 and 2000 electric vehicles connected in a distribution network. The proposed heuristics are compared with a deterministic approach and presenting a very small error concerning the objective function with a low execution time for the scenario with 2000 vehicles.