Broad Topic Areas Research Articles

The Green Studio Handbook: Environmental Strategies for Schematic Design

In design studio projects we often see schemes with inspired, yet unvalidated, gestural sketches related to wishful green strategies. Yellow and blue magic arrows represent hypotheses about the behavior of daylight and/or air flow in and about buildings. This paper provides an overview of The Green Studio Handbook, recently published as a resource for designers seeking clear guidelines for integrating green design strategies into the conceptual and schematic phases of design. The book contains a discussion of the integration of green strategies and how building form, orientation, and spatial layout are critical to the proper performance of certain green strategies; 40 green design strategies in six broad topic areas, each providing acatalog of information for common strategies that must be implemented at the schematic design phase; and nine case studies that show how various green strategies work together in a finished building. This paper provides excerpts of several design strategies and one case study and suggests a variety of ways that the book may be used.Keywords: green design, case studies, education, schematic design

From the Mouths of Middle-Schoolers: Important Changes for High School and College

WE MAY believe that middle school students are flaky. And why wouldn't we think that? They're undergoing hormonal changes, they sometimes exhibit defiance, and they're not good at accepting advice. Yet, when we took the trouble to ask, we found their opinions about their current school activities and about their preparation for success in high school and college to be thoughtful and enlightening. What's more, their opinions confirm for me that some emerging high school reforms are taking us in the right direction. Three highly regarded organizations, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International, and the Lumina Foundation for Education, undertook an important project to collect the opinions of middle school students using a scientific polling process. The idea to poll middle school students took shape at a meeting in Washington, D.C., when Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the NASSP, and I talked about school reform. Opinions range widely on this topic. The Republicans say one thing, the Democrats suggest other solutions. Educators offer different ideas, and parents are vocal with their own opinions. At some point--we can't remember who said it first--one of us suggested that there was a voice missing from the conversation: the voice of students--in particular, middle school students. What do the middle school students think about their schools and the preparation they receive for further schooling and for success in life? A METHOD TO OUR MADNESS Having raised these questions, we set about answering them. And while the project loomed large, the three sponsoring organizations had some experience in working at this scale, so we undertook the following steps to learn more about the opinions of middle school students. 1. Establishing goals. First, we needed to be clear about why we would undertake the daunting task of polling middle school students, and we identified four goals: * to bring the voice of middle-level students to the forefront of the national dialogue on school reform; * to draw the attention of policy makers and the public to the importance of effective schooling for students in the middle grades; * to inform educators about the strengths and weaknesses of middle-level schooling, as seen through the eyes of the students; and * to provide a roadmap for the changes needed to improve middle-level education. 2. Identifying prior research. We checked to determine if anyone else had polled middle school students about their schooling, with a focus on instructional rather than behavioral issues. We didn't find any data of this kind from polls of 12-and 13-year-olds. 3. Developing questions. Knowing that we wanted to cluster our questions, we identified six broad topic areas: 1) testing, 2) No Child Left Behind, 3) the curriculum, 4) teachers and teaching, 5) preparation for high school and college, and 6) current school experiences. The question-development process was iterative, with extensive involvement by the staffs of PDK, NASSP, and the Lumina Foundation. We presented a draft set of questions to the members of an NASSP advisory committee who were middle-level administrators and made further refinements as a result of their suggestions. 4. Conducting the poll. The three partners needed a highly reputable polling organization with experience in youth polling. We turned to Harris Interactive, one of the most experienced market research companies and one with considerable experience in the youth market. Using a state-of-the-art polling model, Harris gave us access to a sample of middle school students who had received their parents' or guardians' permission to participate. The draft questions were forwarded to scientists at Harris, and they suggested important changes to minimize question bias. Harris also provided the appropriate questions to establish the sample's demographics and tested the questions with a representative student panel before suggesting final edits. …

Update in Perioperative Medicine

intraoperative OR postoperative OR perioperative AND complication OR event. We excluded articles related to transplantation, cardiac, and pediatric surgery. We ran this search monthly during the eligible period and selected studies that were methodologically sound, were of interest to practicing internists, addressed common and morbid postoperative outcomes, and could potentially change the approach to diagnosis, risk stratification, or prevention of postoperative medical complications. Each author inde- pendently generated a list of articles for potential inclusion; we determined the final list by consensus. We consider here 5 broad topic areas: cardiac risk stratification and risk reduction strategies, preoperative pulmonary evaluation, venous thromboembolism prophy- laxis, diabetes mellitus, and postoperative delirium.

Where To Go From Here? Thoughts on Future Directions for Research on Individual‐Level Technology Adoption with a Focus on Decision Making*

ABSTRACTThis article recognizes the maturity of individual‐level technology‐adoption research and suggests three broad future research directions. They are: (i) business process change and process standards, (ii) supply‐chain technologies, and (iii) services. Each of these areas is identified based on the topics likely of interest to the readers of the Decision Sciences by closely examining Decision Sciences' editorial mission and the recent research published in it. Within each of these three different broad topic areas, a few different specific directions are identified. The directions outlined here are not meant to be exhaustive but rather potential directions that can result in a theoretical contribution to individual‐level technology‐adoption research and the specific topic area.

What don't you know?

In this note, we describe a way of reminding students that they don't know everything, and that graduates from other institutions will have a different academic make-up. As a consequence, they will acquire some understanding of the limits of their knowledge, and an acquaintance by name with the broad topic areas in which their understanding is low or zero.

発育研究の動向

The study of human growth and development is a basic science, and such studies focus on age-related changes in morphology and physiology mainly during the first 20 years of life. During this period, rapid changes occur in size, physique and body composition and in various body systems. Already, many issues related to such changes have been suggested by the Subcommittee on Growth and Development of the Japanese Society of Physical Education. The study of growth and development as a rule does not deal with urgent problems; rather, issues related to age- and sex-associated variation and to the timing and tempo of the growth spurt and sexual maturation tend to dominate research in this area. This paper reviews several issues related to these broad topical areas: longitudinal studies, secular trends, the human growth curve, physiological age, and physical performance and activity. (1) Longitudinal studies are essential for understanding the processes of growth and development, especially for investigating individual differences among individuals. There are, however, difficulties associated with longitudinal designs so that there have been relatively few complete longitudinal studies. (2) Secular trends in body size and the timing of maturation were general phenomena in Japan, Europe and the United States, although the trends have slowed and/or stopped in some countries. It is, however, still important to understand factors that underlie secular trends. (3) Translating data for individuals into growth curves is a common method for analyzing human growth. To this end, mathematical fitting of curves to data for individual children is an important method that permits identification of important markers, especially peak height velocity and age at peak height velocity, among others. There are several protocols for curve fitting. (4) Physiological age is a concept that relates to the biological maturity status of individuals. Bone (skeletal) age and dental age are common indicators, but there have been only a few applications in clinical areas and in biological anthropology/human biology. (5) Interest in growth- and maturity-related changes in physical performance and activity is rapidly increasing, especially in the context of the current epidemic of childhood obesity and the apparent decline in physical fitness and activity. Physical activity is often considered important to support normal growth and maturation, but its specific effects require systematic evaluation.

Portals to the World

Portals to the World (http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html) is a Library of Congress guide to Web resources. A product of the unit Area Studies Collections, it provides one-stop shopping and self-service access to information about every nation of the world, organized by broad topical areas, selected and annotated by the reference librarians and area specialists, and provided without charge over the Internet. The chapter outlines the organizational and management factors that moved the project from vision to implementation and describes the content, structure, and technical background of the Portals themselves. Staff and users have benefitted from the project even while quality control and promotion remain ongoing challenges.

Considerations for Collecting Freelists in the Field: Examples from Ethobotany

In freelists, informants create an inventory of all the items they know within a given category. Freelists reveal cultural salience and variation in individuals’ topical knowledge. The ease and accuracy of freelist interviewing makes it ideal for collecting data on local knowledge from relatively large samples. This method, however, does not work well with broad topical areas: People tend to omit some items and cluster responses as they unpack mental subcategories. Successive freelisting can reduce and redefine topics (domains), thus focusing the content of interviews. In oral freelists, interviewers should prevent bystanders from contaminating the informant’s list, and written freelists are advisable in literate communities. Responses from freelists should be cross-checked with informal methods as much as practicable, as in this Caribbean case. With proper attention to detail, freelisting can amass high-quality ethnobotanical data.

Nonconcurrent Multiple Baseline Designs and the Evaluation of Educational Systems

Important findings are often a balance between the rigor of the experimental design and innovativeness of the experimental question. One broad topic area that has received a great deal of discussion, but little empirical study, is the evaluation of educational systems. Experimental designs that permit the analysis of practices used by state education agencies, local education agencies, and schools have the potential for yielding socially significant findings that could improve education. In this article we discuss the use of nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs as an option for studying the activities and effects of educational programs. Nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs stagger the timing of baseline-to-intervention changes across various entities, but the baselines and intervention phases are not contemporaneous across each of the tiers. Although considered less rigorous than concurrent multiple baseline designs, nonconcurrent designs have a degree of flexibility that may allow for their use in studying complex social contexts, such as educational settings, that might otherwise go unanalyzed.

Encyclopedia of distributed learning

From launching a student on the route to self-directed learning to using group processes, self-assessment, the life line experience, and developing a learning contract, this encyclopedia comprehensively covers all aspects of distributed learning. The overarching goal is to collect together in a single resource the best practices for adults engaged in continuing education at the graduate level, in corporate settings, in open university settings, and in similar learning environments.Topics covered include: administrative processes; technical tools and supports; policy, finance, and governance; social and cultural perspectives; student and faculty issues; and, teaching and learning processes and technologies. Key features include: A-to-Z organization; Reader's Guide groups entries by broad topic areas; a comprehensive index; cross-references between and among entries; an advisory board of prominent experts; and, three appendices that provide annotated listings of distributed and distance learning programs, select print and non-print resources, and conferences, each with web addresses.

Neighborhoods and Health

Neighborhoods and Health

Recent Developments in the Research on Pulse Detonation Engines

Introduction I Nprinciple,detonationsare an extremelyefŽ cientmeans of combustinga fuel-oxidizermixture and releasing its chemical energy content. During the past 60 years or so, there have been numerous researcheffortsat harnessingthepotentialof detonationsfor propulsion applications.1 There is a renewed interest lately on intermittent or pulsed detonations engines. Eidelman et al. and Eidelman and Grossmann3 have reviewed some of the initial research as well as work done in the late 1980s on pulse detonation engines (PDEs). The basic theory, design concepts, and the work in the early 1990s related to pulse detonationengines have been discussedby Bussing and Pappas.4 The focus of a more recent review5 is on performance estimates fromvarious experimental, theoreticaland computational studies. More recently, work related to nozzles for PDEs has been discussed. Other reviews7i9 discussing the objectives and accomplishments of various programs are also available.The objective of this paper is to update the previousreviews, focusingon themore recent developmentsin the researchon PDEs. The review is restricted toworkopenlyavailablein the literaturebut includesongoingefforts around the world. Currently, there are several programs sponsored by OfŽ ce of Naval Research (ONR), U.S. Air Force, NASA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other agencies in the United States as well as several parallel efforts in Belarus, Canada, France, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and other countries.The results from some of these programs are just beginning to be published.A summary of recent progress and the various organizationsand people involved in PDE research in Japan has been presented.9 Reports of the basic PDE research sponsoredby ONR are available in the proceedingsof a recurringannualmeeting(forexample, seeRef. 10).Recentwork conducted outside the United States has been reported at international meetings on detonations such as those held in Seattle11 (for more information, see http://www.engr.washington.edu/epp/icders/) and Moscow.12 Although an attempt is made to cover a broad range of the reported research, the shear volume of papers presented with PDEs in the title make it impractical to be exhaustive. Rather than providing a chronologicalreport, an attempt is made here to discuss the recent progress in terms of broad topic areas. The key issues that need to be resolved have been addressed in a number of papers (e.g., Refs. 13 and 14). The speciŽ c order in which to discuss the various topics was determined by considering the schematic of an idealized, laboratory pulse detonation engine shown in Fig. 1. This idealizedengine is representativeof the device

Using metadata to create navigation paths in the HealthInsite Internet gateway.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the HealthInsite topic query technique, which uses a dynamic database search to assign resources to a topic. It is an alternative to the explicit classification technique, which relies on the classification of each resource using a predefined classification scheme. We performed a recall-precision analysis on all topics within the broad topic area of Child Health. Recall and precision errors were checked to determine which part of the information retrieval process was at fault. We then compared the topic query technique with the explicit classification technique. The results show errors or problems at every stage of the information retrieval process. This has initiated a review of all the tools used in the process, from indexing guidelines to the search engine. While many errors could be corrected, there were still features of the explicit classification technique that could not be achieved by the topic query technique. In conclusion, the topic query technique has the advantage of flexibility, but close co-operation between the different information retrieval specialists is needed to get the best results. The HealthInsite topic navigation structure should be regarded as an organized set of predefined searches rather than a full classified listing.

Collaboration for preventing substance abuse in the workplace: modeling research partnerships in prevention.

The managed care community and employers have expressed interest in substance abuse prevention, but there has been little consensus about which prevention and health promotion activities are most appropriately provided in the workplace. In the past 5 years, academicians have become increasingly interested in working with healthcare organizations to develop and implement short- and long-term research partnerships. The most helpful prevention research will serve mutual interests and produce mutual benefit. This article presents a preliminary guide to help facilitate greater collaboration among managed behavioral healthcare organizations, employee assistance programs, and health services researchers interested in preventing substance abuse in the workplace. This guide identifies broad objectives, topic areas, critical applications, and assumptions that can guide collaborative efforts in prevention research.

Dilemmas in conducting qualitative sex research in applied field settings.

Although resources are available to inform researchers of the many technical skills necessary to conduct qualitative research, individuals working in applied field settings often encounter ethical, moral, and sociopolitical dilemmas that cannot be resolved through the application of technical skills. The purpose of this article is to present examples of dilemmas faced by qualitative research methodologists studying sexual behavior in applied field settings. Possible solutions to these dilemmas are discussed within a theoretical and conceptual framework. The examples and discussion are organized around four broad topic areas: informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, and personal relationships.

Real Estate Brokerage and the Housing Market: An Annotated Bibliography

A number of facets of real estate brokerage have been examined over time in theoretical and empirical articles appearing in the literature. This article summarizes brokerage research and suggests avenues for future inquiry. In attempting to organize brokerage research, the research is classified into eight broad topical areas: (1) brokerage firm characteristics; (2) broker commissions; (3) time on the market; (4) broker compensation; (5) the effects of brokerage on house prices; (6) regulation of the brokerage industry; (7) legal liability; and (8) international comparisons. In each area, we point out the major focus of the research by summarizing important findings.

Treating Preschool Children • Treating School-Age Children

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessTreating Preschool Children • Treating School-Age ChildrenDiane Franz, Ph.D., and William Garrison, Ph.D.Diane FranzSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D., and William GarrisonSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D.Published Online:1 Feb 1999https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.50.2.276AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail One of the primary stated goals of these edited volumes, with chapters contributed by one or more clinicians, is to offer guidelines of practical value to professionals working with preschool and school-aged children. The intended audience is master's-level and doctoral-level clinicians who are described as frontline providers of child mental health services. Another purpose is to provide state-of-the-art instruction in treatment techniques for commonly encountered clinical conditions.Chapters in Treating Preschool Children range from developmental and behavioral principles guiding work with children from birth through five years of age to specific problems, including autistic-spectrum disorders, gender issues, attachment disorders, feeding disorders, elimination disorders, child abuse, and common sleep disturbances. We assume that the editors chose to focus on categories described within the DSM-IV nosology of childhood psychiatric disorders, but in doing so they have omitted many of the problems most commonly seen in this age group—namely, behavioral aggression, extreme emotional outbursts, social withdrawal or shyness, high activity level, oppositionality, and defiance.The book does a nice job of providing introductory overviews of the problem areas mentioned above. We found the chapters on sleep disturbances and elimination disorders to be especially comprehensive and pragmatic. Some chapters, such as the one focused on disorders of attachment, spend much time on the theoretical and diagnostic issues and too little on approaches to treatment. Other chapters suffer from space limitations for providing more in-depth treatment of their broad topic areas, such as child abuse. We particularly appreciated the authors' delicate treatment of gender issues, an area fraught with controversy in real-life clinical practice.Written in a similar format, Treating School-Age Children addresses some of the syndromes most frequently encountered in middle childhood, including anxiety disorders, depression, and eating disorders. An introductory chapter defines the major developmental tasks inherent in this age group and then reviews the recommended process of assessment. As in many of the chapters, the review of assessment techniques is rather brief and includes only some of the more commonly employed strategies and tools. However, it gives the beginning clinician a basic model for understanding how development affects the assessment process as well as practical suggestions for conducting an assessment.Each subsequent chapter addresses particular clinical syndromes or problems and provides case examples to further elucidate assessment and treatment. Also included in each chapter is a brief discussion of the impact of managed care on the treatment process, which is certainly relevant to today's clinician. The sections on anxiety and pain management provide thorough descriptions of various treatment strategies in a straightforward manner while limiting discussion of the theoretical basis for the techniques.The chapter on eating disorders provides valuable information on risk factors and prevention in addition to treatment for these challenging problems. Although techniques such as play and family therapy, as well as more traditional behavioral strategies such as exposure therapy and relaxation training, are mentioned in many of the chapters, the authors offer few practical instructions or recommendations about these approaches that would prove useful to the beginning or advanced clinician. Although space limitations likely played a role, further discussion might have been useful.In summary, both Treating Preschool Children and Treating School-Age Children offer a rather rudimentary introduction to some of the major disorder categories for children in these age groups but manage to exclude some of the most relevant problem areas often encountered in the field. In addition, assessment and treatment techniques are only briefly described, making the understanding and implementation of these techniques challenging to many clinicians. We believe that these books, contrary to the editor's intentions, would be most useful to the beginning clinician or to students in advanced undergraduate or graduate training settings.Dr. Franz is a fellow in pediatrics and Dr. Garrison is professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.edited by Hans Steiner, M.D.; San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997, 232 pages, $27.95 • edited by Hans Steiner, M.D.; San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997, 264 pages, $27.95 FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 50Issue 2 February 1999Pages 276-276 Metrics History Published online 1 February 1999 Published in print 1 February 1999

Using social learning theory to explain individual differences in human sexuality

To explain individual differences in human sexual expression, investigators most often stress either physiological or experiential determinants. Psychologists commonly espouse some variant of learning theory (classical conditioning, operant conditioning, or social learning theory) as an explanatory framework and a source of hypotheses and methodology. The historical use of social learning theory is described in this article, and we review its central aspects and provide examples of sexuality research in which it plays a major role. Specifically, we describe both early and current research in four broad topic areas: sexuality development, adolescent sexuality and contraceptive use, health‐related sexual behavior, and coercive sexuality. Social learning theory is then evaluated and compared with competing theories regarding its ability to explain empirical data, its predictive utility, and its parsimony.

Electronic archives: an essential element in complete electronic journals solutions

For libraries, the transition from paper to electronic journals raises a number of critical questions, chief among them is the issue of electronic archives. Frequently overlooked by those outside the library community is the fundamental role the library plays as information repository and preservationist. The fact that increasingly more information is moving from paper to electronic form, and is correspondingly more accessible, does not obviate the need for a permanent record and ongoing availability. While there are a great many specific issues involved in a comprehensive discussion of who should provide electronic journal archives and how they are constructed, most fall under one of four broad topic areas - technical proficiency, permanence, location and trusteeship. This paper evaluates these areas and attempts to frame the how, where and who questions that both libraries and providers of e-journal services must ponder in the establishment of electronic journal archives.

Development standards for health measures.

The growing demand for subjective measurements of health in clinical studies has encouraged the rapid creation of many new scales, leading to compromises in the quality of some instruments. Quality control standards are desirable to guide the development of measures and subsequent data interpretation. The limitations in existing measures may be classified under three broad topic areas: 1) shortcomings in the design of the instrument, 2) methodological limitations in the process of its development, and 3) shortcomings in the way that the instrument is described following its initial development. We outline examples of common problems in these areas and propose guidelines for the design, development and presentation of health measurement methods. The guidelines represent a preliminary step in formalizing a discipline of health measurement.