Statement Of Objectives Research Articles

Curbing PPP construction projects’ failure using enhanced stakeholder management success in developing countries

Purpose Globally, inadequate resources, skills deficiency and poor infrastructure have necessitated public-private partnerships (PPPs) as investment initiative for public sector projects. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the key constructs for improved stakeholder management (SM) success in curbing PPP projects’ failure in developing countries to fill the research gap. Pre-stakeholder identification (PSI); implementation, monitoring and feedback (IMF) factors impact on PPP projects’ success in Ghana were examined. Design/methodology/approach In total, 16 models were studied as part of literature review followed by a qualitative three-round Delphi survey for SM key factors and validated using a quantitative questionnaire survey. The findings were analysed using structural equation modelling and a model fit test. Findings PSI, IMF factors directly influence PPP SM success model hence are key constructs. Furthermore, stakeholder consideration, a clear statement of objectives, adopting design and build are variables established as influencing PPP projects failures. Stakeholder identification, engagement, communication and analysis are generic factors. Practical implications Project managers can achieve stakeholder satisfaction and improve PPP projects delivery by considering the innovative PPP SM model. Furthermore, considering the identified factors and variables in holistic models will enhance stakeholder involvement thereby curbing PPP projects failure. Social implications Reducing PPP projects’ failure will enhance socio-economic growth. Originality/value PSI; IMF factors have never been included in holistic PPP SM model. They are proposed to curb PPP projects’ failure.

International Public Health Laboratory Twinning: An Innovative Approach to Strengthen the National Health Laboratory System in Uganda, 2014-2017.

International initiatives to strengthen national health laboratory systems in resource-poor countries are often hampered by unfamiliarity with the country's health laboratory environment and turnover of international partners during the initiative. This study provides an overview of, and lessons learned from, the use of a laboratory long-term partnership approach (ie, "twinning") to strengthen the national public health laboratory system in an international setting. We focused on the partnering of the Uganda Ministry of Health Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) with the New Mexico State Public Health Laboratory to help the CPHL become Uganda's national public health reference laboratory (Uganda National Health Laboratory Services [UNHLS] Institute) and leader of its nascent Uganda National Health Laboratory Network (UNHLN). Via twinning, CPHL leadership received training on laboratory leadership and management, quality systems, facility management, and the One Health environmental strategy (ie, that the health of persons is connected to the health of animals and the environment), and drafted a National Health Laboratory Policy, UNHLS Institute business plan, and strategic and operating plans for the UNHLS Institute and UNHLN. The CPHL is now responsible for the UNHLS Institute and coordinates the UNHLN. Lessons learned include (1) twinning establishes stable long-term collaborations and (2) success requires commitment to a formal statement of activities and objectives, as well as clear and regular communication among partners.

LET THE STUDENTS DESIGN THEIR OWN EXPERIMENTS!

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the use and benefits of a student-directed Design of Experiments (DOE) project as an active learning instrument within a second course in statistics for students enrolled in one of three programs in the Bachelor of Technology at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology, McMaster University. Pedagogy will be considered, learning outcomes presented, level and depth of topic areas will be explored and evidence of benefit to the students will be shared. Examples of student objective statements will be given to show the level of interest in conducting a self-chosen experiment. Concluding comments from student reports will be highlighted to demonstrate how the project serves as a useful vehicle for discussing practicalities that arise in real life investigations. Lastly, details about the yearly American Society for Quality (ASQ) Student Quality Showcase event will be shared to demonstrate how interaction with industry professionals enhances student confidence and develops key attributes desired in engineering professionals.

African Art in Deep Time: De‐race‐ing Aesthetics and De‐racializing Visual Art

In two essays in the ART/Artifact (1988) exhibition catalog, white American museum curator Susan Vogel and white American philosopher Arthur Danto pronounce that Africans do not distinguish between art and nonart. Although seemingly objective empirical statements, their assertions about Africa and its art are racially based ruminations of a white supremacist worldview. I argue that in theorizing within the category of race they produced racialized aesthetics that commit the Eurocentric fallacy of upholding systemic racist objectives. I argue that (1) their assertions fail to be about African art, but about hegemony and power; (2) as the longest enduring artistic activity of humanity, African art is an important check to racialized aesthetics; (3) art is produced outside the category of race and from a critically conscious awareness of the world; and (4) art bespeaks creativity and presupposes the artistic and moral values of a culture in the manipulation and transformation of physical reality.

Complex Dentistry in General Practice - What Would You Do?

In 2019, in a world of instant gratification, what are the expectations of patients and dentists? Is training sufficient to meet these expectations? Decision-making in dentistry impacts the treatment choices patients are given, and may influence the outcomes of such treatment. It is therefore important to ensure as much standardisation as possible. In order to achieve this, it is important to know the current standard and the views of dentist as this will influence dental treatment planning. Clinical Relevance: This paper captures the treatment planning dilemmas of dentists, specifically of those in their Foundation training year, in order to aid targeting of training and development. Objective Statement: To understand treatment decisions of general dental practitioners and specialists.

A systematic review on the status and progress of homomorphic encryption technologies

With the emergence of big data and the continued growth in cloud computing applications, serious security and privacy concerns emerged. Consequently, several researchers and cybersecurity experts have embarked on a quest to extend data encryption to big data systems and cloud computing applications. As most cloud users turn to using public cloud services, confidentiality becomes and even more complicated issue. Cloud clients storing their data on a public cloud always seek solutions to confidentiality problem. Homomorphic encryption emerged as a possible solution where client’s data is encrypted on the cloud in a way that allows some search and manipulation operations without proper decryption. In this paper, we present a systematic review of research paper published in the field of homomorphic encryption. This paper uses PRISMA checklist alongside some items of Cochrane’s Quality Assessment to review studies retrieved from various resources. It was highly noticeable in the reviewed papers that security in big data and cloud computing has received most attention. Most papers suggested the use of homomorphic encryption although the thematic analysis has identified other potential concerns. Regarding the quality of the articles, 38% of the articles failed to meet three checklist items, including explicit statement of research objectives, procedure recognition and sources of funding used in the study. The review also presented compendium textual analysis of different homomorphic encryption algorithms, application areas, and areas of future developments. Results of the evaluation through PRISMA and the Cochrane tool showed that a majority of research articles discussed the potential use and application of Homomorphic Encryption as a solution to the growing demands of big data and absence of security and privacy mechanisms therein. This was evident from 26 of the total 59 articles that met the inclusion criteria. The term Homomorphic Encryption appeared 1802 times in the word cloud derived from the selected articles, which speaks of its potential to ensure security and privacy, while also preserving the CIA triad in the context of big data and cloud computing.

Working smarter, not harder: objective-dependent management of an invasive thistle, Carduus nutans

AbstractMany invasive species managers state that their objective is to “control” an invader. However, the appropriate choice of a management option requires a more explicit statement of management objectives, in terms of both the relevant time horizon and spatial scale. Using data from a 2-yr mowing experiment, we show that the most effective management strategy for controlling an invasive thistle depends fundamentally on the management goals. We integrate field data from a two-cohort experiment with modeling to assess 14 mowing treatments (differing in intensity, frequency, and timing, and thus also in their required logistical effort) based on their effectiveness in (1) reducing population density of the existing cohort, (2) decreasing projected long-term population growth, and (3) limiting projected population spread of an invasive thistle, musk thistle (Carduus nutans L.). The treatment with high intensity and a single late mow caused the largest reduction in plant survival (and density of existing adult plants); the treatment with high intensity and an early mow in addition to a late mow was most effective at reducing population growth rate and population spread. Against expectation and conventional wisdom, the most frequent mowing treatment did not provide the most effective management outcome for any stated objective. This study highlights the necessity of clearly defined management aims; the term “control” is too vague to be truly useful. The results also provide important insights for the management of this invasive species.

Conflicting Views among Supervisors during Off –Campus Teaching Practice Supervision at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

This research examined conflicting views among supervisors during the Off-Campus teaching practice supervision at the University of Cape Coast. Sequential explanatory mixed method design was employed for the study and the multi-stage sampling technique and the proportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select respondents for the study. Questionnaires, focus group discussion guide, interview and document analysis guide were used to gather both qualitative and quantitative data for the study. The results were presented using tables, percentages, frequencies as well means and standard deviations. The areas of conflicting views among supervisors revealed by the study are; lesson note format, statement of lesson objectives , the way of displaying teaching and learning resources, chalk board summary, the classroom position of the teacher and finally the closure of the lesson. It was further revealed that the years of experience, the content knowledge of the supervisor and the supervisors’ own perception of teaching are some of the factors influencing supervisors’ remarks. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the Teaching Practice Unit should come out with one accepted way of dealing with the areas where there are conflicting views and such method should be emphasized during micro teaching.

What does Mickey Mouse know about food? Children’s trust in favorite characters versus experts

Children receive information from multiple sources, including people who are more or less knowledgeable and more or less familiar. In some cases, children also encounter messages from fictional characters who vary across these dimensions. Two studies investigated children’s trust in a familiar animal character versus a human expert when hearing conflicting information about items related to or unrelated to the expert’s knowledge. In Study 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 60) heard conflicting labels for unfamiliar fruits and tools from a familiar character and an unfamiliar fruit expert. They then identified which informant was correct and from whom they would seek out new information. Overall, children endorsed the fictional character’s statements over the fruit expert’s statements. Younger children preferred to seek out new information from the character, whereas 5-year-olds preferred the expert. In Study 2, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 60) heard similar conflicting objective statements about fruits and tools and heard conflicting subjective statements about unknown foods. The 4- and 5-year-olds trusted the fruit expert’s objective statements about fruit and did not consistently endorse either informant’s objective statements about tools, but they endorsed either informant when hearing subjective statements about unknown foods. Children also endorsed positive statements (e.g., that the food tastes good) regardless of the source. Taken together, these results suggest that when children decide who to trust, they consider both familiarity and relevant expertise and they weigh each factor differently depending on what kind of judgment is being made.

Assessing the Alignment of Objectives, Instructional Activities, and Assessments in a Biomedical Informatics Curriculum.

The objective of this research was to assess the alignment of course learning objectives, instructional activities, and course assessments in a Biomedical Informatics curriculum. Each syllabi in the curriculum was reviewed and scored according to a validated rubric. Disagreements among reviewers adjudicated by consensus. Only low and moderate levels of alignment were identified. The results indicated the needs and goals of courses could be more effectively met with faculty investment in syllabi redesign and clarification to achieve course objectives. Root causes included word choice in learning objective statement as well as lack of consideration of instructional scaffolding by the course developer.

Evaluating natural resource planning for longleaf pine ecosystems in the Southeast United States

Natural resource plans play a critical role in guiding the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. However, little is known about the quality of management plans. In this study, we evaluated and compared the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernment groups managing longleaf pine ecosystems in the Southeast United States. We developed a plan evaluation tool consisted of five components: (1) Problem and Objective Statement, (2) Fact Base, (3) Actions and Implementation, (4) Integration with Other Plans, and (5) Stakeholder Participation, to examine to what extent plans incorporated planning best practices. We tested a hypothetical model for understanding the relationship among plan components, and our results suggested stakeholder participation predicted clear problem statements, better integration with other plans, and better actions and implementation protocols. The Fact Base component scored highest across most plans while the Actions and Implementation component scored lowest. Newer plans scored modestly higher than older plans, suggesting agencies may be learning to develop better plans over time and indicating older plans should be prioritized for revision. Plans from federal and state agencies scored higher than plans from nongovernmental organizations. Our findings suggest planners should consider incorporating more stakeholder participation, which was positively related to better actions and implementation and improved problem and objective statements.

Preparing Teacher Trainees for Field Experience: Lessons From the On-Campus Practical Experience in Colleges of Education in Ghana

This study sought to understand the process of providing on-campus practical experience to teacher trainees in preparation for practicum in basic schools, and how the trainees perceive these. It used the mixed method approach to obtain data from three purposively sampled colleges of education in the Central Region of Ghana. Questionnaires were administered to 232 teacher trainees; 12 focus group discussion sessions were held with the trainees while an interview guide was used to elicit data from 24 college tutors. The findings showed that the on-campus experience offered trainees the opportunity to improve on their knowledge and practice of general pedagogical skills such as the writing of lesson plans, statement of appropriate lesson objectives, lesson delivery, timing of activities, and the use of teaching and learning resources. However, there was no evidence of documented standards and guidelines for the conduct of the on-campus practicum. Again, trainees had very limited time to engage with supervisors and critically interrogate and reflect on their own practices. Consequently, it was suggested that teacher training institutions should develop appropriate teaching standards and guidelines for on-campus teaching practice and give trainees more opportunity to engage with and critically interrogate their own practice in the process of learning to teach.

Treatment of Odontoid Fractures: Recommendations of the Spine Section of the German Society for Orthopaedics and Trauma (DGOU).

Study Design:Narrative review.Objective:To establish recommendations for the treatment of odontoid fractures based on current literature and the knowledge of the experts of the Spine Section of the German Society for Orthopaedics and Trauma (DGOU).Methods:Narrative review of the literature. Analyzing treatment algorithms of German trauma and spine centers as members of the Spine Section of the German Society for Orthopaedics and Trauma (DGOU).Results:There are many influencing factors leading to appropriate treatment of odontoid fractures such as age, bone quality, arthrosis, classification, and type of the fracture. Conservative nonoperative treatment is appropriate for stable undislocated displaced odontoid fractures. Anterior osteosynthesis with 1 or 2 screws leads to good results in the classical unstable type II odontoid fracture in patients with good bone quality. However, modifiers have been identified by the working group leading to higher complication and failure rates. For these cases, more stable constructs and/or posterior approaches are indicated.Conclusions:Operation seems to be standard treatment for odontoid fractures. However, in the aged population, conservative treatment should be considered as morbidity and mortality rise significantly in the group of >75 years. Conservative treatment may also be started within stable nondislocated fractures, but then regular controls have to be performed. If operation is indicated, many influencing factors have to be considered for appropriate approach and technique. The classification of Anderson and D’Alonzo is still standard. To create an adequate treatment algorithm, dislocation displacement and instability have to be identified. Stable odontoid fractures are treated conservatively non-operatively, but if so regular controls have to be performed. Unstable and/or dislocated displaced odontoid fractures are treated by anterior osteosynthesis with 1 or 2 screws. The technique is demanding and leads to elevated complication and failure rates if modifiers are apparent. In these cases, posterior instrumentation or fusion of C1 and C2 is favorable. In the aged population (>80 years), operative therapy is critical as postoperative morbidity complication and mortality rates rise significantly. As there is still some bias in the treatment algorithms, the working group recommends establishment of a prospective study to result in more objective statements.

Search Neutrality and Search Bias: An Empirical Perspective on the Impact of Architecture and Labeling

As Google has moved from providing “ten blue links” to “universal search,” controversy has erupted over whether Google is favoring its own specialized search results over competing specialized results offered by other entities. Google’s competitors have complained about “search bias,” and demanded that antitrust enforcers should ensure “search neutrality.” Both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Commission have considered these complaints. The FTC closed its investigation without taking any action, but the European Commission issued a formal statement of objections to Google in April 2015. This study empirically examines the impact of potential design remedies on search bias, including prominent links to rival specialized search services (“architectural remedies”) and clearer labeling of Google’s specialized search results (“labeling remedies”). This study finds that architectural remedies have much greater impact than labeling remedies. User awareness of labeling is low, and even labels far more explicit than those currently employed do not have much impact. Consumers have sticky expectations about how search results are presented, and their click-through behavior tracks those expectations irrespective of how the search results are labeled. However, major architectural changes can have a substantial impact on click-through rates. These findings suggest that the impact of architectural remedies will depend greatly on their design features, while labeling remedies are unlikely to have a significant impact. We explore the implications of these findings for other issues at the interface of Internet and intellectual property (IP) law.

Moral Education versus Values Clarification

The values clarification approach to moral education, is a deficient, if not faulty program for, despite claims to the contrary, the values clarification approach lacks the major requirements for an adequate moral educational program: the treatment of value judgments as objective statements which are capable of cognitive analysis as well as justification within their context. This article demonstrates the importance that considerations of character must have in an adequate system of morals a quality lacking in the values clarification program.

Behavioral Objectives ls the Tide Turning?

Behavioral objectives have been acclaimed by numerous individuals in the past decade as means by which the learning process may become substantially more effective and efficient.1 More recently, however, the climate surrounding educational attitudes and objectives appears to be in the midst of new controversy and change. The purpose of this article is to review in perspective the rationale underlying behavioral objectives in education and the criticisms which have been raised regarding their validity and application.Objectives have been expressed by educators for a very long time, no doubt, for as long as there has been formal schooling. (Plato discusses educational objectives in the Republic.2 ) Persons stressing the widespread application of behavioral objectives are disenchanted with general statements of educational objectives which have been used for years such as: "The student will learn to think critically." What is critical thinking? How do students attain it? How do we know when students have achieved this objective or even come part of the way toward attaining it?

Rhetorical Ways of Covering Up Speculations and Hypotheses, or Why Empirical Investigations of Real Readers Matter

Rhetorical Ways of Covering Up Speculations and Hypotheses, or Why Empirical Investigations of Real Readers Matter Jan Alber (bio) I want to thank James Phelan and John V. Knapp for giving me the opportunity to respond to the former's target essay. A couple of years ago, I had the honor of spending some time at Ohio State University under the auspices of Project Narrative. During my stay there, I had various discussions with [End Page 34] Phelan, and was extremely impressed by his interactions with others. It took me a while to figure out that the way in which he engages with other people's opinions or projects closely correlates with his rhetorical theory of narrative: he is always interested in finding out what exactly it is that others are trying to do, and he then takes things from there. I also sat in on one of his classes on rhetorical narratology, and I really liked the way in which he encouraged his students to ask critical questions concerning his approach, to which he then responded. Despite this positive impression, I have some problems with his written work. In my response, I will zoom in on the confidence with which he talks about the intentions of the implied author (i.e., "the stream-lined version of the actual author responsible for the construction of the narrative" that Phelan recently transformed into "the author" [10–11]) as well as the reactions of both the authorial audience (i.e., "the author's hypothesized audience" that shares his or her values [10]) and the actual (flesh-and-blood) audience. I do not take issue with Phelan's highly interesting readings of, say, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929), Twain's Huckleberry Finn (1884), or David Small's Stitches (2009) but rather with his politics of speaking for others. He does not only think that he is for some reason entitled to speak for the author and several different readers; his permanent references to alleged authorial intentions and reactions of audiences also create the impression that his interpretations are quasi-objective investigations. Finally, I will say a few words about his definition of the term "narrative," which, at least to my mind, produces counterintuitive results. On pages 29–31 of his target essay, Phelan discusses an "implausible" passage from Huckleberry Finn that "communicates the outlandish outcomes of Jim's imagination" (34). In addition, he explains to his readers why Twain is doing what he is doing, and he also tells them how Twain's audiences react. The main problem is how does he know these things? For me, such passages are highly problematic because they presuppose that Phelan has (for some unspecified reason) direct access to authors and their audiences. However, since there is no way of ever knowing whether Phelan "gets it right," formulations such as "Twain wants to do A, and he effectively draws on B, C, and D, to accomplish A" and "audiences are willing to overlook the implausibility because doing so enables entertainment" (31) serve to cover up the fact that we are here only confronted with Phelan's opinions, intuitions, speculations, or hypotheses. His analyses do not at [End Page 35] all lack in terms of quality or clarity; rather, Phelan's terminology elevates his subjective impressions to seemingly objective statements about what is "really" going on between authors and their audiences. However, we simply do not know whether his intuitions have anything to do with what Twain had in mind or with how ideal or real audiences react. Since readers can never be sure that they have formed correct hypotheses about the implied author's intentions, I want to follow instead David Herman's slightly more modest proposal to move beyond the "compartmentalized intentionality" of the implied author—that is, beyond an approach that is grounded in a view of intentions as inner, mental objects—and toward "an approach of narrative understanding that more fully and more openly grounds stories in intentional systems, that acknowledges the extent to which the process of interpretation hinges on making defeasible (= possibly wrong) inferences about communicative intentions" (244). This proposal closely correlates with the idea that intentions are distributed...

ПОЛІТИЧНА ГЕОГРАФІЯ ХХІ СТ.

The main regularities of the formation of the political map of the world and its individual regions in the XXI century. Socio-geographical patterns in the field of political geography are determined by two objective factors. The first is that over time, the complexity of any territory increases. This is due to the fact that with the development of civilization and population growth, the territory of any taxonomic rank is constantly becoming more complex. More and more people and objects appear on it. Thus, smaller areas of size receive objective advantages over large ones. The second factor is determined by the fact that on the political map of the world the number of countries absolutely does not coincide with the number of nations. The latter at least 50 times more. However, also absolutely objectively, no nation can fully realize its potential without the formation of a national state. Proposed psychological-mental approach to the assessment of spatial-territorial factors in political geography. The main contradictions between the action of objective laws of forming a map of the world in the XXI century and the principles of international relations. Thus, on the basis of an objective statement that can be considered as axioms, we obtain the main interrelated patterns of forming a political map of the world in the XXI century. These include the pattern of imminent collapse of empires; the pattern of gradual increase in the number of countries on the political map of the world; the pattern of creation of national countries; regularity of the geopolitical pendulum of history. In the XXI century the importance of spatial and territorial factors in the development of the political map of the world. Moreover, their implementation will take place against the background of psychological and mental local impulses. The development of individual countries will increasingly depend on the balance of their territories in a changing geopolitical space.

„Osoba podejrzana”, „podejrzany” i „oskarżony” w polskim procesie karnym – zakres pojęciowy

The subject of this article is nomenclatural interpretation of the notions of “a person of interest”, “a suspect” and “a defendant” in Polish Code of Criminal Procedure – the parties in criminal proceedings who are suspected of committing a crime or who are charged with a crime. The article discusses the legal definitions of the word “suspect” according to Article 71 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (i.e. a person against whom a statement of objections has been issued and a person who has been charged on the grounds of examination of the person in question as a suspect) as well as the word “defendant” according to Article 71 § 2 and 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (sensu stricto and sensu largo). Moreover, the article provides an overview of the available definitions of “a suspect” and “a person of interest” – parties named directly in the Code of Criminal Procedure. In addition to that, the article discusses the notion of “actual suspect” (whose definition and understanding varies in the doctrine), which emerged from the previously effective Code of Criminal Procedure. The article analyses the legal standing of such an “actual suspect” in the context of Article 233 § 1a of the Criminal Code (a regulation which is considered potentially unconstitutional). While discussing the figure of the “suspect”, the author analyzes terms such as “issuing” and “preparation” – in connection with Article 71 § 1 and 313 § 1 of the Criminal Code and the lack of agreement within the discipline regarding the precise time at which the statement of objections has been issued (which is connected with obtaining the position of the passive party to proceedings in criminal procedure).Moreover, the article discusses in some detail the legal standing of a person against which a motion has been presented, according to Article 354 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, regarding the discontinuation of proceedings and issuing preventive measures protecting the person of an insane perpetrator – in the context of nomenclature.

Why written objectives need to be really SMART

There is general agreement that plans without well-formulated goals lack rationale, strategies lack relevance, actions lack direction, projects lack accountability, and organisations lack purpose ( Mullins, 1999 ; Beardshaw and Palfreman, 1990 ; Bratton, et al, 2007 ). Moreover, goals need to be properly constructed to serve as credible and usable benchmarks by which the results can be monitored and evaluated via immediate outputs, intermediate outcomes over the short term or terminal impacts in the long term ( Greenbank, 2001 ; Fitsimmons, 2008 ; Bipp and Kleingeld, 2011 ). Thus, it is a basic requirement of effective goal setting that objective statements are formulated using a clear and logical structure or framework. This article analyses examples of objective statements drawn from the literature and concludes that none of these can be truly described as SMART 1 , posing the risk that organisations using them as guide will fail to attain their goals.