Underused Resources Research Articles

Effective environments for knowledge and learning

Physical space design is important for achieving excellence in learning and knowledge environments. Key influences on knowledge environments are outlined, drawn from theatre and television design, museums and learning, and writing. These influences have led to core design principles for the design of knowledge intensive spaces, including libraries. The use of metaphor has historically proved to be a rich source of inspiration for designers and architects, and this is a key principle for engaging all players in physical space design. Vertical space and lighting are discussed as currently underused resources in many business and learning environments. The vital importance is discussed of engaging front-line workers in a co-determinative design process. The concept is explored of informed and proactive clients, fully engaging with architects and space planners. Such a process is cost effective, and leads to innovative excellent knowledge space, though not always requiring extensive budgets. Business environments can learn much when planning knowledge and learning space from examples drawn from other areas, including libraries and universities which have actively used a process of innovation and experimentation in knowledge space design. A new paradigm of active learning is itself causing universities and other learning institutions to reevaluate the role of physical space in enhancing learning opportunities. Physical space design is one key to effective knowledge and learning environments, requiring a collaborative design process, and a methodology that is underpinned by core principles specific to knowledge work.

Uso de Internet y recursos electrónicos entre médicos intensivistas españoles. Primera encuesta nacional

Estimate knowledge and use habits of different electronic resources in a sample of Spanish intensivists: Internet, E-mail, distribution lists, and use of portable electronic devices. Self-applied questionnaire. A 50-question questionnaire was distributed among Spanish intensivists through the hospital marketing delegates of a pharmaceutical company and of electronic forums. A total of 682 questionnaires were analyzed (participation: 74%). Ninety six percent of those surveyed used Internet individually: 67% admitted training gap. Internet was the second source of clinical consultations most used (61%), slightly behind consultation to colleagues (65%). The pages consulted most were bibliographic databases (65%) and electronic professional journals (63%), with limited use of Evidence Based Medicine pages (19%). Ninety percent of those surveyed used e-mail regularly in the practice of their profession, although 25% admitted that were not aware of its possibilities. The use of E-mail decreased significantly with increase in age. A total of 62% of the intensivists used distribution lists. Of the rest, 42% were not aware of its existence and 32% admitted they had insufficient training to handle them. Twenty percent of those surveyed had portable electronic devices and 64% considered it useful, basically due to its rapid consultation at bedside. Female gender was a negative predictive factor of its use (OR 0.35; 95% CI 0.2-0.63; p=0.0002). A large majority of the Spanish intensivists use Internet and E-mail. E-mail lists and use of portable devices are still underused resources. There are important gaps in training and infrequent use of essential pages. There are specific groups that require directed educational policies.

Neglected tests for neglected patients

Alternative ways to develop diagnostic tools for use in resource-poor settings can, and do, exist, argue Martine Usdin, Martine Guillerm and Pierre Chirac of Doctors without Borders. When Medecins Sans Frontieres workers recognized the need for a diagnostic test for malaria suitable for use in the resource-poor conditions of the developing world, they acted on what they saw. With help from scientists in the field and from several manufacturers, an alternative test was conceived, designed and developed in just two years, and at relatively low cost. In this issue Medecins Sans Frontieres scientists describe how under-used resources in universities and industrial labs across the world could be utilized in similar projects to provide diagnostics for other ‘forgotten’ diseases.

Edward Norris and the Baltimore Police Department (B)

This undisguised case deals with the topic of extraordinary leadership and managing crime-fighting as a business. It offers students an opportunity to design and explore a large-scale organizational change initiative and develop a comprehensive action plan for managing it. Ed Norris, an assistant commissioner in the NYPD who supervises more than 40,000 officers and is credited with assisting in the turnaround in New York's crime scene, is offered a similar job in Baltimore supervising 3,000 officers in the worst crime-laden city in America. The challenges include entrenched crime, racial tension, declining population, negative effects on business, underfunding, critical media, low arrest rates, and a police department with underused resources and a dysfunctional organization and culture. In the A case, students are asked to lay out their action plan for dealing with the situation and, in so doing, have to wrestle with most of the issues in managing large-scale organizational change. The B case (UVA-OB-0777) presents Norris's plan and proposed changes so students can compare their action plans with that of the actual leader. This case series has been taught very successfully as a two-day class. Both cases include extensive video clips for both student preparation and faculty use in class. Although similar to the Chicago Park District series (UVA-OB-0618 through UVA-OB-0621), this series is 10 years newer.

Large Medical Datasets on the Grid

This paper shows the use of the emerging Grid technology for gathering underused resources that are distributed among a corporate network. The work of these resources is coordinated for facing tasks which are not affordable by the individual usage of each of them. This paper shows an application for the projection, using Volume Rendering techniques, of huge medical volumes obtained from CTs and RMIs, adapted to Grid computing. As a result the article shows the feasibility of the creation of an application based up on Grid technology, which solves problems that cannot be addressed by using common techniques. As an example, the article describes the projection of a huge medical dataset, which exceeds the resources of most common PCs, carried out by taking profit of idle CPU cycles from the computers of an organization. Grid technology is emerging as a new framework which allows gathering and coordinating resources distributed among a network (LAN or WAN), for addressing problems which cannot be solved through the single use of any of these resources. Medical Imaging is a clear application area for this technology.

Geoscience Encyclopedias and Their Potential for Classroom Instruction

Encyclopedias, especially those focusing on a single subject or narrow range of topics, are important but underused library resources. Encyclopedic consultation is often viewed as an academic weakness. It can, however, be viewed as an academic strength and effectively incorporated into instructional programs. Since this article is written from a librarian's perspective, it is not suggestive of specific instructional techniques. Instead, it addresses the difficulties that can arise in identifying titles appropriate for instructional purposes. Using a combination of methods, a list was derived of approximately 250 geoscience related encyclopedias that are available in North American libraries.

IMPLIKASI MODEL BIOEKONOMI TERHADAP MANAJEMEN PERIKANAN TANGKAP: STUDI KASUS DI PANTAI SELATAN YOGYAKARTA

Small-scale marine capture fisheries have contributes to community welfare at Yogyakarta’s south coast. Government has planned some programs to develop fisheries. The development supposed only at rational effort in which fishers still gain advantages. Precautionary approach using bio-economic model of Gordon-Schaefer was applied to analyze the issue. The linear regression model of catch per unit of effort (C/f) (CPUE) and effort (f) was C/f = 59,851 – 0,0005f (R2 = 82, 71%). Fish price assumed at Rp 7,735.19 /kg with operational cost of Rp 59,835.67/trip. Total revenue and effort at maximum sustainable yield was predicted at Rp 13,396 billion and 56,860 trip (equals to 327 vessels), respectively. Fisher income at this level was Rp 167,774.51/trip/vessel. Fish exploration level in this area has already closed to total allowable catch. Free access equilibrium in which cost is equal to revenue might reach at effort of 102,231 trip (equals to 568 vessels). Managing fisheries at maximum economic yield might rise fisher income 17.83% comparing to maximum sustainable yield, but total revenue decreased 1.77% at 56.13% of existing effort. Some management strategies should be promoted and regulated for the fishery exploitation. Based on the results, those possible strategy were 1) limiting investment through regulation and permission; 2) improvement of fishers productivity through technology improvement to exploit under-used fish resources; 3) expanding the fisheries activity to offshore through harbor development and social preparation; 4) marketing improvement through revitalization of fish action; 5) improving hadling and post harvest fish technology through training and extension; 6) the increasing of bargaining position through empowering fishers group; 7) promoting alternate incomes through integrated coastal tourism development; and 8) avoiding competition and conflict through developing Java’s south coast cooperation. Participatory approach in planning, developing and evaluating should be promoted to develop fishery a southern coast of Yogyakarta.

Study on the Low Input Sustainable Rice Culture. 4. Paddy field weed emergence quantity and rice production in using under-used resources

Study on the Low Input Sustainable Rice Culture. 4. Paddy field weed emergence quantity and rice production in using under-used resources

Beyond Anxiety and Nostalgia

Closing the door on parents and trying to control the interaction with them might alleviate teachers' anxiety, Mr. Hargreaves points out, but it does so only by mortgaging their own future and that of their students. PARENTS today are often exalted as teachers' best partners and one of their most underused resources. Good teacher/parent relations, it has been shown, help children learn better at home and in school and can provide teachers with the practical, fund-raising, and emotional support they sorely need. Yet to many teachers today, parents sometimes seem less like partners and more like a pain! Consider the remarks of these two teachers. Sometimes, when parents call and they're sort of being very pointed in their criticism over the phone, you get very defensive, and you feel like, Hey, wait a minute, you know, I've done this, this, this, and this. And, you know, Don't tell me how to do my job. And you know there's those kinds of feelings that come out. You feel annoyed that there is this person who keeps phoning and saying you're not doing your job, and you just sort of wish he'd go away. But you also feel this sort of sense of responsibility because you can step back from him and say, Well, maybe he's not handling this the best way he could. (Male secondary teacher) * * * You can't help but get angry and upset by it. You have to remain calm and not get defensive and just do the best you can to defuse the situation and meet and hopefully make the parent more aware. (Male elementary school teacher) The comments of these two teachers, drawn from interviews with 53 teachers that my graduate students and I conducted in our study of the emotions of teaching, show that teachers can experience great anxiety in their interactions with parents.1 While the rhetoric that teachers should treat parents as partners in their children's education is widespread, and more than a few positive partnerships exist, the reality is often very different.2 In this article, I explore the reasons that teachers are anxious about their interaction with parents. I encourage teachers to overcome these anxieties in order to combat the parental nostalgia for real schools that often undermines school improvement efforts. Last, I advise teachers to see parents not as adversaries but as allies who can work with them to build a powerful social movement for the reform of public education. In his masterly work on the sociology of teaching, Willard Waller was characteristically blunt about the problem of teacher/parent relations. From the ideal point of view, parents and teachers have much in common in that both, supposedly, wish things to occur for the best interests of the child; but in fact, parents and teachers usually live in conditions of mutual distrust and enmity. Both wish the child well, but it is such a different kind of well that conflict must inevitably arise over it. The fact seems to be that parents and teachers are natural enemies, predestined each for the discomfiture of the other.3 Waller's words may be too melodramatic for today, but the obstacles to effective teacher/parent relationships remain formidable. Parents are concerned about their own child, whereas teachers must consider all the children in the class.4 Secondary school teachers in particular usually teach too many students to be able to know them or their parents well.5 Escalating demands on teachers' time squeeze their interactions with parents to the margins.6 Teachers are expected to maintain a professional distance from parents7 and often come from communities that are culturally, socially, and physically removed from those of their students.8 Moreover, in uncertain times, parents can be excessively anxious for their children, demanding of their teachers, and insistent that, as people who were once students themselves and know what classrooms are like, they have a right to question the expertise of teachers. …

Isolation and characterization of collagen from rhizostomous jellyfish (Rhopilema asamushi)

As a part of the study into the potential development of unused and under-used resources, collagen was isolated from the mesogloea of the rhizostomous jellyfish, Rhopilema asamushi , by limited pepsin digestion and characterized. The yield of this collagen was high (35.2% on a dry weight basis). The primary structure was very similar to that of pepsin-solubilized collagen from edible jellyfish mesogloea, but it was different from those of the collagen from edible jellyfish exumbrella and the acid-soluble collagen from its mesogloea. The denaturation temperature ( T d ) of 28.8°C. This collagen contained a large amount of a fourth subunit that was provisionally designated α4. This collagen may have the chain composition of an α1α2α3α4 heterotetramer.

Phytophagous Insect Faunas of Native Cirsium Thistles, C. mohavense, C. neomexicanum, and C. nidulum, in the Mojave Desert of Southern California

Phytophagous insects representing seven orders, 19 families, 25 genera, and 30 species compose the insect fauna on Cirsium mohavense (Green) Petrak (Asteraceae) in southern California. Similarly, phytophagous insects representing six orders, 17 families, 18 genera, and 23 species from Cirsium neomexicanum Gray, and insects representing six orders, 11 families, 12 genera, and 12 species from Cirsium nidulum (Jones) Petrak, are reported. Most insects feeding on these thistles are polyphagous, ectophagous, sap- and foliage-feeding species. Few or no insect species or individuals were reared from within the flower heads, stems, crowns, and roots of these desert thistles. Like other native Cirsium thistles surveyed in southern California and discussed here, the food niches represented by this natural assemblage of host plants are not saturated with phytophagous insect species. Significance of these underused resources and apparently “empty” food niches for biological control of weedy thistles in North America is discussed. Some members of the insect faunas on Cirsium thistles have markedly broader feeding niches than their counterparts in Europe, compensating for this host-plant underuse. Taxonomic compositions and niche characteristics of phytophagous insect faunas on native thistles in Europe and southern California are compared and discussed in evolutionary terms.

Politique de réformes et politique de l'entreprise

Reform policy and industrial policy. Work collectives were created in Hungary after the failure of the early attempts at reform of the economy from 1968 onwards. They are groupings of workers in an industrial enterprise organized in semi-autonomous production units which undertake sub-contracting and so offer their members a second paid activity. They represent an original means of reintegrating the «second economy» (the organization of parallel economie activity based on the flexibility of small production units) into the larger, more concentrated sector of the major industrial enterprises in order to solve the chronic problems of manpower shortage, under-used resources and demoralized workers.