Variation In Issues Research Articles

How can online citizen complaints provide solutions to refine environmental management: A spatio-temporal perspective

E-government serves as a crucial platform for citizens to voice their demands, providing valuable data for understanding public concerns. However, limited research has explored the textual features of citizen complaints and their implications for environmental management. This study integrates time analysis, spatial hotspot analysis, and influencing factor analysis, building upon sentiment analysis of 7,657 environmental complaints (from 2018 to 2021) in Guangzhou City, China, to elucidate the specific contribution of citizen complaints in improving environmental management solutions. The findings reveal that environmental complaints exhibit time-sensitive and spatially diverse patterns, and the influence of socioeconomic factors on environmental complaints varies in terms of direction and intensity. The study reveals that the majority of environmental complaints (94.14 %) exhibit negative emotions. The sentiment of complaints is found to be time-sensitive, with significant variations in issues related to air, noise, and light. Interestingly, the hot spots of environmental complaints do not necessarily align with areas of high negative sentiment, highlighting the need for targeted interventions in key regions. The analysis identifies the influence of various factors, such as entertainment venues, industrial activities, and land use patterns, on different types of complaints. Notably, the study reveals no statistical correlation between complaint response efficiency and sentiment, emphasizing the importance of considering emotional intensity in government responses. These findings contribute to the advancement of refined environmental engagement and management.

Feedback as a balancing act: Qualitative insights from an experienced multi-cultural sample of doctoral supervisors in nursing

AimTo better understand the views and experiences of experienced doctoral supervisors in nursing when providing feedback and critique to nursing doctoral students. Background: Feedback refers to information from a provider, intended to inform a receiver about the quality of their work in order for them to be able to see where improvements might occur and to signpost issues to be carried into future work. Feedback, particularly on student writing is central to successful doctoral supervision and is time consuming and labour-intensive for supervisors. Design: Qualitative. Methods: Following ethics approval and informed consent procedures, we gathered 962 min of interview data over a six-week period from 21 participants in four countries. During conversational-style interviews, participants shared their experiences of supervisionand elucidated on their experiences of providing feedback to doctoral students. Data were thematically analysed. Findings: Participants had more than 400 combined doctoral completions. As supervisors, participants aimed to strike a balance between helpful and empowering comments that motivated students to approach their work with renewed vigour and enthusiasm; and those that had the opposite effect of crushing and demoralising the student. ‘Feedback as a balancing act’ comprised four contributing themes with sub-themes. Findings reveal that feedback on student writing can remain a challenge for the duration of candidature. However, writing is an essential aspect of doctoral studies. It is through supervision that new nursing scholars are tutored and coached into the practices essential to creating disciplinary knowledge through writing. Our sample was drawn from multiple countries and included perspectives from various cultures. Despite the variation in countries and cultures, there was little variation in issues around feedback with all participants striving to provide clear, respectful feedback aimed at developing students and enhancing their skills. Conclusions: Supervision of doctoral student frequently involves working internationally and what while our sample was drawn from multiple countries and cultural perspectives, there was little variation in issues around provision of feedback to doctoral students. When considering feedback, our findings emphasise the importance of recognising feedback as a crucial educative process and one that is central to the production of a doctoral thesis. We argue that there is a need for nursing to move to developing and articulating meaningful and inclusive pedagogies of writing and doctoral supervision. We recommend universities support the development of such pedagogies and ensure that academic staff engaging in supervision are supported with the appropriate knowledge and skills to be optimally effective.

A MODEL FOR ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION GRADUATES THE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL STUDIES, KUWAIT, AS A CASE STUDY

INTRODUCTION:Nowadays, increased demand and rapid change in modern workplace has placed a great pressure on educators and industries to employ highly skilled and independent creative thinkers. High school and vocational colleges create an opportunity for students to explore academic preference and plan their pathway for either future education or a specific career. (Lichtenberger E., et. al., 201 3). Learning in vocational and technical colleges and workplace are considered two main ingredients of vocational education. (Schaap, H., et.al. 2011)In 21st century, workers require skills such as decision making, solving real work problems, time management, risk-taking and communication skills in order to be accepted to work in industries. (Robinson, Garton, & Vaughn, 2007).Students in vocational and technical education colleges need to incorporate knowledge, skills and positive attitude (Baartman and De Bruijn 2011), while they present need to develop and enhance a recognised identity (Achtenhagen and Grubb 2001). Students need to know about organizational structure, labour market required knowledge, skills and attitudes, job seeking and job keeping skills. They also need to understand how to gain and utilise information, develop their skills, solve real work problems, manage and adapt technology that is mostly used in related industry. (James R. 2005). Therefore, researchers have suggested that future of technical education should be flexible enough to prepare students for both industry and college simultaneously (Roberts & Ball, 2009).Through Total Quality Management (TQM) and various modes such as up gradation of graduates as clients and meeting customer requirements, importance of delivering qualified vocation and technical education is measured in previous studies. The professionals who are well -versed in Technology should know how to apply these concepts. In turn, there must be notable changes in curriculum of industrial technology with special reference to technical management subjects. Sarapin and Vorvoreanu (2000) stressed importance of terming Supervision, as Supervision and team work building'. However, other researchers focused on improved curriculum standards since they firmly believed that vocational education must meet students as well as industrial requirements. Further, strengths and limitations of existing curriculum should be eval uated (Yildirim and Simsek, 2001). In spite of discussion about variations of issues, consensus is on objectives of forging vocational and technical institutions, i.e. ensuring that students graduating from such institutions possess required knowledge, skills and attitudes to sustain market place; acquisition of knowledge, relative to purpose and objective of organization, management development system, organizational challenges, acquisition of skills in reference to task performance, communication and planning and acquisition of attitudes in terms of respect, appreciation and honesty.Several authors and organizations have discussed issue of quality of Technical and Vocational Education Training(TVET). (National Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training development, 2006, Inter-Agency Working Group on TVET Indicators, 2012). TVET can be defined as the totality of characteristics of a learning programme and of its provider, through which expectations of beneficiaries and quality standards are met (Law no.87/2006, Quality assurance in education Law P.2).In its turn, national quality assurance Framework in TVET consists of those principles, methodologies, procedures, actions and evaluating instruments through which quality in TVET is assured, at both levels (system and suppliers).It is worth mentioning that quality principles are based on European Common Quality Assurance Framework in VET model which take into consideration five elements which are namely, Methodology (e. …

Stakeholder engagement within the sustainability assessment of bioenergy: Case studies in heat, power and perennial and annual crops from the UK

The growth of the fledgling UK bioenergy sector is characterised by the slow development of the market and supply chains for biomass, resulting in part from potential market entrants' and other stakeholders' unfamiliarity with its emerging technologies, and in part from lack of coherent policy support. The nature of the sector demands mutually reinforcing activity on local, regional and national scales. TSEC-Biosys is a consortium research project that addresses the development of the sector from economic, environmental, social, regulatory and policy perspectives. A participatory sustainability assessment framework is being developed and tested, based on systems thinking and approaches and using stakeholder engagement methods derived from Multiple Criterion Decision Analysis (MCDA). A series of case studies and workshops is being used to test the framework. The participatory processes involve producers, consumers, other stakeholders, members of the public, experts, regulators and policy-makers. We describe here the initial development of sustainability criteria and attributes from local focus groups on (1) woodfuel for heat and co-firing for electricity generation, held in the county of Yorkshire, and (2) perennial and annual energy crops for heat and electricity generation, held in the county of Dorset. During the focus groups, issues of concern, objectives, and sustainable development evaluation criteria for emerging bio-energy systems, as well as barriers and drivers to the development of the sector were elicited from the participants. The workshops revealed that some chains are resource-driven (i.e. the availability of the resource is the driver for supply chain development), while others are demand-driven. Considerable variations in issues of concern, objectives and evaluation criteria were found between the focus group cases and among the participants in each subgroup. Although the information gathered aided the development of the emerging sustainability assessment framework, it is concluded that with such a diversity in perceptions and perspectives among stakeholders more creative and possibly novel approaches to problem structuring (including techniques for problem identification and system description) are required. Subsequent work on this project has thus focussed on the development of (1) problem structuring processes to enable actions from descriptions, and (2) ways of describing actions within “narratives” or storylines.

Potlatch and Powwow: Dynamics of Culture through Lives Lived Dancing

Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Tracy J. Andrews, Jon Olney; Potlatch and Powwow: Dynamics of Culture through Lives Lived Dancing. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 1 January 2007; 31 (1): 63–108. doi: https://doi.org/10.17953/aicr.31.1.f7n87533224174g7 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest Search

CLINICAL PLACEMENTS IN RESIDENTIAL AGED CARE FACILITIES: THE IMPACT ON NURSING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF AGED CARE AND THE EFFECT ON CAREER PLANS

Objectives: Undergraduate nursing students have often found clinical placements in aged care unsatisfactory and/or unsettling, dissuading them from considering aged care as an employment option on graduation. This study asked which elements of the clinical placement experience produced that outcome; and what changes could yield more positive outcomes. Design: A descriptive qualitative pilot study was carried out in late 2003. A combination of nominal groups and semi-structured interviews was used with students and experienced nurses to identify commonalities and variations in issues nominated as important and in the views expressed on those issues. Transcripts were independently analysed by two experienced investigators. Themes identified were discussed among the researchers. Subjects: Fourteen volunteer undergraduate nursing students, all of whom had completed clinical placements in residential care and some of whom had prior experience in such facilities, participated in the nominal groups. Twelve registered nurses who had acted as clinical teachers in aged care facilities were interviewed. Results: Perceived issues included: unexamined assumptions about nursing’s core skills; lack of pre-placement orientation to the residential care environment; the appeal of and apprehension aroused by autonomous practice; and status, income and career progression considerations. Conclusions: Analysis of the sometimes ambivalent and conflicting views expressed pointed to possible changes, all within the domain of training and employing institutions, capable of bringing submerged issues to the surface for examination and resolution as part of raising student understanding of gerontology as a demanding specialty and residential care as a rewarding career.

The decline in adult book lending in UK public libraries and its possible causes

Annual book issues from UK public libraries have been decreasing since 1980, due mainly to decreases in issues of adult fiction and, to a lesser extent, adult non‐fiction. This paper describes an analysis of trends from 1980 to 1998 in annual book issues and selected factors that may have caused their decrease. Simple linear regressions were used to test predictors of issues over this period. The factors studied were: decreased funding of public libraries and library book stocks; reductions in opening hours and numbers of public libraries; increased personal affluence and leisure opportunities; and increased book purchases by readers. Significant regression relationships were found between annual book issues and all the factors studied. However, book issues showed the closest relationship to personal spending power, as measured by real households' disposable income, which explained over 96 per cent of the variation in issues. This compared with 92 per cent of the variation in issues being explained by the number of libraries open 45 hours per week, 80 per cent by real consumer spending on books and just 60 per cent by real book spend in public libraries.

A help-line for children. Seasonal variations in issues

The objectives of the study were to describe monthly variations in issues in calls to a help-line for children and adolescents. All 80,983 calls to a Red Cross Help-Line for children in 1991–1997 were included. In 22,698 calls, information about age, sex or issue could be identified. A monthly variation in frequency of calls with peaks in April and November and a correlation with the absolute values of monthly changes in length of day were found. Conversations concerning psychiatric suffering were more frequent in January or February and less frequent than expected in May/June and December. Conversations about sexuality correlated with the frequencies of births in the adult population 9 months later. A spring and fall peak in total calling and a winter peak in calls for depression, anxiety, pain and neglect were described.

Family Leave Legislation: State and Federal Initiatives

Prior to 1987, neither the federal government nor any of the 50 states had a family leave policy in place. In the winter of 1988 a survey was completed on the 28 states and the federal government that introduced parental and family leave bills during the 1987 legislative session. Four states passed bills; Congress did not. Results indicate much variation in issues raised and proposals reached, particularly with respect to length of leave, size of employer, age and relation of care recipient, wage replacement, job security, and benefit coverage. Based on the findings, specific recommendations are presented for both policymakers and family life educators who wish to become more informed and politically active in this area.