Realising the Potential – and Lost Opportunities – for Peer Collaboration in D&T Setting

This paper follows up our theoretical discussion of the potential for collaborative problem solving in Design and Technology (Hennessy and Murphy, 1999). In this paper we report our empirical investigation of peer collaboration in a setting where we identified the presence of significant pre-conditions for productive collaboration. The study investigated the participation of two boys aged 13 who worked together with their teacher over 8 weeks in designing and making an aid for a child with a disability. We analysed their participation using a framework of key features derived from the research literature. Our analyses yielded evidence of effective collaboration in the early design stage, but the students' collaboration and their progress were subsequently undermined. The reasons related to the students' ability to collaborate and the tension for the teacher between students' learning needs and client needs within an authentic activity. The outcome was a successful product but a wealth of lost opportunities – and lack of support – for the students' collaborative problem solving and Design and Technology (D&T) learning. Our observations confirm that despite little evidence of collaboration in D&T, this setting offers extensive resources for supporting collaboration in joint design, planning and problem-solving activities. We also identify impediments to collaboration as a learning mechanism. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The quartiles of the maximum entropy distribution

The quartile points and interquartile range of the maximum entropy (ME) distribution and sample distribution are compared, using expected values for sampling from a standard normal population. For sample sizes n?20 such that the sample quartile points are uniquely defined, the ME quartile points and interquartile range are found to have lower mean-squared error (MSE).     

Using FTE and RVU performance measures to assess financial viability of academic nurse-managed centers

Financial performance measures are essential to improve the fiscal management of academic nurse-managed centers (ANMCs). Measures are compared among six ANMCs in a consortium and against an external, self-sustainable, profitable ANMC and national data for family practice physicians. Performance measures help identify a center's strengths and weaknesses facilitating the development of strategies aimed at a variety of targets (business practices related to revenue and costs) to improve financial viability. Using a variety of financial performance measures to inform decision making will aid ANMCs in keeping their doors open for business.     

Clinic visit and waiting: patient education and satisfaction

Teaching should be part of every patient's health care. Even though this study did not show that teaching improves patient satisfaction with the clinic visit, it did indicate that subjects who were taught by the nurse were more satisfied with the education received during that visit.$     

Farmland prices and land-use changes in periurban protected natural areas

This paper provides empirical and conceptual insights in analysing the factors that determine the prices of farmland within Protected Natural Areas that are close to densely populated urban areas, the changes in land use experiences as well as the additional control policies needed to curb this unsustainable trend.The Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve nearby the metropolitan area of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) is the case study considered and its bordering non-protected rural area is used as a reference for comparison. A spatial hedonic farmland price model is estimated and the willingness of land purchasers to pay for different farmland characteristics quantified both inside and outside the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. The main results are that: (1) residential development is taking place in all categories of farmland, (2) aside from neighbouring prices, farmland prices depend on different factors depending on whether the marketed plots stand inside or outside the Protected Natural Area, (3) the “reserve effect” on land prices is less powerful than the “proximity to the metropolitan area (and motorway) effect” observed from villages of the non-protected area located in the 3rd crown of Bilbao, (4) the reasons for farmers non-compliance with policy regulations is the necessary knowledge base for the farmland conservation policy design and (5) in the light of the results, three development-control policy instruments such as Payments for Ecosystem Services, Tradable Planning Permits and development-taxes are discussed considering the factors that could improve compliance.     

The hidden cost of wildfires: Economic valuation of health effects of wildfire smoke exposure in Southern California

There is a growing concern that human health impacts from exposure to wildfire smoke are ignored in estimates of monetized damages from wildfires. Current research highlights the need for better data collection and analysis of these impacts. Using unique primary data, this paper quantifies the economic cost of health effects from the largest wildfire in Los Angeles County's modern history. A cost of illness estimate is $9.50 per exposed person per day. However, theory and empirical research consistently find that this measure largely underestimates the true economic cost of health effects from exposure to a pollutant in that it ignores the cost of defensive actions taken as well as disutility. For the first time, the defensive behavior method is applied to calculate the willingness to pay for a reduction in one wildfire smoke induced symptom day, which is estimated to be $84.42 per exposed person per day.     

Give Macroeconomic Stability and Growth in Russia a Chance

This paper identifies and investigates conceptual and empirical links among Russia's disappointing growth performance of the mid-1990s, its costly and eventually unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998 and the spectacular rise of non-payments. Non-payments developed into a system that flourished in an atmosphere of fundamental inconsistency between a macroeconomic policy geared at sharp disinflation and a microeconomic policy of bailing-out enterprises through soft budget constraints. It embodies a large volume of untargeted, implicit subsidies in the order of 7–10 per cent of GDP, which has stifled growth, contributed to the 1998 meltdown through its impact on public debt and made at best a questionable contribution to equity. The overwhelming priority at this point is to dismantle this system, thereby promoting enterprise restructuring and growth (by hardening budget constraints) and medium-term macroeconomic stability (by reducing the size of the subsidies).