When is a bologna sandwich better than sex? A defense of small-n case study evaluations

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Eck
Keyword(s):  
Small N ◽  
Better Than

Municipal wastewater treatment with pond–constructed wetland system: a case study

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (12) ◽  
pp. 325-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Wang ◽  
X. Bai ◽  
J. Qiu ◽  
B. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Constructed Wetland ◽  
Municipal Wastewater ◽  
Municipal Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Oxidation Pond ◽  
System A ◽  
Treated Effluent ◽  
Wetland System ◽  
Oxidation Ponds ◽  
Better Than

The performance of a pond–constructed wetland system in the treatment of municipal wastewater in Kiaochow city was studied; and comparison with oxidation ponds system was conducted. In the post-constructed wetland, the removal of COD, TN and TP is 24%, 58.5% and 24.8% respectively. The treated effluent from the constructed wetland can meet the Chinese National Agricultural and Irrigation Standard. The comparison between pond–constructed wetland system and oxidation pond system shows that total nitrogen removal in a constructed wetland is better than that in an oxidation pond and the TP removal is inferior. A possible reason is the low dissolved oxygen concentration in the wetland. Constructed wetlands can restrain the growth of algae effectively, and can produce obvious ecological and economical benefits.

Improvement of environmental health and hygiene practices - case study in the Northern Province

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 109-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Mathegana ◽  
L. K. Chauke ◽  
F. A.O. Otieno
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Northern Province ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Sustainable Improvement ◽  
Hygiene Practices ◽  
Proper Training ◽  
The Government ◽  
Better Than

The primary purpose of an improved water supply and sanitation is the achievement of acceptable health and hygiene standards as well as the sustainable improvement of the environment. Many governments recognize this and so they budget for large sums of money to improve these services to the communities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the different gaps in environmental health and hygiene practices with the aim of suggesting a strategy of improving this in the Northern Province of South Africa. To do this, 231 households and 30 schools were surveyed. Workshops and visits to different government departments were also used. This paper reports the results from this study which indicate that the situation in schools was not any better than that in households, with more than 90% of the villages still dependent on the unimproved pit latrines and 56,6% relying on standpipes which were (70% of the time) non-operational. The main problems identified seem to those associated with implementation and maintenance. The study concludes that with proper training of the water committees and their active involvement with the government and NGOs, environmental health and hygiene problems can be minimized or eliminated.

Introducing Problem-based Learning to Special Needs Dentistry—A Case Study

2002 ◽  
Vol os9 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raman Bedi ◽  
Jackie A Champion ◽  
Roger Davies
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Training And Education ◽  
Mixed Response ◽  
Conventional Teaching ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Made In

Introduction In order to promote training and education in special-needs dentistry an attempt was made to introduce problem-based learning (PBL) as a method of postgraduate dental education. The aim of this paper was to review the principles of PBL and report on a case study using this methodology. Method The case study was of a PBL session, on the subject of ‘problems of obtaining appropriate dental care for people with epilepsy’, undertaken at a national conference. Delegates were asked to complete a pre- and post-session questionnaire on PBL and their attitudes to the session. Results The session received a mixed response. Only 33 (35%) thought the session was valuable and only 20 (31%) thought it was better than conventional teaching methods and yet over half (55%) said they would like to attend more PBL in special-needs dentistry. Professionals complementary to dentistry were more likely to find the PBL session of value and to prefer the method to a more conventional format than dentists were (chi-square=5.5, df=1, p<0.05 and chi-square=5.9, df=1, p<0.05 respectively). Conclusion Valuable feedback was received from delegates. This will enable improvements to be made in future courses so that the effectiveness of PBL can be optimised.

The Plan Guidelines for Villages under the Background of Nomadic Settlement — A Case Study of Luqu County in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 5886-5893
Author(s):  
Lu Cang Wang ◽  
Wei Li ◽  
Jing Gao
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Functional Area ◽  
Spatial Displacement ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Construction Tasks ◽  
The Village ◽  
Pastoral Farming ◽  
Better Than

“The Project of Nomadic Settlement” is one of the major construction tasks for “Gannan Important Water Supply Ecological Functional Area of Yellow River”. Because of the distribution of population and settlements have obvious discreteness and wavering in alpine pasture, it is necessary to plan and guide agricultural and grazing villages during the process of the construction of nomadic settlements, spatial displacement and integration of population and settlement. The nomadic habitation mode in Luqu county undergoes four stages. At present, it adopts four settlement modes, that is, centralized settlement mode in the county town, settlement mode in the village, settlement along the highway mode and dispersed settlement mode, involving a total of 2,645households,13,783people and be arranged in 21 settlements. The paper adopts 14 indicators related conditions of economic development, social development conditions, geographic conditions, measures the overall strength of 24 administrative villages in Luqu, the whole villages are divided into four grade. The results show that the suburban villages are better than the surrounding villages and towns, pure pastoral farming are better than farming-pastoral villages. Accordingly, 24 villages are divided into four types—community-based villages, developing villages, controlling villages, and revoking-merging villages. Finally, it also proposes the path on village plan guidelines.

Potential use of waste from tree pruning and recovered plastic to obtain a building material: Case study of Merida, Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (11) ◽  
pp. 1222-1230
Author(s):  
Ricardo Herbé Cruz-Estrada ◽  
Javier Guillén-Mallette ◽  
Carlos Vidal Cupul-Manzano ◽  
Josué Iván Balam-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Building Material ◽  
Mechanical Performance ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Weight Ratio ◽  
Plastic Composite ◽  
Trees And Shrubs ◽  
Tree Pruning ◽  
Potential Use ◽  
Better Than

This work presents a study on the use of wood and plastic wastes generated in abundance in Merida, Mexico, to help to reduce them in order to mitigate environmental deterioration. The use of these wastes is proposed to obtain a low-cost building material. So, the escalation process (i.e., extrusion) at the pilot level to obtain a prototype of a wood–plastic composite (WPC) corrugated sheet to evaluate the technical feasibility to make a low-cost product is reported. A corrugated sheet with recycled high-density polyethylene (R-HDPE) was produced. The R-HDPE was collected from Merida’s Separation Plant. The wood came from the trimmings of different varieties of trees and shrubs that are periodically pruned. WPC sheets with virgin HDPE were prepared to assess its effect on the materials’ mechanical performance. The wood/HDPE weight ratio was 40/60. The performance of the WPC sheets was compared with that of commercial products with similar characteristics, namely acrylic and polyester sheets reinforced with fibreglass, and black asphalt-saturated cardboard sheets. Thus, the effect of natural weathering on the maximum tensile tearing force and on the maximum flexural load of the different types of sheets was evaluated. Although the mechanical performance of the WPC sheets was lower than that of the acrylic and polyacrylic sheets, their performance was much better than that of the cheap black asphalt-saturated cardboard sheets. So, they are a good option to be used as low-cost temporary roofing.

scholarly journals Results from a Psychology OER pilot program: faculty and student perceptions, cost savings, and academic outcomes

Open Praxis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Juliana Magro ◽  
Sara V Tabaei
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Academic Outcomes ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
Open Textbooks ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pedagogical Changes ◽  
Better Than

This case study describes the library’s experience of collaborating with an undergraduate Psychology Department at Touro College to integrate open textbooks into their program. We discuss the pedagogical changes as well as explore the impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) on students’ savings, their academic outcomes and perceptions of OER. Furthermore, we highlight the successes and shortcomings in having the library as a central OER partner. To measure the results, we surveyed students and conducted a faculty survey and a focus group, in addition to analyzing the students’ final grades. This pilot program delivered strong results. The students’ perception was very positive, and faculty’s opinions on the textbooks used were mixed. Some professors felt that the textbook lacked important content, but because of its openness, they added their own content to the book. Students enrolled in OER courses performed better than those enrolled in the same courses using a commercial textbook.

scholarly journals Random adjustment - based Chaotic Metaheuristic algorithms for image contrast enhancement

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Vina Ayumi ◽  
L.M. Rasdi Rere ◽  
Mohamad Ivan Fanany ◽  
Aniati Murni Arymurthy
Keyword(s):  
Contrast Enhancement ◽  
Harmony Search ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Optimization Method ◽  
Large Solution ◽  
Swarm Optimization ◽  
Image Contrast Enhancement ◽  
Simulation Results ◽  
Better Than

Metaheuristic algorithm is a powerful optimization method, in which it can solve problemsby exploring the ordinarily large solution search space of these instances, that are believed tobe hard in general. However, the performances of these algorithms signicantly depend onthe setting of their parameter, while is not easy to set them accurately as well as completelyrelying on the problem's characteristic. To ne-tune the parameters automatically, manymethods have been proposed to address this challenge, including fuzzy logic, chaos, randomadjustment and others. All of these methods for many years have been developed indepen-dently for automatic setting of metaheuristic parameters, and integration of two or more ofthese methods has not yet much conducted. Thus, a method that provides advantage fromcombining chaos and random adjustment is proposed. Some popular metaheuristic algo-rithms are used to test the performance of the proposed method, i.e. simulated annealing,particle swarm optimization, dierential evolution, and harmony search. As a case study ofthis research is contrast enhancement for images of Cameraman, Lena, Boat and Rice. Ingeneral, the simulation results show that the proposed methods are better than the originalmetaheuristic, chaotic metaheuristic, and metaheuristic by random adjustment.

scholarly journals DOMINANT OR DIFFERENT? GENDER ISSUES IN COMPUTER SUPPORTED LEARNING

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Gunn
Keyword(s):  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
Technology Literacy ◽  
Dominant Male ◽  
Interaction Style ◽  
Cultural Complexity ◽  
Interaction Styles ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Electronic Channels ◽  
Better Than

A significant increase in the use of computer-supported learning (CSL) within schools and universities across the world gives rise to concern about gender-related differences in performance and interaction style in these environments. Research has shown that initial perceptions of CSL environments as democratic and offering equal opportunities to all students were flawed because interactions that take place through electronic channels lose none of the socio-cultural complexity or gender imbalance that exists within society. Much of the recent literature states that women are disadvantaged because of inferior levels of access and technology literacy and dominant male behavior. However, the assumption that difference implies disadvantage is challenged by evidence that variable factors such as professed confidence and apparently dominant interaction styles do not necessarily lead to better educational opportunity and performance. This paper contains a summary of gender-related issues identified by international research and academic practice together with supportive case study examples. The conclusion is that women often perform better than men despite the observable differences in interaction style.

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