Adapting to Constraints - A Study of Green Star New Zealand's Effects on Decision Making using Classic Grounded Theory

<p>Over the last 25 years building rating systems have been developed to quantify and promote sustainable development in the construction industry. Many countries have now developed their own rating system and some systems have been adapted for international use. The different outcomes and results from their use have been under much scrutiny from developers, clients, industry, and academics. Concerns such as increased cost, points buying, and discrepancies between the rated design and completed projects have been identified. In order to better understand why these concerns occur, the Green Star New Zealand rating system – adapted from Green Star Australia – was studied to quantify its effects on rated projects. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the effects of Green Star New Zealand on the decision making process. Specifically, the way in which this system affects the decision making processes during the design of a rated building was investigated to provide insight into reasons why these different outcomes may occur. This was undertaken through a classic grounded theory study during which professionals experienced in the use of Green Star were interviewed, and the data collected from the interviews was inductively analysed to generate conceptual theory and concepts. The interview data and discussion with the participants identified that decision making is affected largely through the different constraints and conditions encountered when using Green Star and how they are adapted to. These are applied to decision making through a number of different ways, being directly or indirectly related to Green Star, something decided on with or without prior experience, or internal or external to the design team. The analysis identified several categories which explained processes and behaviours resulting from the use of Green Star. These are ‘managing Green Star requirements’, ‘credit targeting’, ‘working with unknowns’, ‘disconnection of knowledge’, and ‘balancing project requirements’. It is these categories that caused adaptation to emerge as the primary process of resolving constraints, with ‘adapting to constraints’ emerging as the core variable.</p>

Adapting to Constraints - A Study of Green Star New Zealand's Effects on Decision Making using Classic Grounded Theory

<p>Over the last 25 years building rating systems have been developed to quantify and promote sustainable development in the construction industry. Many countries have now developed their own rating system and some systems have been adapted for international use. The different outcomes and results from their use have been under much scrutiny from developers, clients, industry, and academics. Concerns such as increased cost, points buying, and discrepancies between the rated design and completed projects have been identified. In order to better understand why these concerns occur, the Green Star New Zealand rating system – adapted from Green Star Australia – was studied to quantify its effects on rated projects. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate the effects of Green Star New Zealand on the decision making process. Specifically, the way in which this system affects the decision making processes during the design of a rated building was investigated to provide insight into reasons why these different outcomes may occur. This was undertaken through a classic grounded theory study during which professionals experienced in the use of Green Star were interviewed, and the data collected from the interviews was inductively analysed to generate conceptual theory and concepts. The interview data and discussion with the participants identified that decision making is affected largely through the different constraints and conditions encountered when using Green Star and how they are adapted to. These are applied to decision making through a number of different ways, being directly or indirectly related to Green Star, something decided on with or without prior experience, or internal or external to the design team. The analysis identified several categories which explained processes and behaviours resulting from the use of Green Star. These are ‘managing Green Star requirements’, ‘credit targeting’, ‘working with unknowns’, ‘disconnection of knowledge’, and ‘balancing project requirements’. It is these categories that caused adaptation to emerge as the primary process of resolving constraints, with ‘adapting to constraints’ emerging as the core variable.</p>

Care Process in Iranian Nursing Homes: A Grounded Theory Study

Introduction: The need and use of long-term care services for older people has increased with their rising population and there is little information about the state of serving in nursing homes. This study aimed to identify the caring process in Iranian nursing homes. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in three Iranian nursing homes using grounded theory approach. The participants included 28 individuals (14 older people and 14 caregivers). The data were collected using unstructured interviews up to data saturation, and analyzed by constant comparative method. Results: Fragmented care emerged as the core variable. The main factor for developing the core variable was ‘experience-based caring’. Other factors included ‘inappropriate structure for care’ as contextual factors in the nursing homes environment and ‘keeping instead of caring’, ‘dismal life’, and ‘up and down of the path’ as strategies and consequences. Conclusions: The most common type of care was the routine and unplanned one with focusing on physical aspects. To improve a delivery care system for older people in nursing homes, proposing a care plan with focus on an integrated model of care in nursing homes, provision of instructions for treatment, as well as supervision and training caregivers to provide better care are necessary

How Nurses Apply Patterns of Knowing in Clinical Practice: A Grounded Theory Study

BACKGROUND፡ Nurses require a great deal of knowledge to provide a comprehensive and effective nursing care. A number of patterns have been put into place to help nurses acquire this knowledge. The aim of this study was to describe the core variable in the process of using patterns of knowing by nurses in clinical practice.METHODS: The study was conducted in qualitative and grounded theory approach, between April 2018 and January 2020. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim. Nineteen clinical nurses were interviewed, and eight observation sessions were conducted in different hospital departments. Participants were first selected through purposeful and then theoretical sampling. Data were analyzed and interpreted using constant comparison analysis approach.RESULTS: The findings of the study indicated that nurses apply the patterns of knowing in three ways in their clinical practice: "cohesion of patterns of knowing", "domination of some patterns of knowing" and "elimination of some patterns of knowing". The core variable of this process is cohesion of patterns of knowing in the domain of flexibility.CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study indicate that application of patterns of knowing is practiced in a range of nurse flexibility in clinical settings.

The Emotion Regulation Roots of Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a core variable in the study and practice of organizational psychology because of its implications for desirable work outcomes. Knowledge of its antecedents is abundant and informative, but there are still psychological processes underlying job satisfaction that have not received complete attention. This is the case of employee emotion regulation. In this study, we argue that employees’ behaviors directed to manage their affective states participate in their level of job satisfaction and hypothesize that employee affect-improving and -worsening emotion regulation behaviors increase and decrease, respectively, job satisfaction, through the experience of positive and negative affect. Using a diary study with a sample of professionals from diverse jobs and organizations, for the most part, the mediational hypotheses were supported by the results albeit a more complex relationship was found in the case of affect worsening emotion regulation. This study contributes to expanding the job satisfaction and emotion regulation literatures and informs practitioners in people management in organizations about another route to foster and sustain positive attitudes at work.

Weighting National Survey Data: why, how and which weight?

Background Weighting of national data is a procedure that enables the sample to be more representative of the target population. Weighting procedure is a thorough exercise and yields several types of weights. However, considerable variation exists among authors on which weight to use leaving the researchers baffled. In this article we share our experience on weighting for a few recent national surveys in Bangladesh. Methods We generated four weights: the base weight calculated from probabilities of selection, and non-response adjustments, population calibration, and trimmed weights. Finally we checked weighted means, medians, ranges, standard errors, confidence intervals, variances, multiplicative effects, design effects and prevalence of a key variable of the survey to decide on which weight to use. Results Compared to unweighted distribution, weighting makes the sample distribution to conform to the population. Among the four calculated weights, the trimmed weight had narrow standard error and variance, and smallest design and multiplicative effects. It yielded an acceptable prevalence and distribution of a core variable. Conclusion Though weighting is a time intensive exercise, it had a favorable effect on the sample distribution to comply with the Bangladeshi population. Among the four weights, we show that the trimmed weight met all parameters of good quality and precision. Therefore, we recommend to use this weight for national level surveys in Bangladesh.

Consistent Boundary Conditions for Age Calculations

Age can be evaluated at any time and position to understand transport processes taking place in the aquatic environment, including for reactive tracers. In the framework of the Constituent-oriented Age and Residence time Theory (CART), the age of a constituent or an aggregate of constituents, including the water itself, is usually defined as the time elapsed since leaving the boundary where the age is set or reset to zero. The age is evaluated as the ratio of the age concentration to the concentration, which are the solution of partial differential equations. The boundary conditions for the concentration and age concentration cannot be prescribed independently of each other. Instead, they must be derived from boundary conditions designed beforehand for the age distribution function (the histogram of the ages, the age theory core variable), even when this variable is not calculated explicitly. Consistent boundary conditions are established for insulating, departure and arrival boundaries. Gas exchanges through the water–air interface are also considered. Age fields ensuing from consistent boundary conditions and, occasionally, non-consistent ones are discussed, suggesting that the methodology advocated herein can be utilized by most age calculations, be they used for diagnosing the results of idealised models or realistic ones.

Is Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring of Livestock a Dream or Is It Realistic? A Review

For all homoeothermic living organisms, heart rate (HR) is a core variable to control the metabolic energy production in the body, which is crucial to realize essential bodily functions. Consequently, HR monitoring is becoming increasingly important in research of farm animals, not only for production efficiency, but also for animal welfare. Real-time HR monitoring for humans has become feasible though there are still shortcomings for continuously accurate measuring. This paper is an effort to estimate whether it is realistic to get a continuous HR sensor for livestock that can be used for long term monitoring. The review provides the reported techniques to monitor HR of living organisms by emphasizing their principles, advantages, and drawbacks. Various properties and capabilities of these techniques are compared to check the potential to transfer the mostly adequate sensor technology of humans to livestock in term of application. Based upon this review, we conclude that the photoplethysmographic (PPG) technique seems feasible for implementation in livestock. Therefore, we present the contributions to overcome challenges to evolve to better solutions. Our study indicates that it is realistic today to develop a PPG sensor able to be integrated into an ear tag for mid-sized and larger farm animals for continuously and accurately monitoring their HRs.

Modeling of Magnetic Elements Including Losses—Application to Variable Inductor

This paper proposes and develops a circuit-based model aiming to simulate variable magnetic power elements in power electronic converters. The derived model represents the magnetic element by a reluctance-based equivalent circuit. The model takes into consideration device core losses, with the main emphasis given to hysteresis losses, which are modeled using the Jiles-Atherton model. The core loss model is further validated on different ferromagnetic materials to prove its range of applicability. The winding losses of the magnetic device are also taken into consideration, which are obtained using Dowell empirical formulas. In addition, the frequency dependence of the device losses is also considered. The proposed modeling procedure has been applied to study and characterize a double E-core variable power inductor structure in a 1 kW SiC full bridge DC-DC converter. The procedure has been verified by comparing the simulation results to the experimental measurements, confirming the validity and accuracy of the full circuit-based model.