The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and the NEPSY, A Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment, to differentiate between the subtypes of Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). The CAS and NEPSY are neuropsychological instruments which provide norms for AD/HD children in general. This study examined the performance of the two subtypes of AD/HD on the CAS and NEPSY. In addition, this study examined the performance of the two AD/HD groups on the Screening Test for Auditory Processing Disorders (SCAN). Since AD/HD children tend to have difficulty with language, the SCAN was used to determine if any of the AD/HD subjects had auditory processing difficulties that might impact their performance on the CAS and/or NEPSY subtests. The sample consisted of 118 children between the ages of 8 and 12 years of age. Using the DSM-IV criteria, the children were diagnosed as having three types of AD/HD: A Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type (AD/HD-HI), a Predominantly Inattentive Type (AD/HD-I) and a Combined Type The subtypes were also identified by the Attention Deficit Disorders Evaluation Scale-Home Version (ADDES-H). Only two subtypes, AD/HD-I and AD/HD-C, were identified by the ADDES-H. There were not enough AD/HD-HI subjects to include in the study. Therefore, this study focused on the AD/HD-I and AD/HD-C subtypes. A binomial logistic regression analysis was conducted on the AD/HD-I and AD/HD-C subtypes with selected subtests of the NEPSY and the four PASS Scales of the CAS. Results indicated a significant difference between the AD/HD-I and AD/HD-C groups on the Tower subtest of the NEPSY and the Planning Scale of the CAS. The Tower and the Planning Scale are both purported measures of executive functioning; however, results of the Planning Scale were in an unexpected direction. No significant difference was found between the two AD/HD groups on the other subtests examined. The results of the SCAN analysis suggested there were no significant differences in auditory processing between the two AD/HD groups. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

This study examined the correlation between two commercially available behavior rating scales. The two scales used were the Behavior Dimensions Rating Scale (BDRS) and the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC). Students from a special education behavior management class (primarily students with emotional disabilities) were rated on the two scales and students from a general education behavior management class (primarily students with conduct problems without disabilities) were rated on the two scales.

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Published Article / The Meat Safety Act, Act 40 of 2000 compels all registered abattoirs in South Africa to implement and maintain a Hygiene Management System (HMS) to ensure the safe processing of meat. The HMS is a basic food safety system that focuses on process standards that are designed to reduce the risk of contamination of meat and meat products during processing. Part of the Poultry regulations provide the requirements of HMS and were published by government on the 24th of February 2006. However, no guidelines were published or made available to poultry abattoir operators on how to interpret and implement the requirements of the HMS. The aim of this research was to determine the extent of HMS implementation at poultry abattoirs in Gauteng. The intention was to identify short comings, if any, within implemented HMSs with the intention of promoting compliance. This was achieved by developing common themes from research audit findings. These themes were then used to suggest critical areas that should be addressed during the development of an HMS implementation guideline document.

The loss of ecological integrity as a result of urban spread and construction threatens the overall biodiversity of urban areas and prompts us to consider means of better including ecological biodiversity within development projects. The UK’s best practice tool for ensuring the integration of ecology into such projects is the Building Research Establishments Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). This thesis seeks to identify the efficacy of the current approach to ecological integration within BREEAM, and enable development to foster biodiversity and ecology more positively in the urban environment. Qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used to develop a new approach to the integration of ecology within an existing and nationally recognised model. This began by exploring the efficacy of and the main flaws in the present system by a survey of ecologists with experience of the BREEAM process. This led to a new approach to establishing the ecological value of urban ecology utilising a new calculation methodology, adapting the current scheme to focus on land use change as a result of urban land use planning and development. This new approach utilises habitat changes at its core to measure positive and negative change and indicate potential design solutions in land use planning within a development. The innovative methodology was tested using an in depth case study to review and discuss its effective application. The outcome was a new way to address the important variables of habitat integration and linkages maintaining ecological integrity and provision of ecosystem services. It is considered that the outlined approach of the new Land Use and Ecology section of BREEAM is suitable for integration into the next iteration in 2010, which will enable development to positively foster biodiversity and ecology in the urban environment.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T14:30:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Ferreira Rodrigues.pdf: 866066 bytes, checksum: 2f84a5b70ea9e5bf8348f1c89febf8a8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-28 / This study aimed to identify, in the opinion of teachers, possible repercussions in the daily classroom according to the results obtained from the System Evaluation of Educational Achievement of São Paulo (SARESP). We seek to identify and analyze changes in practices of teachers who would result from implementation of SARESP. We chose qualitative research in order to understand the phenomenon in the context of pedagogical practice and its manifestations, from the description to analyze and interpret the manifest meanings evident in responses to the questionnaires. We chose to select only language teachers of Portuguese and Mathematics, who teach at the final grades of elementary school and High school, the state public school teachers and with five or more years of teaching, thus reaching a total of 16 teachers from various regions, school units and realities of the city of São Paulo. The questionnaires were organized under three axes of analysis: axis 1: identify what teachers know about and SARESP and the Education Development Index of the State of São Paulo (IDESP); axis 2: explained the opinion of teachers on the network deployment and SARESP and IDESP; axis 3: identified the possible impact on the practice of teachers surveyed by deploying SARESP and IDESP. Studies show that the use of SARESP by schools and teachers tends to favor the teaching plan and curriculum, however, that there is a dearth of research that reflects on the use SARESP results of the daily classroom in the opinion of teachers. The evaluation of system can be an ally, if it can be reflected, committed to the subjects, their contexts and pathways, providing tools for the assessment, development and learning / Esta pesquisa buscou identificar, na opinião de professores, eventuais repercussões no cotidiano da sala de aula em função dos resultados obtidos no Sistema de Avaliação do Rendimento Escolar do Estado de São Paulo (SARESP). Procuramos identificar e analisar alterações ocorridas nas práticas dos professores que fossem resultantes da implementação do SARESP. Optamos pela pesquisa qualitativa no sentido de compreender o fenômeno no contexto da prática pedagógica e suas manifestações, para a partir da descrição, analisar e interpretar os significados manifestos nas respostas dos questionários. Optamos por selecionar somente professores de Língua Portuguesa e Matemática, que lecionassem nas séries finais do Ensino Fundamental II e Médio, professores da rede pública estadual e com cinco anos ou mais de magistério, chegando assim a um total de 16 professores de diversas regiões, unidades escolares e realidades da cidade de São Paulo. Os questionários foram organizados sob três eixos de análise eixo 1: identificou o que os professores conhecem sobre o SARESP e o Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação do Estado de São Paulo (IDESP); eixo 2: explicitou a opinião dos professores da rede sobre a implantação do SARESP E IDESP; eixo 3: identificou as possíveis repercussões na prática dos docentes pesquisados com a implantação do SARESP e IDESP. Estudos revelam que o uso do SARESP pela escola e pelos professores tende a favorecer o plano pedagógico e curricular, contudo, que há uma carência de pesquisa que reflita sobre o uso dos resultados do SARESP no cotidiano da sala de aula na opinião dos professores. A avaliação de sistema pode ser uma aliada, se puder ser refletida, comprometida com os sujeitos, seus contextos e percursos, oferecendo instrumentos para a avaliação, desenvolvimento e aprendizagens

This study assessed the dilemmas associated with apprentice assessment systems in the New Apprenticeship Training and Assessment System (NATAS), (State based system), and the Modular system (National system) in Western Australia. Although both were described as competency-based systems these different schemes showed the variations that existed under this general description of training and assessment. The Modular system was a competency-based system which emphasised outcomes rather than the process of training.The emphasis on the process of training was what sustained decades of traditional apprenticeship training. The competency-based approach, discussed in detail later, was a performance-based methodology. Conceptually the apprentice either could perform a given task or task element as set by a specific performance criterion, or s/he could not. The person was judged, based upon the performance outcome to be either competent or incompetent. The basic assumption was that the person could not be partially competent.The competencies approach was a cornerstone of the Australian National training provision. It was administered by the National Training Board through an Australian Standards Framework. The key target group in this assessment of the competency area and the focus of this study was the young apprentice who would become a skilled tradesperson in a relatively short period of four years.Supporting the apprentices in the NATAS system were monitors, lecturers, and employer's members of these groups, who together with apprentices were used to gain insights into the new training initiatives.A previous study Williamson, Lowe and Boyd (1990) had looked at the Western Australian New Apprenticeship and Training System (NATAS). The intention was to develop ideas further and in greater depth using qualitative methodology in the area of effectiveness of the training and ++ / assessment system. The research also had critically assessed the Modular system (National) which in most cases progressively replaced NATAS during the period of the research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 163 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-126).

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a source of diagnostic and intervention confusion and uncertainty for practitioners and parents. Questions creating some of the confusion were answered in a series of three studies. The sample was parent and teacher behavioral ratings for 389 children and 502 adolescents with ADHD and 3131 children and 3161 adolescents without ADHD in public and private schools and mental health clinics in forty states. In the first study, data was derived from participant T-scores on the Behavior Assessment System for Children (2nd ed.) to evaluate the construct validity using first and second order factor analyses. Sufficient construct validity was established. In the second study, descriptive discriminant analyses (DDA) and item level ANOVAs were used to investigate whether behaviors that discriminate between the target (i.e., ADHD) and comparison groups were associated with the primary symptoms, comorbid conditions, functional impairment, or some combination of the three. Analyses were completed using subscale T-scores and individual item scores from the target and comparison groups. Results were compared to determine if the behaviors that discriminated between the groups were consistent across developmental stages and between parents and teachers as raters. Primary symptoms, comorbid conditions, and functional impairment explained the variance as rated by parents and teachers. Primary symptoms were found to be the strongest discriminators of children and adolescents as rated by parents. Atypicality explained the largest variance (72.25%) between children and learning problems explained the largest variance (64.32%) between adolescents when rated by teachers. The third study was a literature review of intervention studies to increase the academic performance of youth with ADHD in light of the statistical significance controversy. Fifty-one single subject and group design studies of academic, behavioral, multimodal and parent training were found. Both sides of the statistical significance controversy were summarized. The method of result reporting for 23 group design studies was investigated. Seventy-seven percent of the studies reported results as ?significant? with 26% reporting effect sizes. Researchers are encouraged to report effect sizes and explicitly compare results to previous studies in order to establish replicability for ease of educator interpretation.

Abstract With the growing trend of urbanization in the world, subjects of the sustainable urban development keep gaining increasing attentions, and researches about indicators of the sustainable urban development also become conspicuous discussions. Nevertheless, recent decades there were still fewer researches referring to construct indicators of sustainable urban development applying the concept of single city. On the important dimensions of discussing sustainable urban development, we should emphasize both on whether a city grows towards the sustainable trend and monitoring the development process of a city. Decision authority, monitoring the situations of the sustainable urban development, should design the indicator groups of a city in accordance with its particular historical background, geographical conditions, character of existing pattern, and topics people concerned. The analysis framework of this research broadly includes the aspects as follow¡G the natural environment of urban hardware, and the socio-economy and culture of urban software. An empirical study of Kaohsiung City was performed to illustrate the analysis procedures of the entire research process. Recognizing the growing environmental damage and population density increase in Kaohsiung city, actually decision authority need to outline the guidance of strategies or decisions with regard to monitoring the indicators of sustainable development. Using a case study of Kaohsiung, we adopt the indicator groups of measuring urban sustainability in¡§An Assessment System for Sustainable Taiwan¡¨as foundation , expect developing sustainable development indicators for Kaohsiung¡¦s version. Referring to noted assessment systems for sustainable city, this paper established an initial assessment system for sustainable urban indicators dividing into four aspects as follow: product, living, survival, ecology, with regard to aggregating environmental, economic, social, cultural discussions, and et al. Through a survey of expert questionnaire in Delphi method, this paper compiles the recognition and opinions from the experts of different background and the officials of government department, then modifies 31 suitable indicator items to assess Kaohsiung¡¦s sustainability. Tracking whether a city developed towards sustainability to provide references for government¡¦s policy making in the future, we employ statistic numeral data government published from year 1996 to year 2001 for time-series analysis and examine the results of constructing a sustainable city on developmental expense government offered in Kaohsiung city. The goal of this research is through suitability evaluating of an assessment system for sustainable indicators to develop an indicator system with place characteristics according to telling the developmental setting and monitored dimension of a city easier and clearer, and finally fitting the input of substance expense from government for constructing a sustainable city.