Cleanup of leaking underground storage tank (LUST) sites has been a priority for the United States of America (USA) for more than 20 years due to the large number of sites, the potential harmful health affects associated with gasoline components and the fact that single owners may not have the ability to pay for cleanup of these sites. In June 2006, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that of the 459,637 confirmed releases from USTs that had occurred previously, 342,688 had been remediated, which leaves 116,949 sites yet to be completed across the USA. Petroleum cleanup programs tend to be managed at the State level; however, there are wide variations among State programs in terms of information access, risk perception and funding availability. While each of the Federal and State UST programs has evolved to meet specific requirements, there has not been a comprehensive comparison of the individual State programs.In this thesis, State petroleum cleanup programs across the USA are evaluated to determine similarities and differences in an effort to identify factors that affect petroleum cleanup progress. Many parameters enter the equation in determining petroleum cleanup effectiveness. Not only are the parameters of the State program operation important, but also the characteristics of each State, including drinking water source and perceived risk associated with petroleum contamination, factor into the determination.A representative group of States and State petroleum cleanup programs were evaluated and the characteristics of States were compared to cleanup progress to determine factors affecting efficiency. Based on trend analysis the cleanup levels for toluene, ethylbenzene and total xylenes correlate directly to the cost of LUST site cleanup. For States with less perceived risk from petroleum contamination, the cleanup goals are less stringent; therefore, fewer resources and less time are required to complete site cleanup. Consequently, petroleum cleanup in States with less-stringent goals is achieved more efficiently. The knowledge of these drivers of efficient petroleum cleanup can be used to expeditiously pursue completion of the thousands of sites remaining across the USA.

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The paper examines the application of the concept of economic efficiency to organizational issues of collective information processing in decision making. Information processing is modeled in the framework of the dynamic parallel-processing model of associative computation with an endogenous set-up cost of the processors. The model is extended to include the specific features of collective information processing in the team of decision makers which could cause an error in data analysis. In such a model, the conditions for efficient organization of information processing are defined and the architecture of the efficient structures is considered. We show that specific features of collective decision making procedures require a broader framework for judging organizational efficiency than has traditionally been adopted. In particular, and contrary to the results presented in economic literature, we show that in human data processing (unlike in computer systems), there is no unique architecture for efficient information processing structures, but a number of various efficient forms can be observed. The results indicate that technological progress resulting in faster data processing (ceteris paribus) will lead to more regular information processing structures. However, if the relative cost of the delay in data analysis increases significantly, less regular structures could be efficient. (authors' abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

Den här rapporten beskriver mitt utvecklingsarbete med elevers loggboksskrivande inom två kurser på Restaurang, bar och vin utbildning på Studium Restaurang & Bageri i Göteborg.  Idén till utvecklingsarbetet fick jag när jag märkte att elever upplevde att de fick för dålig feedback och inte riktigt förstod vad de skulle göra för att lyckas uppnå betygskriterierna inom två kurser. Syftet med mitt utvecklingsarbete är ta fram en loggbok och att undersöka om loggboksskrivande kan skapa en ökad kommunikation mellan lärare och lärare och elever. Första steget i utvecklingsarbetet blev att skapa och implementera loggböcker i två kurser. Resultatet blev att eleverna upplevde loggboken mycket positivt. Eleverna tyckte att loggböckerna blev ett naturligt verktyg för dem att se sin kunskapsutveckling och föra en kontinuerlig kommunikation med mig och min kollega som var deras undervisande lärare. Slutsatsen är att arbetet med loggboken ger en bättre överblick över elevens utveckling. Loggboken visar elevens delaktighet samt fungerar som en viktig kommunikationskanal mellan lärare och elev. Genom arbetet med loggboken dokumenterar eleverna sin egen kunskapsutveckling och kan via lärarens återkoppling se hur de ska kunna ta nästa steg. Slutsatsen är att loggboken ger eleverna chansen att öka sin påverkan på studierna och målen samt att lärarens återkoppling har stor inverkan på eleverna. Genom arbetet med loggboken har vi lärare också fått ett bra verktyg för att kunna utveckla vår undervisning. / This report demonstrates my research on how students may improve their progress in course with the help of journal writing. I have based my research on two courses within the Restaurant, bar and wine program at Studium Hospitality & Bakery in Gothenburg. I came up with the idea for the research when I noticed how the students experienced little to no feedback and didn´t really understand what they should do to excel in their courses. The purpose of the research is to develop a practical and easy-to-work journal and to find out if journal writing can improve the communication between teachers and teacher students. To achieve this I implemented a journal in two courses. The feedback from the students was positive. They thought the journals quickly became a natural tool to be able to see their own progress and also, they were able to have an ongoing interaction between teacher and student. In conclusion the journal has given a better overview of the progress a student makes during the course. The journal works as a tool to oversee attendance and it is also an important communication channel between student and teacher. Through the work with the journal the students document their own progression within the course, hence will be able to detect the next step of their development. The journal gives the students the opportunity to discuss which elements of the course have been critical to reach increased progression.  It has also given the teachers an important tool to develop their teaching.

The Master’s Thesis “Assessment Of Individual Progress Of High School Students In Role Interpreting” analyses the forms of individual progress assessment, which encourage deeper expression of role interpretation of a literary piece. Only a few years ago theater was included in the 11th and 12th grade high school curriculum. It is based on the basic curriculum and educational standards of high school. They formulate the aims, tasks, structure, content and expected results of theater as a school subject. The curriculum for 11th grade foresees the practice of interpretation, which gives the student the opportunity to understand theater as an overall subject. The assessment of the educational progress of students is in the process of development and change. When thinking about the progress of students in the subject of theater education there should be a consideration of the relation between individual progress and the assessment criteria. The aim of the thesis is to measure the influence of the assessment forms for individual progress in the area of role interpretation among the students of higher grades at school. The research has shown that it is very important to integrate the assessment of the student’s progress into the educational process. Individual assessment forms encourage the constant development of interpretational abilities. Individual assessment in theater lessons is important because it develops an overall integrated personality, regards a wide range of individual... [to full text]

In this mixed-methods study I report on a three-part investigation related to reading intervention at Grade 1 in one Ontario school board during the 2009-2010 school year. First, I report the results that Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) had on the reading outcomes for all Grade 1 students (n = 436) in terms of sex, aboriginal status, and at-risk status. Second, I use progress monitoring benchmark data to show how students unresponsive to instruction may have benefitted from additional instruction generated from monthly data-informed In-School Team meetings. Third, I report on educators’ perceptions of how monthly data-informed In-School Team meetings influenced their knowledge, confidence, and willingness to plan additional reading interventions for students persistently at-risk for reading failure. Findings indicate that compared to previous years, when PALS was not used, students in this study made significantly greater gains in reading scores. Boys made similar gains to girls, First Nations students made similar gains to non First Nations students, and at-risk students closed the achievement gap slightly with their typically-achieving peers. For students who did not make adequate progress in reading throughout the year a logistic regression analysis of the data indicates that the best predictor of at-risk status is not a student’s sex or First Nations status, but their letter sound fluency and word identification fluency scores at the beginning of the school year. Findings also indicate that the slope of improvement in reading scores for nonresponders begins to increase once In-School Team meetings begin. Educators’ perceptions of how the monthly In-School team meetings influenced practice differed according to the perceived role that each held of his or her position, and according to the level of involvement, training, and access that each had to the data used in this study. The more professional development that educators had in the theory, use, and application of progress monitoring data the more likely they were to report that they were willing to use it to inform their practice. Likewise, the more access that educators had to the data in terms of collecting, viewing, and interpreting it, the more likely they were in reporting knowledge, confidence, and willingness to use it to plan additional interventions for students. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-13 10:03:09.664

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

No description available.