Educational policy researchers have concluded that if U.S. schools transition from the traditional model of grading and reporting to a uniform standards-based grading and reporting model, students would benefit academically. However, very few middle and high schools in the United States have made the transition to standards-based grading. This qualitative research study was designed address the role of leadership in change by identifying a set of best leadership practices to guide school principals in leading such a transition. The conceptual framework was Kotter's change model. A national sample of 7 middle and 5 high school principals from 8 states who had previously led their schools in the transition to standards-based grading elected to serve as study participants. This panel completed an open-ended questionnaire designed to identify perceived best leadership practices school leaders should consider as they plan to lead such a change. Using the Delphi technique to determine consensus, a set of 78 best leadership actions were identified. Then, these actions were rated by the same panel, resulting in a set of 8 best leadership change practices consistent with Kotter's framework. Practices included establishing and communicating a sense of urgency, developing a change vision and stakeholder buy-in, building coalitions and broad-based actions, generating short term wins and continuing processes, and incorporating change into school culture. This consensus set of leadership practices might affect positive social change by assisting school principals in planning and leading grading change initiatives in schools to enhance students' learning and improve systems of communicating student academic progress using uniform and consistent standards.

In coastal urban regions, underground stormwater treatment units are suitable infrastructure options because they take less space where premium land is expensive. Even then, they should be accessible and ideally small enough to fit into existing stormwater networks. Since 2003, the City of Tampa and Florida’s Department of Transportation (FDOT) have installed 47 baffle boxes into the city’s stormwater pipe networks. Baffle boxes are underground stormwater treatment structures designed to capture sediments and floating debris. Since their deployment, many challenges regarding their practical sediment capturing performance was raised by the city. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of rainfall, land use, and maintenance on the sediment trapping efficiency of the baffle boxes and identify solutions to enhance their performance. This was addressed through site visits, sediment accumulation measurements and analysis of historical and field data. The results of these measurements and analysis were then compared to rainfall intensity, catchment characteristics, size and type of the units. During the preliminary site visits and sediment measurements it was observed that most of the units located in the south of Tampa were inundated by backflows from Tampa Bay. Survey information collected from inspection crew members also showed that resuspension of trapped sediments frequently occurs in these units. Concerning operation and maintenance (O&M), it was indicated that units mounted with screens are costly and difficult to clean-out. Additionally, it was found that 80% of the units have very small trap inlets and lack the baffle structures needed to slow down and settle sediments. Historical sediment measurements and O&M practices were analyzed to calculate the overall performance of the units. The analysis of the data determined the sediments captured, the resuspension rate, and yearly cost of maintenance for different types of baffle boxes. Rainfall intensity and land use and land cover (LULC) data for each catchment of the units was correlated to the performance of the units. The LULC data used impervious fraction and tree canopy area of the catchments to project sediment and leaf matter accumulation within the units. This research study found that total daily rainfall intensity is a good predictor of sediment accumulation. Cleanout crews can use this relationship to conduct their work efficiently and to promptly react to occurring rainfall events. Thus, the prediction of sediments accumulated from rainfall events and the coordination of clean-out trucks can optimize O&M practices. It was also determined that large-sized (24-40 in) units and those with three chambers (baffles) perform better at trapping sediments. Thus, installing baffles in units within the large-sized ones can enhance their performance. The study also found that baffle boxes mounted with screens can individually take up to eight hours to cleanup which makes them costly and difficult. This can be detrimental for municipalities to follow up on their O&M practices effectively. Therefore, to alleviate the clean out complexity and reduce maintenance expenditures complementary practices such as bag filters need to be explored and implemented for trials

The cultural and linguistic diversity of the United States is growing rapidly and early intervention service providers are very likely to work with families whose cultures differ from their own. Service providers must consider the multiple cultural factors of families which contribute to family dynamics and the potential for miscommunication is high when the cultural frameworks of early intervention providers differ from those of the families they serve. Culturally responsive practices have been put forth in the theoretical literature as a way to increase successful communication and service provision but there is limited research investigating the beliefs, experiences, and practices of early intervention providers regarding cultural responsiveness and the efficacy of specific practices. This study utilized an exploratory case study methodology with multiple case analyses to investigate the expressed beliefs and practices of in-service early intervention providers regarding culturally responsive practices and comparing them to the tenets of best practice set forth in the conceptual literature. Specifically, the study tested the theory that cultural responsiveness is an integral component of effective early intervention service provision.

The review of the literature and the results gained from this research suggest an important link between the effectiveness of a board, including its corporate governance practices, and organisational effectiveness. This link attests to the importance of a greater focus upon the governance approach used by organisations. There is extensive literature about corporate governance in the business sector and there is emerging research into corporate governance in the Third Sector. However there is very little literature about the community service component on the Third Sector in Australia and none in relation to community service organisations that are incorporated under the Tasmanian Associations Incorporation Act 1964. This thesis aims to discover what is defined as best practice in the area of corporate governance for Tasmanian community service organisations and if selected organisations have adopted that best practice. For this purpose a research problem and three research sub-problems are identified. The research adopts a case study approach as the main research methodology using interviews, document reviews and a short self assessment questionnaire as data collection tools. The researcher approached six incorporated community service organisations funded by the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services and they agreed to participate in the research. Following data collection and data analysis the following major findings emerge. Firstly, that case organisations have adopted a range of governance practices. There are significant gaps in some organisations and there is room for improvement in all of the case organisations. Secondly, that some case organisation boards are approaching corporate governance by managing compliance to a minimum standard although others are offering strategic leadership with a commitment to quality and best practice. Thirdly, the research identifies a number of factors that impact upon corporate governance in case organisations. Those factors include the role of the Chief Executive Officer; the quest for competitive advantage; implementation of governance maintenance strategies and the impact of religion for religious-based organisations. Finally, the research also identifies three factors that were not determinative upon case organisations. They are the size of the organisation, the governance model being used, and the influence of the regulator (the Business Affairs Office) and the funding provider (the Department of Health and Human Services). Consequently it is concluded that the principle based approach to corporate governance can be extended to Tasmania. Furthermore the implication of this research for community sector organisations is that they need to implement governance maintenance practices including board training, board performance review and governance review. There is also a call to both the Business Affairs Office and the Department of Health and Human Services to be more proactive in requiring community service organisations to adopt additional corporate governance practices. Hence, based on the literature review and the analysis of the research data, a list of “Best practice features and practices guiding community service organisation governance” has been developed. This list can be used by organisations to provide direction for their approach to corporate governance. Finally, the conclusions provide a solid foundation for further study. This will be useful in order to obtain a broader understanding of the issues involved.

'Good governance' is an evolving and increasingly influential discursive agenda that introduces new ideas about public policy, specifically targeting managerial behaviour and promoting modern administrative strategies. Most scholars agree that as a notion, good governance combines liberal democratic principles with a 'new public management' (NPM) approach to economic policy-making. What is less clear is who the agenda actually targets. In other words, is the good governance agenda aimed at rulers in particular or the broader population? Implicit in the answer is whether good governance concepts are simply useful tools to help build political credibility, or the agents for better managerial and administrative outcomes. In countries with advanced economies, good governance is invariably used to describe corporate and public administration strategies that invoke ethically grounded 'World's best practice' standards and procedures. However, in developing economies, good governance can take on quite different, and often unintended meanings. This thesis finds that in developing countries good governance is being expressed more as a political tool than as substantive practice and policy reform. This is occurring in an increasingly 'post-Washington consensus' environment that explicitly recognises the importance of the social impact of structural adjustment programs and broader issues of human rights. And importantly as far as this thesis is concerned, during Southeast Asia's current economic recovery, good governance has taken on a whole new relevance. This analysis commences from the assumption that good governance is a discursively created phenomenon that can be understood as a complex notion with both structural and ideational elements. The term is couched in a structure that is both economically technical and socially normative. It has overlapping central tenets driven by regulation and the institutional environment, and should not be viewed as a set of constructs in isolation from the context in which it is being used. And it is based on assumptions about common sense attitudes and shared common good objectives. And as this thesis will demonstrate, good governance functions within an unpredictable and often hostile political environment in which powerful actors are learning to use this new discourse to satisfy political expediencies. Put simply, good governance is nourishing a politics of its own. The thesis uses the ASEAN 4 countries of Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, as individual and comparative case studies. The studies examine how the concept is shaping the institutional structure of these countries, and includes commentary on the role of good governance in the 2004 round of election campaigning. A genealogy of good governance will be developed in these local contexts, and more generally. This will assist in mapping the concept's evolution in relation to development trajectories and local politics. The hypothesis under examination is - that the good governance agendas in the ASEAN 4 states primarily focus on improving representative rule rather than encouraging self-regulation. Two questions in particular are asked in each of the case studies dor the purpose of testing this hypothesis. What defining features of good governance discourse have been instrumental in the emergence of the politics that surrounds the agenda, and how is the discourse used to expand or limit the democratic possibilities theoretically inherent in good governance strategies and processes? These questions are important because they're designed to bring clarity to the intent of government and the role that the governed play in states where good governance is an increasingly important political issue. Good governance is more than merely a set of prescribed policies and practices. It is an agenda that reflects a specific set of 'neoliberal' ideas, predicated upon generally unarticulated assumptions about the universality of modern administrative practices supported by normative behavioural change. And it appears to privilege specific interests with potentially unjust implications for wider social formations. This assertion pivots on the finding that in various ways good governance discourages the advancement of open politics beyond nominal democratic procedures because it is theoretically grounded on governance principles that are not easily transferred to developing countries with diverging political, cultural and historical experience. Nevertheless, the attempt is underway. Ostensibly it is taking a form that is schooling targeted populations in what is 'good' and 'bad' in the economic interest of the nation. However, these efforts don't appear to be succeeding, at least not in the way the international architects of good governance intended. This thesis finds that this 'mentality' transformation project is clearly informed by Western experience. And this informs the theoretical approach of the thesis. Specifically, a 'governmentality' framework is used, largely because it has been developed out of analyses of rationalities of government in advanced liberal societies, in which the objectives of good governance are firmly grounded. And as this expanding research program has seldom been used to study government in developing countries, this thesis also puts a case for using governmentality tools beyond the boundaries of its modern Western foundations.

The library profession is now heavily involved in providing access to information through library web sites and it is a challenge to design a web site that has reliable content and a user interface that is intuitive to those who use it. As web accessibility and usability are major issues in the design of library Web sites, this paper suggests that the design will be most successful when a usability analysis tool is used throughout the design and redesign of academic library web sites. The research drew on the literature of Human-computer Interaction and usability engineering examining best practice usability and accessibility design guidelines. It identified those guidelines that were relevant to academic library web sites. In order to establish the extent to which Australian academic library web sites met usability guidelines a usability analysis tool was developed and used to evaluate a randomly selected sample of web sites. The web sites were categorised under higher education institutional archetypes as suggested by DETYA (1998) and the results were discussed in light of these groups. The research found that there was no correlation of the usability of the web sites between the archetypes. In fact the pattern of usability was randomly distributed across all institutions, with the best and worst results appearing in each archetypical category. The study concluded that the web has provided a whole new start for all institutions and after examining the results, it suggested that the design of early web sites was not based on the size or the past history of the institution that it belonged to, but rather reflected those factors, already established in the literature, that faced library web managers at that time, when designing the library web page.

<p>The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was ratified by Sweden in 1990. Among its principles is devotion to the best interests of the child (article 3). This principle is hard to define, and it is difficult to find studies on how children express themselves about how the convention should be realized. The Swedish government wants local councils to introduce routines that follow the proposed rights. The Swedish school system is an important arena where UNCRC’s rights can be put into practice. This study’s purpose is to discover how the Swedish upper secondary schools follow article 3, using pupils’ description of what is best for them as a starting point. Two pupil focus-group interviews have been used to obtain this description, and the pupils views were divided into four main themes: Security, Reception, Studies and development and Influence. These were converted into questionniares for two schools. The result was analyzed using empowerment and SOC (sense of coherence) as theoretical perspectives. Some answers differed between the schools as to how the principle of article 3 is fulfilled. The majority of the pupils are happy with their schools, in spite of difficulties with structural conditions and that life at school isn’t always on the pupils’ conditions.</p>

<p>Kvalitetsmärkningen Naturens Bästa arbetar för att marknadsföra upplevelser som inte är bra enbart för turisten utan även för miljön och omgivningen. Idag blir vi som konsumenter mer och mer medvetna och måna om vår miljö och den värld vi lever i. Således borde en kvalitetsmärkning som Naturens Bästa kunna vägleda oss till att finna arrangemang inom turismen som hjälper oss att välja arrangörer som verkligen lever upp till de krav vi ställer. Problemet som finns är dock att denna kvalitetsmärkning inte syns i den gemensamma marknadsföringen av destinationer i nuläget. Utifrån detta är syftet med uppsatsen att undersöka varför kvalitetsmärkningen Naturens Bästa inte har någon framskjutande roll i marknadsföringen av destinationer.</p><p>Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ insamlingsmetod i form av<strong> </strong>personliga intervjuer i vår undersökning för att få fram varför kvalitetsmärkningen inte syns i marknadsföringen. Intervjuerna genomfördes med respondenter från turistbyrån i Västerås, Västmanlands kommuner och landsting samt turistbyrån i Skinnskatteberg. Den teori uppsatsen bygger på är turism och marknadsföring, destinationsmarknadsföring och kvalitetsmärkning. Utifrån denna teori har intervjufrågorna utformats och den insamlade primärdatan sedan analyserats.</p><p>Med utgångspunkt i den genomförda analysen framkom det att Naturens Bästa inte har någon framskjuten roll i marknadsföringen av destinationer till stor del på grund av att kunskapen om kvalitetsmärkningen är dålig ute bland turistorganisationerna. Detta beror enligt vår mening på brist av information. Ytterligare en anledning är att det finns en ovilja att använda märkningen i broschyrerna.</p> / <p>The quality label Natures Best is committed to market experiences that are not only good for the tourist, but also for the environment.  Consumers today become more and more aware of their surrounding and the world we live in. Therefore, a quality label like Natures Best should be able to guide us to find arrangements within tourism that helps us choose arrangers that really lives up to the demands we have. The problem recognized, is that this quality label is not visible in the common marketing of destinations today. From this point of view, the purpose with this thesis is to investigate why the quality label Natures Best does not have a prominent role in the marketing of destinations. </p><p>In our examination of why the quality labeling does not have a prominent role, we have used a qualitative method of collection in the form of personal interviews. The interviews were carried out with respondents from the tourist bureau in Västerås, “Västmanlands kommuner och landsting” and the tourist bureau in Skinnskatteberg. The theory which the thesis is based upon is<em> </em>tourism and marketing, destination marketing and quality labeling. The questions for the interviews and the analysis of the primary data have been formed based on this theory.</p><p>With a starting point in the conducted analyze, it emerged that Natures Best does not have a prominent role in the marketing of destinations because there is a poor knowledge about the quality label among the organizations. According to us, this is due to a lack of information. Another reason is that it exist a reluctance to use the label in the brochures.</p>

<p>The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign citizens. The result is that 18 years is a suitable age for marrying after a comparison with other Swedish laws and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Different age limits for swedish and foreign citizens could not be considered to be discriminating according to the Swedish Constitution, but on the other hand it is discriminating according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.</p>

<p>Bounded rationality is the study of how human cognition with limited capacity is adapted to handle the complex information structures in the environment. This thesis argues that in order to understand the bounded rationality of decision processes, it is necessary to develop decision theories that are computational process models based upon basic cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. The main goal of this thesis is to show that models of perceptual categorization based on the storage of exemplars and retrieval of similar exemplars whenever a new object is encountered (D. L. Medin & M. M. Schaffer, 1978), can be an important contribution to theories of decision making. Study I proposed, PROBEX (PROBabilities from Exemplars), a model for inferences from generic knowledge. It is a “lazy” algorithm that presumes no pre-computed abstractions. In a computer simulation it was found to be a powerful decision strategy, and it was possible to fit the model to human data in a psychologically plausible way. Study II was a theoretical investigation that found that PROBEX was very robust in conditions where the decision maker has very little information, and that it worked well even under the worst circumstances. Study III empirically tested if humans can learn to use exemplar based or one reason decision making strategies (G. Gigerenzer, P. Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 1999) where it is appropriate in a two-alternative choice task. Experiment 1 used cue structure and presentation format as independent variables, and participants easily used one reason strategies if the decision task presented the information as normal text. The participants were only able to use exemplars if they were presented as short strings of letters. Experiment 2 failed to accelerate learning of exemplar use during the decision phase, by prior exposure to exemplars in a similar task. In conclusion, this thesis supports that there are at least two modes of decision making, which are boundedly rational if they are used in the appropriate context. Exemplar strategies may, contrary to study II, only be used late in learning, and the conditions for learning need to be investigated further.</p>