Although other research has addressed some features of successful school group visits to museums, such as preparation and follow up and emphasis on first-hand experience, there has been little research on the practices being used by the teachers who take their classes to the museums. I examined how teachers from five schools conducted their visits to one of four museums (Scibono Discovery Centre, HartRAO, Johannesburg Planetarium or Adler Museum) with their learners. The case study involved observing the five teachers before, during and after the visit and interviewing them before and after the visit. The data were analysed using communities of practice theory to determine the practices of the selected teachers. An in-depth analysis of the five teachers’ interviews and observations was done both for the rich data it provided and for triangulation purposes. The analysis shows that three teachers had what was described as task-oriented preparation while the other two had learning-oriented preparation. One teacher preparation was also described as not directly about the visit. The analysis further shows that four teachers were observed to have no interaction with their learners in some instance. Three teachers had learning oriented interaction with their learners at the museums. Three teachers were also observed controlling the behaviour of their learners. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the purposes and objectives of the field trips as given by teachers were for entertainment, edutainment,curriculum, interactive, career and tradition. Lastly, teachers follow up activities were described as either task-oriented or learning-oriented. The study shows that some teachers are old timers while others are newcomers in the community of teachers who take their classes to the museums.

Open-source software development is becoming increasingly popular in the public sector due toits potential for innovation and technology integration. This study investigates the possibilities of developing an open-source trip planner using OpenTripPlanner (OTP) for the Uppsala region's growing public transport needs. This thesis aims to increase understanding of the opportunitiesand challenges of open-source software development within the public sector and what lessons can be learned from previous implementations of OTP. The methods used were the development of a stand-alone web-based Proof of Concept of an OTP solution as well as a case study including public organizations that have worked with open-source software development and specifically implementations of OTP. The implementation of the Proof of Concept shows the work effort put in to set up a web-based OTP solution, how it can be used and adapted to the Uppsala region's needs. The results from the case study show that open-source applications can be developed through cooperation within and between regions and countries, resulting in innovative solutions with more transparency and flexibility. The use of OTP has the potential for creating a less complex, streamlined system with flexible and efficient data processing. Challenges include the administration of the data sets used, changing the work culture to more open ways of working and understanding ones needs to develop the right product. The need for a comprehensive system review and the establishment of competent teams or suppliers are identified as critical factors in successful open-source development.

TITLE: Leeches (Hirudinea) and Their Usage in Teaching AUTHOR: Bc. Anna Koldová DEPARTMENT: Biology and Environmental Studies, Faculty od Education Charles University SUPERVISOR: Mgr. Dagmar Říhová, Ph.D. ANNOTATION This diploma thesis is focused on leeches (Annelida: Hirudinea) in the Czech Republic. It provides a description of all species occurring in the Czech Republic, as well as the key to their classification into families. A detailed guideline about the organization of field trip and implementation of extracurricular teaching is part of this thesis. The field trip is focused on sampling, observation and determination of leeches in an excursion to a site with a traditional occurrence of the European medical leech Hirudo medicinalis - national nature reservation Hrabanovská černava. In addition, the work defines the advantages, disadvantages and other possibilities of application of the proposed program, and the inclusion of extracurricular education. KEYWORDS the European medicinal leech, Annelida, field trip, extracurricular lessons, Hrabanovská černava

This study extends outshopping knowledge from North America to Europe. Outshoppers and non-outshoppers in a Finnish town are compared in terms of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, importance of shopping area choice attributes, perceptions of the local trading area, and purchase localities of products. Implications are drawn and comparisons of results are made to general findings from North America.

In the ever changing business climate, the service sector has become a major focus of attention. One key aspect of this competitive environment is the effort of many businesses to differentiate themselves by creating unique customer experiences that accompany their products and services. The challenge to creating memorable consumer experiences is the proper identification of specific characteristics that influence experiences and gaining better understanding of how these impact consumers perceived values. To this end, this study attempted to develop a model that identifies influencing dimensions of consumer experiences and investigates the composition of consumer experiences and the relative outcome on consumer's perceived values in a hospitality setting. To facilitate this research objective, a model was presented which proposed that consumer experiences are composed of both physical and human interaction characteristics. The consumer's perspective of these characteristics, and hence the actual service experience, are affected by situational factors and individual characteristic which in return impact perceived emotive and cognitive values. A set of propositions are presented based on the model and literature review to measure the relationship between these factors. To initiate this research, an intercept survey approach was taken. Four hundred sixty-two (462) surveys were completed by hotel guests staying in one of three market segments in Orlando, FL. Participants completed the self-administered survey by answering questions concerning their current stay experience relating to physical environment, human encounters, trip-related factors, individual characteristics, and perceived values. Overall, the results found that trip-related factors and individual characteristics affect perceptions of physical environment and human interactions consumer experiences during their hotel stay. In addition, the results revealed that both physical environment and human interactions have significant and positive relationship with perceived values. These results can give lodging managers a better understanding of the composition of consumer experiences and how these events influence perceived values.

Pre-Trip Inspection of the truck and trailer is one of the components of the current Commercial Driver's License (CDL) test. This part of the CDL test checks the ability of the student to identify the important parts of the commercial vehicle and their potential defects. The Virtual Check Ride System (VCRS), a computer-based application, is an assessment and feedback tool that mirrors the inspection component of the actual CDL. The VCRS has provided an after action review (AAR) via a feedback session that helps in identifying and correcting drivers' skill in inspecting parts and for overall safety. The purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness of the VCRS in truck driving training programs. An experimental study was conducted with truck driving students at Mid Florida Tech, located in Orlando, Florida. The students were divided into control and experimental groups. Students in the both groups received regular training provided by Mid Florida Tech. The experimental group received additional training by making use of the VCRS. A total of three paper-based tests were given to all subjects during first three weeks; one test at the end of a week. Both groups were given the same paper-based tests. A two-way analysis of variance was conducted to evaluate the effect of the VCRS in the experimental group. This analysis found a significant difference between control and experimental groups. This effect showed that the students in the experimental group increased their performance by using VCRS. Moreover, there was a main effect in the scores of each week. However, there was not an interaction between the two factors. Follow up Post Hoc tests were conducted to evaluate the pair-wise differences among the means of the test week factors using a Tukey HSD test. These Post Hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for the third week's test scores were significantly better than the first week's test score in the experimental group. It was concluded that the VCRS facilitated learning for the experimental group and that learning also occurred for both groups as a result of repeated testing.

Recent research has shown that incorporating roadway safety in transportation planning has been considered one of the active approaches to improve safety. Aggregate level analysis for predicting crash frequencies had been contemplated to be an important step in this process. As seen from the previous studies various categories of predictors at macro level (census blocks, traffic analysis zones, census tracts, wards, counties and states) have been exhausted to find appropriate correlation with crashes. This study contributes to this ongoing macro level road safety research by investigating various trip productions and attractions along with roadway characteristics within traffic analysis zones (TAZs) of four counties in the state of Florida. Crashes occurring in one thousand three hundred and forty-nine TAZs in Hillsborough, Citrus, Pasco, and Hernando counties during the years 2005 and 2006 were examined in this study. Selected counties were representative from both urban and rural environments. To understand the prevalence of various trip attraction and production rates per TAZ the Euclidian distances between the centroid of a TAZ containing a particular crash and the centroid of the ZIP area containing the at fault driver's home address for that particular crash was calculated. It was found that almost all crashes in Hernando and Citrus County for the years 2005-2006 took place in about 27 miles radius centering at the at-fault drivers' home. Also about sixty-two percent of crashes occurred approximately at a distance of between 2 and 10 miles from the homes of drivers who were at fault in those crashes. These results gave an indication that home based trips may be more associated with crashes and later trip related model estimates which were found significant at 95% confidence level complied with this hypothesized idea. Previous aggregate level road safety studies widely addressed negative binomial distribution of crashes. Properties like non-negative integer counts, non-normal distribution, over-dispersion in the data have increased suitability of applying the negative binomial technique and has been selected to build crash prediction models in this research. Four response variables which were aggregated at TAZ-level were total number of crashes, severe (fatal and severe injury) crashes, total crashes during peak hours, and pedestrian and bicycle related crashes. For each response separate models were estimated using four different sets of predictors which are i) various trip variables, ii) total trip production and total trip attraction, iii) road characteristics, and iv) finally considering all predictors into the model. It was found that the total crash model and peak hour crash model were best estimated by the total trip productions and total trip attractions. On the basis of log-likelihoods, deviance value/degree of freedom, and Pearson Chi-square value/degree of freedom, the severe crash model was best fit by the trip related variables only and pedestrian and bicycle related crash model was best fit by the road related variables only. The significant trip related variables in the severe crash models were home-based work attractions, home-based shop attractions, light truck productions, heavy truck productions, and external-internal attractions. Only two variables- sum of roadway segment lengths with 35 mph speed limit and number of intersections per TAZ were found significant for pedestrian and bicycle related crash model developed using road characteristics only. The 1349 TAZs were grouped into three different clusters based on the quartile distribution of the trip generations and were termed as less-tripped, moderately-tripped, and highly-tripped TAZs. It was hypothesized that separate models developed for these clusters would provide a better fit as the clustering process increases the homogeneity within a cluster. The cluster models were re-run using the significant predictors attained from the joint models and were compared with the previous sets of models. However, the differences in the model fits (in terms of Alkaike's Information Criterion values) were not significant. This study points to different approaches when predicting crashes at the zonal level. This research is thought to add to the literature on macro level crash modeling research by considering various trip related data into account as previous studies in zone level safety have not explicitly considered trip data as explanatory covariates.

Transit travel time and operating speed influence service attractiveness, operating cost, system efficiency and sustainability. The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) provides public transportation service in the tri-county Portland metropolitan area. TriMet was one of the first transit agencies to implement a Bus Dispatch System (BDS) as a part of its overall service control and management system. TriMet has had the foresight to fully archive the BDS automatic vehicle location and automatic passenger count data for all bus trips at the stop level since 1997. More recently, the BDS system was upgraded to provide stop-level data plus 5-second resolution bus positions between stops. Rather than relying on prediction tools to determine bus trajectories (including stops and delays) between stops, the higher resolution data presents actual bus positions along each trip. Bus travel speeds and intersection signal/queuing delays may be determined using this newer information. This thesis examines the potential applications of higher resolution transit operations data for a bus route in Portland, Oregon, TriMet Route 14. BDS and 5-second resolution data from all trips during the month of October 2014 are used to determine the impacts and evaluate candidate trip time models. Comparisons are drawn between models and some conclusions are drawn regarding the utility of the higher resolution transit data. In previous research inter-stop models were developed based on the use of average or maximum speed between stops. We know that this does not represent realistic conditions of stopping at a signal/crosswalk or traffic congestion along the link. A new inter-stop trip time model is developed using the 5-second resolution data to determine the number of signals encountered by the bus along the route. The variability in inter-stop time is likely due to the effect of the delay superimposed by signals encountered. This newly developed model resulted in statistically significant results. This type of information is important to transit agencies looking to improve bus running times and reliability. These results, the benefits of archiving higher resolution data to understand bus movement between stops, and future research opportunities are also discussed.

This study explores the behavior of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) during a turbine trip scenario initiated by the abrupt closure of the turbine stop valve. The RELAP5/Mod3.4 code is employed to make calculations using the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant input model provided by Innovative Software Systems Company. The event sequences and initial boundary conditions are sourced from the Boiling Water Reactor Turbine Trip 2 Benchmark created by NEA. Results are subsequently compared against the benchmark values. In order to gauge the risk of a turbine trip event leading to elevated power, which could in turn cause Critical Heat Flux (CHF)-related issues in cladding temperature, a best-estimate case is developed. Our findings indicate that the closure of the turbine stop valve (TSV) resulted in a collapse of the void fraction within the reactor core. Although the core power doubled the initial level, the negative feedback mechanism effectively suppressed the power pulse. Throughout the transient phase, the maximum cladding temperature stayed below the CHF threshold, a fact attributable to the fuel's conductivity and the rapid progression of the transient. We further analyzed three hypothetical scenarios to test the computational boundaries of the plant model. The third scenario, which combines conditions from the first two, produced elevated outcomes (6500MW core power, 598K cladding temperature, and 7900kPa dome pressure) as expected. Notably, while the CHF limit remained unbreached in this scenario, literature reviews suggest potential core meltdown risks in subsequent stages of this calculation. Our sensitivity analyses determined that variations in the gamma heating coefficient or the maximum time step of the calculations have little to no impact on core power or peak cladding temperature. Conversely, we noted a significant reduction, approximately 35\%, in the power peak, underscoring the high sensitivity of the parameters to the initial triggering of the SCRAM mechanism. Our results also recommend rapid and early actuation of the BPV as a measure to dampen the pressure wave, consequently decreasing both the power peak and peak cladding temperatures. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / This research investigates the response of the Laguna Verde Boiling Water Reactor to a turbine trip event using the RELAP5/Mod3.4 thermal-hydraulic analysis code. From reactor safety perspective a best-estimate case is evaluated, as well as three additional hypothetical scenarios. Findings are compared with the Boiling Water Reactor Turbine Trip II Benchmark results. Additionally, sensitivity analyses focusing on plant parameters such as shutdown rod behavior, gamma heating coefficient, turbine stop valve, and steam bypass valve characteristics conducted to determine their impact on the results. Insights from these analyses aim to enhance safety protocols and refine best practices in boiling water reactor management.

With an increase in energy demand and a transition from conventional fossil-driven energy generation, the world is facing a major challenge. This transition implies more intermittent energy sources whose reliance varies widely with time. To deal with this challenge, energy storage is one part of the solution. By storing energy when the supply is higher than the demand, it can later be used when the demand is higher than the supply. This could be done in numerous ways but this study aims to analyze the theoretical performance of metals for energy storage.  This was done for five different metals and metal-like elements. The metals studied were aluminum, boron, magnesium, silicon and zinc. The basic principle of using metals for energy storage involves a couple of steps. Firstly, energy is supplied to the metal through a reduction reaction, charging the system. After this process, the metal can be stored and thus also the energy. When the energy is needed, the energy can be released through an oxidation reaction. The products of this will be hydrogen and heat that in a later conversion process can generate electrical energy. The performance of each metal was analyzed based on round trip efficiency, energy density and CO2 emissions. To evaluate this, a model was built in IPSEpro.  The results of the study indicate that zinc performs the best in terms of round-trip efficiency while boron has the highest energy density and magnesium has the lowest amount of CO2 emissions. However, what may be more interesting is that the performance of all the metals is relatively similar to each other. The general trend is that the large advantage of using metals for energy storage is the immense energy density meaning that the storage does not take much space and can easily be transported. The results also indicate that the theoretical round trip efficiency of this technology is close to that of compressed hydrogen energy storage.  This study indicates that there is a theoretical potential for metal energy storage technology. However, the study was done purely theoretically in a best-case scenario meaning that future research, with a focus on the real-life applications of the technology, must be conducted to definitively prove if metals for energy storage is a viable option for future energy storage or not.