scholarly journals Evaluation in the Provinces and Territories: A Cross-Canada Snapshot and Call to Action

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E Lahey ◽  
Wayne MacDonald ◽  
Krista Brower ◽  
Kaireen Chaytor ◽  
Richard Hurstfield-Meyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Provincial Government ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Past ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Managing For Results ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Level Of Understanding ◽  
Evidence Based Decision Making

Evidence-based decision-making and managing for results are terms often heard from politicians and senior government officials at both federal and provincial levels of government in Canada. But, while there is some level of understanding at the federal level in terms of the role and use of evaluation in measuring results, there is significantly less information readily available about the extent that evaluation is being used at other levels of government. This paper provides a cross-Canada synopsis on the capacity and use of systematic evaluation at the provincial and territorial levels of government. Authors from each of the ten provinces and two of the three territories provide a succinct analysis of the extent that evaluation is being used in their provincial government, as well as a description of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for evaluation. There is a paucity of published information on this subject, but the paper uses research conducted in 2001 as a benchmark to compare the state of affairs for evaluation within provincial/territorial governments. With limited progress over the past two decades, the paper offers an overview of findings and some proposed actions for the way ahead.

Brain-eating Amoebae Infection: Challenges and Opportunities in Chemotherapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 980-987 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ridwane Mungroo ◽  
Ayaz Anwar ◽  
Naveed Ahmed Khan ◽  
Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Outdoor Activities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Free Living Amoeba ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
Living Nature ◽  
Treatment And Diagnosis

Pathogenic free-living amoeba are known to cause a devastating infection of the central nervous system and are often referred to as “brain-eating amoebae”. The mortality rate of more than 90% and free-living nature of these amoebae is a cause for concern. It is distressing that the mortality rate has remained the same over the past few decades, highlighting the lack of interest by the pharmaceutical industry. With the threat of global warming and increased outdoor activities of public, there is a need for renewed interest in identifying potential anti-amoebic compounds for successful prognosis. Here, we discuss the available chemotherapeutic options and opportunities for potential strategies in the treatment and diagnosis of these life-threatening infections.

Performance Management Transformation

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
The Past ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Research

No other talent process has been the subject of such great debate and emotion as performance management (PM). For decades, different strategies have been tried to improve PM processes, yielding an endless cycle of reform to capture the next “flavor-of-the-day” PM trend. The past 5 years, however, have brought novel thinking that is different from past trends. Companies are reducing their formal processes, driving performance-based cultures, and embedding effective PM behavior into daily work rather than relying on annual reviews to drive these. Through case studies provided from leading organizations, this book illustrates the range of PM processes that companies are using today. These show a shift away from adopting someone else’s best practice; instead, companies are designing bespoke PM processes that fit their specific strategy, climate, and needs. Leading PM thought leaders offer their views about the state of PM today, what we have learned and where we need to focus future efforts, including provocative new research that shows what matters most in driving high performance. This book is a call to action for talent management professionals to go beyond traditional best practice and provide thought leadership in designing PM processes and systems that will enhance both individual and organizational performance.

scholarly journals The first 10 years of the international coordination network for standards in systems and synthetic biology (COMBINE)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Waltemath ◽  
Martin Golebiewski ◽  
Michael L Blinov ◽  
Padraig Gleeson ◽  
Henning Hermjakob ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Stakeholder Workshop ◽  
Software Engineers ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Modeling In Biology

AbstractThis paper presents a report on outcomes of the 10th Computational Modeling in Biology Network (COMBINE) meeting that was held in Heidelberg, Germany, in July of 2019. The annual event brings together researchers, biocurators and software engineers to present recent results and discuss future work in the area of standards for systems and synthetic biology. The COMBINE initiative coordinates the development of various community standards and formats for computational models in the life sciences. Over the past 10 years, COMBINE has brought together standard communities that have further developed and harmonized their standards for better interoperability of models and data. COMBINE 2019 was co-located with a stakeholder workshop of the European EU-STANDS4PM initiative that aims at harmonized data and model standardization for in silico models in the field of personalized medicine, as well as with the FAIRDOM PALs meeting to discuss findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data sharing. This report briefly describes the work discussed in invited and contributed talks as well as during breakout sessions. It also highlights recent advancements in data, model, and annotation standardization efforts. Finally, this report concludes with some challenges and opportunities that this community will face during the next 10 years.

scholarly journals Shocked Though the Heart and YouTube Is to Blame—The Rising Incidence of Accidental Trans-cardiac Electrocution From Do-It-Yourself Fractal Wood Art, and a Call to Action

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Russo ◽  
Luke Pumiglia ◽  
Amanda P Bettencourt ◽  
Jordan Roman ◽  
Gary A Vercruysse
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Injury ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rising Incidence ◽  
Wood Art ◽  
Do It Yourself

Abstract In the past year, we have become aware of a new mechanism of severe electrical injury ascribed to fractal wood art. This type of art has become increasingly popular and deadly due to exponential popularity in the use of Youtube type video teaching. This manuscript is one of the initial descriptions of the injury mode, presentation, treatment, and outcomes from four such cases treated at our institution. Additionally, we elicit a call for action in preventing further similar unnecessary injuries and deaths.

scholarly journals Budgeting nitrogen flows and the food nitrogen footprint of Egypt during the past half century: Challenges and opportunities

2019 ◽  
Vol 130 ◽  
pp. 104895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Elrys ◽  
Sajjad Raza ◽  
Ahmed I. Abdo ◽  
Zhanjun Liu ◽  
Zhujun Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Past Half ◽  
Nitrogen Flows

scholarly journals Usage-Based Collection Evaluation with a Curricular Focus

2013 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen C. Kohn
Keyword(s):  
Academic Library ◽  
Evaluation Methods ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
The Past

Systematic evaluation of a library’s collection can be a useful tool for collection development. After reviewing three evaluation methods and their usefulness for our small academic library, I undertook a usage-based evaluation, focusing on narrow segments of our collection that served specific undergraduate courses. For each section, I collected data on the number of books owned, number of checkouts in the past four years, and number of unique books used. Using examples from the data, I discuss possible ways to interpret and act on the data. I also note how the knowledge gained from this evaluation fits into the larger toolkit of librarian competencies for collection development.

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

Design Philanthropy: Challenges and Opportunities in the Evolution of Philanthropic Giving

2021 ◽  
pp. 089590482110494
Author(s):  
Melissa Arnold Lyon ◽  
Shani S. Bretas ◽  
Douglas D. Ready
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Venture Philanthropy ◽  
Policy Borrowing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Instructional Core ◽  
Democratic Engagement

Over the past several decades large philanthropies have adopted aggressive approaches to education reform that scholars have labeled venture philanthropy. These efforts focused on broad changes to schooling and education policy, borrowing techniques from the venture capital world. But many foundations have recently become convinced that market forces and macro-level policymaking alone cannot drive educational improvement, particularly in areas related to classroom teaching and learning. In response, foundations have begun to design their own instructional innovations and identify providers to implement them. This paper interprets these recent efforts as early evidence of a distinct adaptation in the evolving role of philanthropies, which we dub design philanthropy. Although this approach represents an attempt by foundations to simultaneously increase democratic engagement, directly influence the instructional core, and spur educational innovation, it poses new risks for coherence, scalability, and sustainability in education policymaking.

scholarly journals Using insect natural history collections to study global change impacts: challenges and opportunities

2018 ◽  
Vol 374 (1763) ◽  
pp. 20170405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather M. Kharouba ◽  
Jayme M. M. Lewthwaite ◽  
Rob Guralnick ◽  
Jeremy T. Kerr ◽  
Mark Vellend
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Genomic Information ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
The Past ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Global Change Research ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Over the past two decades, natural history collections (NHCs) have played an increasingly prominent role in global change research, but they have still greater potential, especially for the most diverse group of animals on Earth: insects. Here, we review the role of NHCs in advancing our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary responses of insects to recent global changes. Insect NHCs have helped document changes in insects' geographical distributions, phenology, phenotypic and genotypic traits over time periods up to a century. Recent work demonstrates the enormous potential of NHCs data for examining insect responses at multiple temporal, spatial and phylogenetic scales. Moving forward, insect NHCs offer unique opportunities to examine the morphological, chemical and genomic information in each specimen, thus advancing our understanding of the processes underlying species’ ecological and evolutionary responses to rapid, widespread global changes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the anthropocene’.

Progress of Psychiatry in 1902

1903 ◽  
Vol 49 (204) ◽  
pp. 152-154
Author(s):  
H. M. Bannister
Keyword(s):  
Financial Management ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Special Events ◽  
American Psychiatry ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The One

The past year has not been notable for any special events in American psychiatry, though the usual amount of activity has existed. There has been no retrogression, and signs of a better future ahead as regards political control of charitable institutions have appeared in quarters where they are most welcome. In Illinois, for example, where for ten years past politicians have controlled the institutions, recent events have made reform in this regard a political issue, and both parties are, so to speak, tumbling over each other in their zeal to utilise it to their own advantage. The scandal that excited this was not abuse of patients or bad financial management, for neither of these has been proven, but the assessment of employés for political purposes, which has at last aroused the public conscience. The outcome can hardly fail to be good, and we may hope at least for a better state of affairs than existed even before the politicians took control. It is a slow work educating the public as to the political neutrality of hospitals for the insane, but it is being done, and the prospect is that they will before very long be as free from the abuses of partisan politics in Illinois as in any of the older states of the Union. I have spoken of this matter in previous letters, but it is right that I mention it again, for it is the chief fault of our public institutions, and the one that is more than everything else responsible for their failings.

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