Survey of current methods and guidance for strategic environmental assessment

This paper examines methods promoted and used in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) practice, practitioner choices about methodology and the nature of SEA guidance. Results show that SEA is not challenged by a lack of methods, but the range of methods promoted and used is restrictive. A major challenge to practice is making the ‘right choices’ about methods and methodology. Much SEA guidance is focused on flexibility in SEA, providing high-level principles, and is too generic to facilitate such choices. It is assumed that there is sufficient expertise amongst SEA practitioners, and that practitioners will simply know what methods and methodologies are best. Our results indicate that more detailed operational guidance is needed at the practitioner level on how to make sound methodological choices and how to select the best available methods for the SEA tier and context at hand.     

Challenges for pharmaceutical industry: new partnerships for sustainable human health

The healthcare burden is increasing in both the developed and the developing world and there is widespread acceptance that the historical pharmaceutical business model is not sustainable. In order to meet the healthcare challenge, companies and academia need to develop new business models to increase the probability of success and decrease the cost of failure. New partnerships have already emerged in the area of neglected diseases and other models for diseases of the developed world are emerging.     

Using client feedback in psychotherapy training: An analysis of its influence on supervision and counselor self-efficacy.

Tracking client outcome and the therapeutic relationship across treatment (i.e., client feedback) has become a recommended practice for clinicians. This study investigated whether the utility of this practice would extend to trainees if the data gained from clients was provided to their supervisor for use within supervision. Trainees (N = 28) were assigned to a continuous feedback condition or no-feedback condition for 1 academic year. Results indicated that trainees in both conditions demonstrated better client outcomes at the end of their practicum training than at the beginning, but those in the feedback condition improved more. However, those in the feedback condition did not rate the supervisory alliance or satisfaction with the supervision process differently. The relationship between counselor self-efficacy and outcome was stronger for trainees in the feedback condition than for those in the no-feedback condition, perhaps indicating that feedback may facilitate a more accurate assessment of one’s skills. Implications of how counseling self-efficacy, the supervisory alliance, and satisfaction with supervision are related to effective supervision are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of verbal and facial display rules.

144 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th graders listened to 8 stories designed to elicit either prosocial or self-protective display rules. Ss were asked to predict and explain what the protagonists would say and what facial expressions the protagonists would make in response to the emotion-laden situations. Findings indicate that Ss' knowledge of how and when to control emotional displays increased between 1st and 5th grade but then leveled off. Ss understood verbal display rules better than facial display rules, and they understood prosocial display rules better than self-protective ones. They sometimes failed to realize when other people would wish to regulate their emotional expressions. Findings are discussed in terms of the socialization of emotional displays, particularly the greater pressure placed on children to control verbal expression more than facial expression and to learn more prosocial than self-protective display rules. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alphabetic search: Comment on Klahr, Chase, and Lovelace (1983).

Response time (RT) curves were obtained from Ss who were instructed to search for following or preceding letters in the alphabet with respect to given stimulus letters. To describe the shape of these curves, D. Klahr et al (see record 1984-05777-001) proposed a search model. It was assumed that the alphabet was internally represented by a number of chunks of a few letters. Klahr et al assumed that serial searches occurred along 2 hierarchical levels: (1) a search for the correct chunk and (2) a search of the letters within the chunk. The Klahr et al model predicted an ascending sawtooth-shaped RT curve. However, according to the authors' analysis of the data, the RT curves did not show the expected sawtooth shapes. In order to find out whether the lack of empirical support for the model was an artifact of averaging the data, the experiment was replicated. It was found that individual RT curves did not show the shape characteristics that were predicted by the Klahr et al model either. The data supported the hypothesis that the access of letters was direct without any hierarchy, and that the retrieval of successive letters was determined by the variable associations between subsequent letters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the thematic issue on valuing research: theory,research, policy and practice of return on investment

Abstract

Increasingly, research enterprises in government, academia and industry are tasked with demonstrating the value of their undertakings. From the perspective of finite resources, like time, money and people, this is a reasonable request. Government researchers are duty-bound to demonstrate value to their nations’ citizens, academic researchers are obliged to demonstrate value to their departments, and industry researchers are compelled to demonstrate value to shareholders and stakeholders. Yet, quantifying the “value” of research is a complex undertaking, with subjective advocacy often standing in place of objective analysis. Recent efforts demonstrate that it is possible to develop and apply methods for valuing research. This thematic issue provides a sampling of recent developments in the underlying theory and application of Return on Investment measurement and assessment.     

Structural Evolution of Alkoxide Silica Gels to Glass: Effect of Catalyst pH

Structural and energetic changes of alkoxide silica during densification were followed in situ using photoacoustic Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (PAS-FTIR), transposed temperature drop calorimetry, and drop solution calorimetry. Acid-catalyzed silica gels contained higher concentrations of adsorbed water, silanol groups, and unreacted alkoxy groups than did the base-catalyzed gels/precipitates. The surface species in acid-catalyzed gels were removed easily, allowing this material to be densified at 800°C. The densified material was both structurally and energetically equivalent to fused silica glass. Base-catalyzed gels had fewer silanol groups in the green state, but free silanol groups emerged during drying at 500°C. The base-catalyzed gels did not densify below 1000°C, maintaining a high surface area of 100 m²/g. Base-catalyzed alkoxide gels comprised strained ring structures; their IR spectra were similar to those of fumed silica, but they were energetically much less stable.     

Research Needs Assessment on Nanostructured Catalysts

Nanocrystalline and nanoporous materials with uniquecharacteristics have attracted a great deal of research interest in the pastdecade. This paper discusses the latest advances in nanostructure processingwhich enable us to better control surface area, cluster size, grainmorphology, pore structure, component dispersion, phase distribution, anddefect concentration to engineer advanced catalysts with significantlyimproved reactivity and selectivity. Areas deserving further research toexplore and realize the full potential of nanostructured catalytic materialsare presented.     

Structural Evolution of Colloidal Silica Gels to Glass

The gel-to-ceramic evolution of colloidal-derived silica gels was examined by thermal analysis, infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy, physical characterization, and high-temperature calorimetry. Oxygen in the firing atmosphere promoted sintering of colloidal gels relative to firing in a nitrogen or argon atmosphere. Water vapor in the atmosphere promoted consolidation and crystallization to cristobalite. Addition of PVA to the colloidal gel resulted in consolidation and crystallization of the gel at 1000°C, ∼150°C less than gels without the PVA binder. The enthalpy of consolidation of the gels to fused silica glass was approximately − 10 kJ/mol, primarily due to reduction of surface area.