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Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T17:54:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-07-01 The field of movement ecology has rapidly grown during the last decade, with important advancements in tracking devices and analytical tools that have provided unprecedented insights into where, when, and why species move across a landscape. Although there has been an increasing emphasis on making animal movement data publicly available, there has also been a conspicuous dearth in the availability of such data on large carnivores. Globally, large predators are of conservation concern. However, due to their secretive behavior and low densities, obtaining movement data on apex predators is expensive and logistically challenging. Consequently, the relatively small sample sizes typical of large carnivore movement studies may limit insights into the ecology and behavior of these elusive predators. The aim of this initiative is to make available to the conservation-scientific community a dataset of 134,690 locations of jaguars (Panthera onca) collected from 117 individuals (54 males and 63 females) tracked by GPS technology. Individual jaguars were monitored in five different range countries representing a large portion of the species' distribution. This dataset may be used to answer a variety of ecological questions including but not limited to: improved models of connectivity from local to continental scales; the use of natural or human-modified landscapes by jaguars; movement behavior of jaguars in regions not represented in this dataset; intraspecific interactions; and predator-prey interactions. In making our dataset publicly available, we hope to motivate other research groups to do the same in the near future. Specifically, we aim to help inform a better understanding of jaguar movement ecology with applications towards effective decision making and maximizing long-term conservation efforts for this ecologically important species. There are no costs, copyright, or proprietary restrictions associated with this data set. When using this data set, please cite this article to recognize the effort involved in gathering and collating the data and the willingness of the authors to make it publicly available. Inst Chico Mendes Conservacao Biodiversidade, Ctr Nacl Pesquisa & Conservacao Mamiferos Carnivo, BR-12952011 Atibaia, SP, Brazil Inst Conservacao Carnivoros Neotropicais, BR-12945010 Atibaia, SP, Brazil Asociac Guyra Paraguay, Parque Ecol Asuncion Verde, Asuncion 1101, Paraguay CONACYT, Parque Ecol Asuncion Verde, Asuncion 1101, Paraguay Univ Nacl Misiones, Inst Biol Subtrop, RA-3370 Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Argentina Consejo Nacl Invest Cient & Tecn, RA-3370 Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Argentina Asoc Civil Ctr Invest Bosque Atlantico, RA-3370 Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Argentina Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Inst Ecol, Ciudad Univ, Mexico City 04318, DF, Mexico CONACyT, Ciudad Univ, Mexico City 04318, DF, Mexico IPE, BR-12960000 Nazare Paulista, SP, Brazil Univ Estadual Paulista, Inst Biociencias, LEEC, Dept Ecol, BR-13506900 Rio Claro, SP, Brazil Faro Moro Eco Res, Dept Boqueron, Asuncion 9490, Paraguay Inst Onca Pintada, CP 193, BR-75830000 Mineiros, Go, Brazil Inst Chico Mendes Conservacao Biodiversidade, Estacao Ecol Taiama, BR-78200000 Caceres, MT, Brazil Inst Desenvolvimento Sustentavel Mamiraua, BR-69553225 Tefe, AM, Brazil Projeto Oncafari, BR-05428000 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil Univ Nacl Costa Rica, Inst Int Manejo & Conservac Vida Silvestre, Heredia 13503000, Costa Rica Univ Massachusetts, Dept Environm Conservat, Amherst, MA 01003 USA Univ Autonoma Estado Mexico, Ctr Invest Ciencias Biol Aplicadas, Inst Literario 100, Toluca 50000, Estado De Mexic, Mexico Univ Fed Uberlandia, Inst Biol, BR-38408100 Uberlandia, MG, Brazil Primero Conservat, Box 16106, Portal, AZ 85632 USA Univ Nacl Costa Rica, Escuela Med Vet, Hosp Especies Menores & Silvestres, Heredia 863000, Costa Rica Projeto Carnivoros Iguacu, BR-85851970 Foz Do Iguacu, PR, Brazil Univ Fed Integracao Latinoamer, Inst Latinoamer Ciencias Vida & Nat, BR-85851970 Foz Do Iguacu, PR, Brazil Univ Fed Mato Grosso do Sul, Fac Med Vet & Zootecnia, BR-79070900 Campo Grande, MS, Brazil Fazenda Barranco Alto, Projeto Oncas Rio Negro, BR-79208000 Aquidauana, MS, Brazil Univ Fed Vicosa, Dept Med Vet, BR-36570 Vicosa, MG, Brazil Inst Def & Preservacao Felideos Brasileiros, BR-72960000 Corumba De Goias, Go, Brazil Panthera, 8 West 40th St,18th Floor, New York, NY 10018 USA Univ Fed Mato Grosso, Programa Posgrad Ecol & Conservacao Biodiversidad, BR-78060900 Cuiaba, MT, Brazil SUNY Coll Environm Sci & Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210 USA Univ Sul Santa Catarina, BR-88704900 Tubarao, SC, Brazil Univ Fed Sao Joao del Rei, Dept Ciencias Nat, BR-36301160 Sao Joao Del Rei, MG, Brazil Univ Sao Paulo, ESALQ CENA, Programa Posgrad Interunidades Ecol Aplicada, Lab Ecol Manejo & Conservacao Fauna Silvestre, BR-13418900 Piracicaba, SP, Brazil Minist Salud Nacion, Inst Med Trop, RA-3370 Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Argentina Inst Pesquisa & Conservacao Tamanduas Brasil, BR-64200025 Parnaiba, PI, Brazil Univ Estadual Paulista, Inst Biociencias, LEEC, Dept Ecol, BR-13506900 Rio Claro, SP, Brazil

The pair-wise comparison technique is a common approach for completing multi-attribute evaluations. However, this approach has limitations, especially for larger attribute sets, where the use of the technique is time-consuming because it requires a relatively large number of comparisons. The authors conducted an experiment to test the efficacy of three alternative approaches for eliciting preferences, specifically pairs, triads and quads. Ninety-three subjects used one of the three approaches to rank the importance of fifteen items. The results indicate that those employing the pair-wise approach took significantly longer than those using the triad or quad approach. In addition, the triad technique yielded more accurate results (compared to the pair and quad methods). Finally, the quad approach generated fewer intransitivities than the pair-wise or triad approaches. No differences were observed across the three techniques with respect to reliability or perceived ease of use. Implications are provided for both practitioners and researchers.

Transitions of young people from school to employment, further education or training have been a focus of government policy in the UK for at least the last three decades. Since the late 1990s, numerous policy initiatives have been introduced by New Labour in an attempt to reduce social exclusion through the increased participation of young people in work‐related training. This paper reports on a mixed‐methods research project exploring Entry to Employment (E2E) provision in the north of England. It outlines the experiences of Connexions practitioners working with learners and staff at four E2E providers and illustrates the complexities involved with young people's transitions to and from E2E programmes. The paper shows that a marketised system driven by targets and funding constraints can compromise the ability of practitioners to best meet the needs of young people struggling with often difficult circumstances.

The unprecedented degree of attention given to the learning and skills sector in England by successive New Labour governments has led to a significant increase in what is expected of the teaching workforce. To help meet these expectations, a ‘step change’ in the quality of initial teacher training for the sector is promised, alongside provisions for career‐long professional development. In this article, the authors argue that the effectiveness of these reforms is likely to be compromised by a combination of under‐funding, poor integration of initial teacher training into human resource policies within colleges, and an over‐prescriptive curriculum. In addition, they consider the re‐definition of teaching roles currently taking place in the sector and warn that this may further undermine the reforms by simultaneously discouraging many teachers from achieving fully qualified status and downgrading their professional standing.

Recent research on post‐compulsory teacher educators in England suggests that there is a high degree of feminisation of this workforce, particularly where further and higher education partnerships are concerned. This process of feminisation has taken place against a background in which English post‐compulsory education has increasingly been brought under state control and direction, with profound consequences for those engaged in the professional development of teachers in the sector. Although teacher education is also highly feminised in other sectors and in many countries, the recent history of post‐compulsory education in England has a number of characteristics that have strongly influenced the gender distribution of its teacher educators. This article examines the locus of power driving the gendered division of labour in post‐compulsory teacher education and attempts to account for it by means of the intersection of structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives. It is argued that the trends taking ...

Initial teacher training for post‐compulsory education in England is currently undergoing profound change in terms of central direction of curricula and the provision of financial support for trainees. Within a discourse of the ‘professionalisation’ of teaching in the sector, unprecedented control of the detailed structure and content of training courses has been established and is increasing in extent. At the same time, principles of free access to Cert. Ed. and PGCE courses are being set aside, so that those universities which provide training are simultaneously contending with imposed curriculum change and with a serious threat to student recruitment. This article examines the origins and nature of these developments, considers the political and economic background from which they stem, and discusses in detail some features of the characteristic discourse of the reforms instituted by central government. It goes on to consider the likely effects of the recent and on‐going changes in university‐led train...

Recent research has suggested that flawed status reporting is a serious concern in IS projects. However, the linkage between reporting quality and project performance has not been empirically confirmed. Our investigation consisted of two complementary studies, both of which employed previously validated measures of reporting quality and project outcomes. The first considered the perceptions of 210 IS project members of the quality of status reports they submitted to their project managers. The second considered the perceptions of 485 IS project managers of the quality of project reports they received from project members reporting to them. Both showed that the perceived quality of project reporting was less than perfect and was significantly associated with project task and psychological outcomes. Moreover, the second study results suggested that reporting quality was also related to organizational outcomes. We offer recommendations for project managers.

An integrative model explaining intentions to use an information technology is proposed. The primary objective is to obtain a clearer picture of how intentions are formed, and draws on previous research such as the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, Bagozzi and Warshaw, 1989) and the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (Taylor and Todd, 1995a). The conceptual model was tested using questionnaire responses from 189 subjects, measured at two time periods approximately two months apart. The results generally supported the hypothesized relationships, and revealed strong influences of both personal innovativeness and computer self-efficacy.

Group decisions are an important element of successful knowledge management in organizations. Such decisions are difficult to make, however, especially when they involve a large set of attributes that require decision-makers to develop rankings. This paper presents a goal programming model for determining constrained regression estimates of attribute weights. The model is developed using pair-wise comparison ratings that are derived by using triads of the attributes. In addition, metrics are presented for measuring individual and group consensus. A specific application to the health care industry is presented to illustrate results that are obtained from the model.

In later chapters, we describe some of the young people in our research as living in poverty, or as being affected by poverty in various ways that reduce their ability to participate in work or education. To people accustomed to thinking about poverty as a lack of material resources, this might seem an exaggerated way of expressing the circumstances of individuals who are neither starving nor without access to material goods that would have been luxuries less than a century ago. For many people, the traditional conception — usually referred to as absolute povert? — conjures up distressing images of beggars in the streets of Victorian England or drought, disaster and starvation in the developing world. From a similar perspective, early research into poverty, such as the work of the philanthropist Seebohm Rowntree at the end of the nineteenth century, also focused on the objective conditions in which people lived. Rowntree and his colleagues carried out door-to-door surveys examining the living conditions of thousands of working-class people and calculated the income required to secure the food, fuel and clothing necessary to maintain health (Coates 1966, pp.28-33). People who lacked the necessities of life according to these standards were regarded as being in poverty.

The last 50 years have seen profound changes in how young people experience early adulthood, reflecting more fundamental alterations in economy and society. For three decades after the end of World War II, the majority of young people left school and entered full-time work at the first opportunity, and youth transitions were perhaps at their most condensed and unitary in post-war Britain (Jones 1995, p.23). Most school-leavers were able to find the types of work they expected and, for the majority, leaving home, marriage and parenthood took place soon thereafter. A small minority of mainly middle-class young people went on to higher education, but lengthy periods of study at college or university were quite rare amongst working-class youth. Day-release at a technical college often formed part of the apprenticeship programmes which — especially in construction, engineering or manufacturing industry — were prized by many school-leavers, especially young working-class men. However, few young people in unskilled or semi-skilled work experienced post-compulsory education and there was often considerable pressure from family and friends to leave education and start earning as soon as possible (Goodwin and O’Connor 2005, p.214).

The construction of polynomials with maximum turning points lower than minimum turning points is investigated. As well as providing cautionary examples for students, the solution requires the application of quadratic inequalities and could provide an interesting topic for coursework at A level. The problem also provides an opportunity for practice in the use of graph plotting software.

This study investigates the effectiveness of two multi-attribute evaluation techniques under conditions of high information load that is caused by large attribute sets. One hundred and sixty-five respondents were randomly assigned to two groups: the first one used a holistic, point allocation-based method to evaluate a list of 20 job attributes, while the second employed a triad-based technique that decomposed the evaluation task. The results suggest that the decomposed method produced more reliable results and was deemed easier to use, even though it took longer to complete the task.

The MIS department of a mutual insurance company survived rapid and dramatic changes during the 1980s and early 1990s. The external environment of this company went from stable to very turbulent, with many aggressive new competitors, many new products, and plummeting profits. On the MIS side, changes included a new hardware platform and operating system, a new database representation, changes in leadership, a rapid expansion in the use of personal computers and other forms of end-user computing, new software development tools, continuous pressure for new applications, and a shift to stricter fiscal responsibility. After much pain, the MIS department not only survived, but emerged stronger, leaner and a full partner in the strategy making process of the company. This article is a case study that summarizes the issues, challenges and traps of the MIS world in the 80s. It also presents ten lessons to help steer a course through the next decade.

For conventional magnetic flux leakage (MFL) inspection where an excitation magnetic field is generated in the axial direction of a pipeline, axially oriented crack detection is impossible [1][2]. A new MFL tool design is presented that creates an excitation field in the circumferential or transverse direction, allowing for axial crack detection, as well as the more conventional metal loss detection. Design criteria that ensure detection include sufficient sensor density and magnetic field uniformity at sensor locations. The result is a new type of circumferential MFL inspection tool that can not only detect corrosion and other metal losses, but also axially oriented cracks. Based on the results of a series of inspection runs 22 crack-like features in the electric resistance weld (ERW) were investigated with 19 of those being verified as linear long seam features and were subsequently permanently repaired. Further information on the efficacy of this design is clarified in [2].

This study investigates selective reporting behaviors that are pursued by project managers when communicating the status of their information system initiatives to their executives. To understand the types, motivations, impacts, and antecedents of such behaviors, a message-exchange perspective is adopted and the prior literature on IS project status reporting is reviewed. This study incorporates an empirical investigation that examined the influence of five dyadic factors on selective reporting using a survey of 561 project managers. The findings of the study reveal a positive effect of reporting quality on project performance and indicate that a specific type of selective reporting behavior (optimistic biasing) has a degrading effect on reporting quality. Moreover, the findings show that all five antecedents have a significant influence on the propensity of project managers to report selectively. Specifically, the project executive's power, the project manager's trust in the executive, and the executive's quality of communication impact selective reporting directly; the executive's familiarity with the IS development process and the executive's organizational affiliation vis-a-vis that of the project manager have an indirect influence (it is mediated through other factors). The effects of each of these factors on the two types of selective reporting (optimistic and pessimistic biasing) are examined, and the implications of these findings for both researchers and managers are discussed in this article.

Public sector organizations are being scrutinized and held accountable for their use of funds, now more than ever. Further, taxpayers are increasingly comparing the public sector to the private sector, demanding better customer service. As an added dimension, public organizations find themselves spending more on information technology (IT), even as their budgets come under pressure. In a situation similar to the private sector, public organizations find a large number of IT projects that are over budget, behind schedule, and producing fewer benefits than expected. The trend in computing is to migrate from mainframe-based systems to smaller computer platforms, frequently employing Graphical User Interface (GUI) software. Such migrations are proving difficult for private sector and public sector managers alike. The problem is more acute in the public sector, however, because the bulk of the IT management experience in the public sector is with mainframe-based systems. Such experience does not translate readily to the skills needed for Local Area Networks (LANs) and client-server architectures. Project management frameworks have been developed in the private sector that can provide guidelines, but blindly adopting such frameworks to the public sector can be misleading. What is needed is a workable project management framework that addresses the common elements of risk assessment and project management, while taking into account the unique needs of public organizations. Our purpose in this article is to suggest a framework that will address the needs of managing large-scale IT projects in the public sector. We first discuss the differences between public and private organizations, with emphasis on IT project management. Next a discussion is offered of trends in human resource management systems (HRMS), providing an introduction to the case. The case describes a specific attempt to implement an HRMS in a state government. The case is followed by the presentation of an IT project management framework. We close with a discussion of the lessons learned. Information Technology in the Public Sector The role of IT in public organizations has been the subject of numerous research efforts, including a major research program at the University of California at Irvine (Northrop et al., 1990). The Irvine group argued that many of the intended benefits of IT, such as better information for planning and managerial control, had not been realized. A long-term, longitudinal study found that most payoffs from computerization were in the areas of fiscal control, cost avoidance, and better interactions with the public. However, those payoffs were not immediate, and the prospects for future payoffs in these areas were mixed. Other research has focused on the control of information resources (including IT) at the state level. A national study of state governments investigated new organizational structures, planning processes, and policy formulation activities relating to the acquisition, use, and management of IT (Caudle, 1990). The study concluded that although the focus remained on IT management, public sector management was increasingly considering information itself as an important resource to be managed. Another study was designed to test the basic premise that management of IT in public organizations differs from that carried out in private sector firms (Bretschneider, 1990). Using a sample of slightly more than 1,000 public and private sector organizations, the study presented a list of potential differences between public and private organizations that could affect the capacity of an organization to manage IT effectively. The differences identified by Bretschneider included the following (MIS stands for the management information systems function in the private sector, and PMIS for the public management information systems in the public sector): 1 .PMIS managers must contend with greater levels of interdependence across organizational boundaries than do private MIS managers. …

A key concern in Information Systems (IS) research has been to better understand the linkage between information systems and individual performance. The research reported in this study has two primary objectives: (1) to propose a comprehensive theoretical model that incorporates valuable insights from two complementary streams of research, and (2) to empirically test the core of the model. At the heart of the new model is the assertion that for an information technology to have a positive impact on individual performance, the technology: (1) must be utilized and (2) must be a good fit with the tasks it supports. This new model is moderately supported by an analysis of data from over 600 individuals in two companies. This research highlights the importance of the fit between technologies and users' tasks in achieving individual performance impacts from information technology. It also suggests that task-technology fit when decomposed into its more detailed components, could be the basis for a strong diagnostic tool to evaluate whether information systems and services in a given organization are meeting user needs.

Organizations continue to invest heavily in personal computers for their knowledge workers. When use is optional, however, having access to the technology by no means ensures it will be used or used effectively. To help us gain a better understanding of factors that influence the use of personal computers, researchers have recently adopted the theory of reasoned action proposed by Fishbein and Azjen (1975). This study uses a competing theory of behavior proposed by Triandis (1980). Responses were collected from 212 knowledge workers in nine divisions of a multi-national firm, and the measures and research hypotheses were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). The results show that social norms and three components of expected consequences (complexity of use, fit between the job and PC capabilities, and long-term consequences) have a strong influence on utilization. These findings confirm the importance of the expected consequences of using PC technology, suggesting that training programs and organizational policies could be instituted to enhance or modify these expectations.