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This study intends to measure the single use container consumption of a sample of N=40 participants before and after an intervention workshop.

Can product-level data recording by small business owners enable them to improve their business practices and outcomes, in addition to improving the accuracy of firm data available to researchers and policymakers in low-income countries? Small firm owners have often been reluctant to keep proper records because of perceived lower benefits and heuristic demands among other constraints. Using a randomized evaluation, I will compare the impact of micro-consulting from a record-keeping app versus other traditional methods of record-keeping or no-records. We propose that systematic bookkeeping provides business owners with pieces of information that are more digestible and actionable which stems from granular product-level data. The impact of beneficial information from systematic record-keeping might suggest an increase in record-keeping adoption, provide a more accurate measurement of small firm behaviour and increase business profits.

Teaching is considered one of the most trusted professions, yet literature evaluating teachers' understanding of professional behaviour is scarce. Recently, technological advancements such as Social Networking Sites (SNS; e.g. Facebook) have created fresh debate about appropriate behaviour for teachers: in school and online. The "Professional Interactions and Behaviours Scale" (PIBS) was developed to assess the degree to which

Consistent evidence suggests hospitalised adults do not move enough, spending only 3-5% of their day standing/walking, and in 50-70% of cases never leaving their rooms. This increase in sedentary behaviour and reduction in physical activity participation relative to normal daily living sees approximately 33% of older adults experience hospital-acquired functional decline and reduced ability to perform activities of daily living. Outcomes of functional decline are tightly associated with increased rates of falls, mortality and institutionalisation. Therefore, physical activity and sedentary behaviour levels, like other vital signs, offer valuable information regarding the risk of hospital-acquired functional decline and have the potential to alert clinicians to a deterioration in patients’ health and the risk of adverse events, allowing prompt and targeted intervention. Despite this, physical activity and sedentary behaviour are rarely measured and poorly documented in the hospital setting, limiting their clinical impact. Due to a lack of well-defined physical activity and sedentary behaviour outcome measures, a major limitation to the assessment of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the hospital setting is that measurement, if performed, commonly relies on qualitative nurse or physician perception. Furthermore, considerable heterogeneity in outcome measure selection in research trials impairs the ability to compare and synthesise the effectiveness of hospital-based physical activity interventions and thereby impedes development of policies and guidelines necessary to support healthy hospital stays. This scoping review aims to identify and map outcomes and measurement tools used within eligible randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of physical activity and/or sedentary behaviour interventions with middle-aged and older adults (≥50 years) in acute and sub-acute inpatient hospital settings.

This article is from Nanoscale Research Letters , volume 6 . Abstract In this research, the elastic behaviour of two Co thin films simultaneously deposited in an off-normal angle method was studied. Towards this end, two Si micro-cantilevers were simultaneously coated using pulsed laser deposition at an oblique angle, creating a Co nano-string surface morphology with a predetermined orientation. The selected position of each micro-cantilever during the coating process created longitudinal or transverse nano-strings. The anisotropic elastic behaviour of these Co films was determined by measuring the changes that took place in the resonant frequency of each micro-cantilever after this process of creating differently oriented plasma coatings had been completed. This differential procedure allowed us to determine the difference between the Young's modulus of the different films based on the different direction of the nano-strings. This difference was determined to be, at least, the 20% of the Young's modulus of the bulk Co.PACS: 62.25.-g; 81.16.Rf; 68.60.Bs; 81.15.Fg; 68.37.Ef; 85.85.+j

An important issue in public goods game is whether player's behaviour changes over time, and if so, how significant it is. In this game players can be classified into different groups according to the level of their participation in the public good. This problem can be considered as a concept drift problem by asking the amount of change that happens to the clusters of players over a sequence of game rounds. In this study we present a method for measuring changes in clusters with the same items over discrete time points using external clustering validation indices and area under the curve. External clustering indices were originally used to measure the difference between suggested clusters in terms of clustering algorithms and ground truth labels for items provided by experts. Instead of different cluster label comparison, we use these indices to compare between clusters of any two consecutive time points or between the first time point and the remaining time points to measure the difference between clusters through time points. In theory, any external clustering indices can be used to measure changes for any traditional (non-temporal) clustering algorithm, due to the fact that any time point alone is not carrying any temporal information. For the public goods game, our results indicate that the players are changing over time but the change is smooth and relatively constant between any two time points.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-169) and index

This article is from PLoS ONE , volume 9 . Abstract Broiler breeders (parents of meat chickens) are selected for fast growth and become obese if fed ad libitum. To avoid this and maintain good health and reproductive ability, they are feed restricted to about 1/3 of what they would eat ad libitum. As a result, they experience chronic hunger and exhibit abnormal behaviour patterns that may indicate stress and frustration. One approach to measuring hunger is to observe how much birds will work, such as pecking a key, for access to more or different types of food. However, the sight, smell, and feedback from consumption of the feed reward changes the context and may artificially raise feeding motivation. To avoid this, we tested broiler breeders in an apparatus in which they could work for access to a wooden platform covered in wood shavings by crossing a water runway which increased in length and depth in 8 successive tests. In the wood shavings area, they could perform exploratory and foraging behaviour (the appetitive phase of feeding) but were never rewarded with feed. Sixty birds were divided into three feed quantity treatments: commercial restriction (R), and twice (2R) or three times (3R) this amount. Overall, birds fed R worked harder to reach the wood shavings area (reached it in a larger number of tests) than 2R and 3R birds (P

This article is from PLoS ONE , volume 9 . Abstract Broiler breeders (parents of meat chickens) are selected for fast growth and become obese if fed ad libitum. To avoid this and maintain good health and reproductive ability, they are feed restricted to about 1/3 of what they would eat ad libitum. As a result, they experience chronic hunger and exhibit abnormal behaviour patterns that may indicate stress and frustration. One approach to measuring hunger is to observe how much birds will work, such as pecking a key, for access to more or different types of food. However, the sight, smell, and feedback from consumption of the feed reward changes the context and may artificially raise feeding motivation. To avoid this, we tested broiler breeders in an apparatus in which they could work for access to a wooden platform covered in wood shavings by crossing a water runway which increased in length and depth in 8 successive tests. In the wood shavings area, they could perform exploratory and foraging behaviour (the appetitive phase of feeding) but were never rewarded with feed. Sixty birds were divided into three feed quantity treatments: commercial restriction (R), and twice (2R) or three times (3R) this amount. Overall, birds fed R worked harder to reach the wood shavings area (reached it in a larger number of tests) than 2R and 3R birds (P

This study aimed at developing a valid and reliable instrument for measuring attitudes of primary schoolteachers toward inappropriate student behaviour. A systematic approach was used to develop the scale. Results provide preliminary evidence that the new instrument (consisting of 13 items on a six-point Likert type scale) meets the standards for reliability. Factor analysis with varimax rotation identified two distinct factors: (1) unproductive behaviour, and (2) aggressive behaviour. The alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.91 for the total scale, and 0.92 and 0.75 for first and second subscales respectively. The factor structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which revealed that with a little modification, the identified model had a good fit for the data as all the key fit indices demonstrate highly accepted values including Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI)>0.95, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)>0.96, and Root Mean Error of Approximation (RMSEA)<0.05. [Note: Issue number displayed on the PDF (n1) is incorrect. This article was published in v13 n2.]

This study aimed at developing a valid and reliable instrument for measuring attitudes of primary schoolteachers toward inappropriate student behaviour. A systematic approach was used to develop the scale. Results provide preliminary evidence that the new instrument (consisting of 13 items on a six-point Likert type scale) meets the standards for reliability. Factor analysis with varimax rotation identified two distinct factors: (1) unproductive behaviour, and (2) aggressive behaviour. The alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.91 for the total scale, and 0.92 and 0.75 for first and second subscales respectively. The factor structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which revealed that with a little modification, the identified model had a good fit for the data as all the key fit indices demonstrate highly accepted values including Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI)>0.95, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)>0.96, and Root Mean Error of Approximation (RMSEA)<0.05. [Note: Issue number displayed on the PDF (n1) is incorrect. This article was published in v13 n2.]

This study aimed at developing a valid and reliable instrument for measuring attitudes of primary schoolteachers toward inappropriate student behaviour. A systematic approach was used to develop the scale. Results provide preliminary evidence that the new instrument (consisting of 13 items on a six-point Likert type scale) meets the standards for reliability. Factor analysis with varimax rotation identified two distinct factors: (1) unproductive behaviour, and (2) aggressive behaviour. The alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.91 for the total scale, and 0.92 and 0.75 for first and second subscales respectively. The factor structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which revealed that with a little modification, the identified model had a good fit for the data as all the key fit indices demonstrate highly accepted values including Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI)>0.95, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)>0.96, and Root Mean Error of Approximation (RMSEA)<0.05. [Note: Issue number displayed on the PDF (n1) is incorrect. This article was published in v13 n2.]

This study aimed at developing a valid and reliable instrument for measuring attitudes of primary schoolteachers toward inappropriate student behaviour. A systematic approach was used to develop the scale. Results provide preliminary evidence that the new instrument (consisting of 13 items on a six-point Likert type scale) meets the standards for reliability. Factor analysis with varimax rotation identified two distinct factors: (1) unproductive behaviour, and (2) aggressive behaviour. The alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.91 for the total scale, and 0.92 and 0.75 for first and second subscales respectively. The factor structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which revealed that with a little modification, the identified model had a good fit for the data as all the key fit indices demonstrate highly accepted values including Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI)>0.95, Comparative Fit Index (CFI)>0.96, and Root Mean Error of Approximation (RMSEA)<0.05. [Note: Issue number displayed on the PDF (n1) is incorrect. This article was published in v13 n2.]