title: Farmers Reap Benefits of DSS

authors: Foulds, Les R.

subjects: management

abstract: Maize farming in New Zealand is an important activity contributing a significant proportion of the output of the agricultural sector. Commercial contractors form an important part of the harvesting process by traveling from farm to farm harvesting maize. Traditionally, commercial harvesters have difficulty in deciding when to harvest different farms within a short period in time, taking into consideration various limitations such as limited dedicated machines and crews. 
We report here on the development of a scheduling and decision-making support system (DSS) that assists commercial harvesters in scheduling their activities. We also present the outcomes of the implementation of the system by a large commercial harvester.

text: Farmers Reap Benefits of DSS Maize farming in New Zealand is an important activity contributing a significant proportion of the output of the agricultural sector. Commercial contractors form an important part of the harvesting process by traveling from farm to farm harvesting maize. Traditionally, commercial harvesters have difficulty in deciding when to harvest different farms within a short period in time, taking into consideration various limitations such as limited dedicated machines and crews. 
We report here on the development of a scheduling and decision-making support system (DSS) that assists commercial harvesters in scheduling their activities. We also present the outcomes of the implementation of the system by a large commercial harvester.

year: 2006-04

title: Bundle-driven move analysis: Sentence initial lexical bundles in PhD abstracts

authors: Li, Liang

abstract: Rhetorical moves are discoursal units that perform communicative functions in a given genre. They have been manually identified in many previous studies taking a corpus-based approach, and these studies have provided important contributions to discourse structure theories. However, manual analysis has restricted the scale and quantity of texts under investigation and the identification of moves is likely to be influenced by researchers' prior knowledge. In contrast, a corpus-driven approach, by applying automatic computational technology to process a large number of texts, possibly results in a better representation of the moves in a genre and minimises researcher bias in move identification. This study applies one typical corpus-driven approach, a bundle-driven approach, to analyse rhetorical moves of PhD abstracts, a move-intensive genre. The study focused on 5-word sentence initial bundles. Almost all the generated bundles could be identified as move indicators. The majority of the indicated moves aligned with the moves proposed for research article abstracts in previous studies, and one new move, Structure, was identified. This study indicates the potential of a bundle-driven approach in exploring rhetorical moves and in examining the linguistic features of moves by means of lexical bundles. Pedagogical implications for EAP writing are also suggested.

text: Bundle-driven move analysis: Sentence initial lexical bundles in PhD abstracts Rhetorical moves are discoursal units that perform communicative functions in a given genre. They have been manually identified in many previous studies taking a corpus-based approach, and these studies have provided important contributions to discourse structure theories. However, manual analysis has restricted the scale and quantity of texts under investigation and the identification of moves is likely to be influenced by researchers' prior knowledge. In contrast, a corpus-driven approach, by applying automatic computational technology to process a large number of texts, possibly results in a better representation of the moves in a genre and minimises researcher bias in move identification. This study applies one typical corpus-driven approach, a bundle-driven approach, to analyse rhetorical moves of PhD abstracts, a move-intensive genre. The study focused on 5-word sentence initial bundles. Almost all the generated bundles could be identified as move indicators. The majority of the indicated moves aligned with the moves proposed for research article abstracts in previous studies, and one new move, Structure, was identified. This study indicates the potential of a bundle-driven approach in exploring rhetorical moves and in examining the linguistic features of moves by means of lexical bundles. Pedagogical implications for EAP writing are also suggested.

year: 2020

title: Critical reflection for researcher–community partnership effectiveness: The He Pikinga Waiora process evaluation tool guiding the implementation of chronic condition interventions in Indigenous communities

authors: Rarere, Moana

subjects: community health planning

abstract: Critically reflecting on researcher–community partnerships is a key component in implementing chronic condition interventions in Indigenous communities. This paper draws on the results and learnings from a process evaluation that measures how well two research–community partnerships have followed the He Pikinga Waiora (HPW) Implementation Framework while co-designing chronic condition interventions in primary care. The HPW framework is centred on Indigenous self-determination and knowledge surrounded by community engagement, cultural centredness, systems thinking and integrated knowledge translation. The evaluation included in-depth interviews and online surveys with 10 team members. The findings demonstrate that the HPW framework was followed well, with strengths particularly in community engagement and relationship building. Areas for improvement included systems thinking and integrated knowledge translation to support sustainability of the interventions. The need for partnerships to use process evaluation results to support critical reflection is asserted, which helps build strong trust and synergy, power sharing and effective and sustainable implementation practices. It is concluded that the HPW framework is well suited to evaluating implementation of health interventions in primary care as it assists in the facilitation of better collaboration between researchers and Indigenous communities, and encourages the implementation team to reflect on power and privilege.

text: Critical reflection for researcher–community partnership effectiveness: The He Pikinga Waiora process evaluation tool guiding the implementation of chronic condition interventions in Indigenous communities Critically reflecting on researcher–community partnerships is a key component in implementing chronic condition interventions in Indigenous communities. This paper draws on the results and learnings from a process evaluation that measures how well two research–community partnerships have followed the He Pikinga Waiora (HPW) Implementation Framework while co-designing chronic condition interventions in primary care. The HPW framework is centred on Indigenous self-determination and knowledge surrounded by community engagement, cultural centredness, systems thinking and integrated knowledge translation. The evaluation included in-depth interviews and online surveys with 10 team members. The findings demonstrate that the HPW framework was followed well, with strengths particularly in community engagement and relationship building. Areas for improvement included systems thinking and integrated knowledge translation to support sustainability of the interventions. The need for partnerships to use process evaluation results to support critical reflection is asserted, which helps build strong trust and synergy, power sharing and effective and sustainable implementation practices. It is concluded that the HPW framework is well suited to evaluating implementation of health interventions in primary care as it assists in the facilitation of better collaboration between researchers and Indigenous communities, and encourages the implementation team to reflect on power and privilege.

year: 2019