A study of the impacts of variable factors on built environment graduates’ prospects

This paper investigates the impacts of variable factors, such as practical experience and factors related to study style, on employment outcomes and patterns of built environment graduates in Australia. This paper also compares the employment prospects of different built environment sub-disciplines, including Architecture, Construction, Real Estate and Urban Planning and Regional Studies. Practical experience and the possibility of work with final year employers after graduation were found to have a statistically significant impact on the employment outcomes for graduates of built environment and all of its sub-disciplines. However, degree level and type of university attended were not found to have a statistically significant impact. Attendance type and employment mode in the final year of study had a statistically significant impact on the employment patterns for graduates of built environment and all of its sub-disciplines. The graduates who studied part-time and worked full-time in their final year of study were more likely to secure full-time jobs after graduation. The findings of this paper can be used by built environment graduates to identify the variable factors which they can change in order to enhance their employment prospects

Comparative study of conventional, reactive-distillation and pervaporation integrated hybrid process for ethyl tert-butyl ether production

Ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) is widely used as an oxygenate additive to gasoline; however, a drawback in the conventional ETBE manufacture is the energy intensive product recovery process, making ETBE expensive. The purification process of ETBE involves the separation of ETBE, mixed C4 hydrocarbons and unreacted ethanol. The unreacted ethanol forms azeotropic mixtures with ETBE that are difficult to separate by distillation. In this work, a comparative study between the conventional process to produce ETBE and two alternative intensified processes is presented by means of process simulation in Aspen Plus. One of the alternative methods for improving the separation and purification section of ETBE is the use of a hybrid distillation-pervaporation process with alcohol-selective membranes, which allows to reach the target ETBE purity (95.2 wt%) with a lower energy consumption and at the same time the permeate stream, with a high ethanol content, is recycled back to the reaction section. Alternatively, the production of ETBE by means of reactive distillation is analyzed for the same basis of calculation. The results show that the reactive distillation allows a significant increase in the conversion of the reactants, but in contrast the energy consumption is higher than in the other processes evaluated.Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science under the projects CTM2013-44081-R (MINECO, Spain-FEDER 2014–2020), CTQ2015-66078-R and CTQ2016-75158-R is gratefully acknowledged. Adham Norkobilov also thanks the SILKROUTE Project for a PhD scholarship funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 Programme

Structures, processes and outcomes of specialist critical care nurse education: An integrative review

Objectives: The objective of this study was to review and synthesise international literature to reveal the contemporary structures, processes, and outcomes of critical care nurse (CCN) education. Method: An integrative review on specialist critical care education was guided by Whittemore and Knafl's integrative review steps: problem identification; literature search; and data evaluation, analysis, and presentation. Donabedian's Quality Framework (Structure-Process-Outcome) provided a useful analytical lens and structure for the reporting of findings. Results: (1) Structures for CCN education incorporated transition-to-practice and ongoing education programs typically offered by hospitals and health services and university-level graduate certificate, diploma, and masters programs. Structural expectations included a standard core curriculum, clinically credible academic staff, and courses compliant with a higher education framework. Published workforce standards and policies were important structures for the practice learning environment. (2) Processes included incremental exposure to increasing patient acuity; consistent and appropriately supported and competent hospital-based preceptors/assessors; courses delivered with a flexible, modular approach; curricula that support nontechnical skills and patient- and family-centred care; stakeholder engagement between the education provider and the clinical setting to guide course planning, evaluation and revalidation; and evidence-based measurement of clinical capabilities/competence. (3) Outcomes included articulation of the scope and levels of graduate attributes and professional activities associated with each level. The role of higher degree research programs for knowledge creation and critical care academic leadership was noted. Conclusions: Provision of high-quality critical care education is multifaceted and complex. These findings provide information for healthcare organisations and education providers. This may enable best practice structures and processes for critical care specialist training that meets the needs of industry and safely supports developing CCN expertise. There is an acknowledged tension between the expectations of governing bodies for policies, standards, and position statements to enhance quality and reduce care variance and the availability of high-quality evidence to underpin these across international contexts

Learning and Earning: A Study of Education Opportunities for Young People

This document forms part of the research materials collected in the 'School knowledge, working knowledge and the knowing subject: a review of state curriculum policies 1975-2005' project. The research was led by Professor Lyn Yates and was funded as a Discovery Project by the Australian Research Council (2007-2008), supplemented by further funding from the University of Melbourne through 2009. Curriculum policies and major education reports collected as part of this project were digitised to preserve as a resource for future researchers and policy makers with the support of the University Library and the Social and Cultural Informatics Platform

Australian universities' review

Strategic human resource management has been shown to be positively associated with the improved performance of a wide variety of for-profit and not-forprofit organisations (Delaney & Huselid, 1996). More recently, talent management has emerged as popular term to cover a wide variety of human resource management practices with a focus on talent pools and talent more generally (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). This paper discusses a more precise definition of talent management and explores its interdependence with organisational strategy, competitive environment and industry segment. In particular, we examine three key issues relevant to talent management within the university sector: alignment with strategy, alignment with performance metrics and alignment with management. Here our use of the term ‘alignment’ is intended to emphasise the critical role talent management can play in coalescing an organisation’s strategy with performance metrics and the day-to-day management of staff. Without a clear strategy there is a lack of clarity about how staff can contribute towards the organisation’s strategically important objectives. Without alignment, staff will be motivated, managed and rewarded towards outcomes that are either not strategically important or hinder strategically important objectives. The paper focuses on the academic functions of the university (i.e., teaching and research) and so concentrates on talent management of academic staff. However, the implementation of talent management, like many of the fundamental systems and processes within a university, relies on the skills and expertise of professional administrators and academic managers. Therefore, a holistic talent management program should also recognise and reward talent throughout all academic, administrative and management roles.&nbsp