Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) is a form of combined therapy – aquatic therapy and animal-assisted therapy, where the patient is in close contact with the dolphin. In such therapy the dolphin is a partner, a motivator and a kind of reward for the child. It must be noted, however, that the basis of its effectiveness is the intensive child’s cooperation with the therapist. During the course of professional dolphin therapy, in addition to in-water session, there are also classroom activities, where motivation and skills gained during training with the animal are used, consolidated and expanded. With such planned therapy, effects may relate to the physical as well as emotional and cognitive sphere, depending on the planned activity, which the therapist is focused on.
This paper reviewed the existing literature on effectiveness of construction waste minimization in Nigeria with particular interest in Bauchi State. The study highlighted the menace of construction waste to the environment. The Nigerian construction industry comprises foreign and indigenous firms which are classified into small, medium and large according to their level of capitalization and annual turnover. In the real industrialized countries, the construction industry can be responsible for up to 20 % of the GDP and employs up to 12 % of the total labour force. In Nigeria, the sector contributes 3.2 % of GDP. This is a clear indication that construction industry in Nigeria failed to meet expectations of governments, clients and society. The material and method of this research study utilized a secondary source of data. A critical review of this recent journal articles posited new findings of effectiveness of construction waste minimization. To ascertain the actual happenings in the construction industries within and beyond the study area. The findings of this research study indicated that environmental pollution is caused by construction waste in the study area. It is also revealed that indigenous firms generate large volume of construction waste. It was evident that construction waste is ineffective to the health condition of the environment. The conclusion is drawn from the study also revealed that different approach and method should be applied to curtail and minimize construction waste effectiveness in the study area.
Polish municipalities have a considerable volume and range of different properties. Unfortunately very often municipal real estate management is fragmented and far from being rational and efficient. The main objective of this paper is to present some possibilities of improving the efficiency and reduce the costs associated with asset management in Polish gminas.
In our times, a growing interest of organizations, including also the public ones, in crowdsourcing, can be observed. It enables to acquire knowledge located in virtual communities. However, despite many benefits, crowdsourcing initiatives very often fail. Therefore, a need for their evaluation is recognized. Nonetheless, in the subject literature, a shortfall of criteria and methods of evaluating crowdsourcing may be observed. The existing proposals do not ensure a comprehensive picture of crowdsourcing, and they do not take into account its multidimensionality. The article is intended for a presentation of the ways of evaluating crowdsourcing and an original proposal of a list of indicators, which may be used for evaluating crowdsourcing in public organizations. The article presents the original proposal of activities, by which it is possible to assess the degree of implementation of the adopted tasks and determine the level of obtained crowdsourcing results. The conducted research allowed to recognize that it is possible to measure crowdsourcing results using quantitative and qualitative indicators. A prerequisite for selecting the appropriate means is first of all to indicate the purposes for which crowdsourcing should be used.
The aim of the article was to show the result of the research on the effectiveness and competitiveness of Polish agricultural farms. The study backed up for results from the system of collecting accountancy data agricultural farms (FADN). This data was collected from agricultural holdings with the economic size below 4, 4-8, 8-16, 16-40, 40-100 and higher than 100 ESU (European Size Unit) in 2008 and 2009. The field of ob-servation of this article included specialist cereals, oilseed and protein crops farms, specialist permanent crops farms, specialist dairying farms and specialist granivores farms. The indicators of effectiveness and competitiveness was income per FWU (Family Work Unit) and management income. The competitive specialist cereal farms have 16-40 ESU and about 100 hectare UAA (utilised agricultural area), specialist permanent crops farms have 40-100 ESU and about 7 hectare UAA and specialist dairying farm have 28 dairy cows. Moreover, the competitive specialist granivores farms have 36 cows or 400-600 tones of poultry meat from farm. The estimate number of competitive farms in 2010 equalled to two hundred twenty thousands, also their share in total number of farms under 1 hectare amounted to about 14%. The share of the farms is very low.
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to confirm the thesis that the amount of public funds expenditure has no impact on the effectiveness of state functioning, which – to a greater extent – is dependent on the efficiency of these funds. In the article, the author claims that in the case of the European Union there is no explicit evidence concerning the efficiency of public funds in Member States – both on the micro and macro level. Methodology: A literature review conducted on the basis of collections of academic and scientific articles and an analysis of particular solutions implemented in the European Union and in OECD Member States as well as concerning the consolidation of public funds in the context of the effectiveness of state functioning. Originality: The author of this work – on the basis of the (performed) analysis presented in the article, explains that the optimal fiscal policy should use appropriately selected tools allowing to achieve the best (optimal) method for the management of public funds, in particular the external and internal position of the economy of the given country. The key factors that decide on the effectiveness (excluding non-financial factors) are neither universal (absolute) nor relative extent of public spending. The author concludes that the level of effectiveness is either dependent on the structure of this spending and procedures connected with public expenditure planning, executing, accounting and reporting processes, or the level (quality) of the effectiveness and efficiency evaluation system.
The paper presents execution of a debtor’s bank account and the factors which, according to the author, influence directly its effectiveness. Despite the fact that the legislator seemingly has included a complete solution of this issue in the Code of Civil Proceedings, in the light of practical experience, the issue is more complicated and the solutions stated in the regulations cause serious trouble to the creditors, debtors, executive authorities as well as banks. The paper describes different types of bank accounts, for which it is possible to proceed with the execution, methods of searching for bank accounts by the executive authorities, and also the impact of Article 54 of banking law, which involves restriction on the execution.
The effective development of regions depends not only on the size of the national income, but also on the source of its origin. Differences in approach to the factors describing the competitiveness of regions and cities have evolved from a more general level in the direction of specialization, including both factors related to the quality of human capital and economic potential. Technology parks are an example of a high concentration of innovative human capital. In the past five years several new park initiatives were established in Poland. The activities of parks should be the development measured, for example, by employment growth in the regions, and innovativeness of companies. The main aim of the study is a multi-dimensional assessment of spatial differentiation in development of technology parks in Poland in terms of dynamics and identification the factors affecting the socio-economic development of cities and regions. The study used data from a project of PARP entitled "Benchmarking technology parks in Poland." The selected methods of multidimensional comparative analysis in terms of dynamics was selected to study the effectiveness of the parks.
In recent years sport and physical activities in any form, including dance, are becoming more and more popular. As a result, there are many dance schools on the market. To stay on the market and acquire customers, dance schools use a variety of marketing communication tools. The aim of this article is to analyse the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing communication instruments applied by one of Kraków dance schools – the Elita Dance Center. The methods implemented in this paper included case study, quantitative analysis of the data and interview. The data used in this article include the data on the activities of the dance school Elita Dance Center, as well as the results of research conducted by interview among the customers of this school. The Elita Dance Center is an efficient company. With each season it acquires more and more customers. However, the activities of marketing communication are not very productive. Promotion costs are increasing faster than the number of clients and income from the dance classes.
This study examined the effects of computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation in a group of 16 brain-damaged patients. Therapeutic effectiveness was assessed by improvement on computer tasks, the results of neuropsychological tests and quality of life ratings. Participants suffered from mild to moderate attention and memory problems or aphasia. The procedure involved baseline assessment (pretest), a 15-week course of therapy conducted twice a week (30 hours in total) and posttest. Neuropsychological tests assessing attention, memory and language problems and quality of life ratings were administered twice: in pre- and posttests. Twelve healthy controls were also examined twice (with a 15-week interval) using the same battery of neuropsychological tests. The RehaCom program and the Polish computer therapy program for aphasics called Afa-System were used for rehabilitation. The computer-assisted rehabilitation tasks were selected individually for each patient. The results showed signifi cant improvement on computer-assisted tasks in all braindamaged subjects. However, none or very little improvement was observed on neuropsychological tests and quality of life ratings. The results of the study confi rm the importance of using different types of measures to estimate the effectiveness of computer-assisted neuropsychological rehabilitation as well as the necessity of applying various kinds of therapy to improve cognitive, emotional and social functioning in brain-damaged patients.
This article elaborates on a model of knowledge sharing in Polish manufacturing enterprises. The author aims to analyse the effectiveness of knowledge sharing in Polish manufacturing enterprises based on the research results gained from the study described in this paper. In particular, the likely consequences and results of knowledge sharing by using Web 2.0 technologies are studied. This is followed by a discussion on the results of the literature and empirical studies. The summary indicates potential directions for further work.
The aim of our research was to examine the medium and long term effects of family constellation. A follow-up study was carried out with 209 persons. A questionnaire was developed for the purpose of this study. The SPSS 10.0 statistical analysis program was applied for the elaboration of the data gained from the answers to the questionnaire. The results indicated that family constellation is effective and the changes the clients experience on the medium and long run are significant. These findings correspond to our hypotheses as well as to the results of the international research data.
The purpose of this article is to present factors determining the effectiveness of new investments in brown coal deposits. It discusses the weak and strong points of brown coal mining in Poland, as well as opportunities and risks in its development. The strong point is that Poland has abundant resources of lignite and the opportunity lies in the rising demand for energy. The weak point is that brown coal emits large amounts of CO2 and risk is perceived in that the EU tightens up its policy on coal-based production of energy. An analysis of all these factors allows reliable assessment of the discount rate on investment projects, which must be known for their profitability to be established.
Measurability effectiveness of crisis management is a complicated matter. Its necessity is determined defense resources spent on prevention, education and rescue equipment components. Contribution indicates the direction and the way it could move in a serious effort and calculation efficiency systems and their comparison between countries. Paper is focused on objectivity of measurement in general as a result of own reflections towards this topic.
Learners’ interest is agreed by most of the educators to be significant for effectiveness of teaching and learning process. However postmodern society becomes more and more tranquilized or overactive (depending on the person) because of hundreds of information, pictures and others attacking people’s minds. Therefore gaining students’ attention and then attaching it to the subject becomes more and more difficult. The article makes an attempt to answer the question What is the role of Multiple Intelligence in enhancing learners’ interest level?
Participation in professional development activities contributes to both effectiveness and productivity among postsecondary faculty members, as well as enables them to assist institutions to sustain the means to continuously innovate, for example, as they integrate emerging technologies in curricula and instruction. A broad continuum of program alternatives combines to facilitate a high level of interaction, communication, and information sharing, providing variety and enabling personalization that supports a range of professional goals and needs. The research study discussed in this article solicited participation from an elite population of postsecondary faculty members teaching online courses to respond to the following general research question, „To what degree does participation in professional development activities impact your teaching and/or professional practice in the postsecondary educational environment in which you are employed?”. The context for this exploration focused on professional experiences teaching online in postsecondary institutions with which participants were sufficiently familiar to be able to effectively respond.
. Educational activities are the foundation of sustainable development. Educating the public in the field of ecological behaviour makes it possible to change the behaviour perceived as negative by other members of society and then slowly replace it with one that is acceptable and well regarded. Developing the correct attitudes in a society means that such attitudes will be obvious and natural for the next generations. This would lead to changes in the behaviour of residents and, thereby, help reduce their negative impact on the environment. A special role is played by local government units in this process, including primarily, the municipality. In carrying out their own tasks they fulfil the demands of education for sustainable development directly and indirectly. A direct impact manifests itself in educational activities, promotions, and other activities affecting the environmental awareness of residents. Indirect activities arise from the fact that local government units fulfil their own tasks in the field of environmental protection, urban planning, or investments. Using these channels, the authorities at the municipal level can influence residents and other stakeholders through encouraging them to present desired behaviours through moulding appropriate attitudes and promoting specific patterns. The main purpose of this article is to point out the role of local authorities in education for sustainable development (ESD) and give a few examples of individual activities. At the same time, an attempt is made to distinguish the main areas of activities in ESD at the local level.
The purpose of this study was to predict the effectiveness of Zahedan elementary school principals based on the triple factors of position in the Fiedler leadership model. The presented study was a descriptive correlational study in which 356 elementary school teachers were studied with stratified randomized sampling through two questionnaires including determining the leadership situation and the effectiveness of school administrators. The correlation coefficient and simultaneous multiple regression were used for data analysis with the help of SPSS software. Based on results, there was a positive and significant relationship between the three factors of leadership position (authority, leader-member relationship, duty structure). The results of multiple regression analysis also showed that the three situational factors can predict the effectiveness of school principals. Therefore, it can be concluded that school administrators should benefit from good authority, have good interactions with teachers and emphasize the structure of tasks to increase their effectiveness.
Projects for flood protection are increasingly the subject of investment projects in the field of water management. This is related to the increasing frequency of worldwide threats caused by extreme weather conditions, including extremely high rainfall causing floods. Technical and nontechnical flood protection measures are also increasing in importance. In the decision-making process, it is necessary to take into account both the costs and benefits of avoiding losses, including an analysis of social benefits, whose valuation of non-market goods is an essential element. A comprehensive account of projects in the field of flood protection based on the estimated costs and benefits of the investment allows the economic efficiency from a general social point of view to be determined. Previous evaluations of the effectiveness of investment projects have mainly taken into account only categories and market values. The aim of the article is to identify the possibilities to expand the values of non-market assessments and categories formulated on the basis of the theoretical economics of the environment.
The paper analyzes the mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector in Poland, and determined their impact on the structure of the sector and its effectiveness. The analysis was conducted between 2008 and 2013. In the analyzed sector was found growing concentration of capital in the form of mergers and acquisitions. All indications are that this trend will be maintained in subsequent years. Dominant share in the Polish banking sector are entities controlled by foreign investors, but in the period has been a slight decrease in this regard. In the analyzed period made as a result of mergers and acquisitions, we can observe an increase of concentration of the banking sector. In the period 2008-2013 there was a decrease in effectiveness of commercial banks; operation, which was caused by deteriorating macroeconomic situation. It can be said that the continuous consolidation processes in the period 2008-2013 have not influenced an improvement of financial results in the analysed sector, but the effects of these processes can be seen only in the long term.
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