Costs, emissions, and resource availability were modeled for the production of 5 billion gallons yr(-1) (5 BGY) of renewable diesel in the United States from Chlorella biomass by hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). The HTL model utilized data from a continuous 1-L reactor including catalytic hydrothermal gasification of the aqueous phase, and catalytic hydrotreatment of the HTL oil. A biophysical algae growth model coupled with weather and pond simulations predicted biomass productivity from experimental growth parameters, allowing site-by-site and temporal prediction of biomass production. The 5 BGY scale required geographically and climatically distributed sites. Even though screening down to 5 BGY significantly reduced spatial and temporal variability, site-to-site, season-to-season, and interannual variations in productivity affected economic and environmental performance. Performance metrics based on annual average or peak productivity were inadequate; temporally and spatially explicit computations allowed more rigorous analysis of these dynamic systems. For example, 3-season operation with a winter shutdown was favored to avoid high greenhouse gas emissions, but economic performance was harmed by underutilized equipment during slow-growth periods. Thus, analysis of algal biofuel pathways must combine spatiotemporal resource assessment, economic analysis, and environmental analysis integrated over many sites when assessing national scale performance.
This article addresses the long-standing divide between researchers and practitioners in the field of psychotherapy, regarding what really works in treatment and the extent to which interventions should be governed by outcomes generated in a "laboratory atmosphere." This alienation has its roots in a positivist paradigm, which is epistemologically incomplete because it fails to provide for context-based practical knowledge. In other fields of evaluation research, it has been superseded by a mixed methods paradigm, which embraces pragmatism and multiplicity. On the basis of this paradigm, we propose and illustrate new scientific standards for research on the evaluation of psychotherapeutic treatments. These include the requirement that projects should comprise several parallel studies that involve randomized controlled trials, qualitative examinations of the implementation of treatment programs, and systematic case studies. The uniqueness of this article is that it contributes a guideline for involving a set of complementary publications, including a review that offers an overall synthesis of the findings from different methodological approaches.
The power struggle between the efficacy and effectiveness models in psychotherapy research has reached an impasse, and the time is ripe for fundamentally new ideas. This article contends that one way of transcending the impasse is to adopt a new, case-based "pragmatic psychology" paradigm that, while deeply and inherently different, (a) draws elements from both the efficacy and effectiveness approaches in an integrative manner and (b) can be viewed as complementing rather than competing with these approaches. Centered within philosophical pragmatism and following K. I. Howard's "patient-focused" research approach, the new pragmatic psychology paradigm calls for the development of databases of systematic, rigorous, solution-focused case studies of human service programs of all types, including psychotherapy. This article proposes that an ideal way of pilot-testing the pragmatic psychology paradigm is for the American Psychological Association to sponsor a new, electronic "Journal of Pragmatic Case Studies" that would begin by focusing on psychotherapy. The nature, structure, and scholarly and practical uses of such a journal are set forth.
This article sets forth a new model for knowledge generation in applied and professional psychology -the pragmatic case study (PCS) method. Drawing from both psychology's traditional/quantitative and alternative/qualitative approaches, the PCS method involves the creation of systematic, peer-reviewed case studies in psychotherapy (and in all other areas of applied psychology) that follow D. Peterson's "disciplined inquiry" epistemological model. The studies are designed to be organized into "journaldatabases," like Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy (PCSP), which combine (a) individual studies; (b) articles that address epistemological, theoretical, methodological, logistical, economic, political and ethical issues in the PCS method; and (c) substantive cross-case analyses of groups of individual cases already published in the database. To lay out the model's arguments, this article is divided into four major sections that consider, respectively: (1) a discussion of the relevant historical and philosophical context from which the PCS model emerges; (2) a proposal for an initial set of methodological guidelines for ensuring rigorous quality in each case study; (3) an illustrative application of the model to cognitive-behavioral efficacy research; and (4) an exploration of the implications of the model. Throughout, the emphasis is upon creating an integrative, pragmatic alternative for gaining new useful knowledge in our discipline.Key words: case study method; pragmatic case studies; cognitive-behavior therapy; efficacy research; disciplined inquiry; applied psychology; online journals ______________________________________________________________________The basic unit of psychological practice is the case -be it an individual, a group, an organization, or a community. When a practitioner (or practitioner team) works with a case, he or she deals with the case holistically, looking in context at the problems, goals, situations, events, procedures, interactions, and outcomes associated with the case. Why then does the case as such disappear when it comes to published research underlying psychological practice? Whatever happened to the systematic, pragmatically focused case study as a vehicle for meaningful, scholarly, empirically based, applied knowledge in our field? In my book, The Case for Pragmatic Psychology (Fishman, 1999a), I explore this question, employing historical, epistemological, methodological, technological, and practical perspectives on the field. I conclude that from all these perspectives, the time is right and the arguments persuasive for making the systematic case study an acceptable, published method for applied research.1 More specifically, I argue that the time is right for a new coordinated investment of applied research resources into conducting systematic, pragmatic case studies and publishing them in electronic "journal-databases" like PCSP containing both (a) peer reviewed case studies in all the arenas of applied psychology, and (b) discussions of the broader epistemologic...
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