Learning cycle model

In order to understand the importance of functionally active leads in the discovery process, I would like to describe a model for drug development that I have used in my work as a consultant. It is based on the need to establish a learning cycle between biologists and chemists, which progressively develops a chemical lead into a drug that is a candidate for clinical trials. This process is really the one on which technical innovations should be focused, because it is the rate-limiting step in the discovery process. 

NEW Inquiry-based Laboratories for Liberal Arts Chemistry by Vickie Williamson and Larry Peck, Texas A M University. This guidebook offers 19 experiments focusing on conceptual learning of the chemical phenomena in our everyday lives. The manual employs the learning cycle approach, used as the underlying model for the guided and open inquiry/appUcation laboratories. An on-line instructor s guide is also available. 

Therefore, the safety failure cycle model suggests that managers may compromise safety goals, particularly under conditions of scarce resources. Furthermore, they may fail to correct this bias in resource allocation because the nature of safety feedback makes learning and control difficult. Facing uncertainty and imperfect feedback about the outcomes of their resource allocation, managers may find it difficult to maintain or restore balance. The consequent resource allocation leads to a gradual drift and eventually to a major failure. 

Figure 4.1 The safety failure cycle model and its implications for learning and intervention...

Advantages Very quick development of complex models, short learning cycle, little prograrmning. 

Relapse does not just suddenly happen without warning or without reason. Research into the processes of relapse has identified a rather predictable chain of events that lead up to it (see Figure 7.1). Moreover, the fact that a client slips into old behavior once does not mean all is lost. On the contrary, a slip offers a tremendous opportunity for both client and therapist or counselor to improve upon the recovery plan. A slip identifies a weakness in the recovery plan and offers an indication of how to improve it. Remembering the transtheoretical stages of change model (see Chapter 3), a relapse is viewed as part of the change cycle and as a fairly common occurrence when a person learns how to overcome a drug problem. So there is no need to panic if a relapse occurs. 

The spiral model works well in any context in which the current plan must depend on the outcome of earlier work expenditure increases along the spiral each cycle includes a review of results and risks, and it drives a refinement of the goals and plans of the next cycle. An early spiral typically covers a much broader area in requirements and a much narrower piece of design the situation reverses in later cycles. Lessons learned from any spiral feed back into the most abstract level of models that are affected. There are... 

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