The perceived influences that prompt teachers to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction.

This descriptive study identified the perceived influences that prompt teachers to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction. The study also examined teachers\u27 perceptions of the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) in relation to curricular and instructional change. Three major research questions guided the study: (1) What are the perceived influences that prompt teachers to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction? (2) How has the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) been helpful to teachers in prompting them to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction? (3) How has the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) fallen short in in prompting teachers to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction. Data are drawn from 52 teachers in 13 schools representing five different Kinds of Communities in Massachusetts; Urbanized, Economically Developed Suburbs, Growth Communities, Residential Suburbs, and Economic Rural Centers. Selection was based on reading scores from the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program. Collection of data were accomplished through a free response interviews about educational change, written surveys of possible influences which might prompt change, and teacher interviews concerning the benefits and drawbacks of the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program as a prompt in initiating changes in curriculum and instruction. Findings indicate teachers are most influenced by students\u27 needs and a desire to make learning enjoyable, as well as by workshops, conferences, and courses. Testing was one of the lowest areas of influence for teachers. However, in several schools teachers were prompted by administration to initiate changes in curriculum and instruction because of the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program. Teachers indicated the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program helped them to evaluate and update their present curriculum and their instructional style. Many teachers were not influenced by the MEAP because they were not familiar with the test, did not understand the test results, were given no training, materials, or guidance by their own school system or by the State Department of Education

Rule Mining and Sequential Pattern Based Predictive Modeling with EMR Data

Electronic medical record (EMR) data is collected on a daily basis at hospitals and other healthcare facilities to track patients’ health situations including conditions, treatments (medications, procedures), diagnostics (labs) and associated healthcare operations. Besides being useful for individual patient care and hospital operations (e.g., billing, triaging), EMRs can also be exploited for secondary data analyses to glean discriminative patterns that hold across patient cohorts for different phenotypes. These patterns in turn can yield high level insights into disease progression with interventional potential. In this dissertation, using a large scale realistic EMR dataset of over one million patients visiting University of Kentucky healthcare facilities, we explore data mining and machine learning methods for association rule (AR) mining and predictive modeling with mood and anxiety disorders as use-cases. Our first work involves analysis of existing quantitative measures of rule interestingness to assess how they align with a practicing psychiatrist’s sense of novelty/surprise corresponding to ARs identified from EMRs. Our second effort involves mining causal ARs with depression and anxiety disorders as target conditions through matching methods accounting for computationally identified confounding attributes. Our final effort involves efficient implementation (via GPUs) and application of contrast pattern mining to predictive modeling for mental conditions using various representational methods and recurrent neural networks. Overall, we demonstrate the effectiveness of rule mining methods in secondary analyses of EMR data for identifying causal associations and building predictive models for diseases

Is there New Physics in B Decays ?

Rare decays of the $B$ meson are sensitive to new physics effects. Several experimental results on these decays have been difficult to understand within the standard model (SM) though more precise measurements and a better understanding of SM theory predictions are needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. In this talk we try to understand the present data assuming the presence of new physics. We find that the data points to new physics of an extended Higgs sector and we present a two higgs doublet model with a 2-3 flavor symmetry in the down type quark sector that can explain the deviations from standard model reported in several rare B decays.Comment: 8 pages, Talk presented at Theory Canada II, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada. New references added and update

Islam, Christianity, Traditional Religions and Power Politics in Northern Nigeria Since Pre-Islamic Period

Problem Currently in Northern Nigeria, religious interaction among the three major religious traditions, Islam, Christianity, and African Traditional Religion, is marred by violent religious conflicts. Also, competing concepts of religious legitimacy, which appeal to the historical heritage of Nigeria, are often used to validate and justify the violation of religious freedom. Does the current state of religious interaction among the various religious groups reflect the true heritage of religious interaction in Northern Nigeria? Or is it possible that the history of the interaction between African Traditional Religions, Islam, and Christianity in the past might actually be a heritage that points toward a solution regarding religious freedom and tolerance today? Method This is a qualitative historical study based on published primary and secondary sources by historians whose works relate the history of Northern Nigeria as it impacts religious interaction among the various religious traditions (African Traditional Religions, Islam, and Christianity) and its relation to power politics. This study validates historical data by comparing and analyzing a variety of historical sources, particularly on the religious history of Northern Nigeria beginning from pre-Islamic to colonial times. Three Northern Nigeria states, Borno, Kano, and Sotoko, are chosen as representative of the region. Although there is a limitation of primary historical sources in Northern Nigeria before the arrival of Islamic scholars in the eleventh century AD, this limitation has been compensated for by the documentation of oral traditions of Northern Nigeria. -- Findings This study shows that prior to the introduction of Islam in Northern Nigeria in the eleventh century AD, religious interaction among the adherents of African Traditional Religions was relatively peaceful. This state of relatively peaceful coexistence among the various religious traditions continued during early Islam, and the relationship between religion and civil affairs remained casual. However, beginning in the early nineteenth century the region deviated from its religious heritage of relative tolerance, and a casual overlap of religious and civil affairs, to a more intentional fusion of religion and politics, which has led to violent religious conflicts in Northern Nigeria. This change occurred, mainly as a result of the growing desire to consolidate the establishment of Islam within Hausaland and beyond by Islamic reformists. An understanding of the true history of Northern Nigeria’s religious heritage does not only correct the wrong impression that the region has always been involved in violent religious conflicts, but also, provides resources for those involved in dialogue towards religious freedom and tolerance in twenty-first century Nigeria

Antenna System Design for 5G and Beyond – A Modal Approach

Antennas are one of the key components that empower a new generation of wireless technologies, such as 5G and new radar systems. It has been shown that antenna design strategies based on modal theories represent a powerful systematic approach to design practical antenna systems with high performance. In this thesis, several innovative multi-antenna systems are proposed for wireless applications in different frequency bands: from sub-6 GHz to millimeter-wave (mm-wave) bands. The thesis consists of an overview (Part I) and six scientific papers published in peer-reviewed international journals (Part II). Part I provides the overall framework of the thesis work: It presents the background and motivation for the problems at hand, the fundamental modal theories utilized to address these problems, as well as subject-specific research challenges. Brief conclusions and future outlook are also provided. The included papers of Part II can be divided into two tracks with different 5G and beyond wireless applications, both aiming for higher data rates.In the first track, Papers [I] to [IV] investigate different aspects of antenna system design for smart-phone application. Since Long Term Evolution (LTE) (so-called 3.5G) was deployed in 2009, mobile communication systems have utilized multiple-input multiple-output antenna technology (MIMO) technology to increase the spectral efficiency of the transmission channel and provide higher data rates in existing and new sub-6 GHz bands. However, MIMO requires multi-antennas at both the base stations and the user equipment (mainly smartphones) and it is very challenging to implement sub-6 GHz multi-antennas within the limited space of smartphones. This points to the need for innovative design strategies. The theory of characteristic modes (TCM) is one type of modal theory in the antenna community, which has been shown to be a versatile tool to analyze the inherent resonance properties of an arbitrarily shaped radiating structure. Characteristic modes (CMs) have the useful property of their fields being orthogonal over both the source region and the sphere at infinity. This property makes TCM uniquely suited for electrically compact MIMO antenna design.In the second track, Papers [V]-[VI] investigate new integrated antenna arrays and subarrays for the two wireless applications, which are both implemented in a higher part of the mm-wave frequency range (i.e. E-band). Furthermore, a newly developed high resolution multi-layer “Any-Layer” PCB technology is investigated to realize antenna-in-package solutions for these mmwave antenna system designs. High gain and high efficiency antennas are essential for high-speed wireless point-to-point communication systems. To meet these requirements, Paper [V] proposes directive multilayer substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed slot antenna array and subarray. As a background, the microwave community has already shown the benefits of modal theory in the design and analysis of closed structures like waveguides and cavities. Higher-order cavity modes are used in the antenna array design process to facilitate lower loss, simpler feeding network, and lower sensitivity to fabrication errors, which are favorable for E-band communication systems. However, waveguide/cavity modes are confined to fields within the guided media and can only help to design special types of antennas that contain those structures. As an example of the versatility of TCM, Paper [VI] shows that apart from smartphone antenna designs proposed in Papers [I]-[IV], TCM can alsobe used to find the desirable modes of the linear antenna arrays. Furthermore, apart from E-band communications, the proposed series-fed patch array topology in Paper [VI] is a good candidate for application in 79 GHz MIMO automotive radar due to its low cost, compact size, ability to suppress surface waves, as well as relatively wide impedance and flat-gain bandwidths

The Role of Accounting Policies in Tourist Companies in the Development of the Economy of the Republic of Uzbekistan

In this article questions on improvement of accounting policy in tourist companies are disclosed The essence of accounting policy and its need as well as proposals on the approximation of international standards features of the general methodical technical and organizational sections of accountin