School accountability and student performance - commentary

Education ; Missouri

Reconsidering the Bildungsroman: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions

In this literary analysis written for WRTC 486: Writing in the Community, Terry Adams examines the ways in which Tsitsi’s novel Nervous Conditions both reinforces and undermines the conventions of the classical bildungsroman. Drawing upon scholarship in girlhood studies, the theme of his Writing in the Community class, Adams offers nuanced analysis of the novel’s plot structure and characterization with an aim of demonstrating how genre classification often falls short when applied to post-colonial literature

The Use of Multidisciplinary Care Teams in Diagnosing and Managing Care of Cancer Patients in Eastern Kentucky

The purpose of this casual comparative quantitative study addressed the lack of individual-level data on the effectiveness of multidisciplinary care teams for cancer patients in rural hospitals. The research questions sought to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of multidisciplinary care teams for cancer patients in rural hospitals and the roadblocks for successful implementation. The study utilized the pragmatism paradigm to focus on the problem rather than the view of reality. This study was conducted with a fixed design using quantitative methods, specifically, casual comparative. This research worked within the framework of a well-established theory prevalent in the pertinent literature: Social Systems Theory. The actors in this casual comparative study included the healthcare organizations, Ackerville Regional Healthcare and Pinkerton Medical Center, administration, clinic managers, and medical teams. Independent variables included partnership, cooperation, and coordination within multidisciplinary cancer teams and the dependent variable was the provision of quality patient care. This study operated from a Biblical perspective. This study sought to fill gaps in the information of why this phenomenon persists. The results of a Kruskal-Wallis Test revealed statistical significance in multidisciplinary care teams between collaboration score (Kruskal-Wallis = 26.34, p \u3c .001), partnership score (Kruskal-Wallis = 37.67, p \u3c .001), and coordination score (Kruskal-Wallis = 24.95, p \u3c .001). Multidisciplinary teams support patient outcomes through coordination in ways that use the resources of time, tools, and skills more effectively

Requirements, Design, and Development of a Rapidly Reconfigurable, Photo-Realistic, Virtual Cockpit Prototype

The United States Air Force uses aircraft flight simulators for pilot training and mission rehearsal. They use a variety of simulators for this task ranging with prices ranging from $400,000 to$30,000,000. These simulators have specialized hardware that restricts reuse of their components and increases maintenance costs. Air Education and Training Command wants to reduce simulators cost and improve availability to the operational commands by supporting research in virtual reality flight simulators. This thesis looks at the development of a reconfigurable virtual cockpit in a distributed virtual environment that can be used for different aircraft as well as training scenarios. The thesis effort builds on a F-15 virtual cockpit previously developed at AFIT by creating a F-16. The Rapidly Reconfigurable Virtual Cockpit (RRVC) allows users to switch between an F-15 and F-16 during live simulation. All software models and aircraft geometry files are updated to reflect the current aircraft. The ability of a distributed virtual environment to support two unique aircraft flight simulators in a single application is encouraging. With the development of more aircraft, a single application can be provided to the operational pilot community that would support many aircraft at a fraction of the cost of today\u27s flight simulators

Nature Versus Nurture: Luminous Blue Variable Nebulae in and near Massive Stellar Clusters at the Galactic Center

Three Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) are located in and near the Quintuplet Cluster at the Galactic Center: the Pistol star, G0.120-0.048, and qF362. We present imaging at 19, 25, 31, and 37 {\mu}m of the region containing these three LBVs, obtained with SOFIA using FORCAST. We argue that the Pistol and G0.120-0.048 are identical ``twins" that exhibit contrasting nebulae due to the external influence of their different environments. Our images reveal the asymmetric, compressed shell of hot dust surrounding the Pistol Star and provide the first detection of the thermal emission from the symmetric, hot dust envelope surrounding G0.120-0.048. Dust and gas composing the Pistol nebula are primarily heated and ionized by the nearby Quintuplet Cluster stars. The northern region of the Pistol nebula is decelerated due to the interaction with the high-velocity (2000 km/s) winds from adjacent Wolf-Rayet Carbon (WC) stars. With the DustEM code we determine that the Pistol nebula is composed of a distribution of very small, transiently-heated grains (10-~35 {\AA}) and that it exhibits a gradient of decreasing grain size from the south to the north due to differential sputtering by the winds from the WC stars. Dust in the G0.120-0.048 nebula is primarily heated by the central star; however, the nebular gas is ionized externally by the Arches Cluster. Unlike the Pistol nebula, the G0.120-0.048 nebula is freely expanding into the surrounding medium. Given independent dust and gas mass estimates we find that the Pistol and G0.120-0.048 nebulae exhibit similar gas-to-dust mass ratios of ~310 and ~290, respectively. Both nebulae share identical size scales (~ 0.7 pc) which suggests that they have similar dynamical timescales of ~10^5 yrs, assuming a shell expansion velocity of v_exp 60 km/s.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Ap

Old supernova dust factory revealed at the Galactic center

Dust formation in supernova ejecta is currently the leading candidate to explain the large quantities of dust observed in the distant, early Universe. However, it is unclear whether the ejecta-formed dust can survive the hot interior of the supernova remnant (SNR). We present infrared observations of ~0.02 $M_\odot$ of warm (~100 K) dust seen near the center of the ~10,000 yr-old Sgr A East SNR at the Galactic center. Our findings signify the detection of dust within an older SNR that is expanding into a relatively dense surrounding medium ($n_e$ ~ 100 $\mathrm{cm}^{-3}$) and has survived the passage of the reverse shock. The results suggest that supernovae may indeed be the dominant dust production mechanism in the dense environment of early Universe galaxies.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures. Includes supplementary materials. Published Online March 19 2015 on Science Expres

Pedagogical Strategies For Incorporating Behavioral Finance Concepts In Investment Courses

The traditional approach to teaching a course in investments is predicated upon the efficient market hypothesis, modern portfolio theory, and the assumption that decision-makers are rational, wealth optimizing entities.  Recent developments in the arena of behavioral finance (BF) have raised questions about this approach. Although the idea of efficient markets is widely accepted in academic circles, financial markets often fail to behave as predicted by the theory. For the teacher of undergraduate investments, these divergent views create significant pedagogical challenges and opportunities. BF has particular implications for investing in financial markets, where the faith in rational behavior is perhaps the greatest.  This paper identifies alternative strategies for dealing with these issues in the classroom