It can’t be a farce: Teachers’ perceptions of restorative practices in an urban charter school

The purpose of this research was to understand teacher perceptions of restorative practices in an urban charter school. This study sought to illustrate how teachers conceptualize restorative practices and use it in their classrooms. This research study utilized a single-case study design. The study examined teacher perceptions of restorative practices through the lenses of five urban charter school teachers. The findings suggest that restorative practices have shown promising results in terms of building a collaborative school culture that embraces staff and students for who they are, helps build lasting relationships between students and teachers, and above all, encourages a more effective way in dealing with discipline so students understand what they have done wrong and how they can make better choices. Themes that emerged from the participants highlighted the significance of social emotional learning, building relationships, empathy, the physical classroom environment, and the importance of keeping teachers in urban schools

Biosynthesis and characterization of iron nanoparticles produced by Thymus vulgaris L. and their antimicrobial activity

Research in the area of nanoparticles has grown considerably in recent years. Plant leaf extracts provide a platform for nanoparticle synthesis from metal and metal oxides, which is more economical and environmentally friendly than other methods, such as chemical reduction and physical methods. The present study conducted the biosynthesis of iron nanoparticles (FeNPs) using Thymus vulgaris L. (Thyme) leaf aqueous extract. The characterization of FeNPs was carried out by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible spectrophotometry (UV-Vis), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. UV-vis spectroscopy analysis demonstrated a visible peak around 440 nm. FTIR demonstrated the presence of iron metallic ions. Structural analysis of the nanoparticles by TEM showed agglomerations of spherical shapes. The average size of the synthesized FeNPs was around 40 nm. Regarding application, the ability of the FeNPs to degrade methyl orange was recorded as 95%. They were also examined for potential antimicrobial activity against pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and fungi. FeNPs demonstrated high antifungal activity against Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis and Aspergillus flavus, while their antibacterial activity was much weaker compared to commercial antibacterial agent. Thus, FeNPs synthesized using T. vulgaris could play an important role in controlling C. albicans, C. parasilosis and A. flavus and bioremediation of dyes

An agile enterprise architecture driven approach to enhance communication in geographically distributed agile development

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Agile development is a highly collaborative environment, which requires active communication among stakeholders. This active communication helps in producing high quality working software systems in short releases and iterations. Due to the ever-increasing competition, there is an increasing interest among practitioners and researchers in contemporary geographically distributed agile development (GDAD). GDAD claims to offer several benefits over co-located agile development such as lower production cost, around the clock development, faster time to market, and the liberty of involving the most talented developers across the globe. However, in the GDAD environment, active communication is difficult to achieve due to many challenges such as differences in geographical locations and time. Literature has reported that agile enterprise architecture (EA) could help enhancing GDAD communication and performance. However, little empirical evidence is known to support this claim. Furthermore, it is not clear how to effectively achieve and study active communication construct in GDAD in terms of its dimensions, determinants and effects on performance? As a result, there is a lack of understanding about how GDAD organisations can establish and maintain active communication among distributed teams. This dissertation contributes to this research gap, first, by developing a research model based on an extensive systematic literature review on the GDAD communication challenges, techniques and strategies to mitigate these challenges, and the impact of communication on GDAD software performance. This study provides important insights about GDAD communication by identifying and empirically examining the relationships among the two dimensions of active communication (communication efficiency and communication effectiveness), one antecedent that can be controlled (agile enterprise architecture (EA)), and four aspects of GDAD performance (on-time completion, on-budget completion, software functionality, and software quality). The study then validates the research model using an integrated research approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data analyses. The quantitative data are collected using a survey technique from 160 responses and analysed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analyses. The qualitative data are collected using interview techniques through 10 post hoc case studies and analysed using content analysis technique. This study reports that agile EA has positive impacts on communication efficiency and communication effectiveness, and on GDAD performance. It has also been found that communication efficiency and communication effectiveness have significant differential impacts on GDAD performance aspects. While communication efficiency is, generally, related to on-time and on-budget completions, communication effectiveness is, generally, related to functionality and quality aspects. While the prior GDAD literature offers little guidance for GDAD communication issue, this research contributes to both theory and practice, and offers a number of useful insights and agile EA driven GDAD model. From theory perspective, insights and model are theoretically based on and empirically tested about the value and positive impact of agile EA on active communication dimensions and GDAD performance, and the impact of communication efficiency and communication effectiveness on GDAD performance in the GDAD environment. Moreover, from practice perspective, this study indicates that agile EA, communication efficiency, and communication effectiveness together increase the GDAD performance and thus, facilitate a better GDAD performance than in GDAD that does not employ agile EA. Despite the above-mentioned contributions, like any other studies, this study has also some limitations such as sample size, time and potential analysis bias of applied qualitative and quantitative research methods. A number of steps were taken to mitigate or minimise the effects of these limitations. Thus, findings of this work should be considered with its limitations when interpreting it in the relevant theoretical and practical context

Educational Intervention Program to Tackle Health Risk Behaviors among Male Secondary School Students (Tawjjehi) in Khan Younis Governorate - Gaza Strip

Health-risk behaviors are established during childhood, extend into adulthood, and are interrelated. It contributes to the leading causes of mortality and morbidity among children. The aim of this study was to design, implement and evaluate an Educational Intervention Program to tackle Health Risk Behaviors among Male Secondary School Students, (Tawjjehi), Khan Younis - Gaza Strip. A Quasi-experimental design was used in this study, the study sample was 366 students, (92 science students and 274 Humanities students), half of them were for intervention group and the others for control group, the study sample were  selected by random sampling method. Data were obtained through four main channels; I. self-structure questionnaire for personal information, demographics characteristics, health risk behaviors (tobacco use, recreation facilities, dietary behaviors, school violence, intentional and un intentional injuries), II. student's records, III. anthropometric measurements and IV. hemoglobin level test in Male Secondary School Students, (Tawjjehi), Khan Younis - Gaza Strip . The main results three months after the program show that: Healthy students behaviors were significantly higher than post and follow up test after the educational intervention program implementation than for pretest for intervention group and greater than control group for all domains. The study concluded that the educational intervention program had a positive effect on students regarding all health risk behaviors. The study recommended that physical activities should be continued from sport teacher's, start the educational intervention program for the younger age (prep school students) and replicate the study in other setting with a larger sample of students. Keywords: Intervention Education Program, Health risk factors, male secondary school student

Forced degradation of gliquidone and development of validated stability-indicating HPLC and TLC methods

Forced degradation studies of gliquidone were conducted under different stress conditions. Three degradates were observed upon using HPLC and TLC and elucidated by LC-MS and IR. HPLC method was performed on C18 column using methanol-water (85:15 v/v) pH 3.5 as a mobile phase with isocratic mode at 1 mL.min-1 and detection at 225 nm. HPLC analysis was applied in range of 0.5-20 µg.mL-1 (r =1) with limit of detection (LOD) 0.177 µg.mL-1. TLC method was based on the separation of gliquidone from degradation products on silica gel TLC F254 plates using chloroform-cyclohexaneglacial acetic acid (6:3:1v/v) as a developing system with relative retardation 1.15±0.01. Densitometric measurements were achieved in range of 2 -20 µg /band at 254 nm (r = 0.9999) with LOD of 0.26 µg /band. Least squares regression analysis was applied to provide mathematical estimates of the degree of linearity. The analysis revealed a linear calibration for HPLC where a binomial relationship for TLC. Stability testing and methods validation have been evaluated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. Moreover, the proposed methods were applied for the analysis of tablets and the results obtained were statistically compared with those of pharmacopeial method revealing no significant difference about accuracy and precision

Isolation and identification of halophilic bacteria producing exopolysaccharides from whey and milk permeate

The aim of this research was to utilization of the salt whey and milk permeate to produce exopolysaccharides (EPSs). Where cheese whey is simultaneously an effluent with nutritional value and a strong organic and saline content. However, it is drained in the sewers, the EPSs are highly heterogeneous polymers produced by different species of bacteria and have recently been attracting considerable attention from biotechnologists because of their potential applications in many fields. Thus, we have isolated some halophilic bacteria that showed the ability to produce EPS from whey and milk permeate. A total of 46 strains of moderately halophilic bacteria were isolated from two types of samples. The first type was dairy samples (Baramily cheese whey and mish cheese), while the second type was water samples (salty lake water and its sediments) of Wadi El-Natrun Valley (lakes Hamra, UmRisha, and Baida), Beheira Governorate, Egypt. From isolated strains there are twelve strains were having the ability to produce exopolysaccharides but only seven strains can produce EPS from whey and milk permeate. The growth conditions i.e. concentrations of NaCl, pH value and different incubation temperature, of isolates were determined. The effect of these conditions on the production of EPS was investigated. The obtained results indicated that the optimum conditions for the production of EPS by these strains were 10 % NaCl, pH 7 and the optimum incubation temperature was 37°C. Three strains showed the highest production of exopolysaccharides. These strains were identified using two methods the first method was biology system and the second one was 16S rRNA sequence analysis method. It could be identified as Alteribacillus bidgolensis and Bacillus licheniformis. Alteribacillus bidgolensis (strain P4B) produced the highest amount of EPS (52 g/L) from whey followed by Bacillus licheniformis (DSM 13) (42 g/L), while the highest amount of EPS produced from milk permeate was (43 g/L) by Alteribacillus bidgolensis (strain P4B) followed by Bacillus licheniformis (DSM 13) (36 g/L)

Immunohistochemical Expression of “c-MET” in Breast Carcinomas

BACKGROUND: Targeted therapies achieved great success in managing breast cancer, however, triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs) lack the expression of traditional therapeutic targets, and other subtypes develop resistance to current therapies. The c-MET receptor emerged as a potential target with well documented pro-proliferative pro-motility downstream signals and wide network of crosstalk with other effectors. Some reports describe a preferential expression of c-MET in TNBCs and promising results in early anti-c-MET clinical trials. However, the main cause of failure of these trials was attributed to patient selection. AIM: The objectives of the study were to assessment of c-MET in subtypes of breast cancer and its association with other clinicopathological variables that may predict its expression and possibly establish other rationales to refine patient selection for clinical trials. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective immunohistochemical study assessing c-MET (clone SP44) in 55 cases of breast carcinoma. The expression of c-MET> 5% was considered positive. RESULTS: c-MET was detected in 42% of cases. A statistically significant association of c-MET with extremes of age, advanced prognostic stage, carcinoma with medullary features, and high tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) was observed for the first time in our study. Grade III, hormone receptor negativity and TNBCs were also significantly associated with c-MET. Only negative progesterone receptor (PR) and high TILs were independently associated with c-MET in a multivariate analysis (p < 0.05). No significant association between c-MET and multifocality, size, node status, anatomic stage, lymphovascular or perineural invasion, and Ki-67 expression. CONCLUSION: PR negativity and high TILs might be useful c-MET predictors and selection tools for clinical trials but further studies are needed to validate the unprecedented findings which may not only aid in patient selection but may also inspire new paradigms in future studies

Use of Foley\u27s catheter balloon tamponade to control placental site bleeding resulting from major placenta previa during cesarean section

Aim: To evaluate the effect of 2-way Foley\u27s catheter balloon tamponade on controlling immediate postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in cases of major placenta previa during cesarean section (CS). Methods: We evaluated women with placenta previa from May to November 2015. Women with immediate PPH during CS due to major placenta previa were managed by 2-way Foley\u27s catheter balloon tamponade when medical treatment failed, and before any surgical intervention. Results: Twenty patients, had major placenta previa, were delivered by elective CS and complicated by immediate PPH. Three placenta accreta patients (15%) underwent hysterectomy, 17 (85%) were managed by the 2-way Foley\u27s catheter balloon tamponade. In two patients, Foley\u27s catheter balloon failed to control bleeding and hysterectomy was done immediately. However, Foley\u27s catheter balloon successfully treated the remaining 15 patients. The median bleeding during the operation was 1522.5 (± 619.29) ml. None of them presented complications related to this procedure or required any further invasive surgery. Conclusion: The 2-way Foley\u27s catheter tamponade could be an option to control immediate postpartum hemorrhage resulting from major placenta previa during the cesarean section. This method is simple, cheap, nearly non-invasive and should be considered to reduce the risk of peripartum hysterectomy

Flow of Activities: Utilizing Parade of Trade to Develop Visual Management Tool Tailored for Infrastructure Projects

Parade of Trade (PoT) is a game used in Lean Construction to demonstrate the impact of variability on a production system and to promote the value of constraint management in an environment of dependent events. Infrastructure projects usually have a sequence of construction works to an extend matching with the PoT model. Different trades and activities distributed over a large-scale area combined with its arising particular issues, creates a challenging efficiency paradox. Therefore, there is a need to adapt a new tool that identifies pace maker of the production flow, shows the interactions between different construction stages and trades, and explains the impact of trade progress on one another. The PoT idea used to develop new Visual Management (VM) tool, tailored to bridge the gap in the current model of infrastructure construction management traditional tools, supports the effectiveness of resources utilization and optimizes the project as a whole. Starting from maximizing client's values and passing through selection methodology; this paper records the journey of developing and utilizing sustainable VM tool; tailored for infrastructure construction projects. It supports decision-making regarding resources allocation; adapting construction batch size; assist in determining takt time and takt zones. Furthermore, it opens the way for further studies from Lean researchers and practitioners to develop new Lean Construction tools tailored to serve infrastructure construction projects