Praise Under Pressure: How to Cultivate a Worship-Filled Lifestyle Amidst Anxiety

Rates of anxiety are at its highest point in the late Millennial and early Gen-Z population, prompting a rise in mental health awareness. For those practicing the Christian faith, it can be difficult to follow Apostle Paul’s simple command to “not be anxious” (Philippians 4:6). This thesis will conduct a targeted literature review of music and group-counseling-based therapy, as both have proven to positively affect anxiety and stress symptoms. Combining these two methodologies with worship lifestyle principles and counseling exercises, a church-modeled devotional study will be created to encourage believers to cling to faith in God despite rising anxiety. The objective is to provide local churches with materials that can guide individuals through practical steps to worship God amidst anxiety

Teachers' capacity to realize educational change through inquiry-based working and distributed leadership

Teachers face many challenges in their daily teaching practices. On the one hand, they must be able to improve their teaching and learning strategies by navigating changing goals in order to meet the variety in students’ educational needs. On the other hand, governmental and school board projects aimed at educational development focus increasingly on data. These issues require teachers to develop their capacity to realize educational change. Herein, working inquiry-based can be helpful for teachers to investigate their daily practices. In developing and maintaining an inquiry-based working environment, leadership that encourage teachers to take ownership of the change process may be essential. Limited studies focus on how distributed leadership or inquiry-based working may be related to teachers’ capacity to realize educational change, Also, knowledge about whether school leaders’ perceptions of distributed leadership are relevant in enhancing teachers’ capacity to change is scarce. This dissertation examines these issues through four studies. The results show that inquiry-based working illustrates for teachers which educational changes need to be made when adapting teaching strategies. Also, working inquiry-based encourages them to take leadership roles. Their sense of self-efficacy seems to be stronger as well as the extent to which they support one another and share experiences. Although school leaders differ in their interpretations of distributed leadership, distributing leadership may still be worthwhile. Teachers seem to be more likely to collaborate, internalize school goals into personal aims and show a higher level of self-efficacy than in schools without such leadership distribution

The relationship between primary school leaders' utilization of distributed leadership and teachers' capacity to change

Although it is generally known that distributed leadership is relevant for reinforcing teachers' capacity to change, how leadership roles are distributed among teachers largely depends on how principals perceive distributed leadership. Specifying principals' perceptions and how these are related to teachers' capacity to change leads to theories about the knowledge and beliefs of leaders with regard to distributed leadership that are crucial for achieving educational change as a team. Combining questionnaire data from 787 Dutch primary school teachers and interview data from 58 principals in a parallel mixed methods design, this study shows differences in how school leaders distribute leadership roles. In addition, the results indicate that several aspects of teachers' capacity to change, namely, joint work, collegial support, knowledge sharing, self-efficacy and their internalization of school goals, are more present in schools in which school leaders distribute leadership among teachers than in schools in which they do not

A kinetic and theoretical study of the borate catalysed reactions of hydrogen peroxide: the role of dioxaborirane as the catalytic intermediate for a wide range of substrates

Our recent work has provided new insights into the equilibria and species that exist in aqueous solution at different pHs for the boric acid – hydrogen peroxide system, and the role of these species in oxidation reactions. Most recently, (M. C. Durrant, D. M. Davies and M. E. Deary, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011, 9,7249–7254), we have produced strong theoretical and experimental evidence for the existence of a previously unreported monocyclic three membered peroxide species, dioxaborirane, that is the likely catalytic species in borate mediated electrophilic reactions of hydrogen peroxide in alkaline solution. In the present paper, we extend our study of the borate–peroxide system to look at a wide range of substrates that include substituted dimethyl anilines, methyl-p-tolyl sulfoxide, halides, hydrogen sulfide anion, thiosulfate ,thiocyanate, and hydrazine. The unusual selectivity–reactivity pattern of borate catalysed reactions compared with hydrogen peroxide and inorganic or organic peracids previously observed for theorganic sulfides (D. M. Davies, M. E. Deary, K. Quill and R. A. Smith, Chem.–Eur. J., 2005, 11, 3552–3558) is also seen with substituted dimethyl aniline nucleophiles. This provides evidence that the pattern is not due to any latent electrophilic tendency of the organic sulfides and further supports dioxaborirane being the likely reactive intermediate, thus broadening the applicability of this catalytic system. Moreover, density functional theory calculations on our proposed mechanism involving dioxaborirane are consistent with the experimental results for these substrates. Results obtained at high concentrations of both borate and hydrogen peroxide require the inclusion the diperoxodiborate dianion in the kinetic analysis .A scheme detailing our current understanding of the borate–peroxide system is presented

Impact of inquiry-based working on the capacity to change in primary education

Educational improvement projects are increasingly focused upon the significant role of data in determining student performance, teachers’ learning, and schools’ ability to initiate local reforms. Thus, schools are moving toward a new approach to learning, progressing from the routine to the non-routine through inquiry-based working. In addition, educational improvement requires teachers to exhibit the capacity to change, namely, to implement the innovations proposed by government agencies or the schools themselves. Therefore, the current study investigates the extent to which the inquiry-based working of primary school teachers predicts their capacity to change. Furthermore, the study identifies which aspects of inquiry-based working are the critical drivers in the capacity to change. A mixed model analysis of questionnaire data collected from a sample of 787 teachers at 65 Dutch elementary schools revealed that the central aspects of inquiry-based work (i.e., working with an inquiry habit of mind, demonstrating data literacy, using data in the classroom, and using data at the school level) are significant in promoting an increased capacity to change. Working with an inquiry habit of mind emerged as the most critical aspect. Data use in the classroom and at the school level are complementary factors that also enhance a teacher’s capacity to change

The effects of distributed leadership and inquiry-based work on primary teachers' capacity to change: Testing a model

This article studies the relationship between teachers' perceptions of distributive leadership and inquiry-based work in primary schools and the resulting impact on those teachers' capacity to contribute to educational change. The path analysis that tests the proposed model relies on questionnaire data collected from 787 teachers in 65 primary schools. The results indicate a direct, positive effect of distributive leadership on teachers' collaboration and collegiality, as well as on their motivation to contribute to educational change. Inquiry-based work positively mediates the effect of such leadership styles on three aspects of teachers' capacity to change: collaboration, professional learning activities, and motivational factors. Therefore, all three promising aspects can be reinforced if teachers adopt leadership roles and combine these roles with inquiry-based work practices

Pronóstico de muerte en pacientes con hemorragia intracerebral supratentorial espontánea

Fundamento: la hemorragia intracerebral espontánea es la forma más devastadora e incapacitante, y menos tratable de los ictus, ninguna terapéutica ha mostrado probados beneficios para mejorar sus consecuencias, ni reducir la mortalidad. Objetivo: identificar los factores pronóstico de muerte en la hemorragia intracerebral supratentorial espontánea. Métodos: se realizó un estudio de cohorte única con 176 pacientes, con diagnóstico clínico y por neuroimagen de hemorragia intracerebral supratentorial espontánea, admitidos de modo consecutivo en la sala de ictus del Hospital General Provincial Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, desde enero del 2013 hasta noviembre del 2015. Los predictores independientes se obtuvieron usando la regresión logística multivariable. Resultados: el 74,4 % eran hipertensos, la media de edad entre los fallecidos fue de 67,45 ± 14,84 años. Falleció el 43,8 % del total de pacientes estudiados. Los sujetos con desenlace fatal tenían menor puntuación en la escala de Glasgow (10,00 ± 3,47 vs. 14,00 ± 1,93), mayor volumen del hematoma en cm3 (26,27± 36,86 vs. 6,19 ± 19,59), y desplazamiento de las estructuras del línea media (2,00 ± 5,95 vs. 0,00 ± 4,49). Se identificaron los siguientes variables pronósticas: Glasgow ≤ 10 puntos (Exp (B): 10,74; IC 95 % 4,69 a 24,59), volumen del hematoma ≥ 20 cm3(Exp (B): 4,44; IC 95% 1,95 a 10,06), y la presión del pulso ≥ 60 mmHg (Exp (B): 2,42; IC 95% 1,10 a 5,33); el área bajo la curva ROC fue de 0,85. Conclusiones: la escala de Glasgow es la variable independiente con mayor influencia para pronosticar la muerte en pacientes con hemorragia intracerebral espontánea