DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS ACROSS THE ASIA PACIFIC: A SEQUENTIAL EXPLANATORY STUDY

This explanatory study examined how distributed leadership is practiced in international schools. This included looking at principals’ readiness to practice a distributed perspective of leadership, how they practice leadership, the opportunities for teacher leadership, and the relationship between distributed leadership practices and school innovation and improvement. Principals have increasingly adopted distributed leadership, sharing responsibilities with others, in response to COVID-19 (Azorin, Harris, & Jones, 2020). However, this response was not by design but to survive (Harris & Jones, 2020). The demands of the pandemic left leaders stretched more than ever, and adopting distributed leadership practices was essential (Harris & Jones, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in distributed leadership practices, with principals drawing on the expertise of various teachers and stakeholders across their schools to address the numerous challenges brought on by the crisis. The study espoused a theoretical framework that synthesizes and extends upon the principles of distributed leadership as articulated by Spillane (2005) and Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond (2004), including Gordon’s (2005) instrument on distributed leadership readiness while also incorporating insights from O’Shea (2021) to explore the connection between distributed leadership practice, opportunities for teachers, and practices that foster innovation and school improvement. This study used a sequential explanatory design using quantitative and qualitative data (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017) to gain an in-depth understanding of leadership practice in international schools. A sequential explanatory design study has two distinct phases. The first is a quantitative phase, which, in the study, used the Distributed Leadership Readiness Scale (DLRS) Survey. The second is the qualitative phase, which, in the study, used interviews to hone and refine the quantitative findings (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2019; Ivankova, 2014; Ivankova, Creswell, & Stick, 2006). Analysis of the data revealed that the international schools that participated in the study had positive readiness scores, indicating they are ready to practice or are actively practicing distributed leadership; however, their DLRS readiness scores were lower than prior studies in the United States. Findings revealed that international schools may need to readjust their leadership structures and development programs to create an internal pipeline of emerging leaders. The interview data revealed that numerous international schools had instituted various formal teacher and middle leadership positions alongside their executive senior leadership team. Also, the data revealed that international schools invested substantially in professional development in the study, although none of their development was specific to distributed leadership. Additionally, international schools invested in formal teacher and middle leadership positions; none of them had any training or were equipped with any professional learning to support them. Notably, the survey revealed only one response below zero (-0.205) to the survey item: Veteran teachers fill most leadership roles in the school, which suggests that despite schools investing in professional development, there is more that needs to be done to support developing leadership capacity in international schools in the Asia Pacific

Chronic Endometritis in Subfertile Mares With Presence of Chlamydial DNA

When endometritis becomes chronic in mares, infertility can follow. Among various causative agents, many bacteria are involved, and mono- or mixed-infections are common. In our study, 50 mares with a previous history of subfertility were subjected to clinical and ultrasonographic examination of the reproductive tract, and samples were collected for cytology, histology, bacteriology, and polymerase chain reaction for Chlamydia spp detection. The aim of this work was to highlight the presence of Chlamydia abortus in chronic endometritis of subfertile mares. Endometrial chronic lesions were detected in five of six Chlamydia-positive animals

Wideband magnetic losses and their interpretation in HGO steel sheets

The magnetic properties of high-permeability grain-oriented (HGO) Fe-Si sheets have been investigated in the frequency range 1 Hz-10 kHz, with attention devoted to the role of thickness on the behavior of the magnetic losses and the phenomenology of skin effect. The study is focused on the wideband response of 0.174 mm and 0.289 mm thick sheets, comparatively tested at peak polarization values ranging between 0.25 T and 1.7 T. The experiments associate fluxmetric measurements with direct Kerr observations of the dynamics of the domain walls. A picture of the magnetization process comes to light, where the dynamics of the flux reversal takes hold under increasing frequencies through the motion of increasingly bowed 180 degrees walls, eventually merging at the sheet surface for a fraction of the semi-period. This effect can be consistently predicted, starting from the Kerrbased knowledge of the equilibrium wall spacing, by the numerical modeling of the motion of an extended array of 180 degrees domain walls, subjected to the balanced action of the applied and eddy current fields, and the elastic reaction of the bowed walls. This model can be incorporated into the general concept of loss separation, by calculating the classical loss component through the solution of the Maxwell's diffusion equation under a magnetic constitutive law identified with the normal DC curve. The numerical domain wall model and the loss decomposition consistently predict that the excess loss component, playing a major role in these grain-oriented materials at power frequencies, tends to disappear in the upper induction-frequency corner

Hysteresis and Avalanches in the Random Anisotropy Ising Model

The behaviour of the Random Anisotropy Ising model at T=0 under local relaxation dynamics is studied. The model includes a dominant ferromagnetic interaction and assumes an infinite anisotropy at each site along local anisotropy axes which are randomly aligned. Two different random distributions of anisotropy axes have been studied. Both are characterized by a parameter that allows control of the degree of disorder in the system. By using numerical simulations we analyze the hysteresis loop properties and characterize the statistical distribution of avalanches occuring during the metastable evolution of the system driven by an external field. A disorder-induced critical point is found in which the hysteresis loop changes from displaying a typical ferromagnetic magnetization jump to a rather smooth loop exhibiting only tiny avalanches. The critical point is characterized by a set of critical exponents, which are consistent with the universal values proposed from the study of other simpler models.Comment: 40 pages, 21 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Soft magnetic properties of high-temperature nanocrystalline alloys: Permeability and magnetoimpedance.

The technological applicability of FeCoNbBCu alloys is suggested in terms of measurements of room temperature magnetoimpedance and temperature dependence of magnetic permeability m r . Results for the Fe 78- x Co x Nb 6 B 15 Cu 1 alloy series show that room temperature soft magnetic properties are enhanced in the lowest Co containing alloy ( m r ; 10 500 and magnetoimpedance ratio ; 60% at 1 MHz ! . However, permeability exhibits a smoother thermal dependence in the alloys with medium and high Co content. A tradeoff between magnetic softness and its thermal stability reveals the alloy with 39 at. % Co as the most suitable composition among those studied, characterized by a temperature coefficient of ; 0.02%/K from room temperature up to 900 K. This value is 1 order of magnitude smaller than those observed for FeSiBCuNb ~ FINEMET-type ! alloys and Mn ferrites and extended over a much wider temperature range than in these materials

An intercomparison of rotational loss measurements in non-oriented Fe-Si alloys

We report a comparison of rotational energy loss measurements in the same non-oriented Fe–Si laminations carried out by two laboratories Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Torino, Italy and Wolfson Centre for Magnetics (WCM) in Cardiff, United Kingdom. The measurements were performed on disk samples at magnetizing frequencies between 5 and 200 Hz with controlled circular flux density loci ranging between 0.2 and 1.9 T. Energy loss was measured applying both the fieldmetric and the rate-of-rise of temperature methods. The latter, exploiting the rate of rise of temperature under quasi-adiabatic conditions, is conveniently adopted on approaching magnetic saturation. Results from the two laboratories agree well up to 1.4 T, despite the different physical principles of the fieldmetric vs. rate-of-rise of temperature methods and the different size of sample and measuring areas. The rate-of-rise of temperature method seems to be the natural approach at high induction values