Total Quality Management (TQM) Practices of School Administrators in Relation to School Performance among Teacher Education Institutions in the Province of Quezon

One of the emerging philosophies of management is that of total quality management. Total quality management has received wide acclaim enhancement in industry as well as school nowadays. School started to explore the potential for applying the TQM philosophy to education, this requires the number of changes in any educational institution particularly in the attitudes and activities of the leadership and educators, in the organization, monitoring of educational process, in the evaluation of the result, in the culture of communication, in the school atmosphere and especially in the area of interpersonal relations. The School administrators being the highest-ranking official in the school are responsible for the overall operation of a school, and in the 21st century the school administrator wear a multiple of hats just to make sure that the operation in the school goes smoothly, meaning the effectiveness with which he/she handle the tasks assigned to him being the growing interest in improving the efficiency and relevance of these activities is reflected in the adaption of total quality management mechanism, through the institutional actions towards the development of a quality culture, these embedding the philosophy of centennial improvement or the processes of institutional modernization, search for critical factors and clarification of mission and objectives which will eventually lead to quality improvement. The study assessed the total quality management practices of school administrators in terms of curriculum and instruction, human resources, physical facilities, budget allocation and research in selected teacher educational institutions in the Province of Quezon in relation to school performance for the first semester of SY: 2016-2017. The respondents included 132 teachers and 37 school administrators for eight Teacher Education Program in the Province of Quezon both private and public colleges/universities. Included in the assessment are the status of the school performance in terms of faculty performance, enrollment rate, dropped-out rate, retention rate and graduation rate and the awards and recognitions received by the respondent schools. The research on the Total Quality Management Practices hoped to bring improvement in the quality of education for the respondent schools and could also provide information on how this could be done by school administrators in the operation of the school, the students on the other hand maybe guided by the skills of the school administrators that may affect their academic performance. The study was anchored with Deming’s theory of Total Quality management, where it was believed to provide quality body of methodologies that are customer-based and service oriented. As mentioned the study assessed the total quality management practices of school administrators in selected teacher educational institutions in the Province of Quezon in relation to school’s performance and eventually to find out if there is a significant relationship between the assessment of TQM practices of the school administrators and performance of the school and at the end developed an action plan just to enhance the TQM practices to improve the school performance. The study used the descriptive research for this is the precise research design applicable to be used, this study described the total quality management practices of school administrators in selected teacher educational institutions in the Province of Quezon in relation to the students’ academic Performance. As told by Calderon, descriptive research is the process of gathering, analyzing, classifying and tabulating data about prevailing conditions, practices, beliefs, processes, trends and cause-effect relationshipand eventually making adequate interpretation of such data. This process fits the Kind of research undertaken by this study. The purposive sampling technique was used for the selection of the respondents (teachers and school administrators). The researcher prepared a questionnaires which was used in gathering data and this was validated by experts in the field of educational leadership and with enough experiences in leadership and management practices of the different educational programs in the tertiary level. The researcher personally disseminated the questionnaire to the respondents, and after answering personally retrieved then, an unstructured interview was also conducted both to the school administrators and teacher respondents to elicit some information and answers which were not clearly expounded from the questionnaire. These data obtained were collected, tabulated, analyzed and interpreted using some stalestical tools. Keywords: School Administrators, Performance, Strategic Directio

Pulsed x-rays dose measurements from a hundred joules plasma focus device

Indexación: Scopus.Present work is aimed to perform dosimetric measurements to characterize dosis obtained from pulsed x-rays emitted from a hundred joules plasma focus device PF-400J using thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD-100). Two dosimeter arrays (containing 21 dosimeters in each) were used. One of the arrays was kept inside the PF-400J vacuum chamber and other outside the vacuum chamber, simultaneously. It was found that dosis obtained from the inside array (∼200.7 mGy) were hundred times larger than the outside array (∼1.1 mGy) for hundred pulses of x-rays. Later, the vacuum window of PF-400J, which was made of 1 mm aluminum, was replaced by a plastic window and a similar dosimeter array was kept outside the chamber over the plastic window. With this arrangement, the obtained doses (100 pulses of x-rays) were of the same order of magnitude (∼106 mGy) as it was inside the vacuum chamber. Later, a lead piece was inserted inside the hollow anode of PF-400J, which increased dose (∼250 mGy) per hundred pulses of x-ray outside the vacuum chamber using plastic vacuum window. Our results suggest that PF-400J could be a useful device to study low dose pulsed radiation effects on cancer cell lines in in vitro experiments. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.The work is supported by grant ACT-1115, CONICYT, Chile.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1043/1/01204

Anomalous infrared spectra of hybridized phonons in type-I clathrate Ba8_8Ga16_{16}Ge30_{30}

The optical conductivity spectra of the rattling phonons in the clathrate Ba$_8$Ga$_{16}$Ge$_{30}$ are investigated in detail by use of the terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The experiment has revealed that the lowest-lying vibrational mode of a Ba(2)$^{2+}$ ion consists of a sharp Lorentzian peak at 1.2 THz superimposed on a broad tail weighted in the lower frequency regime around 1.0 THz. With decreasing temperature, an unexpected linewidth broadening of the phonon peak is observed, together with monotonic softening of the phonon peak and the enhancement of the tail structure. These observed anomalies are discussed in terms of impurity scattering effects on the hybridized phonon system of rattling and acoustic phonons.Comment: Submitted to JPS

Business and Information Technology Alignment Measurement -- a recent Literature Review

Since technology has been involved in the business context, Business and Information Technology Alignment (BITA) has been one of the main concerns of IT and Business executives and directors due to its importance to overall company performance, especially today in the age of digital transformation. Several models and frameworks have been developed for BITA implementation and for measuring their level of success, each one with a different approach to this desired state. The BITA measurement is one of the main decision-making tools in the strategic domain of companies. In general, the classical-internal alignment is the most measured domain and the external environment evolution alignment is the least measured. This literature review aims to characterize and analyze current research on BITA measurement with a comprehensive view of the works published over the last 15 years to identify potential gaps and future areas of research in the field.Comment: 12 pages, Preprint version, BIS 2018 International Workshops, Berlin, Germany, July 18 to 20, 2018, Revised Paper

Onshore Wind Farm Modelling

We present a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling strategy for onshore windfarms aimed at predicting and optimizing the production of farms using a CFD model that includes me-teorological data assimilation, complex terrain and wind turbine effects. The model involves the solutionof the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations together with a κ-ε turbulence model spe-cially designed for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). The model involves automatic meshing andgeneration of boundary conditions with atmospheric boundary layer shape for the entering wind flow.As the integration of the model up to the ground surface is still not viable for complex terrains, a specificlaw of the wall including roughness effects is implemented. The wake effects and the aerodynamic be-havior of the wind turbines are described using the actuator disk model, upon which a volumetric forceis included in the momentum equations. The placement of the wind turbines and a mesh refinement forthe near wakes is done by means of a Chimera method. The model is implemented in Alya, a HighPerformance Computing (HPC) multi physics parallel solver based on finite elements and developed atBarcelona Supercomputing Center.Laboratorio de Capa Límite y Fluidodinámica AmbientalGrupo Fluidodinámica Computaciona

Onshore Wind Farm Modelling

We present a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling strategy for onshore windfarms aimed at predicting and optimizing the production of farms using a CFD model that includes me-teorological data assimilation, complex terrain and wind turbine effects. The model involves the solutionof the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations together with a κ-ε turbulence model spe-cially designed for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). The model involves automatic meshing andgeneration of boundary conditions with atmospheric boundary layer shape for the entering wind flow.As the integration of the model up to the ground surface is still not viable for complex terrains, a specificlaw of the wall including roughness effects is implemented. The wake effects and the aerodynamic be-havior of the wind turbines are described using the actuator disk model, upon which a volumetric forceis included in the momentum equations. The placement of the wind turbines and a mesh refinement forthe near wakes is done by means of a Chimera method. The model is implemented in Alya, a HighPerformance Computing (HPC) multi physics parallel solver based on finite elements and developed atBarcelona Supercomputing Center.Laboratorio de Capa Límite y Fluidodinámica AmbientalGrupo Fluidodinámica Computaciona

Onshore Wind Farm Modelling

We present a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling strategy for onshore windfarms aimed at predicting and optimizing the production of farms using a CFD model that includes me-teorological data assimilation, complex terrain and wind turbine effects. The model involves the solutionof the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations together with a κ-ε turbulence model spe-cially designed for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). The model involves automatic meshing andgeneration of boundary conditions with atmospheric boundary layer shape for the entering wind flow.As the integration of the model up to the ground surface is still not viable for complex terrains, a specificlaw of the wall including roughness effects is implemented. The wake effects and the aerodynamic be-havior of the wind turbines are described using the actuator disk model, upon which a volumetric forceis included in the momentum equations. The placement of the wind turbines and a mesh refinement forthe near wakes is done by means of a Chimera method. The model is implemented in Alya, a HighPerformance Computing (HPC) multi physics parallel solver based on finite elements and developed atBarcelona Supercomputing Center.Laboratorio de Capa Límite y Fluidodinámica AmbientalGrupo Fluidodinámica Computaciona

Eu2+ spin dynamics in the filled skutterudites EuM4Sb12 (M = Fe, Ru, Os)

We report evidence for a close relation between the thermal activation of the rattling motion of the filler guest atoms, and inhomogeneous spin dynamics of the Eu2+ spins. The spin dynamics is probed directly by means of Eu2+ electron spin resonance (ESR), performed in both X-band (9.4 GHz) and Q-band (34 GHz) frequencies in the temperature interval 4.2 < T < 300 K. A comparative study with ESR measurements on the Beta-Eu8Ga16Ge30 clathrate compound is presented. Our results point to a correlation between the rattling motion and the spin dynamics which may be relevant for the general understanding of the dynamics of cage systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Building Bridges to an Uncertain Future Lived Now: Lessons from the Use of Participatory Action Research and Theory of Change Towards A Realistic Community-Based Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation System

Building on experience from the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems implemented by WorldFish in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines, known as the VisMin Hub, we describe the development and evolution of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system emerging from the facilitated action-reflection cycles of testing and adopting theories of change carried out with community partners through participatory action research (PAR). The former guides our community partners and us, as members of the potentially emergent PAR groups, towards the realization of the community’s vision; the latter facilitates learning to understand what, how and why change is unfolding. Unlike the conventional M&E system where indicators are pre-set at the beginning of program implementation, these processes result in an organically-evolved, communitybased participatory M&E system that is continuously revised according to contexts to guide communities towards realizing their visions. Its ultimate outcome is enhanced people’s capacity to own the product and process, giving rise to an internally-driven change. Towards the end, the paper offers an iterative discussion of learnings from implementing such an approach