The impact of the NCEA on teacher collegiality

This study looks at the impact that the National Certification of Educational Achievement (NCEA) has had on teacher collegiality in New Zealand. It is an exploratory study using an in case and cross case method, located in four secondary schools with a range of demographics. I was interested in gathering the information from teachers in three key roles: Assistant teacher, Head of Department and Principal's Nominee, finding out what their views were on the change that the NCEA has bought to their professional lives and the impact made on their collegiality. The literature reviewed shows there is an international appreciation of the value of collegiality in schools but there is a fragile nature of collegiality that challenges its strength. The complexity of school culture and the symbiotic relationship between it and collegiality contributes to challenge of the management and development in secondary schools. The findings showed the teachers in this study considered there to have been a deepening in collegiality as a result of increased sharing of material, professional communication through moderation and professional development, and a heightened respect for professional practice and understanding of personalities. There are threats from reduced socialisation, workload, loss of autonomy and the fragility of collegiality. These elements have created a shift in school culture. How teacher collegiality can best be supported using this assessment policy has been explored with features involving school organisation and increasing deep collegial activities such as collegial observation, marking, moderating and review being identified as beneficial

How to ... be reflexive when conducting qualitative research

Reflexivity can be a complex concept to grasp when entering the world of qualitative research. In this article, we aim to encourage new qualitative researchers to become reflexive as they develop their critical research skills, differentiating between the familiar concept of reflection and reflective practice and that of reflexivity. Although reflection is, to all intents and purposes, a goal‐oriented action with the aim of improving practice, reflexivity is a continual process of engaging with and articulating the place of the researcher and the context of the research. It also involves challenging and articulating social and cultural influences and dynamics that affect this context. As a hallmark of high‐quality qualitative research, reflexivity is not only an individual process but one that needs to be considered a collective process within a research team, and communicated throughout the research process. In keeping with our previous articles in this series, we have illustrated the theoretical concept of reflexivity using practical examples of published researchPeer reviewe

Landscape through the Lens : a panorama of the significance of background in screen odysseys

En ofta förbisedd aspekt inom filmkonsten är hur landskapet kan samspela med och inverka på handlingen och manifestera huvudkaraktärernas känsloliv. Uppsatsen syftar till att skapa en djupare förståelse för den roll landskapet spelar i film utifrån en detaljstudie av två personligt utvalada roadmovies; Återkomsten (A. Zvyagintsev, 2003) och The Straight Story (D. Lynch, 1999). Jag redogör för hur landskapsbilden har utvecklats ur bildkonsten sedan århundraden tillbaka, långt innan kinematografins uppkomst. Utifrån mina studier har jag utvecklat och sammanställt en samling metoder och frågeställningar som används för att tydligare beskriva och ge svar på vilken roll landskapet spelar i de två filmerna - och som i förlängningen kan tillämpas på film i allmänhet. Undersökningen visar att det finns en mängd moment inom film för att signalera en allegorisk avsikt till publiken; vissa mer konventionella och närmast schablonmässiga medan andra är subtila och fungerar som en allegorisk beståndsdel i filmberättandet. Precis som människan präglar landskapet, präglar landskapet också människan i en slags växelverkan i de studerade filmerna. Landskap ger oss möjlighet att skapa mening i filmiska händelser och det kan symbolisera och uttrycka det som inte kan sägas i ord. Landskapet kan understryka och förstärka känslor som yttras och har förmågan att återspegla våra allra innersta subjektiva upplevelser av världen.An often overlooked aspect of cinematic art is how landscape can interact with and shape narrative and manifest the emotions of the protagonists. This essay aims to create a deeper understanding of the role that landscape plays in film based on a detailed study of two road movies: The Return (A. Zvyagintsev, 2003) and The Straight Story (D. Lynch, 1999). I give an account of the development of the depiction of landscape, which began centuries before the birth of cinematography. On the basis of my studies, I have developed and compiled a collection of methods and questions that are employed to more clearly describe and explain the role landscape plays in the two films – and that by extension can be applied to film in general. The investigation shows that there are a multitude of ways in which films announce allegorical intention to the audience; some are conventional and virtually stereotypical while others are subtle and act as allegorical components of the film narrative. In the films studied, there is an interplay in which landscape makes an impression on people just as people make an impression on landscape. Landscape allows us to create meaning in film narratives and can symbolize and express what cannot be said in words. Landscape can highlight and reinforce expressions of emotion and is capable of reflecting our innermost subjective experiences of the world

WITS: Women, Information Technology and Scholarship in the 1990s

The collective FemTechNet produced this video about a group at the University of Illinois in the 1990s known as WITS, Women, Information Technology, and Scholarship. Four former WITS members—Jenny Barrett, Leigh Estabrook, Gail Hawisher, and Angharad Valdivia--discuss with Sharon Irish the role of WITS on campus and in the broader IT world. Filmed in September 2013 in Urbana-Champaign.Center for Digital Inclusion, School of Information SciencesOpe

QUALZICE: A QUALitative exploration of the experiences of the participants from the ZICE clinical trial (metastatic breast cancer) receiving intravenous or oral bisphosphonates

BACKGROUND: This qualitative sub-study aimed to explore the experiences of participants on the National Cancer Research Institute ZICE clinical trial, a randomised trial assessing two types of bisphosphonate treatment in breast cancer patients with bone metastases. Participants in the clinical trial were randomly allocated to receive either zoledronate, delivered by an intravenous (IV) infusion at clinic, or oral ibandronate, taken at home.METHODS: Qualitative research interviews were conducted with participant groups organised by treatment and location. Interviews covered experiences and understanding of bisphosphonate treatment, the experience of the delivery mechanisms (IV or oral), side effects and benefits, and quality of life issues. The analytic framework was interpretative phenomenological analysis.RESULTS: This paper reports on one of four superordinate themes: participants' experience of the ZICE trial, which explores the participants' experiences with clinical trial-related processes. Results show that participants were generally satisfied with their randomised treatment, although most participants had an initial preference for oral bisphosphonates. Some difficulties were reported from participants for both interventions: needle phobia, poor veins, difficulty with swallowing and gastric side effects, but pain control was improved with both modes of delivery. However, the infused bisphosphonate was reported to lose effectiveness after three weeks for some participants, whereas the oral bisphosphonate was reported to give consistent pain control. Geographical location and distance to travel made little difference to convenience of access to clinic as the reported lengths of travel time were similar due to traffic congestion in the urban areas. Most participants understood the trial processes, such as randomisation, and information about bisphosphonates but some participants showed little understanding of certain aspects of the trial. Some participants reported difficulties in accessing dental treatment due to their dentist's perceptions of bisphosphonate treatment.CONCLUSIONS: In trials of medicinal products, especially when testing for non-inferiority, participants' preferences and idiosyncrasies in relation to treatments should not be assumed. This study has shown that in a trial context, participants' views can usefully add to the main trial outcomes and they should be taken into account when prescribing in the real world.TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN13914201. Main ZICE MREC: 05/MRE09/57. CRUK E/04/022.</p

Crossâ Network Directory Service: Infrastructure to enable collaborations across distributed research networks

IntroductionExisting largeâ scale distributed health data networks are disconnected even as they address related questions of healthcare research and public policy. This paper describes the design and implementation of a fully functional prototype openâ source tool, the Crossâ Network Directory Service (CNDS), which addresses much of what keeps distributed networks disconnected from each other.MethodsThe set of services needed to implement a Crossâ Directory Service was identified through engagement with stakeholders and workgroup members. CNDS was implemented using PCORnet and Sentinel network instances and tested by participating data partners.ResultsWeb services that enable the four major functional features of the service (registration, discovery, communication, and governance) were developed and placed into an openâ source repository. The services include a robust metadata model that is extensible to accommodate a virtually unlimited inventory of metadata fields, without requiring any further software development. The user interfaces are programmatically generated based on the contents of the metadata model.ConclusionThe CNDS pilot project gathered functional requirements from stakeholders and collaborating partners to build a software application to enable crossâ network data and resource sharing. The two partnersâ one from Sentinel and one from PCORnetâ tested the software. They successfully entered metadata about their organizations and data sources and then used the Discovery and Communication functionality to find data sources of interest and send a crossâ network query. The CNDS software can help integrate disparate health data networks by providing a mechanism for data partners to participate in multiple networks, share resources, and seamlessly send queries across those networks.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149237/1/lrh210187.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149237/2/lrh210187_am.pd

Starting the conversation: land issues and critical conservation studies in post-colonial Africa

This thematic issue brings together the scholarly fields of critical conservation studies and African land issues, a relationship largely unexplored to date. The alienation of land for conservation purposes, introduced to Africa under colonial rule and still taking place today, has fundamental impacts on the politics of land and land use, and is contested in contemporary nation-states - including those that are attempting to implement land restitution and reform. The contributors explore these issues in a range of African contexts. Three key themes are identified: the problematic constructions of ‘community’ by outside agencies; spatial exclusion and the silencing of local voices; and the neoliberalisation of conservation spaces. In contributing to new perspectives on these themes, this thematic issue shows how discourses and practices of conservation, increasingly shaped by neoliberalism, currently impact on land ownership, access and use. It further highlights some important historical continuities. These trends can be observed in transfrontier conservation areas, on state-owned land used for conservation and ‘green’ initiatives, but also on private land where conservation is increasingly turned to commercial purposes.International Bibliography of Social Science

Not All Cavities Are Treated Equal: Increasing Access to Preventive Dental Care in Texas

The purpose of this report is to examine oral health care for children in Texas. United Ways of Texas is concerned with the disproportionate levels of access that low-income children face. This research team was charged by United Ways to: Develop appropriate measures of access to preventive dental care for children Analyze the geographic and socioeconomic patterns of such access measures in Texas Calculate the expected benefits and costs of expanding access There are significant disparities in access to oral health care for children in Texas. These disparities are frequently based on income levels, ethnic status, and if a child lives in an urban or rural area. Because disparity continues to exist among Texans, this report offers the following recommendations to improve access to dental care. To support these recommendations, this report will: 1. Describe the importance of children's oral health. 2. Show disparities that exist among children. 3. Describe the types of preventive care that can improve children's oral health. 4. Demonstrate that preventive care can be cost-effective. 5. Identify barriers to access in Texas through literature and researchUnited Ways of Texa

Associations with photoreceptor thickness measures in the UK Biobank.

Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) provides high resolution images enabling identification of individual retinal layers. We included 32,923 participants aged 40-69 years old from UK Biobank. Questionnaires, physical examination, and eye examination including SD-OCT imaging were performed. SD OCT measured photoreceptor layer thickness includes photoreceptor layer thickness: inner nuclear layer-retinal pigment epithelium (INL-RPE) and the specific sublayers of the photoreceptor: inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane (INL-ELM); external limiting membrane-inner segment outer segment (ELM-ISOS); and inner segment outer segment-retinal pigment epithelium (ISOS-RPE). In multivariate regression models, the total average INL-RPE was observed to be thinner in older aged, females, Black ethnicity, smokers, participants with higher systolic blood pressure, more negative refractive error, lower IOPcc and lower corneal hysteresis. The overall INL-ELM, ELM-ISOS and ISOS-RPE thickness was significantly associated with sex and race. Total average of INL-ELM thickness was additionally associated with age and refractive error, while ELM-ISOS was additionally associated with age, smoking status, SBP and refractive error; and ISOS-RPE was additionally associated with smoking status, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis. Hence, we found novel associations of ethnicity, smoking, systolic blood pressure, refraction, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis with photoreceptor thickness