Learning Journey Towards Reconciliation: Developing Teacher Self-Efficacy

Current changes in curriculum and provincial teaching standards are intended to address the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Teachers are responsible for implementing the changes but do not yet have the knowledge or skills to effectively manage the transformative changes being suggested. This organizational improvement plan (OIP) aims to address the problem of practice associated with teacher efficacy to incorporate Indigenous-Informed pedagogy (IIP) using the collaborative model of professional learning communities (PLC). The triadic determination of beliefs, skills, and environment of social cognitive theory by Albert Bandura is highlighted as a necessary structure to ensure that when sources of self-efficacy are present, individuals will have a greater likelihood of success. The work of Indigenous scholar, Sandra Styres (2017), provides a necessary grounding of the change plan in the Hodenosaunee and Anishinaabe philosophies of Iethi\u27nihstenha Ohwentsia\u27kekha (Land). Styres’ (2017) circularity framework will guide all aspects of this OIP, including the implementation plan, and the communication plan with a thorough knowledge mobilization plan (KMb). Through transformative, adaptive, and authentic leadership, the leader will address the complex nature of the problem of practice, and the leader will use the spiral of inquiry (SOI) from Halbert and Kaser (2022) to monitor and evaluate the progress throughout the change process. Keywords: self-efficacy, transformative leadership, social cognitive theory, Indigenous-informed pedagogy, adaptive leadership, authentic leadershi

Does quality influence choice of general practitioner? An analysis of matched doctor-patient panel data

The impact of quality on the demand facing health care providers has important implications for the industrial organization of health care markets. In this paper we study the consumers' choice of general practitioner (GP) assuming they are unable to observe the true quality of GP services. A panel data set for 484 Norwegian GPs, with summary information on their patient stocks, renders the opportunity to identify and measure the impact of GP quality on the demand, accounting for patient health heterogeneity in several ways. We apply modeling and estimation procedures involving latent structural variables, inter alia, a LISREL type of model, is used. The patient excess mortality rate at the GP level is one indicator of the quality. We estimate the effect of this quality variable on the demand for each GP's services. Our results, obtained from two different econometric model versions, indicate that GP quality has a clear positive effect on demand.GP services; Health care quality; Health care demand; Latent variables; LISREL; Panel data; Norway

The glycogen phosphorylase/ phosphorylase kinase interaction: effects of mutations in the amino-terminal region of glycogen phosphorylase

Glycogen phosphorylase is an important enzyme for carbohydrate metabolism in muscle. It uses inorganic phosphate to remove glucose from glycogen, producing glucose-1-phosphate, which can be used for the production of ATP. Inactive glycogen phosphorylase (phosphorylase h) is activated either by the allosteric binding of 5\u27-AMP, or by phosphorylation by phosphorylase kinase (PhK). Phosphorylation produces phosphorylase a, which is active in the absence of AMP. PhK is the only kinase that can phosphorylate phosphorylase b, which in turn is the only substrate for PhK. This dissertation research has attempted to determine the reasons for this specificity and how these two enzymes recognize each other, by studying site-directed mutants of glycogen phosphorylase;All mutants were assayed for changes in their interaction with a truncated form of the catalytic subunit of phosphorylase kinase, gamma(1--300). Three mutations (R69K, R69E, and E501A), made at sites that interact with the amino terminus in either phosphorylase b or a, showed little difference in phosphorylation by gamma(1--300) compared to phosphorylase b. Five mutations, made at three sites in the amino-terminal tail of phosphorylase (K11A, K11E, I13G, R16A, and R16E), however, produced decreases in catalytic efficiency for gamma(1--300), compared to phosphorylase b. R16E was the poorest substrate for gamma(1--300), giving a 47-fold decrease in catalytic efficiency. The amino-terminus, and especially Arg 16, are very important factors for recognition of phosphorylase by gamma(1--300). In addition, I13G and R16A were able to be phosphorylated by protein kinase A, which does not recognize native phosphorylase;Some of the mutants were also observed to have altered conformational states. R16A and R16E were activated at very low AMP concentration and crystallized at low temperature, like phosphorylase a. This indicates that even without phosphorylation, their structures are more like phosphorylase a than phosphorylase b. Two other mutants produced the opposite effect, behaving like phosphorylase b after phosphorylation. R69E was only partially activated by phosphorylation, and I13G was completely inactive after phosphorylation. I13G was the first observation of a phosphorylase form that could not be activated by phosphorylation

Estimation of discrete choice and censoring models (in Russian)

This article provides an overview of difference-in-differences estimation, starting with a review of the basic methodology, discussing in some detail recent advances in inference, and concluding with new methods for estimating treatment effects in various nonlinear and semiparametric models.

The Rise in Absenteeism: Disentangling the Impacts of Cohort, Age and Time

We examine the remarkable rise in absenteeism among Norwegian employees since the early 1990's, with particular emphasis on disentangling the roles of cohort, age, and time. Based on a fixed effects model, we show that individual age-adjusted absence propensities have risen even more than aggregate absence rates from 1993 to 2005, debunking the popular hypothesis that the rise in absenteeism resulted from the inclusion of new cohorts – with weaker work-norms – into the workforce. We also reject the idea that the rise in absenteeism resulted from more successful integration of workers with poor health; on the contrary, a massive rise in disability rolls during the 1990’s suggest that poor-health workers have left the labor market in unprecedented numbers.sickness absence, endogenous selection, multicollinearity, fixed effects logit

The Effect of Activity-Based Financing on Hospital Efficiency: A Panel Data Analysis of DEA Efficiency Scores 1992-2000

Activity-based financing (ABF) was implemented in the Norwegian hospital sector from 1 July 1997. A fraction (30 to 50 per cent) of the block grant from the state to the county councils has been replaced by a matching grant depending upon the number and composition of hospital treatments. As a result of the reform, the majority of county councils have introduced activity-based contracts with their hospitals. This paper studies the effect of activity-based funding on hospital efficiency. We predict that hospital efficiency will increase because the benefit from cost-reducing efforts in terms of number of treated patients is increased under ABF compared with global budgets. The prediction is tested using a panel data set from the period 1992-2000. Efficiency indicators are estimated by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA) with multiple inputs and outputs. Using a variety of econometric methods, we find that the introduction of ABF has improved efficiency when measured as technical efficiency according to DEA analysis. Contrary to our prediction, the result is less uniform with respect to the effect on cost-efficiency. We suggest several reasons why this prediction fails. Keywords are poor information of costs, production-oriented drive, tight factor markets and soft budget constraints.Public Hospitals; Financing; Efficiency; DEA Scores; Panel Data; Norway

Comparative Study of Three High Order Schemes for LES of Temporally Evolving Mixing Layers

Three high order shock-capturing schemes are compared for large eddy simulations (LES) of temporally evolving mixing layers (TML) for different convective Mach numbers (Mc) ranging from the quasi-incompressible regime to highly compressible supersonic regime. The considered high order schemes are fifth-order WENO (WENO5), seventh-order WENO (WENO7) and the associated eighth-order central spatial base scheme with the dissipative portion of WENO7 as a nonlinear post-processing filter step (WENO7fi). This high order nonlinear filter method (H.C. Yee and B. Sjogreen, Proceedings of ICOSAHOM09, June 22-26, 2009, Trondheim, Norway) is designed for accurate and efficient simulations of shock-free compressible turbulence, turbulence with shocklets and turbulence with strong shocks with minimum tuning of scheme parameters. The LES results by WENO7fi using the same scheme parameter agree well with experimental results of Barone et al. (2006), and published direct numerical simulations (DNS) work of Rogers & Moser (1994) and Pantano & Sarkar (2002), whereas results by WENO5 and WENO7 compare poorly with experimental data and DNS computations

Does quality influence choice of general practitioner? An analysis of matched doctor-patient panel data

The impact of quality on the demand facing health care providers has important implications for the industrial organization of health care markets. In this paper we study the consumers' choice of general practitioner (GP) assuming they are unable to observe the true quality of GP services. A panel data set for 484 Norwegian GPs, with summary information on their patient stocks, renders the opportunity to identify and measure the impact of GP quality on the demand, accounting for patient health heterogeneity in several ways. We apply modeling and estimation procedures involving latent structural variables, inter alia, a LISREL type of model, is used. The patient excess mortality rate at the GP level is one indicator of the quality. We estimate the effect of this quality variable on the demand for each GP's services. Our results, obtained from two different econometric model versions, indicate that GP quality has a clear positive effect on demand

The Effect of Activity-Based Financing on Hospital Efficiency: A Panel Data Analysis of DEA Efficiency Scores 1992-2000

Activity-based financing (ABF) was implemented in the Norwegian hospital sector from 1 July 1997. A fraction (30 to 50 per cent) of the block grant from the state to the county councils has been replaced by a matching grant depending upon the number and composition of hospital treatments. As a result of the reform, the majority of county councils have introduced activity-based contracts with their hospitals. This paper studies the effect of activity-based funding on hospital efficiency. We predict that hospital efficiency will increase because the benefit from cost-reducing efforts in terms of number of treated patients is increased under ABF compared with global budgets. The prediction is tested using a panel data set from the period 1992-2000. Efficiency indicators are estimated by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA) with multiple inputs and outputs. Using a variety of econometric methods, we find that the introduction of ABF has improved efficiency when measured as technical efficiency according to DEA analysis. Contrary to our prediction, the result is less uniform with respect to the effect on cost-efficiency. We suggest several reasons why this prediction fails. Keywords are poor information of costs, production-oriented drive, tight factor markets and soft budget constraints