Continuous Improvement in Education

In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion

Eight species of whiteflies (Homoptera: Aleyrodidae) newly recorded from Korea

Aleuroclava magnoliae (Takahashi), Aleurotrachelus ishigakiensis (Takahashi), Aleyrodes lonicerae Walker, Asterobemisia carpini (Koch), Bemisia afer (Priesner and Hosny), Dialeurolobus pulcher Danzig, Pealius polygoni Takahashi, and Pealius rubi Takahashi are newly recorded from Korea

Improving Agricultural Irrigation on the Balkhab River, Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, where 80% of the population is rural, irrigated agriculture is important for satisfying subsistence needs. While most of the irrigated agriculture is fed by diversion canal systems which tap surface flows, legal and physical water infrastructure in the region is generally poor. A math programming model is used to optimize irrigation strategies under different water-availability and policy scenarios. It is found that the construction of a reservoir could increase net revenues to a representative farming community by up to 30%. However, even greater benefits may result from increasing distribution efficiencies, depending on the initial level of conveyance losses. Further, property rights schemes may be implemented to distribute wealth more evenly through various zones at minimal cost to the agricultural community as a whole. These results may prove useful to policymakers or water authorities in reestablishing water rights.linear programming, irrigation, Afghanistan, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development,

Volatiles in Subglacially Erupted Basaltic Glasses and Their Use in Reconstructing Paleo-Ice Thicknesses

Volatile concentrations in basaltic tuyas, edifices that form during a subglacial eruption and remain once the ice sheet has retreated, have been used to calculate the thickness of the overlying ice sheet at the onset of the eruption (Tuffen, 2010). However, subglacial eruptions are complex events and this technique does not always provide a clear answer (Schopka et al., 2006; Edwards et al., 2009). The purpose of this research is to evaluate this technique and investigate constraints on the quality of data collected by attempting to calculate the minimum ice thickness under which Hlöðufell, a tuya in south-central Iceland, erupted. Hlöðufell is a Holocene tuya located in the Western Rift Zone of Iceland, 9 km south from the modern edge of Langjökull ice cap. Dissolved H2O concentrations were measured using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and quenching pressures were calculated using the VolatileCalc pressure-solubility model (Newman and Lowenstern, 2002). Overlying ice thickness was calculated by relating quenching pressures, the density of ice, and the elevation of the sample. Water concentrations range from 0.068 –to 0.478 wt. % H2O, representing pressures ranging from 0.66 to 24.72 bars. These pressures represent ice thicknesses between 0 and 268 m thick. The minimum ice thickness level is represented in the lithofacies of the tuya by the passage zone, the transition between subaerial and subaqueous flows. The minimum ice thickness for Hlöðufell is ~ 500 m, much thicker than this study calculated using water concentrations. This indicates that the volatile concentrations in the basaltic glasses at Hlöðufell do not record the accurate quenching pressure. We interpret the overall low water concentrations to mean that our samples must have degassed at or close to atmospheric pressures at higher elevations, and flowed downslope into areas of thicker ice or deeper melt-water before quenching. These results show that subglacial eruptions and degassing processes are complex and variable and require further investigation

Investigations of potential transfer of Campylobacter coli between hogs and turkeys.

Hogs are often grown in close proximity to turkey farms in North Cartolina, and the potential exists for transfer of pathogens, including Campylobacter, from one host animal to another. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for possible transfer of Campylobacter coli from hogs to turkeys, or vice versa. Strains from four paired hog and turkey farms were isolated and characterized in terms of their antibiotic resistance profiles, and by molecular subtyping utilizing PCR-RFLP of flaA. Certain strains were found to be shared between hogs and turkeys, suggesting possible transfer. In spite of identical molecular subtypes, such strains commonly differed in antibiotic resistance profiles. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that strains of C. coli may transfer between hogs and turkeys, or that certain strain subtypes may independently colonize these animals through unidentified reservoirs

A Deep Dive into Understanding Tumor Foci Classification using Multiparametric MRI Based on Convolutional Neural Network

Deep learning models have had a great success in disease classifications using large data pools of skin cancer images or lung X-rays. However, data scarcity has been the roadblock of applying deep learning models directly on prostate multiparametric MRI (mpMRI). Although model interpretation has been heavily studied for natural images for the past few years, there has been a lack of interpretation of deep learning models trained on medical images. This work designs a customized workflow for the small and imbalanced data set of prostate mpMRI where features were extracted from a deep learning model and then analyzed by a traditional machine learning classifier. In addition, this work contributes to revealing how deep learning models interpret mpMRI for prostate cancer patients stratification

Volumetric and Voxel-Wise Analysis of Dominant Intraprostatic Lesions on Multiparametric MRI

Introduction: Multiparametric MR imaging (mpMRI) has shown promising results in the diagnosis and localization of prostate cancer. Furthermore, mpMRI may play an important role in identifying the dominant intraprostatic lesion (DIL) for radiotherapy boost. We sought to investigate the level of correlation between dominant tumor foci contoured on various mpMRI sequences. Methods: mpMRI data from 90 patients with MR-guided biopsy-proven prostate cancer were obtained from the SPIE-AAPM-NCI Prostate MR Classification Challenge. Each case consisted of T2-weighted (T2W), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and K(trans) images computed from dynamic contrast-enhanced sequences. All image sets were rigidly co-registered, and the dominant tumor foci were identified and contoured for each MRI sequence. Hausdorff distance (HD), mean distance to agreement (MDA), and Dice and Jaccard coefficients were calculated between the contours for each pair of MRI sequences (i.e., T2 vs. ADC, T2 vs. K(trans), and ADC vs. K(trans)). The voxel wise spearman correlation was also obtained between these image pairs. Results: The DILs were located in the anterior fibromuscular stroma, central zone, peripheral zone, and transition zone in 35.2, 5.6, 32.4, and 25.4% of patients, respectively. Gleason grade groups 1-5 represented 29.6, 40.8, 15.5, and 14.1% of the study population, respectively (with group grades 4 and 5 analyzed together). The mean contour volumes for the T2W images, and the ADC and K(trans) maps were 2.14 +/- 2.1, 2.22 +/- 2.2, and 1.84 +/- 1.5 mL, respectively. K(trans) values were indistinguishable between cancerous regions and the rest of prostatic regions for 19 patients. The Dice coefficient and Jaccard index were 0.74 +/- 0.13, 0.60 +/- 0.15 for T2W-ADC and 0.61 +/- 0.16, 0.46 +/- 0.16 for T2W-K(trans). The voxel-based Spearman correlations were 0.20 +/- 0.20 for T2W-ADC and 0.13 +/- 0.25 for T2W-K(trans). Conclusions: The DIL contoured on T2W images had a high level of agreement with those contoured on ADC maps, but there was little to no quantitative correlation of these results with tumor location and Gleason grade group. Technical hurdles are yet to be solved for precision radiotherapy to target the DILs based on physiological imaging. A Boolean sum volume (BSV) incorporating all available MR sequences may be reasonable in delineating the DIL boost volume

The position of authenticity within extant models of personality.

The aim of the current study was to explore where authenticity, derived from the humanistic tradition of psychology, was positioned within a number of extant models of personality. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of data from four samples (total N = 1286) suggested that authenticity can be considered as loading on the Honesty–Humility factor of personality. These findings are discussed in terms of the wider theoretical overlaps between Honesty–Humility and psychological functioning as emphasised by the humanistic tradition of psychology

128-bit multicomparator

A 128-bit multicomparator was designed to perform the search-sort function on arbitrary length data strings. Devices can be cascaded for longer block lengths or paralleled for bit-parallel, word-serial applications. The circuit utilizes a 3-phase static-dynamic shift register cell for data handling and a unique gated EXCLUSIVE-NOR circuit to accomplish the compare function. The compare operation is performed bit parallel between a `data' register and a `key' register with a third `mask' register containing DON'T CARE bits that disable the comparator. The multicomparator was fabricated using p-channel silicon-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology on a 107/spl times/150 mil chip containing 3350 devices. With transistor-transistor logic (TTL) input, data rates in excess of 2 MHz have been attained. The average power dissipation was 250 mW in the dynamic mode and 300 mW in the static mode