Perceived teacher effectiveness and psychological type : an exploratory study of New Zealand teachers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree in Master of Education at Massey University

This study sought to establish whether perceptions of teacher effectiveness were influenced by individual personality. A questionnaire to establish teacher views was designed through research and consultation with other teachers, piloted initially with a preliminary group of ten teachers, then redesigned in the light of these responses. The questionnaire was designed to obtain information on demographics, theoretical perspectives, educational contexts, working comparisons, and individual preferences related to sociability, perceiving, cognitive processing, decision making, action and organisation, perceptual openness, interpretative preferences and management and discipline preferences. It was named the Teacher Effectiveness Questionnaire (TEQ). A Likert-type 1-5 scale was used for rating responses from the TEQ and the resultant data factor analysed resulting in four factors which were given the titles: Responsiveness; Professional Teamwork; Planning and Management; and a bipolar factor of Practical Experience versus Theory (hereinafter termed the Theory Factor). Teacher personality was determined by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The 147 teachers who took part were all primary school based, ranging from principals, senior staff, teachers of reading, and scale A teachers. Each dealt with children within the range of New Entrant to Form II, (approximately 5 to 13 year old pupils). Of the sample 38 were males and 107 were females. Significant differences, in views of effective teaching were found by age, gender and personality types. Sensing types were found to hold strongly different views on Responsiveness and on Theory . Teamwork, Planning and Management were found to be less affected by personality and more by contextual elements. Responsiveness was found to differ according to age. Educational implications were explored

Bucking the Railroads on the Kansas Frontier: The Struggle Over Land Claims by Homesteading Civil War Veternas, 1867-1876

Exploring How Soldiers Understood the Post-War World Many titles promise more than the book actually delivers. This is happily not the case with John M. Mack’s outstanding study of the settlement of southeast Kansas after the Civil War. The title, Bucking the Railroads, does no...

The influence of push-off timing in a robotic ankle-foot prosthesis on the energetics and mechanics of walking

Background: Robotic ankle-foot prostheses that provide net positive push-off work can reduce the metabolic rate of walking for individuals with amputation, but benefits might be sensitive to push-off timing. Simple walking models suggest that preemptive push-off reduces center-of-mass work, possibly reducing metabolic rate. Studies with bilateral exoskeletons have found that push-off beginning before leading leg contact minimizes metabolic rate, but timing was not varied independently from push-off work, and the effects of push-off timing on biomechanics were not measured. Most lower-limb amputations are unilateral, which could also affect optimal timing. The goal of this study was to vary the timing of positive prosthesis push-off work in isolation and measure the effects on energetics, mechanics and muscle activity. Methods: We tested 10 able-bodied participants walking on a treadmill at 1.25 m.s(-1). Participants wore a tethered ankle-foot prosthesis emulator on one leg using a rigid boot adapter. We programmed the prosthesis to apply torque bursts that began between 46% and 56% of stride in different conditions. We iteratively adjusted torque magnitude to maintain constant net positive push-off work. Results: When push-off began at or after leading leg contact, metabolic rate was about 10% lower than in a condition with Spring-like prosthesis behavior. When push-off began before leading leg contact, metabolic rate was not different from the Spring-like condition. Early push-off led to increased prosthesis-side vastus medialis and biceps femoris activity during push-off and increased variability in step length and prosthesis loading during push-off. Prosthesis push-off timing had no influence on intact-side leg center-of-mass collision work. Conclusions: Prosthesis push-off timing, isolated from push-off work, strongly affected metabolic rate, with optimal timing at or after intact-side heel contact. Increased thigh muscle activation and increased human variability appear to have caused the lack of reduction in metabolic rate when push-off was provided too early. Optimal timing with respect to opposite heel contact was not different from normal walking, but the trends in metabolic rate and center-of-mass mechanics were not consistent with simple model predictions. Optimal push-off timing should also be characterized for individuals with amputation, since meaningful benefits might be realized with improved timing

Software components for a dialogue multiagent system

http://www.di.unipi.it/~morge/publis/morge03diabruck.pdfInternational audienceThis work proposes a software component approach to design a dialogue multiagent system

Activated Ca++/calmodulin dependent protein kinase IIgamma is a critical regulator of myeloid leukemia cell proliferation

Ca++ signaling is an important component of signal transduction pathways regulating B and T lymphocyte proliferation, but the functional role of Ca++ signaling in regulating myeloid leukemia cell proliferation has been largely unexplored. We observe that the activated (autophosphorylated) Ca++/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) is invariably present in myeloid leukemia cell lines as well as in the majority of primary acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patient samples. In contrast myeloid leukemia cells induced to terminally differentiate or undergo growth arrest display a marked reduction in this CaMKII autophosphorylation. In cells harboring the bcr-abl oncogene, the activation (autophosphorylation) of CaMKII is regulated by this oncogene. Moreover, inhibition of CaMKII activity with pharmacological agents, dominant negative constructs or shRNAs inhibits the proliferation of myeloid leukemia cells, and this is associated with the inactivation / downregulation of multiple critical signal transduction networks involving the MAP kinase, JAK/Stat and GSK3 / -catenin pathways. In myeloid leukemia cells CaMKII directly phosphorylates Stat3 and enhances its transcriptional activity. Thus CaMKII is a critical regulator of multiple signaling networks regulating the proliferation of myeloid leukemia cells. Inhibiting CaMKII may represent a novel approach in the targeted therapy of myeloid leukemia

Hubble-COS Observations of Galactic High-Velocity Clouds: Four AGN Sight Lines through Complex C

We report ultraviolet spectra of Galactic high-velocity clouds (HVCs) in Complex C, taken by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), together with new 21-cm spectra from the Green Bank Telescope. The wide spectral coverage and higher S/N, compared to previous HST spectra, provide better velocity definition of the HVC absorption, additional ionization species, and improved abundances in this halo gas. Complex C has a metallicity of 0.1-0.3 solar and a wide range of ions, suggesting dynamical and thermal interactions with hot gas in the Galactic halo. Spectra in the COS medium-resolution G130M (1133-1468 A) and G160M (1383-1796 A) gratings detect ultraviolet absorption lines from 8 elements in low ionization stages (O I, N I, C II, S II, Si II, Al II, Fe II, P II) and 3 elements in intermediate and high-ionization states (Si III, Si IV, C IV, N V). Our four AGN sight lines toward Mrk 817, Mrk 290, Mrk 876, and PG1259+593 have high-velocity H I and O VI column densities, log N_HI = 19.39-20.05 and log N_OVI = 13.58-14.10, with substantial amounts of kinematically associated photoionized gas. The high-ion abundance ratios are consistent with cooling interfaces between photoionized gas and collisionally ionized gas: N(C IV)/N(O VI) = 0.3-0.5, N(Si IV)/N(O VI) = 0.05-0.11, N(N V)/N(O VI) = 0.07-0.13, and N(Si IV)/N(Si III) = 0.2.Comment: 43 pages, 11 figures (appearing in ApJ, Sept 1, 2011