Writing with Discipline: A Call for Avoiding APA Style Guide Errors in Manuscript Preparation

The education community in the United States—as in many countries—is extremely large and diverse. Indeed, as documented by Mosteller, Nave, and Miech (2004), The United States has more than 3.6 million teachers in elementary and secondary education, more than 100,000 principals, and about 15,000 school districts, each with its own set of district administrators, school board members, and concerned citizens. The parents and family members of the 60 million students in elementary and secondary education represent another constituency, as do the policymakers and legislators in the 50 states (along with the District of Columbia) and at the federal level. Postsecondary education represents another 1 million faculty members, along with an enrollment of 15 million undergraduates and 1.8 million graduate students. (p. 29) Indeed, with the number of individuals involved in the educational system, educational research has the potential to play a pivotal role in improving the quality of education—from Kindergarten through primary, through secondary, through tertiary education. Yet, for educational research to play such a role, its findings must be disseminated to individuals (e.g., educators, administrators, stakeholders, policymakers) and groups (e.g., teacher associations) who can most effectively use them (Mosteller et al., 2004; Onwuegbuzie, Leech, & Whitmore, 2008). Unfortunately, research findings do not disseminate themselves, regardless of how statistically, practically, clinically, or economically significant they are for the field of education. Rather, it is educational researchers in general and practitioner-researchers in particular who must convey these findings

Relationships among Attitudes, Coping Strategies, and Achievement in Doctoral-Level Statistics Courses: A Mixed Research Study

Article originally published in International Journal of Doctoral StudiesBecause of the important role that attitudes toward statistics and motivation have played in statistics courses, Ramirez, Emmioglu, and Schau (2010) recently conceptualized that Eccles and Wigfield’s (2002) Expectancy-Value Model (EVM) is applicable for students enrolled in statistics courses. However, to date, the applicability of the EVM for understanding students’ attitudes toward statistics has not been tested empirically. Thus, the purpose of this mixed research study was twofold: (a) to build on Ramirez et al.’s (2010) conceptualization by testing the EVM as a viable framework for understanding the statistics learning context; and (b) to examine the role that coping strategies play within the EVM framework by exploring interrelationships among attitudes, coping strategies, and statistics achievement. A qualitative-dominant mixed research design was used. Specifically, 18 doctoral students who had recently taken a statistics class participated in three in-depth focus groups. The ensuing qualitative data were supplemented by quantitative data via scores from a measure of coping strategies used in statistics courses that was administered to all participants. The qualitative and quantitative data provided strong support for the EVM. Moreover, the emergence of five coping strategies themes suggested the appropriateness of expanding the EVM to a more solution-focused model, namely, the Expectancy-Value Coping Strategies (EVCS) model, wherein coping strategies mediate the relationship between statistics attitudes and statistics achievement.Educatio

VetCompass Australia: A National Big Data Collection System for Veterinary Science

VetCompass Australia is veterinary medical records-based research coordinated with the global VetCompass endeavor to maximize its quality and effectiveness for Australian companion animals (cats, dogs, and horses). Bringing together all seven Australian veterinary schools, it is the first nationwide surveillance system collating clinical records on companion-animal diseases and treatments. VetCompass data service collects and aggregates real-time, clinical records for researchers to interrogate, delivering sustainable and cost-effective access to data from hundreds of veterinary practitioners nationwide. Analysis of these clinical records will reveal geographical and temporal trends in the prevalence of inherited and acquired diseases, identify frequently prescribed treatments, revolutionize clinical auditing, help the veterinary profession to rank research priorities, and assure evidence-based companion-animal curricula in veterinary schools. VetCompass Australia will progress in three phases: (1) roll-out of the VetCompass platform to harvest Australian veterinary clinical record data; (2) development and enrichment of the coding (data-presentation) platform; and (3) creation of a world-first, real-time surveillance interface with natural language processing (NLP) technology. The first of these three phases is described in the current article. Advances in the collection and sharing of records from numerous practices will enable veterinary professionals to deliver a vastly improved level of care for companion animals that will improve their quality of life

Importance of Considering Rate of Passage When Determining Energy Content of Forages for High Producing Animals

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of higher rates of passage and correspondingly lower rumen retention times on digestion of forages. One hundred and fifty samples of legumes, grasses and grass-legume mixtures were collected from farmer samples submitted to commercial forage testing laboratories and 32 samples of alfalfa at varying maturity were collected from research plots. In vitro digestions were performed for either 24 or 48 hours followed by neutral detergent analysis. Neither acid detergent fiber (ADF) nor neutral detergent fiber (NDF) predicted the standard 48-hour digestion very well (r2 = -0.38 and B0.26, respectively). Similar results were noted for 24-hour digestion (r2 = -0.48 and B0.47, respectively). While the correlation was high between 24- and 48-hour digestions (r2 = 0.86), individual samples showed considerable variation. It is recommended that digestion kinetics be considered with determining energy availability for forages for higher producing animals

Configuration development study of the X-24C hypersonic research airplane

Bottom line results were made of a three-phase study to determine the feasibility of designing, building, and operating, and maintaining an air-launched high performance aircraft capable of cruising at speeds up to Mach 8 for short durations. The results show that Lockalloy heat-sink structure affords the capability for a 'work-horse' vehicle which can serve as an excellent platform for this research. It was further concluded that the performance of a blended wing body configuration surpassed that of a lifting body design for typical X-24C missions. The cost of a two vehicle program, less engines, B-52 modification and contractor support after delivery, can be kept within $70M (in Jan. 1976 dollars)

Proposing new variables for the identification of strategic groups in franchising

The identification of strategic groups in the Spanish franchising area is the main aim of this study. The authors have added some new strategic variables (not used before) to the study and have classified franchisors between sectors and distribution strategy. The results reveal the existence of four perfectly differentiated strategic groups (types of franchisors). One of the major implications of this study is that the variables that build a strategic group vary depending on the respective sector the network operates in and its distribution strategy. This fact indicates that including sector and distribution strategy is absolutely necessary to achieve good classifications of franchisor type

Genome-Wide RNAi Screen Identifies Regulators of Cardiomyocyte Necrosis

Regulation of cellular death is central to nearly all physiological routines and is dysregulated in virtually all diseases. Cell death occurs by two major processes, necrosis which culminates in a pervasive inflammatory response and apoptosis which is largely immunologically inert. As necrosis has long been considered an accidental, unregulated form of cellular death that occurred in response to a harsh environmental stimulus, it was largely ignored as a clinical target. However, recent elegant studies suggest that certain forms of necrosis can be reprogrammed. However, scant little is known about the molecules and pathways that orchestrate calcium-overload-induced necrosis, a main mediator of ischemia/reperfusion (IR)-induced cardiomyocyte cell death. To rectify this critical gap in our knowledge, we performed a novel genome-wide siRNA screen to identify modulators of calcium-induced necrosis in human muscle cells. Our screen identified multiple molecular circuitries that either enhance or inhibit this process, including lysosomal calcium channel TPCN1, mitophagy mediatorTOMM7, Ran-binding protein RanBP9, Histone deacetylase HDAC2, chemokine CCL11, and the Arp2/3 complex regulator glia maturation factor-γ(GMFG). Notably, a number of druggable enzymes were identified, including the proteasome β5 subunit (encoded by PSMB5 gene), which controls the proteasomal chymotrypsin-like peptidase activity. Such findings open up the possibility for the discovery of pharmacological interventions that could provide therapeutic benefits to patients affected by myriad disorders characterized by excessive (or too little) necrotic cell loss, including but not limited to IR injury in the heart and kidney, chronic neurodegenerative disorders, muscular dystrophies, sepsis, and cancers

Integrability of Differential-Difference Equations with Discrete Kinks

In this article we discuss a series of models introduced by Barashenkov, Oxtoby and Pelinovsky to describe some discrete approximations to the \phi^4 theory which preserve travelling kink solutions. We show, by applying the multiple scale test that they have some integrability properties as they pass the A_1 and A_2 conditions. However they are not integrable as they fail the A_3 conditions.Comment: submitted to the Proceedings of the workshop "Nonlinear Physics: Theory and Experiment.VI" in a special issue di Theoretical and Mathematical Physic