Examining the effectiveness of a wholly school-based staff development effort as one component of a schoolwide project program.

This study examines the effectiveness of a site-based staff development program as one component of a Chapter I Schoolwide Project. The study utilizes and fully implements an Action/Descriptive research model, a participatory model which implements self-reflective cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The setting of the study is an elementary school in Quincy, Massachusetts with over ninety percent of the children from predominantly white low income families. A large proportion of the children are at-risk. The purpose of the Schoolwide Project is to upgrade the entire educational program of the school. The most important feature of a Schoolwide Project is that Chapter I personnel, as well as educational hardware and software, can be utilized by all children, not only those qualifying for Chapter I remedial services. Other instructional initiatives to enhance the program of at-risk students also were utilized. A review of the Effective Schools literature was accomplished in order to determine the essential key ingredients necessary for a staff development program for upgrading the entire educational system. The key ingredients for effective schools from the literature are: Leadership, Environment, Curriculum/Instruction, Teachers and Total School ingredients. Reactions to Effective Schools research was also included. The study\u27s purpose was to establish a school-based staff development effort, based upon the key ingredients for Effective Schools, for total school improvement. The measurement instruments used in the study included the: Parent Opinion Inventory, Effective School Battery, Measuring Stages of Concern About an Innovation, Open-Ended Stages of Concern Questionnaire, and an Informal Student Survey. The study details the variables of an educational environment and provides suggestions for improving the total educational setting

Preparing Water Supply Systems for Climate Change: The Role of Hydrologic Forecasting in the Northeast

Fresh water is a resource strongly impacted by climactic conditions. Water supply systems in the northeastern United States will see the effects of climate change on their water quality and quantity in various ways, including changes in seasonality of flows, changes in the frequency and magnitude of extreme precipitation events, and changes in the variability of precipitation and water availability. Five northeastern water supplies examined are expected to maintain at least 95% monthly reliability over a range of climates wider than the current projections. However, model results indicate that turbidity levels in New York City\u27s Ashokan Reservoir will change with changes in mean annual precipitation and temperature. Through a series of linked models of stochastic weather, hydrologic processes, and the supply system, Chapter 2 demonstrates the robustness of several adaptations available to the New York City Water Supply System to mitigate drought and manage water quality under climate change projections through the end of the century. Results illustrate how reducing demand and managing storage and releases based on hydrologic forecasting reduce the frequency of drought warnings and emergencies and improve system reliability in all climate change scenarios investigated. Through operations that limit turbidity propagation through the system and improvements to the Catskill Aqueduct to lower the minimum flow under conditions with high turbidity, results demonstrate decreases lower turbidity loads and a reduction in emergency Alum use. These options demonstrate cumulative benefits when used in combination. Chapter 3 seeks to quantify the amount of water supply system performance improvement that can be expected from improved forecasting in managing drought conditions. Using existing forecasts for Lancaster, PA, synthetic forecasts with varying quality, and a system model of the Baltimore, MD water supply system, this chapter demonstrated a method for quantifying improved system performance as a function of improved forecast quality, finding improvements in system performance to be approximately linear over a large range of forecast quality. Chapter 4 tests a new method for the creation of statistical first-order autoregressive streamflow forecasts by conditioning the parameters and ensemble variance on a “hydrologic regime,” defined in several different ways. National Weather Service seasonal outlooks for precipitation are used as categorical forecasts of precipitation. The forecasts are found to have small positive skill, and for two of three sites, this skill is enough to result in small gains in the CRPSS of the ensemble hydrologic forecast. Utilizing perfect categorical forecasts indicates that adjusting the ensemble variance (rather than the autoregressive parameter) based on forecasted precipitation is responsible for the majority of improvements in skill for this method. The method is limited by the difficulty of long lead-time precipitation forecasting

Three Generations of Italians: Interview with Marie DeCristofaro Strumolo by Norma DeLibero

Subjects covered: early schooling, Classical High School, identifying at URI, continuity of foods, values, parents\u27 role in urging higher education, desire to be recognized for accomplishments not ethnic background.https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/italians/1040/thumbnail.jp

Perceptions and attitudes of music department chairs and faculty regarding global competence in North Carolina Community College music programs

Community colleges throughout the United States have declared “global competence” as a learning objective for their students since the last decade of the 20th century. The North Carolina (NC) Community College system is no exception, as its statewide mission statement lists preparing students to be globally competent as a goal for all 58 community colleges in the state. What is unclear is how music departments offering Associate in Fine Arts (AFA) degrees in NC community colleges perceive the statewide mission statement goal of global competence. The purpose of this study is to discover and examine the perceptions and attitudes of music program department chairs and faculty regarding the statewide mission statement goal of global competence as it applies to music programs in community colleges that offer an Associate in Fine Arts (AFA) music degree. Using Yin’s descriptive multiple-case study as a methodology through the theoretical lens of Hegelian dialectics, this study will help paint a clearer picture of how music department chairs and faculty acting as leaders in NC Community College music degree programs view and implement the statewide goal of global competence. The study will also provide more information regarding how global competence is understood and viewed by music department chairs and faculty in order to provide guidance in how to best implement this aspect of the mission statement in music programs in community colleges

Mitral valve prolapse: Comparative Value of M-mode, two-dimensional and doppler echocardiography

M-mode, two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography were used to assess the comparative value of each in the detection of clinically diagnosed mitral valve prolapse; 125 consecutive patients with a mid- to late systolic click, with or without a late systolic murmur, were included. There were 46 men and 79 women; their mean age was 42 years. M-mode echocardiography detected 62 of 125 cases (sensitivity 50%). Two-dimensional echo-cardiography was positive in 85 cases (sensitivity 68%) and 90 cases were detected with Doppler echocardiography (sensitivity 72%). When all three techniques were combined, 116 cases were correctly diagnosed (total echo-graphic sensitivity 93%). The relative insensitivity of the M-mode technique and the additive value of two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography in the detection of auscultatory mitral prolapse are emphasized

A Song Cycle on Mortality: Reimagining Four Sonnets of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as Four Songs on Life and Death

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648? – 1695) was revered during her lifetime as a major intellectual force in the Spanish Golden Age. Today Sor Juana remains a central public figure in Mexican culture and is most remembered for the enormous body of poetry she created, notably her sonnets, of which there are over 65. In this paper, the author, after an analysis of the sonnet, and the life of Sor Juana, selects four sonnets written by Sor Juana. The sonnets are discussed, and then set to music composed by the author

Sulfate Resistance Study of Carbonated Low-Calcium Silicate Systems

This paper summarizes the results of sulfate resistance study of carbonated mortar specimens made with Solidia CementÔ (SC) and tested for expansion according to ASTM C1012 specification while exposed to three types of soak solutions: sodium sulfate, magnesium sulfate and deionized water. A control set of ordinary portland cement (OPC) mortars was also evaluated. Besides the length change measurements, visual observations of changes in the appearance of specimens were conducted after various lengths of exposure. In addition, microstructural characterization of the specimens was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) techniques. Finally, changes in the concentration of the chemical species present in the soak solutions in contact with the SC specimens were evaluated using both, the ion chromatography (IC) and the inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). As expected, the OPC mortar specimens started deteriorating early and reached the critical (i.e.0.1%) level of expansion in about 4 months in case of sodium sulfate solution and in about 6 months in case of magnesium sulfate solution. With respect to the SC mortar specimens, those exposed to magnesium sulfate solution showed higher expansion than those exposed to sodium sulfate solution. However, after 18 months of exposure to both types of sulfate solutions the maximum expansion levels of specimens were still only about 33% of the critical (value. The SEM examination of SC mortar bars indicated that the matrix of the specimens exposed to magnesium sulfate solution showed evidence of formation of gypsum and magnesium-silica compounds. Magnesium and sulfate ions seem to have altered the morphology of the carbonation-generated silica phase and produced gypsum deposits in the air-voids, within the matrix and at the paste – aggregate interfaces. The formation of gypsum in those specimens was confirmed by the results of thermal and XRD analyses. Finally, the ionic analysis of the magnesium sulfate soak solution indicated consumption of sulfate ions whereas the concentration of the sulfates in sodium sulfate soak solution didn’t change during the exposure period