Assessing the quality of early childhood education and care

In December 2009 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a unified National Quality Framework (NQF) for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The quality reforms—which include clear standards, streamlined regulatory approaches, an assessment and rating system and a national learning framework—are being implemented over the period 2012 to 2020 as an initiative of the National Early Childhood Development Strategy. The vision of the strategy is that \u27by 2020 all children have the best start in life to create a better future for themselves, and for the nation\u27 (COAG, 2009). The purpose of this Policy Brief is to consider the implications of current research and the role of quality assessment in delivering the National Early Childhood Development Strategy vision. Specifically, the Brief discusses the ECEC policy environment in Australia and outlines international evidence regarding the impact of ECEC quality components related to adult-child interactions and relationships.&nbsp

COMREN International School on Hydrographic Surveying: A Pan-Canadian collaborative Training Program

The Canadian Ocean Mapping Research and Education Network (COMREN) aims to develop research activities, achieve technology transfer to industry, and develop and run educational programs. The International School on Hydrographic Surveying (ISHS) is the first training program proposed by the network. It was designed to provide participants with a multi-disciplinary training experience in close interaction with high-level scientists, professionals, and stakeholders from the hydrospatial environment. The 2021 edition of the school took place from October 25 to 29 at Université Laval with a set-up compliant with the pandemic conditions. This note highlights the main facts and outcomes about this training

Sources of Validity Evidence for Educational and Psychological Tests: A Follow-Up Study

This study followed up on previous work that examined the incidence of reporting evidence based on test consequences in Mental Measurements Yearbook. In the present study, additional possible outlets for what has been called “consequential validity” evidence were investigated, including all articles published in the past 10 years in several applied journals devoted to educational assessment and educational policy, and all presentations at recent annual meetings for the three organizations that sponsor the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA, NCME, 1999). Consistent with previous findings, consequences of testing as a source of validity evidence is essentially non-existent in the professional literature and applied measurement and policy work. The paper concludes with implications of these findings for extending and refining current validity theory and validation practice

Efficacy and safety of ten day moxifloxacin 400 mg once daily in the treatment of patients with community-acquired pneumonia

AbstractCommunity-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains a common and serious illness with approximately 2–4 million cases reported annually. Management of CAP is therapeutically challenging due to the increasing prevalence of penicillin- and macrolide-resistant pneumococci and β -lactamase producing Haemophilus influenzae, as well as the increased recognition of ‘atypical’ pathogens, such as Chlamydia pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and the frequent need for empiric therapy.We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of moxifloxacin in the treatment of patients with CAP. To do this we carried out a prospective, uncontrolled, non-blind, Phase III clinical trial, in 27 U.S. centers. Patients included in the study were over 18 years of age with signs and symptoms of CAP confirmed by evidence of a new or progressive infiltrate on chest radiograph. The intervention used was moxifloxacin 400 mg PO once daily for 10 days.Sputum samples were collected pretherapy for Gram stain and culture for typical organisms. Culture and serological testing for Chlamydia pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae was also performed. Susceptibility to moxifloxacin was determined by disk diffusion and MIC. Clinical and bacteriological responses were determined at the end of therapy (0–6 days post-therapy), follow-up (14–35 days post-therapy) and overall (end of therapy plus follow-up). Analyses were performed on both valid for efficacy and intent-to-treat populations. The primary efficacy variable was overall clinical resolution.Of 254 patients enrolled in the Study, 196 patients were included in the efficacy analyses. The majority of patients were male (58%) and Caucasian (85%) with a mean age of 49 years (range: 18 to 85 years). Only 3% of patients were hospitalized pretherapy. The most common pretherapy organisms identified, by culture or serology, in the valid for efficacy population (i.e. 147 organisms among 116 patients), were: Chlamydia pneumoniae (n=63; 54%),Mycoplasma pneumoniae (n=29; 25%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (n=14; 12%) and Haemophilus influenzae (n=13; 10%). End of therapy, follow-up and overall clinical resolution rates for the valid for efficacy population were 94%, 93% and 93%, respectively. The 95% CI for the overall clinical resolution rate was 88·1%, 95·9%. The overall bacteriological response for patients diagnosed by culture or serological criteria, was 91% (95% CI=84%, 96%). For patients who only met serological criteria for infection, the overall bacteriological response was 94% (60/64). Bacterial response rates for the four most commonly isolated pathogens were: 89% (56/63) for C. pneumoniae, 93% (27/29) for M. pneumoniae, 93% (13/14) for S. pneumoniae and 85% (11/13) for H. influenzae. Drug-related adverse events were reported in 33% (85/254) of moxifloxacin-treated patients. Nausea (9%), diarrhea (6%) and dizziness (4%) were the most commonly reported adverse events.Atypical organisms were isolated in high frequency among patients with CAP. Moxifloxacin 400 mg once daily for 10 days was effective and well-tolerated in the treatment of these adult patients with CAP. Moxifloxacin offers an effective treatment alternative for CAP due to both typical and atypical bacterial pathogens

Model-driven analysis of experimentally determined growth phenotypes for 465 yeast gene deletion mutants under 16 different conditions

An iterative approach that integrates high-throughput measurements of yeast deletion mutants and flux balance model predictions improves understanding of both experimental and computational results

Population-based Laboratory Surveillance for AmpC β-Lactamase–producing Escherichia coli, Calgary

AmpC β-lactamase–producing E. coli are commonly isolated from the urinary tract of older women

Enabling multiplexed testing of pooled donor cells through whole-genome sequencing

We describe a method that enables the multiplex screening of a pool of many different donor cell lines. Our method accurately predicts each donor proportion from the pool without requiring the use of unique DNA barcodes as markers of donor identity. Instead, we take advantage of common single nucleotide polymorphisms, whole-genome sequencing, and an algorithm to calculate the proportions from the sequencing data. By testing using simulated and real data, we showed that our method robustly predicts the individual proportions from a mixed-pool of numerous donors, thus enabling the multiplexed testing of diverse donor cells en masse.National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (Grant RM1HG008525)Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant 74178

TRIDENT: an Infrared Differential Imaging Camera Optimized for the Detection of Methanated Substellar Companions

A near-infrared camera in use at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and at the 1.6-m telescope of the Observatoire du Mont-Megantic is described. The camera is based on a Hawaii-1 1024x1024 HgCdTe array detector. Its main feature is to acquire three simultaneous images at three wavelengths across the methane absorption bandhead at 1.6 microns, enabling, in theory, an accurate subtraction of the stellar point spread function (PSF) and the detection of faint close methanated companions. The instrument has no coronagraph and features fast data acquisition, yielding high observing efficiency on bright stars. The performance of the instrument is described, and it is illustrated by laboratory tests and CFHT observations of the nearby stars GL526, Ups And and Chi And. TRIDENT can detect (6 sigma) a methanated companion with delta H = 9.5 at 0.5" separation from the star in one hour of observing time. Non-common path aberrations and amplitude modulation differences between the three optical paths are likely to be the limiting factors preventing further PSF attenuation. Instrument rotation and reference star subtraction improve the detection limit by a factor of 2 and 4 respectively. A PSF noise attenuation model is presented to estimate the non-common path wavefront difference effect on PSF subtraction performance.Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in PAS