The New-to-Site Superintendent in Kansas: A Five Year Perspective

Who are the new-to-site superintendents in Kansas and what does the future hold for them

Researching Ageing Bodies in the Home: A Foucauldian Analysis

The structure of the United Kingdom population is changing with the percentage of people aged 65 and over increasing from 15% in 1985 to 17% in 2010 (Office of National Statistics 2012). During this time older people have been encouraged to remain living in their own homes (National Consultative Ethics Committee for Health and Life Sciences 1998). There is a growing body of evidence regarding older people and their homes concentrated primarily on the interpretative paradigm. In view of the existing evidence base the question posed was: ‘How do the discursive practices of older people living in their own homes reflect societal discourses?’ The aim of the research was to investigate the meaning of the home space and how older peoples’ discursive practices reflect societal discourses. In order to meet this aim the paradigm of post-modernism was selected along with the methodology of discourse analysis using Michel Foucault’s ideas. Narrative accounts were generated from a sample of 12 older people on two separate occasions on a one-to-one basis. The data was transcribed verbatim and a thematic analysis was used to condense the data and to allow for a Foucauldian discourse analysis of the topics identified by the participants. Five dominant discourses were identified as follows: Discourse of Risk – this was related to danger and trauma such as falls but the underlying risk was that of losing the home; Discourse of the Failing Body - explained how the participants were managing the physical demands of home-keeping with bodily changes threatening self-sufficiency; Discourse of Cognition – ageing as cognitively ‘challenged’ and again could be a threat to self-sufficiency; Discourse of Connections – the importance of contact and socialisation with others, animals and artefacts; Discourse of Consumption – highlighted the acquisition of equipment, adaptations and services to look after the self and the home and demonstrate ability. The meta-discourse of ageing as inevitable decline that circulates in society was being adhered to. However, one of the main findings was that the older people managed ageing in the home via managing risk. There was a constant underlying fear of losing their home and the participants consequently adopted the subject position of vulnerability. Foucault discusses the pervasiveness of power but stresses that where there is power there is resistance. In order to resist power, however, individuals need to gain critical consciousness. Challenging the status quo is essential if the dominant discourses regarding ageing are to be changed. Discursive trends towards ageing do appear to be emerging, but these are being heavily influenced by neoliberal policies and challenges from other modes of thinking are limited. Older people themselves can and do resist these dominant discourses and this requires continued encouragement and facilitation by professionals, voluntary organisations and the media

Making meaning from student evaluations of teaching: Seeing beyond our own horizons

Within postsecondary education, the assessment of effective teaching has largely relied upon student evaluations of teaching. However, the process through which teachers make sense of their student evaluations is unclear. A research team of six undergraduate nursing students and four nursing educators explored the research question: How do nursing educators make meaning from their student evaluations of teaching? Gadamerian hermeneutics guided unstructured interviews with nursing educators working at a Middle East campus of a Canadian university. The interview transcripts were interpreted through a process of naïve readings, rereadings, interpretive dialogues, and interpretive writing that generated the following hermeneutic interpretations: Teachers make meaning of their student evaluation through generalized subjective characterizations of students and through their expressed intentions for their teacher-student relationships. Some of these characterizations and expressed intentions obscured what truths could be learned from the student evaluations of teaching. The experience of receiving critical student feedback invoked a personal response, at the same time, paradoxically, teachers worked hard to “not take it personally.” We suggest the practice of deep listening as a way to understand students’ feedback. The main takeaway message from this research is that teachers need a supportive and sustaining community of peers who are also open to listening deeply to the truths embedded in student evaluations of teaching

Decay of Correlations in a Topological Glass

In this paper we continue the study of a topological glassy system. The state space of the model is given by all triangulations of a sphere with $N$ nodes, half of which are red and half are blue. Red nodes want to have 5 neighbors while blue ones want 7. Energies of nodes with other numbers of neighbors are supposed to be positive. The dynamics is that of flipping the diagonal between two adjacent triangles, with a temperature dependent probability. We consider the system at very low temperatures. We concentrate on several new aspects of this model: Starting from a detailed description of the stationary state, we conclude that pairs of defects (nodes with the "wrong" degree) move with very high mobility along 1-dimensional paths. As they wander around, they encounter single defects, which they then move "sideways" with a geometrically defined probability. This induces a diffusive motion of the single defects. If they meet, they annihilate, lowering the energy of the system. We both estimate the decay of energy to equilibrium, as well as the correlations. In particular, we find a decay like $t^{-0.4}$

Researching ageing bodies in the home : a Foucauldian analysis

The structure of the United Kingdom population is changing with the percentage of people aged 65 and over increasing from 15% in 1985 to 17% in 2010 (Office of National Statistics 2012). During this time older people have been encouraged to remain living in their own homes (National Consultative Ethics Committee for Health and Life Sciences 1998). There is a large body of evidence regarding the home but there is a dearth of research which uses critical social theory. This research examined whether older people resist or conform to dominant circulating discourses regarding the aged body in the home. Narrative accounts were generated from a sample of 12 older people on two separate occasions on a one-to-one basis. The data was transcribed verbatim and condensed via a thematic analysis followed by a discourse analysis using Foucault’s ideas. The discourse of the body highlighted how changes associated with ageing were viewed as a problem threatening self-sufficiency creating a vulnerable subject position. Self-surveillance was used to judge what they could and could not manage safely and accompanied by self-discipline so that the body was challenged to do in order to maintain fitness and health. The discourse of the body exemplifies how the ageing body is spoken about from a cultural perspective, in negative terms, and how this construction of embodied ageing permeates the narratives of older people

RXTE Observations of 1A 1744-361: Correlated Spectral and Timing Behavior

We analyze Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) Proportional Counter Array (PCA) data of the transient low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) system 1A 1744-361. We explore the X-ray intensity and spectral evolution of the source, perform timing analysis, and find that 1A 1744-361 shows `atoll' behavior during the outbursts. The color-color diagram indicates that this LMXB was observed in a low intensity spectrally hard (low-hard) state and in a high intensity `banana' state. The low-hard state shows a horizontal pattern in the color-color diagram, and the previously reported `dipper QPO' appears only during this state. We also perform energy spectral analyses, and report the first detection of broad iron emission line and iron absorption edge from 1A 1744-361.Comment: 20 pages, 4 tables, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The new demand-driven post-occupancy evaluation

Copyright 1988, Locke Science Publishing Co., Chicago, IL, All Rights Reserved.Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) has become increasingly accepted and influential among client organizations responsible for large building management and construction programs. Managers and administrators look to POE to provide answers to important facilities questions. This increased focus on decision-making has resulted in a number of changes to the way in which POEs are conducted, including changes in the relationship between evaluator and client, the range of issues addressed, and the salience of certain methodological concerns. These issues are considered in light of current uses for POE information and some strategic choices faced by evaluators and clients

The Iowa Homemaker vol.26, no.7

Five-Pound Party Planning, Ruth Hackett, page 2 Homemaking Under the Round Roof, Shirliann Fortmann, page 3 Home Economists Look to New Horizons, Katherine Goeppinger, page 4 Graduate Studies Solve Research Questions, Marjorie Clampitt, page 5 Headlines Challenge Home Economists, Eloise Davison, page 6 Both Sides of the Pacific, Margaret Waterland, page 7 Wardrobe Accompaniments Chase Winter Blues, Jean Bunge, page 8 Home Economics Journeys from Iowa State to China, Jean Ory, page 9 What’s New, Marjorie Clampitt, page 10 Shoe Care Means Longer Wear, Charlene Stettler, page 11 Counselling Homemakers is Fun, Sue Marie Schreiber, page 12 Glamour is Her Business, Mary Margaret Ryan, page 13 Notions for Campus and Home, Margaret Buswell, page 14 ’46 Graduate Combines College and Career, Beverly Seig, page 15 Keeping Up With Today, Joyce Edgar, page 1

Exploratory Design of Animal Habitats Within an Immersive Virtual Environment

One of the first useful applications of virtual environments (VEs) was the architectural walkthrough, in which users view buildings or other structures in a natural, interactive manner. The obvious next step is to allow the user to create or modify designs while immersed in the virtual world, but such "immersive design" systems have not generally been successful, because of a lack of constraints, the inability to perform precise input, the difficulty of performing tasks while immersed, and the fact that designers generally have not been trained to design in all three dimensions, especially in the beginning stages of a project. We present an immersive design application, aimed at university-level architecture students, which addresses these issues. Users of the system are immersed within an existing zoo habitat, and can make modifications and enhancements to the exhibit, using a set of efficient and complementary interaction techniques for navigation, object manipulation, and system control. A usability study has shown that because the students are not creating a complete design, but rather making constrained modifications to an existing one, interesting and unique designs can be achieved in a short time