Organic Trends 8

Newsletter on Organic agriculture and food development in China

Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper answers this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. These facts make it possible for us to separate an election effect from other time effects. Our results indicate that there is a statistically significant election year effect in local public employment, a production factor that is highly visible in the welfare services provided by the local governments in the Scandinavian countries. The effect also seems to be economically significant; the municipalities employ 0.6 more full-time employees per 1,000 capita in election years than in other years (which correspond to an increase by approximately 1 percent).election cycle, public employment, exogenous elections

Five energy window scatter correction for 111-In µSPECT

Objectives: In preclinical molecular imaging, large interest exists for absolute quantification, since this would allow for an accurate evaluation of disease progression. Photon scatter is one of the limiting factors for quantitative imaging. This study investigates a scatter correction (SC) method using five energy windows (FEW) for 111In µ-SPECT imaging. 111In can be used for in vivo evaluation of tumor selectivity, and hence the potential therapeutic performance, of a tracer. The monoclonal antibody 14C5, labeled to 111In-DOTA, has shown to be a selective tracer for pancreatic cancer. Methods: Our SC method uses 5 energy windows (EW): a 20% main EW around each photopeak, an 8% scatter EW at both sides of the 171keV photopeak and an 8% scatter EW at the left side of the 245keV photopeak. To evaluate the SC method, measurements were carried out on a U-SPECT-II camera (Milabs). A comparison between reconstructed uncorrected and corrected images was performed for the following parameters: (1) point spread function (PSF) of 1mm Ø cylinders in a resolution phantom; (2) contrast recovery for two 8mm Ø cold spots (air & water) in the small animal NEMA image quality phantom; (3) tumor-to-background ratio of a tumor bearing mouse injected with 111In-DOTA-14C5 . Results: The FEW SC gives rise to a mean improvement of 3.8% of the FWHM of the PSF for the cylinders of the resolution phantom. After SC, contrast improved with 4.3% and 2.8% for respectively the air and water filled cold spot of the NEMA phantom. In the preclinical mouse study, SC leads to a significant enhancement of the tumor-to-background ratio from 6.7 to 9.0. Conclusions: The FEW SC method will offer a significant improvement in the absolute quantification of 111In µ-SPECT images

Multiplicity Dependence of Two-Particle Correlations in Proton-Proton Collisions Measured with ALICE at the LHC

We investigate properties of jets in proton-proton collisions using two-particle angular correlations. By choosing an analysis approach based on two-particle angular correlations, also the properties of low-energetic jets can be accessed. Observing the strength of the correlation as a function of the charged particle multiplicity reveals jet fragmentation properties as well as the contribution of jets to the overall charged particle multiplicity. Furthermore, the analysis discloses information on the underlying multiple parton interactions. We present results from proton-proton collisions at the center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9, 2.76, and 7.0 TeV recorded by the ALICE experiment. The ALICE data are compared to Pythia6, Pythia8, and Phojet simulations.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 24th Rencontres de Blois, Particle Physics and Cosmology, 2012, 4 pages, 8 figure

Complicated Choices: Struggling to Meet NCLB Requirements AND Remain Faithful to a School's Educational Vision and Practice

In an era of high-stakes accountability, school leaders often face contradictory pressures as they strive to improve student performance. They must meet the federal mandate of NCLB for student achievement; at the same time, many believe that NCLB constrains their professional judgment about how to best teach and assess students in the context of their own schools. The case of Baker, a K-8 school in Philadelphia, is illustrative. The case study discusses the complicated choices school leaders made as they attempted to meet the needs of all students. As Baker implemented the school district's highly prescriptive approach to curriculum and instruction, using a Managed Instruction System, it struggled to maintain its progressive educational philosophy and 'best' practices. The school's pedagogical goals included: student-centered and project-based learning, teaching for life-long learning, performance-based assessments, and an emphasis on higher order thinking. Baker was a successful learning community for students and adults, whose significant accomplishments were obscured by the fact that it never had made AYP. If the U.S. Department of Education had permitted the state to use its valued-added growth model, the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment, as an alternative to the status achievement metric that focused on the percentage of proficient students, Baker would have made AYP in 2006-07, the last year of this research