High School Principal\u27s Perception and Experience with Student Voice and Youth-Adult Partnerships

High school principals can foster student voice (SV) and youth-adult partnerships (YAP) while leading their students towards being engaged and informed citizens in our democracy. It is critical to understand the advantages and opportunities high school principals have in listening to and partnering with their students. It is also critical to understand the challenges facing high school principals in their journey towards SV and YAP. A qualitative multicase study of 10 high school principals from across the nation was used to understand the perception and experiences of high school principals in the area of SV and YAP. In addition, this study also focused on understanding how high school principals situate agency, citizenship, equity, and social justice within the framework of fostering SV and YAP in their schools. This multicase study provided a detailed look at 10 high school principals who had experience with SV and YAP. Individual case studies were completed which comprised of an in-depth interview with each principal, artifact and document collection, and observations of the principal or his staff engaged in SV or YAP work. Data was reviewed through these three approaches and analyzed across all 10 individual case studies to form the foundation of the final multicase report. Findings can serve as a foundation for high school principals to begin a journey into the emerging arena of student voice and youth-adult partnerships in their schools

Describing interruptions, multi-tasking and task-switching in the community pharmacy: A qualitative study in England

Background: There is growing evidence base around interruptions and distractions in the community pharmacy setting. There is also evidence to suggest these practices may be associated with dispensing errors. Up to date, qualitative research on this subject is limited. Objective: To explore interruptions and distractions in the community setting; utilising an ethnographic approach to be able to provide a detailed description of the circumstances surrounding such practices. Setting: Community pharmacies in England, July to October 2011. Method: An ethnographic approach was taken. Non participant, unstructured observations were utilised to make records of pharmacists’ every activities. Case studies were formed by combining field notes with detailed information on pharmacists and their respective pharmacy businesses. Content analysis was undertaken both manually and electronically, utilising NVivo 10. Results: Response rate was 12% (n=11). Over fifteen days, a total of 123 hours and 58 minutes of observations were recorded in 11 separate pharmacies of 11 individual pharmacists. The sample was evenly split by gender (female n=6; male n=5) and pharmacy ownership (independent n=5; multiple n=6). Employment statuses included employee pharmacists (n=6), owners (n=4) and a locum (n=1). Average period of registration as a pharmacist was 19 years (range 5-39 years). Average prescriptions busyness of pharmacies ranged from 2,600 – 24,000 items dispensed per month. Two key themes were: “Interruptions and task-switching” and “distractions and multi-tasking.” All observed pharmacists’ work was dominated by interruptions, task-switches, distractions and multi-tasking, often to manage a barrage of conflicting demands. These practices were observed to be part of a deep-rooted culture in the community setting. Directional work maps illustrated the extent and direction of task switching employed by pharmacists. Conclusions: In this study pharmacists’ working practices were permeated by interruptions and multi-tasking. These practices are inefficient and potentially reduce patient safety in terms of dispensing accuracy

The Fully Automated and Self-Contained Operations Paradigm of the CSIM Mission

The Compact Spectral Irradiance Monitor (CSIM) CubeSat Mission has been collecting solar spectral irradiance (SSI) data for over two years, contributing to 40+ years of multi-mission SSI data collection. CSIM utilizes a fully automated and self-contained operations paradigm developed at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). LASP efficiently performs the entire operations workflow for CSIM, from planning through data processing, which nominally requires only 15 minutes of staffed operations support per week. Mission operations students at LASP are responsible for the entire planning process. They query for ground station contacts and solar observation times which are input into a suite of software tools to create the onboard stored command table and the weekly uplink plan. An automated ground station script then configures for the upcoming CSIM contacts by querying Space-Track for overflights. Within 2 minutes from the start of a pass, the script commands the UHF or S-Band antenna to point at the spacecraft, brings up the command-and-control software, and performs an initial health-and-safety check upon AOS (acquisition of signal). Automated command scripts then configure the spacecraft and upload the plan using command success logic checks. This ensures that all commands are sent and accepted by the spacecraft in-order, and without overwriting any non-expired scheduling slots. The week\u27s worth of commands is loaded within a few passes, and science collection typically starts soon after. Ground automation will detect major anomalies and notify the flight control team in real-time, allowing the operators to recover the spacecraft on the next contact and prepare a new activity plan for autonomous upload. Additionally, ground automation queries CSIM health and safety data and sends telemetry trends to the operations team for daily, weekly, and monthly health and safety checks. CSIM science data is downlinked during 1 or 2 passes per day via the S-band antenna. This data is processed twice per day via an automated data processing pipeline which requires no regular human intervention. The self-contained and automated nature of the data processing pipeline ensures that LASP scientists can access CSIM data within a few hours of being received on the ground. We discuss how this efficient single-mission, self-contained operations paradigm will be expanded to support multiple missions and external customers in the future

Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars IV: The Extended Structure of the Ursa Minor Dwarf Spheroidal

We present a large area photometric survey of the Ursa Minor dSph. We identify UMi giant star candidates extending to ~3 deg from the center of the dSph. Comparison to previous catalogues of stars within the tidal radius of UMi suggests that our photometric luminosity classification is 100% accurate. Over a large fraction of the survey area, blue horizontal branch stars associated with UMi can also be identified. The spatial distribution of both the UMi giant stars and the BHB stars are remarkably similar, and a large fraction of both samples of stars are found outside the tidal radius of UMi. An isodensity contour map of the stars within the tidal radius of UMi reveals two morphological peculiarities: (1) The highest density of dSph stars is offset from the center of symmetry of the outer isodensity contours. (2) The overall shape of the outer contours appear S-shaped. We find that previously determined King profiles with ~50' tidal radii do not fit well the distribution of our UMi stars. A King profile with a larger tidal radius produces a reasonable fit, however a power law with index -3 provides a better fit for radii > 20'. The existence of UMi stars at large distances from the core of the galaxy, the peculiar morphology of the dSph within its tidal radius, and the shape of its surface density profile all suggest that UMi is evolving significantly due to the tidal influence of the Milky Way. However, the photometric data on UMi stars alone does not allow us to determine if the candidate extratidal stars are now unbound or if they remain bound to the dSph within an extended dark matter halo. (Abridged)Comment: accepted by AJ, 32 pages, 15 figures, emulateapj5 styl

Youth Savings Groups in Africa: They’re a Family Affair

Based on fieldwork in Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, and Ghana, in the paper we provide new evidence that young people’s engagement with savings groups in Africa is deeply embedded in networks of family and social relations. Savings group members rely on money that is given to them by partners and family members to make savings contributions to the groups, while they also transfer some of their share-outs and loans to family members and friends. This is particularly true for younger members. As such we argue that the socially embedded nature of young people's engagement with savings group needs to be taken into account. The tension between the primary focus on the individual within youth saving programming, and the socially embedded nature of their engagement, has important implications for programme design, implementation and evaluation

Draft genome sequences of gammaproteobacterial methanotrophs isolated from marine ecosystems

The genome sequences of Methylobacter marinus A45, Methylobacter sp. strain BBA5.1, and Methylomarinum vadi IT-4 were obtained. These aerobic methanotrophs are typical members of coastal and hydrothermal vent marine ecosystems

Properties of adhesive tapes used for stratum corneum stripping

The effectiveness of three adhesive tapes, 3M's No. 810, No. 845 and No. 850, in stripping stratum corneum from hairless mouse skin, was compared by measuring transdermal water loss (TEWL) and distribution profiles of a marker, minoxidil, from a solution formulation. While No. 850 tape failed to increase TEWL perceptively even after 24 strippings, both No. 810 and 845 tapes effectively removed the whole stratum corneum, at least as reflected in TEWL measurements. TEWL specifically increased incrementally from somewhere between 4 and 8 g/m2 per h to 120 g/m2 per h. From both TEWL measurements and distribution profiles of minoxidil in skin 2 h post-application of its formulation, it appears that the 3M No. 845 tape more efficiently removes stratum corneum than 3M No. 810 tape. The difference between No. 810 and No. 845 tapes in stripping formulation-treated skin held in a diffusion cell was application-time dependent, since the No. 845 tape harvested no more minoxidil than the No. 810 tape at 12 and 24 h following application of the formulation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29277/1/0000336.pd

Extensive Aerosol Optical Properties and Aerosol Mass Related Measurements During TRAMP/TexAQS 2006 – Implications for PM Compliance and Planning

Extensive aerosol optical properties, particle size distributions, and Aerodyne quadrupole aerosol mass spectrometer measurements collected during TRAMP/TexAQS 2006 were examined in light of collocated meteorological and chemical measurements. Much of the evident variability in the observed aerosol-related air quality is due to changing synoptic meteorological situations that direct emissions from various sources to the TRAMP site near the center of the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) metropolitan area. In this study, five distinct long-term periods have been identified. During each of these periods, observed aerosol properties have implications that are of interest to environmental quality management agencies. During three of the periods, long range transport (LRT), both intra-continental and intercontinental, appears to have played an important role in producing the observed aerosol. During late August 2006, southerly winds brought super-micron Saharan dust and sea salt to the HGB area, adding mass to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) measurements, but apparently not affecting secondary particle growth or gas-phase air pollution. A second type of LRT was associated with northerly winds in early September 2006 and with increased ozone and sub-micron particulate matter in the HGB area. Later in the study, LRT of emissions from wildfires appeared to increase the abundance of absorbing aerosols (and carbon monoxide and other chemical tracers) in the HGB area. However, the greatest impacts on Houston PM2.5air quality are caused by periods with low-wind-speed sea breeze circulation or winds that directly transport pollutants from major industrial areas, i.e., the Houston Ship Channel, into the city center