Teacher Perceptions of the Instructional Leadership Practices of Principals

In today’s world school leadership, particularly instructional leadership, has taken on a new look. The era of high- stakes accountability has changed almost everything. The instructional leader of the 80’s was presented as an efficient top-down, task oriented manager who was focused on curriculum and instruction rather than buildings and budgets (Lashway, 2002). Gone are the days when principals spent most of their time with bus schedules, fire drills, and general curriculum, says the National Association of Elementary Principals (Henry, 2001). Leaders must keep abreast of state and federal goals, the latest technologies and teaching practices, as well as learn to use data to identify learning gaps among all students

Searching for transit timing variations in transiting exoplanet systems

Searching for transit timing variations in the known transiting exoplanet systems can reveal the presence of other bodies in the system. Here we report such searches for two transiting exoplanet systems, TrES-1 and WASP-2. Their new transits were observed with the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope located on La Palma, Spain. In a continuing programme, three consecutive transits were observed for TrES-1, and one for WASP-2 during September 2007. We used the Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations to derive transit times and their uncertainties. The resulting transit times are consistent with the most recent ephemerides and no conclusive proof of additional bodies in either system was found.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 253rd IAU Symposium: "Transiting Planets", May 2008, Cambridge, MA. 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Kilopower: Small and Affordable Fission Power Systems for Space

The Nuclear Systems Kilopower Project was initiated by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate Game Changing Development Program in fiscal year 2015 to demonstrate subsystem-level technology readiness of small space fission power in a relevant environment (Technology Readiness Level 5) for space science and human exploration power needs. The Nuclear Systems Kilopower Project centerpiece is the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) test, which consists of the development and testing of a fission ground technology demonstrator of a 1 kWe-class fission power system. The technologies to be developed and validated by KRUSTY are extensible to space fission power systems from 1 to 10 kWe, which can enable higher power future potential deep space science missions, as well as modular surface fission power systems for exploration. The Kilopower Project is cofounded by NASA and the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).KRUSTY include the reactor core, heat pipes to transfer the heat from the core to the power conversion system, and the power conversion system. Los Alamos National Laboratory leads the design of the reactor, and the Y-12 National Security Complex is fabricating it. NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has designed, built, and demonstrated the balance of plant heat transfer and power conversion portions of the KRUSTY experiment. NASA MSFC developed an electrical reactor simulator for non-nuclear testing, and the design of the reflector and shielding for nuclear testing. In 2016, an electrically heated non-fissionable Depleted Uranium (DU) core was tested at GRC in a configuration identical to the planned nuclear test. Once the reactor core has been fabricated and shipped to the Device Assembly Facility at the NNSAs Nevada National Security Site, the KRUSTY nuclear experiment will be assembled and tested. Completion of the KRUSTY experiment will validate the readiness of 1 to 10 kWe space fission technology for NASAs future requirements for sunlight-independent space power. An early opportunity for demonstration of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) capability on the surface of Mars is currently being considered for 2026 launch. Since a space fission system is the leading option for power generation for the first Mars human outpost, a smaller version of a planetary surface fission power system could be built to power the ISRU demonstration and ensure its end-to-end validity. Planning is underway to start the hardware development of this subscale flight demonstrator in 2018

Exploring anti-PD-1 resistance mechanisms for therapeutic targeting in NSCLC

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NALCN Dysfunction as a Cause of Disordered Respiratory Rhythm With Central Apnea

The sodium leak channel nonselective protein (NALCN) is a regulator of the pacemaker neurons that are responsible for rhythmic behavior (including respiration), maintaining the resting membrane potential, and are required for action potential production. NALCN-null mice show early death associated with disrupted respiratory rhythms, characterized by frequent and profound apneas. We report 3 children (2 siblings) with compound heterozygous mutations in NALCN associated with developmental impairment, hypotonia, and central sleep-disordered breathing causing apneas. Supplemental oxygen normalized the respiratory rhythm. NALCN mutations have been previously reported to cause severe hypotonia, speech impairment, and cognitive delay as well as infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy and facial dysmorphism. Nonsynonymous changes in the 2 affected extracellular loops may be responsible for the deleterious effect on the stability of the respiratory rhythm. Although oxygen is known to be a stabilizer of respiratory rhythm in central apnea in children, its role in NALCN dysfunction requires further investigation.</jats:p

Early childhood respiratory morbidity and antibiotic use in ex-preterm infants: A primary care population-based cohort study

Background Globally, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) continues to increase in preterm infants. Recent studies exploring subsequent early childhood respiratory morbidity have been small or focused on hospital admissions.Primary aim Examine early childhood rates of primary care consultations for respiratory tract infections (RTI), lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), wheeze and antibiotic prescriptions (Abx Px) in ex-preterm and term children. Secondary aim: examine differences between preterm infants discharged home with or without oxygen.Methods Retrospective cohort study using linked electronic primary care and hospital databases of children born between 1997 and 2014. We included 253 677 eligible children, with 1666 born preterm [less than] 32 weeks' gestation, followed up from primary care registration to age 5 years. Adjusted incidence rate ratios (aIRR) were calculated.Results Ex-preterm infants had higher rates of morbidity across all respiratory outcomes. After adjusting for confounders, aIRRs for RTI (1.37, 95% CI 1.33–1.42), LRTI (2.79, 95% CI 2.59–3.01), wheeze (3.05, 95% CI 2.64–3.52) and Abx Px (1.49, 95% CI 1.44–1.55) were higher for ex-preterm infants. Ex-preterm infants discharged home on oxygen had significantly greater morbidity across all respiratory diagnoses and Abx Px compared to those without home oxygen. The highest rates of respiratory morbidity were observed in children from the most deprived socioeconomic groups.Conclusion Ex-preterm infants, particularly those with BPD requiring home oxygen, have significant respiratory morbidity and antibiotic prescriptions in early childhood. With the increasing prevalence of BPD, further research should focus on strategies to reduce the burden of respiratory morbidity in these high-risk infants after hospital discharge

Orientation cues for high-flying nocturnal insect migrants: do turbulence-induced temperature and velocity fluctuations indicate the mean wind flow?

Migratory insects flying at high altitude at night often show a degree of common alignment, sometimes with quite small angular dispersions around the mean. The observed orientation directions are often close to the downwind direction and this would seemingly be adaptive in that large insects could add their self-propelled speed to the wind speed, thus maximising their displacement in a given time. There are increasing indications that high-altitude orientation may be maintained by some intrinsic property of the wind rather than by visual perception of relative ground movement. Therefore, we first examined whether migrating insects could deduce the mean wind direction from the turbulent fluctuations in temperature. Within the atmospheric boundary-layer, temperature records show characteristic ramp-cliff structures, and insects flying downwind would move through these ramps whilst those flying crosswind would not. However, analysis of vertical-looking radar data on the common orientations of nocturnally migrating insects in the UK produced no evidence that the migrants actually use temperature ramps as orientation cues. This suggests that insects rely on turbulent velocity and acceleration cues, and refocuses attention on how these can be detected, especially as small-scale turbulence is usually held to be directionally invariant (isotropic). In the second part of the paper we present a theoretical analysis and simulations showing that velocity fluctuations and accelerations felt by an insect are predicted to be anisotropic even when the small-scale turbulence (measured at a fixed point or along the trajectory of a fluid-particle) is isotropic. Our results thus provide further evidence that insects do indeed use turbulent velocity and acceleration cues as indicators of the mean wind direction

Targeting immunosuppressive classical monocytes prevents immunotherapy resistance

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