Community Matters: Stakeholder Engagement in the High School Setting

Public schools are facing increased public scrutiny given the intense focus on academic standards and testing, increased political debate, and current economic conditions. Schools are turning to their local communities for help. This research explores the important role community engagement plays in supporting schools to realize their goals. Using stakeholder theory as a foundation, an online survey was distributed to current and former parents of students from a suburban high school to determine how community engagement can be increased. Three key findings can be highlighted. Community members are aware of the school’s goals and see value in community engagement, but are not fully aware of how they can engage. Convenient and one-way communication channels are preferred; however these channels limit effective engagement. Though school officials and staff are the main preferred communication source, engagement can be increased by utilizing currently engaged parents and alumni as a source of communication

Pengaruh Lama Waktu Penyimpanan dan Penyinaran Cahayaterhadap Sitronelal Serta Uji Toksisitas dengan Menggunakan Metode Bslt(brine Shrimp Lethality Test)

Pada penelitian ini pengaruh lama waktu penyimpanan dan penyinaran cahaya pada sitronelal diuji untuk mengetahui Perubahan kandungan. Toksisitas sitronelal sebelum dan setelah penyimpanan dan penyinaran juga diuji menggunakan metode BSLT. Penyimpanan sitronelal dilakukan dalam botol vial Bening dan vial gelap yang disimpan dalam kotak kayu dengan perlakuan penyimpanan yang berbeda selama 4 minggu. Kotak yang pertama disinari lampu selama 24 jam (selanjutnya disebut kotak A), kotak kedua adalah kotak yang dua sisinya terbuat dari kasa selanjutnya disebut kotak B), dan kotak ketiga adalah kotak tertutup yang berwarna hitam (selanjutnya disebut kotak C). Analisis kandungan sitronelal sebelum dan sesudah penyimpanan menggunakan Kromatografi Gas-Spektrometer Massa (KG-SM). Hasil analisa KG-SM menunjukkan bahwa persen area berubah dari 45,29% menjadi 52,58% dan terdapat perbedaan jumlah puncak sampel setelah disimpan selama 2 minggu dalam kotak C dalam botol vial Bening. Sampel ini kemudian diuji toksisitasnya dengan BSLT. Hasil uji BSLT menunjukkan besarnya nilai LC50 sitronelal awal sebesar 71,1 ppm dan sebesar 132,79 ppm pada sitronelal setelah 2 minggu penyimpanan serta 324,97 ppm pada sitronelal setelah 4 minggu penyimpanan sehingga menunjukkan bahwa sitronelal dengan penyimpanan 2 minggu lebih toksik dibanding dengan sitronelal yang disimpan selama 4 mingg

Sociodemographic Variation in Consumption Patterns of Sustainable and Nutritious Seafood in Australia

National dietary guidelines (DGs) consistently recommend consuming seafood for health benefits, however, the sustainability of increasing seafood consumption is often challenged. Seafood products vary in environmental performance as well as health benefits, yet there is no information integrating the health and ecological impacts of different seafood choices. The first step in optimising improved health and environmental outcomes is to examine more closely the types of seafood being consumed at population and individual levels, to develop the means to increase the intake of seafood that is optimal for human health and the environment. The purpose of this analysis was to better understand the specific types and amounts of seafood consumed by the Australian population, and by socioeconomic subgroups within the population, to determine the relative nutritional content and sustainability of seafood consumed by these groups. Secondary analysis of the Australian Health Survey (AHS) (2011–2013), which reached 32,000 people (25,000 households) was undertaken. The majority of respondents (83%) did not consume any seafood on the day of the survey. Results indicated the proportion of seafood consumers was lowest among adults who were unemployed, had the least education and were the most socio-economically disadvantaged. Crustaceans and farmed fish with low omega 3-content, such as basa and tilapia, were identified as the least nutritious and least sustainable seafood categories. These two categories constituted a substantial amount of total seafood intake for the lowest socio-economic consumers, and over 50% for unemployed consumers. In contrast, consumers in the highest socio-demographic group consumed mainly high trophic level fish (moderate nutrition and sustainability) and farmed fish with high omega-3 content (high nutrition, moderate sustainability). Fewer than 1% of adults or children reported eating seafood identified as both more nutritious and less resource intensive, such as small pelagics or molluscs. Opportunities exist to increase seafood intakes to improve health outcomes by varying current seafood consumption patterns to maximise nutritional outcomes and minimise environmental impacts. Initiatives to promote the health and environmental benefits of seafood should be promoted at the population level, with targeted interventions for specific groups, and should encourage consumption of highly nutritious low resource intensive types of seafood

Is the tetraneutron a bound dineutron-dineutron molecule?

In light of a new experiment which claims a positive identification, we discuss the possible existence of the tetraneutron. We explore a novel model based on a dineutron-dineutron molecule. We show that this model is not able to explain the tetraneutron as a bound state, in agreement with other theoretical models already discussed in the literature.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, J. Phys. G, in pres

Yukawa Unification and the Superpartner Mass Scale

Naturalness in supersymmetry (SUSY) is under siege by increasingly stringent LHC constraints, but natural electroweak symmetry breaking still remains the most powerful motivation for superpartner masses within experimental reach. If naturalness is the wrong criterion then what determines the mass scale of the superpartners? We motivate supersymmetry by (1) gauge coupling unification, (2) dark matter, and (3) precision b-tau Yukawa unification. We show that for an LSP that is a bino-Higgsino admixture, these three requirements lead to an upper-bound on the stop and sbottom masses in the several TeV regime because the threshold correction to the bottom mass at the superpartner scale is required to have a particular size. For tan beta about 50, which is needed for t-b-tau unification, the stops must be lighter than 2.8 TeV when A_t has the opposite sign of the gluino mass, as is favored by renormalization group scaling. For lower values of tan beta, the top and bottom squarks must be even lighter. Yukawa unification plus dark matter implies that superpartners are likely in reach of the LHC, after the upgrade to 14 (or 13) TeV, independent of any considerations of naturalness. We present a model-independent, bottom-up analysis of the SUSY parameter space that is simultaneously consistent with Yukawa unification and the hint for m_h = 125 GeV. We study the flavor and dark matter phenomenology that accompanies this Yukawa unification. A large portion of the parameter space predicts that the branching fraction for B_s to mu^+ mu^- will be observed to be significantly lower than the SM value.Comment: 34 pages plus appendices, 20 figure

FlyRNAi.org—the database of the Drosophila RNAi screening center: 2012 update

FlyRNAi (http://www.flyrnai.org), the database and website of the Drosophila RNAi Screening Center (DRSC) at Harvard Medical School, serves a dual role, tracking both production of reagents for RNA interference (RNAi) screening in Drosophila cells and RNAi screen results. The database and website is used as a platform for community availability of protocols, tools, and other resources useful to researchers planning, conducting, analyzing or interpreting the results of Drosophila RNAi screens. Based on our own experience and user feedback, we have made several changes. Specifically, we have restructured the database to accommodate new types of reagents; added information about new RNAi libraries and other reagents; updated the user interface and website; and added new tools of use to the Drosophila community and others. Overall, the result is a more useful, flexible and comprehensive website and database

The CAT Imaging Telescope for Very-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy

The CAT (Cherenkov Array at Themis) imaging telescope, equipped with a very-high-definition camera (546 fast phototubes with 0.12 degrees spacing surrounded by 54 larger tubes in two guard rings) started operation in Autumn 1996 on the site of the former solar plant Themis (France). Using the atmospheric Cherenkov technique, it detects and identifies very high energy gamma-rays in the range 250 GeV to a few tens of TeV. The instrument, which has detected three sources (Crab nebula, Mrk 421 and Mrk 501), is described in detail.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures. submitted to Elsevier Preprin

HIV Prevention in Care and Treatment Settings: Baseline Risk Behaviors among HIV Patients in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania.

HIV care and treatment settings provide an opportunity to reach people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) with prevention messages and services. Population-based surveys in sub-Saharan Africa have identified HIV risk behaviors among PLHIV, yet data are limited regarding HIV risk behaviors of PLHIV in clinical care. This paper describes the baseline sociodemographic, HIV transmission risk behaviors, and clinical data of a study evaluating an HIV prevention intervention package for HIV care and treatment clinics in Africa. The study was a longitudinal group-randomized trial in 9 intervention clinics and 9 comparison clinics in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania (N = 3538). Baseline participants were mostly female, married, had less than a primary education, and were relatively recently diagnosed with HIV. Fifty-two percent of participants had a partner of negative or unknown status, 24% were not using condoms consistently, and 11% reported STI symptoms in the last 6 months. There were differences in demographic and HIV transmission risk variables by country, indicating the need to consider local context in designing studies and using caution when generalizing findings across African countries. Baseline data from this study indicate that participants were often engaging in HIV transmission risk behaviors, which supports the need for prevention with PLHIV (PwP). TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01256463

What ‘works’ when retracing sample members in a qualitative longitudinal study?

Attrition represents a significant obstacle to overcome in any longitudinal research project. It is, perhaps, most keenly felt when the data collected are from a qualitative study, since, unlike quantitative longitudinal research, weighting factors cannot be applied to ‘correct’ for any biases in the achieved sample and even a small number of ‘lost’ respondents can equate to a large percentage of the original sample. It is perhaps because of qualitative longitudinal research’s (QLR) reliance on, generally speaking, smaller samples that few have been able to shed much light on which re-contacting procedures are associated with achieving higher rates of retention. In this article, using data from a fifth sweep of a larger but particularly challenging cohort of 199 former probationers, we explore the strategies which helped us maintain high levels of retention in a QLR study. The article contains many practical suggestions which others planning or undertaking similar studies may find useful