Overseers or Advocates? An exploration of Heads of Departments and Deans in secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago.

In the history of school management and leadership in the Caribbean, the principal has been the primary focus in the work of educational researchers. Over a decade ago, Trinidad and Tobago began its second major reform of its educational system. As part of the Secondary Education Modernisation Programme, school-based management was introduced and with it a restructure of the organisation of secondary schools that included the formal appointment of middle managers. This study focuses on the beliefs and values that shape and influence the practices of middle management in secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago. In my exploration of their beliefs and values, four participants took part in one of the few studies conducted on the middle management in the secondary school in the country. By middle management I refer specifically to the Heads of Departments and Deans who are intermediaries between the senior management-Principal and Vice-Principal, and staff. For the theoretical framework, I chose Kamau Brathwaite's "The Inner Plantation." As educational institutions become more homogeneous and tied to global economic plans for expanding markets, the choice of a theory that has the potential to expose the ways in which secondary school middle managers are co-opted into feeding the global economy by the imposition of a market-driven model of school leadership and management is timely. To explore the beliefs and values of this tier of management, I employed the life history methodological approach as it offers a perspective of the major changes in an era of reform that have affected and continue to affect them, from their lived experience of a devolved version of school-based management. Based on this study, the Heads and Dean, resist the overseer role imposed upon them as they seek to live out their beliefs and values in their daily practices as advocates

Individualized Absolute Risk Calculations for Persons with Multiple Chronic Conditions: Embracing Heterogeneity, Causality, and Competing Events

Approximately 75% of adults over the age of 65 years are affected by two or more chronic medical conditions. We provide a conceptual justification for individualized absolute risk calculators for competing patient-centered outcomes (PCO) (i.e. outcomes deemed important by patients) and patient reported outcomes (PRO) (i.e. outcomes patients report instead of physiologic test results). The absolute risk of an outcome is the probability that a person receiving a given treatment will experience that outcome within a pre-defined interval of time, during which they are simultaneously at risk for other competing outcomes. This allows for determination of the likelihood of a given outcome with and without a treatment. We posit that there are heterogeneity of treatment effects among patients with multiple chronic conditions (MCC) largely depends on those coexisting conditions. We outline the development of an individualized absolute risk calculator for competing outcomes using propensity score methods that strengthen causal inference for specific treatments. Innovations include the key concept that any given outcome may or may not concur with any other outcome and that these competing outcomes do not necessarily preclude other outcomes. Patient characteristics and MCC will be the primary explanatory factors used in estimating the heterogeneity of treatment effects on PCO and PRO. This innovative method may have wide-spread application for determining individualized absolute risk calculations for competing outcomes. Knowing the probabilities of outcomes in absolute terms may help the burgeoning population of patients with MCC who face complex treatment decisions

Open social mapping participatory: Modeling of social systems

Open Social Mapping is an emerging paradigm for stakeholder engagement in systemic design projects. It combines actor mapping, network modelling and analysis, customer relationship management systems, and crowdsourcing in a method that allows stakeholders to map themselves within a system. Based on observations of some early examples of this tool and two case studies led by the authors, we describe some of the opportunities and challenges of Open Social Mapping. Open Social Maps re-center the stakeholder in the systemic design process, helping designers make data- driven decisions with real-time data while decentralizing systemic design by facilitating stakeholder access and agency to the design process. However, we must address issues of data collection and maintenance, privacy, power and privilege, bad actors, interoperability, and information quality for this tool to become mainstream

The Grizzly, February 17, 2005

UC Students Tour Washington D.C. to Prepare for Model UN • Wismer Music Makes a Comeback • Problems with New Member Education • Ursinus Students Sprint into SPINT Housing • Leaders Wanted: Do You Have What it Takes? • Sexual Physical Fitness • Dramaturgy: New Course for Theater • Philadelphia Gets Closer for Ursinus Students • Opinions: Speak Up, It\u27s Your Right; God in the Government: Can we Escape Him?; What Rules the Media, Entertainment or Information? • Track and Field Team Headed in Right Direction • Lady Bears Dominate Bryn Mawr • Murray Helps Wrestling Team Remain Undefeatedhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1578/thumbnail.jp

Expression of chemokines and their receptors by human brain endothelium: Implications for multiple sclerosis

Leukocyte migration into the CNS is mediated by chemokines, expressed on the surface of brain endothelium. This study investigated the production of chemokines and expression of chemokine receptors by human brain endothelial cells (HBEC), in vitro and in situ in multiple sclerosis tissue. Four chemokines (CCL2, CCL5, CXCL8 and CXCL10), were demonstrated in endothelial cells in situ, which was reflected in the chemokine production by primary HBEC and a brain endothelial cell line, hCEMC/D3. CXCL8 and CCL2 were constitutively released and increased in response to TNF and/or IFN . CXCL10 and CCL5 were undetectable in resting cells but were secreted in response to these cytokines. TNF strongly increased the production of CCL2, CCL5 and CXCL8, while IFN up-regulated CXCL10 exclusively. CCL3 was not secreted by HBECs and appeared to be confined to astrocytes in situ. The chemokine receptors CXCR1 and CXCR3 were expressed by HBEC both in vitro and in situ, and CXCR3 was up-regulated in response to cytokine stimulation in vitro. By contrast, CXCR3 expression was reduced in silent MS lesions. Brain endothelium expresses particularly high levels of CXCL10 and CXCL8, which may account for the predominant TH1-type inflammatory reaction seen in chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis