Examining the perceptions of Gwinnett and Cobb County Georgia principals to determine the strategies needed to improve performance and graduation rates of African-American males in metropolitan U.S. schools

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of high school administrators in Gwinnett and Cobb Counties, Georgia that have successfully narrowed the achievement gap for high school African-American males as to: (a) why the achievement gap continues to occur in other metropolitan high schools in the United States; (b) what successful strategies they credit for closing the achievement gap of African-American males at their respective schools; and (c) what additional strategies they might consider in order curb the achievement gap for African-American males at their respective schools. The following research questions were the basis of this study: 1. What strategies have been implemented by principals of Gwinnett and Cobb County Georgia high schools to successfully close the achievement gap for low income African-American students? 2. What additional strategies, if any, might principles of Gwinnett and Cobb County Georgia high schools consider implementing in their continuing efforts to close the African-American achievement gap? 3. What are the perceptions of Gwinnett and Cobb County high school administrators who are successfully closing the achievement gap in their respective schools as to how the achievement gap for high school African-American males in metropolitan districts in the United States might be narrowed? This was a qualitative research study. The data instrument was an open-ended questionnaire that examined common themes related to narrowing the achievement gap. The data collection process involved examining responses for commonalities and perspectives related to strategies that might be used to further close the achievement gap. Conclusion of the research revealed that site-based reforms, mentoring programs, tutoring programs, parental involvement, and constant communication between the school, parents, and the community are strategies needed to increase graduation rates and narrow the achievement gap between African-American males and their Caucasian peers

Proactive Academic Coaching: A Study on Why Students Leave College and How to Support Them

The purpose of this assessment was to gather data on reasons why students struggle when they get to college and then assess if the Bears First program has helped reduce these barriers. Exit surveys and suspension appeals were used to determine the reasons why students leave or were suspended. A combination of focus groups, individual interviews, and surveys were used to determine the effect that Bears First has had on students in their first semester. Students were also asked about personal and academic experiences with UNC as a whole

Policy Uncertainty and Real Activities Manipulation : Evidence from Brexit

We are thankful for helpful comments provided by Sebastian Tideman and Bianca Beyer as well as participants in the EAA 2022 Annual Congress in Bergen, Norway. All errors and omissions are ours.Peer reviewe

The Use of Fair Values to Assess Management's Stewardship: An Empirical Examination of UK Real Estate Firms

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)/ International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) proposed Conceptual Framework solidifies stewardship as a primary financial reporting objective. Concurrently, fair value (FV) continues to be emphasized in FASB and IASB standards. In this study, using data from real estate firms in the UK, I test whether FVs provide stewardship-relevant information incremental to information provided by historical costs. Measuring stewardship by changes in CEO cash compensation and FVs through revaluations of investment properties, I find FVs provide stewardship information beyond historical costs; however, FVs must be supported by external appraisals to be useful. Further, FVs help to explain the traditional association between stock returns and compensation. The actual realization of FV changes through sale continues to be rewarded through compensation, meaning the full compensation value of FV changes is not given until realized. FV changes provide more useful stewardship information when FV estimates are of higher quality or when the CEO is more strongly governed. I also find that higher sensitivity to management effort, proxied by firm growth opportunities, makes FV changes more stewardship-relevant. Overall, I conclude that for UK real estate firms, FVs are useful for assessing management's stewardship with improvements in estimate quality and sensitivity to management effort increasing stewardship-usefulness; however, historical costs continue to be relevant for stewardship. My thesis provides insight into what information best captures management stewardship

Archaeology and Oral History of Inuit Land Use on the Kazan River, Nunavut: A Feature-based Approach

Archaeology and oral history are used to interpret recent Inuit land use along the lower Kazan River. A record of caribou crossings, camps, and other places of cultural significance generated by Inuit elders from Baker Lake is combined with the results of an archaeological survey to identify important spring and fall sites. The survey, which employed differential Geographic Positioning System (GPS) technology to record individual archaeological features (e.g., tent rings, caches), has resulted in a Geographic Information System (GIS) database for the Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site. Individual 'sites' are distinguished, within a more general 'non-site' distribution of features in the study region, on the basis of two criteria: clustering of features and the known history of use of these places by elders and previous generations of Harvaqtuurmiut Inuit. Analysis of the different kinds of features indicates considerable site variation, but also some seasonal patterning: fall has a more distinctive signature than spring. In this study, individual features are used to address questions of regional land use, site definition, and season of site occupation. This emphasis on the feature reflects the special circumstances of this project, which include the need to record archaeological materials occurring on the ground surface and spread over a large area and the availability of elders to interpret those materials.On a fait appel à l'archéologie et à l'histoire orale pour interpréter l'utilisation récente du territoire par les Inuit le long du cours inférieur de la rivière Kazan. Un relevé des traverses de caribou, des campements et d'autres lieux d'importance culturelle produit par les anciens inuit du lac Baker est combiné aux résultats d'un levé archéologique visant à identifier les grands sites printaniers et automnaux. Le levé, pour lequel on a utilisé la technologie du système de positionnement global (GPS) différentiel afin d'enregistrer les caractéristiques archéologiques individuelles (p. ex., les cercles de tente, les caches) a abouti à une banque de données de système d'information géographique (SIG) pour le Lieu historique national Fall Caribou Crossing. On distingue des «sites» individuels, parmi une répartition de caractéristiques plus générales appartenant à des «non-sites» distribués dans la région de l'étude, et ce, en se basant sur deux critères: la concentration des caractéristiques et l'histoire connue de l'utilisation de ces emplacements par les anciens et les générations antérieures des Inuit de Harvaqtuurmiut. Une analyse des divers types de caractéristiques révèle une variation considérable parmi les sites, mais aussi certains schémas saisonniers: l'automne est marquée de façon plus nette que le printemps. Dans cette étude, les caractéristiques individuelles sont utilisées pour aborder les questions d'utilisation régionale du territoire, de définition du site et de saison d'occupation. Cet accent mis sur la caractéristique reflète les conditions particulières du projet, parmi lesquelles on compte la nécessité de relever les matériaux archéologiques dispersés à la surface et sur une grande superficie ainsi que la disponibilité des anciens pour interpréter ces matériaux

Large Scale Pattern Detection in Videos and Images from the Wild

PhDPattern detection is a well-studied area of computer vision, but still current methods are unstable in images of poor quality. This thesis describes improvements over contemporary methods in the fast detection of unseen patterns in a large corpus of videos that vary tremendously in colour and texture definition, captured “in the wild” by mobile devices and surveillance cameras. We focus on three key areas of this broad subject; First, we identify consistency weaknesses in existing techniques of processing an image and it’s horizontally reflected (mirror) image. This is important in police investigations where subjects change their appearance to try to avoid recognition, and we propose that invariance to horizontal reflection should be more widely considered in image description and recognition tasks too. We observe online Deep Learning system behaviours in this respect, and provide a comprehensive assessment of 10 popular low level feature detectors. Second, we develop simple and fast algorithms that combine to provide memory- and processing-efficient feature matching. These involve static scene elimination in the presence of noise and on-screen time indicators, a blur-sensitive feature detection that finds a greater number of corresponding features in images of varying sharpness, and a combinatorial texture and colour feature matching algorithm that matches features when either attribute may be poorly defined. A comprehensive evaluation is given, showing some improvements over existing feature correspondence methods. Finally, we study random decision forests for pattern detection. A new method of indexing patterns in video sequences is devised and evaluated. We automatically label positive and negative image training data, reducing a task of unsupervised learning to one of supervised learning, and devise a node split function that is invariant to mirror reflection and rotation through 90 degree angles. A high dimensional vote accumulator encodes the hypothesis support, yielding implicit back-projection for pattern detection.European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, specific topic “framework and tools for (semi-) automated exploitation of massive amounts of digital data for forensic purposes”, under grant agreement number 607480 (LASIE IP project)

Hfq binding changes the structure of Escherichia coli small noncoding RNAs OxyS and RprA, which are involved in the riboregulation of rpoS

OxyS and RprA are two small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs) that modulate the expression of rpoS, encoding an alternative sigma factor that activates transcription of multiple Escherichia coli stress-response genes. While RprA activates rpoS for translation, OxyS down-regulates the transcript. Crucially, the RNA binding protein Hfq is required for both sRNAs to function, although the specific role played by Hfq remains unclear. We have investigated RprA and OxyS interactions with Hfq using biochemical and biophysical approaches. In particular, we have obtained the molecular envelopes of the Hfq–sRNA complexes using small-angle scattering methods, which reveal key molecular details. These data indicate that Hfq does not substantially change shape upon complex formation, whereas the sRNAs do. We link the impact of Hfq binding, and the sRNA structural changes induced, to transcript stability with respect to RNase E degradation. In light of these findings, we discuss the role of Hfq in the opposing regulatory functions played by RprA and OxyS in rpoS regulation

An improved method for surface immobilisation of RNA: application to small Non-Coding RNA - mRNA pairing

Characterisation of RNA and its intermolecular interactions is increasing in importance as the inventory of known RNA functions continues to expand. RNA-RNA interactions are central to post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanisms in bacteria, and the interactions of bacterial small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) with their mRNA targets are the subject of much current research. The technology of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is an attractive approach to studying these interactions since it is highly sensitive, and allows interaction measurements to be recorded in real-time. Whilst a number of approaches exist to label RNAs for surface-immobilisation, the method documented here is simple, quick, efficient, and utilises the high-affinity streptavidin-biotin interaction. Specifically, we ligate a biotinylated nucleotide to the 3' end of RNA using T4 RNA ligase. Although this is a previously recognised approach, we have optimised the method by our discovery that the incorporation of four or more adenine nucleotides at the 3' end of the RNA (a poly-A-tail) is required in order to achieve high ligation efficiencies. We use this method within the context of investigating small non-coding RNA (sRNA)-mRNA interactions through the application of surface technologies, including quantitative SPR assays. We first focus on validating the method using the recently characterised Escherichia coli sRNA-mRNA pair, MicA-ompA, specifically demonstrating that the addition of the poly-A-tail to either RNA does not affect its subsequent binding interactions with partner molecules. We then apply this method to investigate the novel interactions of a Vibrio cholerae Qrr sRNA with partner mRNAs, hapR and vca0939; RNA-RNA pairings that are important in mediating pathogenic virulence. The calculated binding parameters allow insights to be drawn regarding sRNA-mRNA interaction mechanisms