African American Female College and University Presidents: Career Path to the Presidency

The purpose of this study was to investigate the career paths and educational preparation of African American female college presidents. Forty-three of the 59 college presidents responded to a Likert-type survey. Findings indicated that African American female college presidents were more likely to hold a doctorate in education and came to the presidency from a variety of positions, often from other institutions or outside of education

Breastfeeding policies and the social context of breastfeeding

The World Health Organisation, in 1979, expressed a need to promote infant health through breastfeeding as a global health need. Australia voted in favour of adopting an 'International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes' and in 1984 guidelines were issued on the promotion of breastfeeding and implementation of the WHO breastfeeding code. This development occurred in the absence of any evaluation of the social or cultural context in which breastfeeding takes place. The aim of this study is to seek to address the relationship between socio-cultural factors and breastfeeding through an extensive review of the relevant literature. This study found that the socio-economic factors education, occupation and income were significantly related to breastfeeding, with mothers with more education being more successful at breastfeeding. Formal education was found to have a greater influence than breastfeeding education. Also the cultural factors or life practices were significantly related to breastfeeding, with traditional infant feeding practices, after immigration, undergoing breastfeeding modification to those of the host country. The lifestyle practices of cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and illegal drug use were significantly related to breastfeeding, with smokers, and particularly heavy smokers, being less likely to choose to breastfeed or continue breastfeeding. Another cultural factor found to be sigmficantly related to breastfeeding was the support from family and friends. However, the male partner was found to have the most influence on the duration of breastfeeding. These soon-cultural factors that influence the infant feeding decision need to be appraised by policy makers concerned with promoting breastfeeding

Jamaican Girls’ Ethnic Identity and The Mathematics Classroom: An Ethnographic Case Study

ABSTRACT JAMAICAN GIRLS’ ETHNIC IDENTITY AND THE MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY by Sandra Vernon-Jackson Changing demographics in the U.S. student population have led educators to focus increased attention on issues of equity in the mathematics classroom. This focus has sparked many discussions on the experiences of ethnically diverse students, particularly those of African descent. It has been suggested that improving equity in the mathematics classroom will require further investigation on how the linguistic, ethnic identity, racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds influence the learning of mathematics. In light of this, there is a scarcity of scholarly literature that examines the impact of ethnic identity on the educational experiences of Jamaican-born girls in mathematics. The purpose of this study was to explore the influences of ethnic identity on the learning perspectives of four Jamaican-born females as they negotiate their mathematics schooling experiences in the United States. More specifically, the research questions were (1) What is the nature of the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards their identities as mathematics students and (2) How are the participants’ actions and behaviors in the mathematics classroom informed by their ethnic identity? Framed in a multiple case study design, the study utilized Collins’ (1990) Black Feminist thought and ethnic identity theory as the theoretical framework. Three individual interviews and one focus group interview were conducted with the participants, as well as two interviews with their mathematics teacher and two interviews with their parent(s). A constant comparison method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) was utilized to analyze the data. The nature of these participants’ perceptions of Jamaican ethnic identity was seen as a source of motivation and empowerment as they negotiated their individual mathematics classrooms. These participants appeared to have negotiated their mathematics learning by ascribing to specific actions and behaviors that were informed by the nature of their perceptions of “Jamaicanness”. Findings from the study suggest that perceptions of ethnic identity could facilitate mathematics ability by building confidence and promoting and building mathematics collaboratio

American Expatriates\u27 Experiences of Stress and Burnout while Teaching in International Schools within Southeast Asia: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe and understand American expatriates’ perceptions of their lived experiences with burnout and stress while teaching in international schools in Southeast Asia. The theories guiding this study were Hans Selye’s (1951) theory of stress, as it explains the physiological stages of stress the body goes through, and Christine Maslach’s (1997) theory of burnout, which explains the factors associated with burnout. The present study was guided by five research questions, including a single central research question, to discover the participants’ lived experiences with stress and burnout. Four additional subquestions explored emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, decreased sense of personal accomplishment, and responses to stress in the workplace. The participants of this study were 11 American expatriates who have experienced stress and burnout in their past positions as international educators in Southeast Asia. Data collected for this study included Maslach’s Burnout Inventory for Educators (MBI-ES), individual interviews, a single focus group interview, and documents. Data were analyzed through bracketing and analysis to identify themes, and by synthesizing data to write thick, rich descriptions. The phenomenological data analysis revealed participants’ lived experiences with burnout and stress included frustration, feeling overwhelmed, and anxiety. Participants described how job expectations, workloads, and their own commitments to job performance affected them

Teaching as a Masters profession: the need for continued debate

The research presented here builds on an original pilot project which reported on the introduction of PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) Masters level programmes in England. A major finding of the pilot project was that Masters was by no means embedded as a positive perception in the minds of student teachers or indeed teacher educators and one of the recommendations was to „continue the M level debate'. This research concentrates on the continuing perceptions of a range of teacher educators from across the UK, sharing their experiences and working together to make sense of the challenges and opportunities faced in the quest to make teaching a Masters profession. Findings suggest that it remains difficult for teacher educators to propose a definition of „Masters' which satisfies them on a personal or political level. There are hints of a „jargon' of „Mastersness' - expedience rather than conviction, assumption linked with confusion – and a lack of certainty over whether teaching should be a Masters level profession at all. This has led to the main finding of this research which is that the debate on teaching as a Masters profession needs to continue

Phylogenetic analysis of bacterial and archaeal arsC gene sequences suggests an ancient, common origin for arsenate reductase

BACKGROUND: The ars gene system provides arsenic resistance for a variety of microorganisms and can be chromosomal or plasmid-borne. The arsC gene, which codes for an arsenate reductase is essential for arsenate resistance and transforms arsenate into arsenite, which is extruded from the cell. A survey of GenBank shows that arsC appears to be phylogenetically widespread both in organisms with known arsenic resistance and those organisms that have been sequenced as part of whole genome projects. RESULTS: Phylogenetic analysis of aligned arsC sequences shows broad similarities to the established 16S rRNA phylogeny, with separation of bacterial, archaeal, and subsequently eukaryotic arsC genes. However, inconsistencies between arsC and 16S rRNA are apparent for some taxa. Cyanobacteria and some of the γ-Proteobacteria appear to possess arsC genes that are similar to those of Low GC Gram-positive Bacteria, and other isolated taxa possess arsC genes that would not be expected based on known evolutionary relationships. There is no clear separation of plasmid-borne and chromosomal arsC genes, although a number of the Enterobacteriales (γ-Proteobacteria) possess similar plasmid-encoded arsC sequences. CONCLUSION: The overall phylogeny of the arsenate reductases suggests a single, early origin of the arsC gene and subsequent sequence divergence to give the distinct arsC classes that exist today. Discrepancies between 16S rRNA and arsC phylogenies support the role of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in the evolution of arsenate reductases, with a number of instances of HGT early in bacterial arsC evolution. Plasmid-borne arsC genes are not monophyletic suggesting multiple cases of chromosomal-plasmid exchange and subsequent HGT. Overall, arsC phylogeny is complex and is likely the result of a number of evolutionary mechanisms

Logan City Curbside RecyclingProgram Phase IV Report

Recycling programs in Cache County have undergone several transformations over the past decade. This report concentrates on the most recent program implemented in 2006 and 2007 in selected communities throughout the county. Citizens’ behaviors and attitudes regarding recycling and the curbside program are described in the following

Restructuring and hospital care: Sub-national trends, differentials, and their impacts; New Zealand from 1981

An analysis of the "nation's health" is the central concern of this study. Its genesis was a detailed, technical, time-series research on regional and ethnic differentials in health in New Zealand. But as this work progressed it became increasingly evident that the results of this more narrow analysis could make a wider contribution to the development of a knowledge-base on health trends and on the impacts of policy on these. In a sense, the analysis provides a demographic audit of health trends over the last two decades. The focus here is different from that in most other studies on restructuring of the New Zealand health system as their concern was either to review in detail the rewriting of policy per se, and attendant structural and institutional changes (Fougere 2001), or to identify how these changes relate to changes in mortality (Blakely et al. 2008). The research question reported here was, instead, to analyse the most crucial of health outcomes, „how long we live and how often we end up in hospital‟, identified in the earlier quotation, to report patterns and trends in hospital use nationally and sub-nationally over the period under review, and to determine the degrees to which various sub-populations benefited, or did not benefit, from these changes. The analysis focuses on the hospital sector in the system, but it will also show relations between this and other sectors, formal (e.g. primary health) and less formal (notably the healthcare afforded sickness and invalid beneficiaries). Thus two questions are addressed: 1. whether or not the nation‟s population health improved over the period and; 2. whether or not there was a convergence in patterns of health gain across its constituent sub-populations defined geographically and ethnically. This monograph deals with sub-national differences in health in New Zealand over a period of substantial socio-economic restructuring and associated radical changes in health policy, health systems and their related information systems (see also, Text Appendix A). It complements the recently published analysis of national ethnic trends in mortality (Blakely et al. 2004), but differs in several critical respects. That study reviewed health status by emphasising aetiologies and causes of death. In contrast, the present analysis focuses on actuarial dimensions of both mortality and morbidity and on health as measured by functional capacity rather than the disease orientated „burden of disease‟. It goes beyond health status issues to look at the system itself, to assess whether health policy outcomes were generated more through efficiency-gain (economic or service delivery, such as those resulting in a convergence sub-nationally of supply and demand effects), or through health gains, or ideally, by both. To do this, and as a by-product to analyse changes in health status and the system in an era of restructuring, innovative methodologies and composite time-series indices combining the two dimensions of a „nation‟s health‟, needing hospital care and longevity, have had to be custom-designed. To achieve this objective, the ensuing analysis is often technical, and may introduce concepts that are unfamiliar to some readers. In order to look at possible inequalities of outcome, comparisons were made between regions and ethnic groups, as well as age-groups and genders, and as a result, in places the analysis becomes rather complex

Gradual Synchronization

A synchronization solution is developed in order to allow finer grained segmentation of clock domains on a chip. This solution incorporates computation into the synchronization overhead time and is called Gradual Synchronization. With Gradual Synchronization as a synchronization method the design space of a chip could easily mix both asynchronous and synchronous blocks of logic, paving the way for wider use of asynchronous logic design

Does \u27Free-Sampling\u27 Enhance the Value of Public Goods?

This study investigates whether a \u27free sampling\u27 marketing strategy induces an enduring WTP premium effect for public goods. Using data from a unique field experiment involving curbside recycling, we find that the premium effect associated with providing non-participating households a brief opportunity to participate in a curbside recycling program for free is relatively small and not enduring. It may therefore not be cost effective to offer a free-sampling participation incentive for this type (or similar types) of local public good(s)