Superintendent in action: A qualitative study of an African -American female superintendent

Remarkably few females hold the position of superintendent of schools; although, there are capable women in the educational field who are qualified and interested in obtaining the position of superintendent of schools. Researchers proposed many reasons for this disparity, including the lack of studies regarding females in the superintendency. This research study sought to determine how one African-American female entered the male dominated executive position to become superintendent of a large school district in a southern state. The following research questions were used to determine how this African-American female constructed her understanding of her leadership role through the lenses of cultural experiences, gender, and ethnic identity: (a) How does the participant define and construct an understanding of her leadership role through the lenses of cultural experiences, gender, and ethnic identity as a school district leader?, (b) What are the benefits and advantages, as well as, the complexities and problems, faced being an African-American female school district leader?, (c) How were the encountered barriers addressed and overcome during the quest to obtain the superintendency?, (d) What leadership assumptions appear to form the basis for the leadership behaviors of a practicing African-American female superintendent?, (e) How do the expectations from the school board members and the schools\u27 communities impact the decision making process?, and, (f) What political, educational, and demographical contexts of the schools and communities framed leadership behaviors? The purpose of this study was to identity and describe, through a case study, how one African-American female superintendent constructed an understanding of her leadership role through the lenses cultural experiences, gender and ethnic identity. Data were collected from the participant by conducting semi-structured, in-depth participant interviews, observing the participant in a natural setting, and completing the Leadership Practices Self Inventory. These data were transcribed and coded using Qualms software. Common themes emerged through analysis of interviews, observed situations, and interpretation of data collected. Focusing on the personal experiences of one female superintendent, the five overarching themes which emerged from this phenomenological qualitative study were (a) her socialization, (b) her determined work ethic, (c) her persistence to attain the superintendency, (d) her strong religious beliefs, and (e) her concern for student achievement. The underlying themes, revealed by this research, have implications for women considering the superintendency. The findings of this study indicated how one African-American female overcame barriers, from childhood to adulthood, to achieve the top executive position of a large school district. In her own words, a comprehensive understanding of the road one African-American female traveled to secure the superintendency was told

Superintendent in action: A qualitative study of an African -American female superintendent

Remarkably few females hold the position of superintendent of schools; although, there are capable women in the educational field who are qualified and interested in obtaining the position of superintendent of schools. Researchers proposed many reasons for this disparity, including the lack of studies regarding females in the superintendency. This research study sought to determine how one African-American female entered the male dominated executive position to become superintendent of a large school district in a southern state. The following research questions were used to determine how this African-American female constructed her understanding of her leadership role through the lenses of cultural experiences, gender, and ethnic identity: (a) How does the participant define and construct an understanding of her leadership role through the lenses of cultural experiences, gender, and ethnic identity as a school district leader?, (b) What are the benefits and advantages, as well as, the complexities and problems, faced being an African-American female school district leader?, (c) How were the encountered barriers addressed and overcome during the quest to obtain the superintendency?, (d) What leadership assumptions appear to form the basis for the leadership behaviors of a practicing African-American female superintendent?, (e) How do the expectations from the school board members and the schools\u27 communities impact the decision making process?, and, (f) What political, educational, and demographical contexts of the schools and communities framed leadership behaviors? The purpose of this study was to identity and describe, through a case study, how one African-American female superintendent constructed an understanding of her leadership role through the lenses cultural experiences, gender and ethnic identity. Data were collected from the participant by conducting semi-structured, in-depth participant interviews, observing the participant in a natural setting, and completing the Leadership Practices Self Inventory. These data were transcribed and coded using Qualms software. Common themes emerged through analysis of interviews, observed situations, and interpretation of data collected. Focusing on the personal experiences of one female superintendent, the five overarching themes which emerged from this phenomenological qualitative study were (a) her socialization, (b) her determined work ethic, (c) her persistence to attain the superintendency, (d) her strong religious beliefs, and (e) her concern for student achievement. The underlying themes, revealed by this research, have implications for women considering the superintendency. The findings of this study indicated how one African-American female overcame barriers, from childhood to adulthood, to achieve the top executive position of a large school district. In her own words, a comprehensive understanding of the road one African-American female traveled to secure the superintendency was told

What Is the Difference Between a Calorie and a Carbohydrate?—Exploring Nutrition Education Opportunities in Alternative School Settings

Extension-based nutrition educators have indicated current curricula do not engage alternative school students\u27 interests. The study reported here explored nutrition education opportunities at alternative schools in Oklahoma. Data collection involved focus groups gathering student perspectives regarding preferred teaching and learning styles, and nutrition topics of interest. Twenty-four students 15-18 years of age participated in the project. Students are interested in receiving nutrition education using practical approaches; experiential learning was the preferred learning style facilitated by hands-on teaching. Opportunities exist for Extension programming to meaningfully address nutrition-related issues in alternative schools by delivering participant-centered lessons using tailored materials and delivery methods

The Role of Liver Fibrosis Assessment in the Management of Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Infection: Lessons Learned from a Single Centre Experience

Background & Aims. Assess the clinical utility of the Prati criteria and normal ALT (<40 IU/L) in a cohort of patients with chronic hepatitis B infection (CHB). Methods. Serology, radiology, and histology were obtained in 140 patients with CHB. Results. HBeAg+ group: 7 patients (7/56−12% HBeAg+ group) misclassified as “immunotolerant”, with HBV DNA > 6 log copies/ml and normal ALT, who in fact had moderate/severe fibrosis on liver biopsy. HBeAg− group: 10 patients with normal ALT and moderate/severe fibrosis on liver biopsy; 4 of these patients had >3 log copies/ml HBV DNA levels and 6 patients misclassified as “inactive carriers” with negative HBV DNA levels normal ALT and moderate/severe fibrosis (6/84−7% HBeAg− group). Two male HBeAg+ and three male HBeAg− patients with ALT between 20 and 30 IU/L and moderate/severe fibrosis on liver biopsy would have been further mischaracterised using the Prati criteria for normal ALT. Age and ethnic group were more important predictors of moderate/severe fibrosis in multivariate analysis. Conclusion. HBeAg status, age, ethnic origin with longitudinal assessment of LFTs and viral load should be studied in patients with “normal ALT” at the upper end of normal range (ALT 20–40 IU/L) to appropriately classify patients and identify patients for liver fibrosis assessment to inform treatment decisions

The Return: A Native Environmental Health Story

The Native Tradition, Environment And Community Health (TEACH) Project began in 2008 with a small collaborative grant funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. The Northwest Indian College and the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health at the University of Washington shared the funding and co-managed the project. In the Western scientific tradition, “Environmental Health” is the study of how the environment affects people in order to promote healthier lives. One of the goals of the Native TEACH Project was to find out how Native ways of understanding the world and our place in it might lead to a unique understanding of environmental health – a “NATIVE Environmental Health Science.” To do this, we got input from Tribal college students, staff and faculty from 30 Tribal colleges around the U.S. We did this through a combination of talking circles, interviews, and written surveys administered at the Northwest Indian College and at the 2009 American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) student conference in Missoula, MT. When we sifted through the information we gathered, we identified three core themes that seemed to appear over and over: Community, Wellness, and Inter-Relationship. Each of these core themes contains many rich associations and layers. Each theme can best be understood as a circle. Native Environmental Health Science is the study of how these three circles intersect and overlap, and what this means for our actions as individuals and communities. The Return is an original story based on our research findings. With it, we hope to share the essence of what we learned from the rich conversations we had with Tribal college students, staff and faculty. It can be read quietly or aloud, used as a coloring book, or even serve as the spark for a group or classroom discussion. Mostly though, it is meant as a gift back to the many people who helped create it by sharing their time, insights, and wisdom.https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/ias_books/1086/thumbnail.jp

Distinctive immunoregulatory effects of adenosine on T cells of older humans

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154518/1/fsb2026003033.pd

Dose-related effects of smallpox vaccine

BACKGROUND: We conducted a double-blind, randomized trial of three dilutions of vaccinia virus vaccine in previously unimmunized adults in order to assess the clinical success rates, humoral responses, and virus-specific activity of cytotoxic T cells and interferon-gamma-producing T cells. METHODS: Sixty healthy adults were inoculated intradermally by bifurcated needle with undiluted vaccine (dose, 10(7.8) plaque-forming units [pfu] per milliliter), a 1:10 dilution (dose, 10(6.5) pfu per milliliter), or a 1:100 dilution (dose, 10(5.0) pfu per milliliter); there were 20 subjects in each group. The subjects were monitored with respect to vesicle formation (an indicator of successful vaccination), the viral titer at the time of peak lesion formation, antiviral antibodies, and cellular immune responses. RESULTS: A vaccinia vesicle developed in 19 of the 20 subjects who received undiluted vaccine (95 percent), 14 of the 20 who received the 1:10 dilution (70 percent), and 3 of the 20 who received the 1:100 dilution (15 percent). One month after vaccination, 34 of 36 subjects with vesicles had antibody responses, as compared with only 1 of 24 subjects without clinical evidence of vaccinia virus replication. Vigorous cytotoxic T-cell and interferon-gamma responses occurred in 94 percent of subjects with vesicles, and a cytotoxic T-cell response occurred in only one subject without a vesicle. CONCLUSIONS: The vaccinia virus vaccine (which was produced in 1982 or earlier) still has substantial potency when administered by a bifurcated needle to previously unvaccinated adults. Diluting the vaccine reduces the rate of successful vaccination. The development of vesicular skin lesions after vaccination correlates with the induction of the antibody and T-cell responses that are considered essential for clearing vaccinia virus infections

Performance of the NINDS-CSN 5-Minute Protocol in a National Population-Based Sample

Background In 2006, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-Canadian Stroke Network (NINDS-CSN) Vascular Cognitive Impairment Harmonization Standards recommended a 5-Minute Protocol as a brief screening instrument for vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). We report demographically adjusted norms for the 5-Minute Protocol and its relation to other measures of cognitive function and cerebrovascular risk factors. Methods Cross-sectional analysis of 7,199 stroke-free adults in the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study on the NINDS-CSN 5-Minute Protocol score. Results Total scores on the 5-Minute Protocol were inversely correlated with age and positively correlated with years of education, and performance on the Six-Item Screener, Word List Learning, and Animal Fluency (all p-values<0.001). Higher cerebrovascular risk on the Framingham Stroke Risk Profile (FSRP) was associated with lower total 5-Minute Protocol scores (p<0.001). The 5-Minute Protocol also differentiated between participants with and without confirmed stroke and with and without stroke symptom histories (p<0.001). Conclusions The NINDS-CSN 5-Minute Protocol is a brief, easily administered screening measure that is sensitive to cerebrovascular risk and offers a valid method of screening for cognitive impairment in populations at risk for VCI

Mutational analysis of disease relapse in patients allografted for acute myeloid leukemia

Disease relapse is the major cause of treatment failure after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). To identify AML-associated genes prognostic of AML relapse post–allo-SCT, we resequenced 35 genes in 113 adults at diagnosis, 49 of whom relapsed. Two hundred sixty-two mutations were detected in 102/113 (90%) patients. An increased risk of relapse was observed in patients with mutations in WT1 (P = .018), DNMT3A (P = .045), FLT3 ITD (P = .071), and TP53 (P = .06), whereas mutations in IDH1 were associated with a reduced risk of disease relapse (P = .018). In 29 patients, we additionally compared mutational profiles in bone marrow at diagnosis and relapse to study changes in clonal structure at relapse. In 13/29 patients, mutational profiles altered at relapse. In 9 patients, mutations present at relapse were not detected at diagnosis. In 15 patients, additional available pre–allo-SCT samples demonstrated that mutations identified posttransplant but not at diagnosis were detectable immediately prior to transplant in 2 of 15 patients. Taken together, these observations, if confirmed in larger studies, have the potential to inform the design of novel strategies to reduce posttransplant relapse highlighting the potential importance of post–allo-SCT interventions with a broad antitumor specificity in contrast to targeted therapies based on mutational profile at diagnosis

Safety of medication use in primary care

© 2014 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.BACKGROUND: Medication errors are one of the leading causes of harmin health care. Review and analysis of errors have often emphasized their preventable nature and potential for reoccurrence. Of the few error studies conducted in primary care to date, most have focused on evaluating individual parts of the medicines management system. Studying individual parts of the system does not provide a complete perspective and may further weaken the evidence and undermine interventions.AIM AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this review is to estimate the scale of medication errors as a problem across the medicines management system in primary care. Objectives were: To review studies addressing the rates of medication errors, and To identify studies on interventions to prevent medication errors in primary care.METHODS: A systematic search of the literature was performed in PubMed (MEDLINE), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA), Embase, PsycINFO, PASCAL, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Knowledge, and CINAHL PLUS from 1999 to November, 2012. Bibliographies of relevant publications were searched for additional studies.KEY FINDINGS: Thirty-three studies estimating the incidence of medication errors and thirty-six studies evaluating the impact of error-prevention interventions in primary care were reviewed. This review demonstrated that medication errors are common, with error rates between 90%, depending on the part of the system studied, and the definitions and methods used. The prescribing stage is the most susceptible, and that the elderly (over 65 years), and children (under 18 years) are more likely to experience significant errors. Individual interventions demonstrated marginal improvements in medication safety when implemented on their own.CONCLUSION: Targeting the more susceptible population groups and the most dangerous aspects of the system may be a more effective approach to error management and prevention. Co-implementation of existing interventions at points within the system may offer time- and cost-effective options to improving medication safety in primary care.Peer reviewe