Components of Effective Leadership

[First paragraph] The effective schools literature demonstrates that the principal\u27s leadership is key to the revitalization of schools. The purpose of this article is to feature those components of leadership on which principals need to place attention and to provide suggested activities to enhance these components

Leadership Styles

[First paragraph] Effective schools literature shows clearly that the leadership of the principal is key to the effectiveness of the school (Hoy and Miskell, 1982, and Arnn and Mangieri, 1988). To be effective, principals must use leadership styles appropriate to the situation

Virginia\u27s Plan for Dual Enrollment

[First paragraph] There is a plan where Virginia pays Average Daily Membership (ADM) monies to a school system for a student attending a community college - and the community college collects the Full Time Equivalency (FTE) from the State. Principals must be aware of this dual enrollment plan for secondary students with community colleges approved in September of 1988. This plan provides options for students which were not available before. Dual enrollment allows high school students to accumulate credits for graduation while simultaneously earning college credit. The courses to be offered are to be mutually agreed upon by the school division and the community college

Unit Plans

[First paragraph] Careful unit planning as a framework for daily lesson plans can help teachers individualize instruction, manage time and classroom behavior, bring cohesive-ness to a series of related daily lessons, and ultimately improve student achievement. Principals can help teachers by providing clear expectations and a consistent framework for unit planning. School and district philosophy will help determine the particular model chosen from the wide variety available. Following is one format

Grievances

[First Paragraph] The Virginia Board of Education has adopted a procedure for resolving disputes concerning the application of local board policies, rules, and regulations as they impact the work or disciplinary actions of teachers. It is vital that the principal be aware of the process and the timeline involved in the grievance procedure since the solution should be secured at the lowest administrative level in the process. It is beyond the scope of this article to provide every detail of the grievance process. For a complete detailing of procedure, please refer to Chapter 15, Article 3, Sections 22.1-306 through 22.1-314 of the Code of Virginia

A sufficient criterion for integrability of stochastic many-body dynamics and quantum spin chains

We propose a dynamical matrix product ansatz describing the stochastic dynamics of two species of particles with excluded-volume interaction and the quantum mechanics of the associated quantum spin chains respectively. Analyzing consistency of the time-dependent algebra which is obtained from the action of the corresponding Markov generator, we obtain sufficient conditions on the hopping rates for identifing the integrable models. From the dynamical algebra we construct the quadratic algebra of Zamolodchikov type, associativity of which is a Yang Baxter equation. The Bethe ansatz equations for the spectra are obtained directly from the dynamical matrix product ansatz.Comment: 19 pages Late

The concept of solidarity: emerging from the theoretical shadows?

The concept of solidarity has been relatively neglected by social scientists since Durkheim's pioneering work in the late 19th century. The discipline of politics has been guilty of overlooking this 'subjective' element of community life, but recent works by Stjernø and Brunkhorst reflect a growing awareness of the theoretical significance of the concept. Whereas early liberal attempts to theorise solidarity took the nation state to be the appropriate community for its realisation, the emergence of globalisation raises the possibility of human solidarity developing in the global community. Traditional forms of solidarity have been dissipated by the social changes accompanying globalisation, but they were often locked into the defence of particular interests. New forms may be emerging to rekindle the broader vision of human solidarity. Recent work by writers such as Habermas, Honneth, Rorty and Touraine focuses on widening and deepening democratic participation and/or the articulation of our ethical obligations in various ways. It is argued here that these perspectives need to be supplemented by a radical humanist approach grounded in a normative theory of human self-realisation

Quantum geometry and quantum algorithms

Motivated by algorithmic problems arising in quantum field theories whose dynamical variables are geometric in nature, we provide a quantum algorithm that efficiently approximates the colored Jones polynomial. The construction is based on the complete solution of Chern-Simons topological quantum field theory and its connection to Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal field theory. The colored Jones polynomial is expressed as the expectation value of the evolution of the q-deformed spin-network quantum automaton. A quantum circuit is constructed capable of simulating the automaton and hence of computing such expectation value. The latter is efficiently approximated using a standard sampling procedure in quantum computation.Comment: Submitted to J. Phys. A: Math-Gen, for the special issue ``The Quantum Universe'' in honor of G. C. Ghirard

Interleukin-33 regulates metabolic reprogramming of the retinal pigment epithelium in response to immune stressors

It remains unresolved how retinal pigment epithelial cell metabolism is regulated following immune activation to maintain retinal homeostasis and retinal function. We exposed retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) to several stress signals, particularly Toll-like receptor stimulation, and uncovered an ability of RPE to adapt their metabolic preference on aerobic glycolysis or oxidative glucose metabolism in response to different immune stimuli. We have identified interleukin-33 (IL-33) as a key metabolic checkpoint that antagonizes the Warburg effect to ensure the functional stability of the RPE. The identification of IL-33 as a key regulator of mitochondrial metabolism suggests roles for the cytokine that go beyond its extracellular “alarmin” activities. IL-33 exerts control over mitochondrial respiration in RPE by facilitating oxidative pyruvate catabolism. We have also revealed that in the absence of IL-33, mitochondrial function declined and resultant bioenergetic switching was aligned with altered mitochondrial morphology. Our data not only shed new light on the molecular pathway of activation of mitochondrial respiration in RPE in response to immune stressors but also uncover a potentially novel role of nuclear intrinsic IL-33 as a metabolic checkpoint regulator