Positive Influences on Why They Stay: A Qualitative Study on the Contributing Factors to Teacher Retention in Rural North Dakota

In the United States, a considerable amount of educators leave the field within the first five years of employment. Midwestern rural schools experience a slightly higher turnover percentage than do their urban counterparts. Due to this shortage of teachers, many districts have employed strategies to recruit and retain effective teachers. Although many studies focus on the reasons teachers exit the profession, this study identifies the positive factors of why teachers remain in a rural North Dakota school. This qualitative study employed a phenomenological approach which generated common themes among long-staying teachers in a rural district. Both the social constructivism and teacher career cycle theoretical frameworks were utilized to support the researcher’s understanding of rural teachers\u27 feelings, perceptions, and experiences. The positive attributes of working in a rural community are the personal relationships teachers make with students, families, and colleagues and the strong support from administration and mentorship from colleagues

The limits of human predictions of recidivism.

Dressel and Farid recently found that laypeople were as accurate as statistical algorithms in predicting whether a defendant would reoffend, casting doubt on the value of risk assessment tools in the criminal justice system. We report the results of a replication and extension of Dressel and Farid's experiment. Under conditions similar to the original study, we found nearly identical results, with humans and algorithms performing comparably. However, algorithms beat humans in the three other datasets we examined. The performance gap between humans and algorithms was particularly pronounced when, in a departure from the original study, participants were not provided with immediate feedback on the accuracy of their responses. Algorithms also outperformed humans when the information provided for predictions included an enriched (versus restricted) set of risk factors. These results suggest that algorithms can outperform human predictions of recidivism in ecologically valid settings

Positive Influences on Why They Stay: A Qualitative Study on the Contributing Factors to Teacher Retention in Rural North Dakota

An alarming number of educators are leaving the field within the first five years of employment. Midwestern rural schools experience a slightly higher percentage of turnover than do their urban counterparts. Due to this shortage of teachers, many districts across the nation have employed strategies to recruit and retain competent teachers. This qualitative study employs a phenomenological approach seeking to identify common themes among teachers who are long-staying teachers in a rural district (those with 1000 or fewer students). Both the social constructivism and teacher career cycle theoretical frameworks have been utilized to support the researcher’s understanding of rural teachers\u27 feelings, perceptions, and experiences. Between five and eight rural teachers with no less than five years of experience will be selected from several regions across the state of North Dakota

Bringing the Question of Chinese IPR Enforcement to the WTO Under TRIPS: An Effective Strategy or a Meaningless and Overused Tactic by the U.S.?

China has had a long history of high levels of piracy and counterfeiting. Leaders of China’s Food and Drug Administration have confessed that their pharmaceutical market is immersed in fake and deadly drugs.\ud In addition, DVD’s and VCD’s containing pirated versions of Chinese and foreign films or television series are easily found in China’s major cities. Since China is the world’s fastest growing economy and the contributor of the largest trade deficit to the United States (U.S.) (U.S. $268 billion in 2008), it is no surprise that the issue of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) counterfeiting and piracy are of national interest to the U.S..\u

Unusual Beaver, Castor canadensis, Dams in Central Yukon

North American Beavers (Castor canadensis) are remarkable for their ability to build dams and modify their habitat. Dams are typically made of the boles and branches of trees and large shrubs, and reinforced with mud and rocks. Here, we report two unusual Beaver dams in central Yukon, Canada, that are made primarily of medium-sized rocks. This observation points to the adaptability of Beavers in using available materials to build their dams

Understanding the genetics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, α1-antitrypsin deficiency, and implications for clinical practice

Cigarette smoking and poor air quality are the greatest risk factors for developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but growing evidence indicates that genetic factors also affect predisposition to and clinical expression of disease. With the exception of α1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), a rare autosomal recessive disorder that is present in 1–3% of individuals with COPD, no single gene is associated with the development of obstructive lung disease. Instead, a complex interplay of genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors is the basis for persistent inflammatory responses, accelerated cell aging, cell death, and fibrosis, leading to the clinical symptoms of COPD and different phenotypic presentations. In this brief review, we discuss current understanding of the genetics of COPD, pathogenetics of AATD, epigenetic influences on the development of obstructive lung disease, and how classifying COPD by phenotype can influence clinical treatment and patient outcomes

The spin state of iron in minerals of Earth's lower mantle

The spin state of Fe(II) and Fe(III) at temperatures and pressures typical for the Earth's lower mantle is discussed. We predict an extended high-spin to low-spin crossover region along the geotherm for Fe-dilute systems depending on crystal-field splitting, pairing energy, and cooperative interactions. In particular, spin transitions in ferromagnesium silicate perovskite and ferropericlase, the dominant lower mantle components, should occur in a wide temperature-pressure range. We also derive a gradual volume change associated with such transitions in the lower mantle. The gradual density changes and the wide spin crossover regions seem incompatible with lower mantle stratification resulting from a spin transition

Predicting the efficacy of simulator-based training using a perceptual judgment task versus questionnaire-based measures of presence

The quality of a virtual environment, as characterized by factors such as presence and fidelity, is of interest to developers and users of simulators for many reasons, not least because both factors have been linked to improved outcomes in training as well as a reduced incidence of simulator sickness. Until recently, most approaches to measuring these factors have been based on subjective, postexposure questioning. This approach has, however, been criticized because of the shortcomings of self-report and the need to delay feedback or interrupt activity. To combat these problems, recent papers on the topic have proposed the use of behavioral measures to assess simulators and predict training outcomes. Following their lead, this paper makes use of a simple perceptual task in which users are asked to estimate their simulated speed within the environment. A longitudinal study of training outcomes using two of the simulators revealed systematic differences in task performance that matched differences measured using the perceptual task in a separate group of control subjects. A separate analysis of two standard presence questionnaires revealed that they were able to predict learning outcomes on a per individual basis, but that they were insensitive to the differences between the two simulators. The paper concludes by explaining how behavioral measures of the type proposed here can complement questionnaire-based studies, helping to motivate design aspects of new simulators, prompting changes to existing systems, and constraining training scenarios to maximize their efficacy

An Investigation of Self-Concept, Clothing Selection, and Life Satisfaction among Disabled Consumers

Because consumer behavior research has typically focused on the population of “haves” and assumed consumers’ normalcy (Miller, 1997), the population of “have nots” has been largely ignored by researchers. As a result, we have a limited understanding of disabled individuals as consumers, particularly their behaviors related to the selection of clothing to wear. Thus, this study is designed to better understand disabled consumers and to investigate the influence of disabled individuals’ multifaceted self-concept on their motivations for clothing selection

Consumers with Visual Impairments: Impacts of Self-Efficacy and Public Self-Consciousness on Their Clothing Selection Motivations

According to the U.S. Census (2013), approximately 57 million people in the U.S. have at least one form of disability. Because of physical or mental limitations, disabled individuals may engage in behaviors that are unlike those of others in their society (Ittyerah & Kumar, 2009). One such behavior that may be affected by disabilities is dress behavior. For example, if an individual has a visual impairment, she/he may need someone to assist with clothing selection and need clothing with less complicated design. Because consumer behavior research has typically focused on the general population of consumers and assumed consumers’ normalcy (Miller, 1997), the population of those with special needs has been largely ignored by researchers