Making meaning of barriers and successes: A qualitative study of upper level female educational leaders.

This study revealed the phenomenological meaning three women in the upper levels of school administration in a military school system overseas made of the barriers (both internal and external) they experienced in their professional lives and the strategies they used to overcome those barriers.The primary data collection tool in this research study was the semi-structured interview combined with professionally transcribed tapes, member checks, and an audit trail maintained by the researcher.The 2000 United States Census Bureau characterized the superintendency as having been the most male-dominated executive position of any profession in the United States. However, this was not the case in the overseas military school system researched in this study, which was where the women in this study were employed and led. The military overseas school system studied in this project actually had a preponderance of upper level female administrators

The Building of a Diversified Work Force

This thesis will discuss the trend toward a diversified labor force, as we move toward Workforce 2000. Many statistics show that the upcoming workforce will have fewer white males. Significant increases in the numbers of minorities , women, and immigrants will have a serious effect on how Human Resource Departments operate within companies. These demographical changes in the face of the labor market will require new methods of managing and training in all sectors of the corporate structure. Moving forward t o manage and train individuals for the challenges of the year 2000 and beyond will require corporations to address needs in one of two fundamental ways : ( 1) the corporation can change its philosophy to provide a diversified workplace to meet the needs of the individuals that are employed there , or (2) assist minorities in adapting to the corporate culture and successfully master the environment. The hypothesis for this project is that diversity training can be the bridge that unites these two basic approaches into a new understanding of diversity issues and their impact on productivity and competitiveness

Experiences of Middle School Teachers Implementing the Flipped Classroom Method with Lack of Student Preparedness: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this qualitative, transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of middle school teachers in the United States implementing the flipped classroom model (FCM) when students are not coming to class prepared. The FCM is a framework in which students engage in passive learning activities at home by watching videos uploaded by their teachers so that they can engage in active learning activities in the classroom. The theory guiding this study is Vygotsky’s social-constructivism theory as it promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills through collaboration, which are very important skills required of today’s 21st century learners. The following questions were researched in this study: (a) What are the experiences of middle school teachers in the United States implementing the FCM with student completion of homework?, (b) What are the experiences of middle school teachers in the United States implementing the FCM with student engagement in the active learning process when homework has not been completed?, and (c) What are the experiences of middle school teachers in the United States implementing the FCM with social collaboration among students during the learning process when homework has not been completed? Data collection included interviews, document analysis, and letter writing from 10 participants who have used the FCM for at least two years. Participants were selected from a flipped learning site on social media by completing a questionnaire. Data analysis included epoché, phenomenological reduction, and imaginative variation and then synthesized to determine the essence of the lived experience of the participants. Three themes that emerged from the data analysis were: homework completion improved and builds confidence, noncompletion of homework leads to delayed engagement, and noncompletion of homework causes insufficient collaboration within the classroom. Two outliers were identified in the area of homework completion

Optimal control of hepatitis C antiviral treatment programme delivery for prevention amongst a population of injecting drug users.

In most developed countries, HCV is primarily transmitted by injecting drug users (IDUs). HCV antiviral treatment is effective, and deemed cost-effective for those with no re-infection risk. However, few active IDUs are currently treated. Previous modelling studies have shown antiviral treatment for active IDUs could reduce HCV prevalence, and there is emerging interest in developing targeted IDU treatment programmes. However, the optimal timing and scale-up of treatment is unknown, given the real-world constraints commonly existing for health programmes. We explore how the optimal programme is affected by a variety of policy objectives, budget constraints, and prevalence settings. We develop a model of HCV transmission and treatment amongst active IDUs, determine the optimal treatment programme strategy over 10 years for two baseline chronic HCV prevalence scenarios (30% and 45%), a range of maximum annual budgets (£50,000-300,000 per 1,000 IDUs), and a variety of objectives: minimising health service costs and health utility losses; minimising prevalence at 10 years; minimising health service costs and health utility losses with a final time prevalence target; minimising health service costs with a final time prevalence target but neglecting health utility losses. The largest programme allowed for a given budget is the programme which minimises both prevalence at 10 years, and HCV health utility loss and heath service costs, with higher budgets resulting in greater cost-effectiveness (measured by cost per QALY gained compared to no treatment). However, if the objective is to achieve a 20% relative prevalence reduction at 10 years, while minimising both health service costs and losses in health utility, the optimal treatment strategy is an immediate expansion of coverage over 5-8 years, and is less cost-effective. By contrast, if the objective is only to minimise costs to the health service while attaining the 20% prevalence reduction, the programme is deferred until the final years of the decade, and is the least cost-effective of the scenarios

Cost-effectiveness of HCV case-finding for people who inject drugs via dried blood spot testing in specialist addiction services and prisons

ObjectivesPeople who inject drugs (PWID) are at high risk for acquiring hepatitis C virus (HCV), but many are unaware of their infection. HCV dried blood spot (DBS) testing increases case-finding in addiction services and prisons. We determine the cost-effectiveness of increasing HCV case-finding among PWID by offering DBS testing in specialist addiction services or prisons as compared to using venepuncture.DesignCost-utility analysis using a dynamic HCV transmission model among PWID, including: disease progression, diagnosis, treatment, injecting status, incarceration and addition services contact.Setting uk interventionDBS testing in specialist addiction services or prisons. Intervention impact was determined by a meta-analysis of primary data.Primary and secondary outcome measuresCosts (in UK £, £1=US$1.60) and utilities (quality-adjusted life years, QALYs) were attached to each state and the incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) determined. Multivariate uncertainty and one-way sensitivity analyses were performed.ResultsFor a £20 000 per QALY gained willingness-to-pay threshold, DBS testing in addiction services is cost-effective (ICER of £14 600 per QALY gained). Under the base-case assumption of no continuity of treatment/care when exiting/entering prison, DBS testing in prisons is not cost-effective (ICER of £59 400 per QALY gained). Results are robust to changes in HCV prevalence; increasing PWID treatment rates to those for ex-PWID considerably reduces ICER (£4500 and £30 000 per QALY gained for addiction services and prison, respectively). If continuity of care is >40%, the prison DBS ICER falls below £20 000 per QALY gained.ConclusionsDespite low PWID treatment rates, increasing case-finding can be cost-effective in specialist addiction services, and in prisons if continuity of treatment/care is ensured

Transverse effects in multifrequency Raman generation

The theory of ultrabroadband multifrequency Raman generation is extended, for the first time, to allow for beam-propagation effects in one and two transverse dimensions. We show that a complex transverse structure develops even when diffraction is neglected. In the general case, we examine how the ultrabroadband multifrequency Raman generation process is affected by the intensity, phase quality, and width of the input beams, and by the length of the Raman medium. The evolution of power spectra, intensity profiles, and global characteristics of the multifrequency beams are investigated and explained. In the two-dimensional transverse case, bandwidths comparable to the optical carrier frequency, spanning the whole visible spectrum and beyond, are still achievable

Caution: examinations in progress - the operation of neighbourhood plan examinations in England

Gavin Parker, Kat Salter and Hannah Hickman look at what experience to date tells us about how the examination stage in the neighbourhood plan production process is being undertaken, and the issues and associated questions emerging from that experience

Stochastic Multiscale Characterization of Short-Fiber Reinforced Composites

A framework for stochastic modelling and optimization of materials with engineered microstructures is presented. Numerical methods for solving problems with short-fiber inclusions are discussed. Addition of fiber reinforcement has been shown to improve the performance of various materials in a number of applications. The response of fiber reinforced concrete under tensile stress is dependent upon several properties, including fiber geometry, fiber material properties, fiber length, and orientation of the fibers with respect to the applied load. In a real-world system the distribution of the fibers may be random, with orientation angle and configuration varying locally. Stochastic multiscale methods enable the connection of the scales to analyze the effect of randomly distributed short-fiber inclusions on the global response of the system. Randomly generated characteristic volume elements (CVE) are analyzed using the extended finite element method (XFEM) to capture local material response without the need for a mesh that conforms to the material morphology, ideal for situations with arbitrary fiber distributions. The variation observed in statistically equivalent CVE models is quantified. Correlation is determined between FRC descriptor variables and the tensile response of the composite. It is demonstrated that machine learning can be used to predict composite material properties of FRC to a reasonable degree of accuracy using information about the material microstructur