The Effect of School Tasks on Principals\u27 and Assistant Principals’ Leadership Self-Efficacy

The pressure to lead schools effectively while fulfilling instructional leadership and school management tasks could impact school administrators’ perceptions of their leadership capabilities. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional study was to identify the relationship between the varied tasks of school administrators as related to their leadership self-efficacy. Data were collected from 73 school administrators to ascertain leadership self-efficacy of principals and assistant principals based upon the completion of instructional leadership tasks and school management tasks. The major findings of the study indicated a positive, linear relationship between leadership self-efficacy and the instructional leadership tasks and school management tasks of school administrators. The practical application of this study provides insight into the types of tasks that impact the leadership self-efficacy of principals and assistant principals and could drive the professional learning of school administrators and the delegation of their tasks

Psychometric Evaluation and Design of Patient-Centered Communication Measures for Cancer Care Settings

Objective To evaluate the psychometric properties of questions that assess patient perceptions of patient-provider communication and design measures of patient-centered communication (PCC). Methods Participants (adults with colon or rectal cancer living in North Carolina) completed a survey at 2 to 3 months post-diagnosis. The survey included 87 questions in six PCC Functions: Exchanging Information, Fostering Health Relationships, Making Decisions, Responding to Emotions, Enabling Patient Self-Management, and Managing Uncertainty. For each Function we conducted factor analyses, item response theory modeling, and tests for differential item functioning, and assessed reliability and construct validity. Results Participants included 501 respondents; 46% had a high school education or less. Reliability within each Function ranged from 0.90 to 0.96. The PCC-Ca-36 (36-question survey; reliability=0.94) and PCC-Ca-6 (6-question survey; reliability=0.92) measures differentiated between individuals with poor and good health (i.e., known-groups validity) and were highly correlated with the HINTS communication scale (i.e., convergent validity). Conclusion This study provides theory-grounded PCC measures found to be reliable and valid in colorectal cancer patients in North Carolina. Future work should evaluate measure validity over time and in other cancer populations. Practice implications The PCC-Ca-36 and PCC-Ca-6 measures may be used for surveillance, intervention research, and quality improvement initiatives

BMQ

BMQ: Boston Medical Quarterly was published from 1950-1966 by the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals. Pages 49-52, v17n2, provided courtesy of Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

Chemical Flexibility of Mg in Pnictide Materials: Structure and Properties Diversity

Magnesium, element no. 12 on the periodic table, is the second member of the alkaline-earth metal family. Often, Mg is considered as an electropositive metal like its heavier congeners, Ca, Sr, and Ba. In this review, another important aspect of Mg chemistry, namely, the ability to form covalent bonds to more electronegative elements, is considered with a focus on pnictides. Magnesium’s flexible coordination numbers and bond distances are similar to those of main group elements (Al) or late- and post-transition metals (Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd). In this work, selected Mg-pnictides are discussed to emphasize the chemical and structural diversity of Mg which results in a variety of physical properties. Thermoelectric, Mg-ion battery, and nonlinear optical applications of select Mg-containing compounds are summarized, providing examples on the exploitation of Mg chemical bonding flexibility for the design of novel functional materials

Evaluation of a 2-1-1 Telephone Navigation Program to increase Cancer Control Behaviors: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

PURPOSE: to evaluate the effectiveness of a telephone navigation intervention for increasing use of cancer control services among underserved 2-1-1 callers. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. SETTING: 2-1-1 call centers in Houston and Weslaco, Texas (located in the Rio Grande Valley near the Mexican border). PARTICIPANTS: 2-1-1 callers in need of Pap test, mammography, colorectal cancer screening, smoking cessation counseling, and/or HPV vaccination for a daughter (n = 1,554). A majority were low-income and described themselves as Black or Hispanic. INTERVENTION: Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a cancer control referral for the needed service(s) with telephone navigation from a trained cancer control navigator (n = 995) or a referral only (n = 559). MEASURES: Uptake of each individual service and any needed service. ANALYSIS: Assessed uptake in both groups using bivariate chi-square analyses and multivariable logistic regression analyses, adjusted for sociodemographic covariates. Both per-protocol and intent-to-treat approaches were used. RESULTS: Both interventions increased cancer control behaviors. Referral with navigation intervention resulted in significantly greater completion of any needed service (OR = 1.38; p = .042), Pap test (OR = 1.56; p = .023), and smoking cessation counseling (OR = 2.66; p = .044), than referral-only condition. Other outcomes showed the same trend although the difference was not statistically significant: mammography (OR = 1.53; p = .106); colorectal cancer screening (OR = 1.80; p = .095); and HPV vaccination of a daughter (OR = 1.61; p = .331). CONCLUSION: Adding cancer control referrals and navigation to an informational service like the 2-1-1 program can increase overall participation in cancer control services

Intragroup competition predicts individual foraging specialisation in a group-living mammal

Individual foraging specialisation has important ecological implications, but its causes in group-living species are unclear. One of the major consequences of group living is increased intragroup competition for resources. Foraging theory predicts that with increased competition, individuals should add new prey items to their diet, widening their foraging niche (‘optimal foraging hypothesis’). However, classic competition theory suggests the opposite: that increased competition leads to niche partitioning and greater individual foraging specialisation (‘niche partitioning hypothesis’). We tested these opposing predictions in wild, group-living banded mongooses (Mungos mungo), using stable isotope analysis of banded mongoose whiskers to quantify individual and group foraging niche. Individual foraging niche size declined with increasing group size, despite all groups having a similar overall niche size. Our findings support the prediction that competition promotes niche partitioning within social groups and suggest that individual foraging specialisation may play an important role in the formation of stable social groupings.Peer reviewe

Cardiovascular risk reduction in hypertensive black patients with left ventricular hypertrophy The life study

AbstractObjectivesWe report on a subanalysis of the effects of losartan and atenolol on cardiovascular events in black patients in the Losartan Intervention For Endpoint reduction in hypertension (LIFE) study.BackgroundThe LIFE study compared losartan-based to atenolol-based therapy in 9,193 hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). Overall, the risk of the primary composite end point (cardiovascular death, stroke, myocardial infarction) was reduced by 13% (p = 0.021) with losartan, with similar blood pressure (BP) reduction in both treatment groups. There was a suggestion of interaction between ethnic background and treatment (p = 0.057).MethodsExploratory analyses were performed that placed LIFE study patients into black (n = 533) and non-black (n = 8,660) categories, overall, and in the U.S. (African American [n = 523]; non-black [n = 1,184]).ResultsA significant interaction existed between the dichotomized groups (black/non-black) and treatment (p = 0.005); a test for qualitative interaction was also significant (p = 0.016). The hazard ratio (losartan relative to atenolol) for the primary end point favored atenolol in black patients (1.666 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.043 to 2.661]; p = 0.033) and favored losartan in non-blacks (0.829 [95% CI 0.733 to 0.938]; p = 0.003). In black patients, BP reduction was similar in both groups, and regression of electrocardiographic-LVH was greater with losartan.ConclusionsResults of the subanalysis are sufficient to generate the hypothesis that black patients with hypertension and LVH might not respond as favorably to losartan-based treatment as non-black patients with respect to cardiovascular outcomes, and do not support a recommendation for losartan as a first-line treatment for this purpose. The subanalysis is limited by the relatively small number of events

High-resolution temporal profiling of transcripts during Arabidopsis leaf senescence reveals a distinct chronology of processes and regulation

Leaf senescence is an essential developmental process that impacts dramatically on crop yields and involves altered regulation of thousands of genes and many metabolic and signaling pathways, resulting in major changes in the leaf. The regulation of senescence is complex, and although senescence regulatory genes have been characterized, there is little information on how these function in the global control of the process. We used microarray analysis to obtain a highresolution time-course profile of gene expression during development of a single leaf over a 3-week period to senescence. A complex experimental design approach and a combination of methods were used to extract high-quality replicated data and to identify differentially expressed genes. The multiple time points enable the use of highly informative clustering to reveal distinct time points at which signaling and metabolic pathways change. Analysis of motif enrichment, as well as comparison of transcription factor (TF) families showing altered expression over the time course, identify clear groups of TFs active at different stages of leaf development and senescence. These data enable connection of metabolic processes, signaling pathways, and specific TF activity, which will underpin the development of network models to elucidate the process of senescence

The Australia Telescope 20GHz (AT20G) Survey: analysis of the extragalactic source sample

The Australia Telescope 20 GHz (AT20G) survey is a blind survey of the whole Southern sky at 20 GHz with follow-up observations at 4.8, 8.6, and 20 GHz carried out with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). In this paper we present an analysis of radio spectral properties in total intensity and polarisation, sizes, optical identifications, and redshifts of the sample of the 5808 extragalactic sources in the survey catalogue of confirmed sources over the whole Southern sky excluding the strip at Galactic latitude |b|<1.5deg. The sample has a flux density limit of 40 mJy. Completeness has been measured as a function of scan region and flux density. Averaging over the whole survey area the follow-up survey is 78% complete above 50mJy and 93% complete above 100mJy. 3332 sources with declination <-15deg have good quality almost simultaneous observations at 4.8, 8.6, and 20GHz. The spectral analysis shows that the sample is dominated by flat-spectrum sources. The fraction of flat-spectrum sources decreases from 81% for 20GHz flux densities S>500mJy, to 60% for S<100mJy. There is also a clear spectral steepening at higher frequencies with the median spectral index decreasing from -0.16 between 4.8 and 8.6GHz to -0.28 between 8.6 and 20GHz. Simultaneous observations in polarisation are available for all the sources at all the frequencies. 768 sources have a good quality detection of polarised flux density at 20GHz; 467 of them were also detected in polarisation at 4.8 and/or at 8.6GHz so that it has been possible to compare the spectral behaviour in total intensity and polarisation. We have found that the polarised fraction increases slightly with frequency and decreases with flux density. Cross matches and comparisons have been made with other catalogues at lower radio frequencies, and in the optical, X-ray and gamma-ray bands. Redshift estimates are available for 825 sources.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA