EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN SCHOOLS WITH POSITIVE CLIMATES IN THE AGE OF HIGH-STAKES TEACHER EVALUATIONS

The purpose of this research project was to understand the leadership practices and characteristics of school leaders within schools identified as having a positive school climate. In this qualitative study, three focus groups of teachers were interviewed and asked a series of questions about their principals’ professional practices and characteristics. The building principals from these schools were also interviewed individually. These responses were scripted and analyzed using an open-coding model and then compared to recent educational leadership literature. Key findings from this research include professional practices and characteristics of principals in schools with positive climate, as well as recommendations for current and future school leaders and possibilities for future research

Economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health: a population based study concerning risk accumulation, critical period and social mobility

Background: Research in recent decades increasingly indicates the importance of conditions in early life for health in adulthood. Only few studies have investigated socioeconomic conditions in both childhood and adulthood in relation to health testing the risk accumulation, critical period, and social mobility hypotheses within the same setting. This study investigates the associations between economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health with reference to the accumulation, critical period and social mobility hypotheses in life course epidemiology, taking demographic, social support, trust and lifestyle factors into account. Methods: The public health survey in Skane (southern Sweden) in 2008 is a cross-sectional postal questionnaire study based on a random sample, in which 28,198 persons aged 18-80 years participated (55% participation). Logistic regression models were used to investigate associations between economic stress in childhood and adulthood, and self-rated health. Results: Three life-course socioeconomic models concerning the association between economic stress and self-rated health (SRH) were investigated. The results showed a graded association between the combined effect of childhood and adulthood economic stress and poor SRH in accordance with the accumulation hypothesis. Furthermore, upward social mobility showed a protecting effect and downward mobility increased odds ratios of poor SRH in accordance with the social mobility hypothesis. High/severe economic stress exposures in both stages of life were independently associated with poor SRH in adulthood. Furthermore, stratifying the study population into six age groups showed similar odds ratios of poor SRH regarding economic stress exposure in childhood and adulthood in all age groups among both men and women. Conclusions: The accumulation and social mobility hypotheses were confirmed. The critical period model was confirmed in the sense that both economic stress in childhood and adulthood had independent effects on poor SRH. However, it was not confirmed in the sense that a particular window in time (in childhood or adulthood) had a specifically high impact on self-rated health

Antibodies på Trapholt - en udstilling mere underholdende end oplysende

Museet Trapholt huser netop nu Campana brødrenes værker i udstillingen Antibodies. Udstillingen er imponerende, og det er gode historier om brødrenes udgangspunkt i materialerne vi får ved en guidet tur rund blandt de mange voluminøse, farverige, særlige værker. Men det er alt hvad museumsgæsten bliver præsenteret for; gode, lettere indholdsløse historier, og intet dybereliggende rationale bag fremvisningen af disse særlige møbler. Dette lægger op til en mere overordnet diskussion af museumsinstitutionen i vores samfund – hvad bør designmuseets rolle være? Det kan ikke kun handle om kulturel underholdning, designmuseet må tillige have et formidlingsansvar overfor de besøgende og tage deres rolle som oplysende institution alvorlig – og dette uanset hvad der er udgangspunktet for museets fremvisning af designgenstande

A simple way to evaluate self-designed probes for tumor specific Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) is widely used for analysis of copy number variations (CNVs) in single or multiple loci. MLPA is a versatile methodology and important tool in cancer research; it provides precise information on increased or decreased copy number at specific loci as opposed to loss of heterozygosity (LOH) studies based upon microsatellite analysis. Pre-designed MLPA kits and software are commercially available to analyze multiple exons, genes, and genomic regions. However, an increasing demand for new gene specific assays makes it necessary to self-design new MLPA probes for which the available software may not be applicable. During evaluation of new self-designed reference probes, we encountered a number of problems, especially when applying the MLPA methodology to tumor samples.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>DNA samples from 48 unaffected individuals and 145 breast cancer patients were used to evaluate 11 self-designed MLPA probes and determine the cut-off values for CNV, before applying the MLPA probes to normalize the target probes in a cohort of affected individuals. To test the calculation strategy, three probes were designed to cover regions in Regulator of G-protein Signaling 8 (<it>RGS8</it>), which we previously have identified as being affected by allelic imbalance by LOH analysis across <it>RGS8 </it>in the cohort comprising 145 breast tumors. Agreement between the LOH results and the results obtained by each of the three MLPA probes in <it>RGS8 </it>was found for 64%, 73%, and 91%, of the analyzed samples, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Here, we present a straightforward method, based upon the normalization pattern in both unaffected and affected individuals, to evaluate self-designed reference probes and to calculate CNV for the MLPA assay with specific focus on the difficulties when analyzing tumor DNA.</p

«Æ har fortsatt myredialækt! Æ snakke ikkje sånn så di i Tromsø!» En språkvitenskapelig masteravhandling om språkvariasjon, dialekt og holdninger hos seks øksnesværinger i Tromsø by

I denne masteravhandlingen er språk på flyttefot i fokus. Hva skjer med språket når man flytter på seg, og hva skjer når flyttingen skjer mellom bygd og by? Seks innflyttere i Tromsø som opprinnelig kommer fra Øksnes kommune i Nordland ble intervjuet, og gjennom transkripsjon har jeg kartlagt språkene deres. Informantene hadde bodd i Tromsø i alt fra 7 til 18 år, og gruppen utgjorde tre kvinner og tre menn i alderspennet 27-37 år. Ved å se etter noen bestemte leksikalske, morfologiske eller fonologiske variabler (som tradisjonelt sett er ulike mellom øksnesmål og tromsømål), ble det telt og registrert variasjon. Det teoretiske rammeverket utgjorde akkommodasjonsteorien, og teorien om sosiale nettverk. Hvorvidt er det snakk om språklig tilpasning hos informantene? Eller har det sosiale nettverket rundt dem noe å si? I tillegg ble de sosiolingvistiske begrepene "status" og "prestisje" anvendt i forsøket på å forklare den eventuelle språkvariasjonen som ble registrert. Andre sosiale variabler som språk og identitet, samt holdninger, alder og kjønn ble trukket inn i oppgaven

Redusering av vold på sikkerhetsseksjon. Hvordan kan sykepleiere, ved hjelp av miljøterapeutiske tiltak, bidra til å redusere risikoen for vold på en sikkerhetsseksjon?

Problemstilling: Hvordan kan sykepleiere, ved hjelp av miljøterapeutiske tiltak, bidra til å redusere risikoen for vold på en sikkerhetsseksjon? Hensikt: Hensikten med oppgaven er å undersøke hvilke tiltak sykepleier kan iverksette i arbeidet med å redusere og forebygge vold på en sikkerhetsseksjon, samt belyse utfordringer, etikk og miljø. Metode: Oppgaven tar for seg en litterær oppgave for å belyse problemstillingen. Systematiske søk gjennom databasene Cinahl, Medline og Oria har blitt gjennomført, hvorav fem forskningsartikler ble inkludert. Funn: Miljøterapeutriske tiltak som kommunikasjon, et trygt miljø og bruk av kartleggingsverktøyene ERM, HCR-20 og BVC viser gode resultater i arbeidet med å redusere risikoen for vold på en sikkerhetsseksjon. Konklusjon: Å redusere vold på en sikkerhetsseksjon avhenger av gode sammensatte miljøterapeutiske tiltak som inkluderer sykepleiere med et faglig, etisk og juridisk grunnlag, kombinert med tilstedeværelse, gode kommunikasjonsferdigheter og kartleggingsverktøy

Følelser i politik: en ny tilgang til at forstå politisk adfærd

Følelser bliver ofte anset for at være problematiske i et demokratisk samfund, hvor rationaliteten efter sigende bør råde. Men følelser er reelt uomgængelige i politik, fordi politik handler om mennesker, og følelser gennemsyrer al menneskelig beslutningstagning. Denne artikel giver en introduktion til forskningen i følelser i politik, der er inde i en hastig udvikling i disse år. Artiklen behandler, hvad følelser er, og giver et overblik over en række specifikke følelsers funktioner, eksempelvis vrede, medfølelse og frygt, samt deres konsekvenser for politisk adfærd. Med afsæt i seks udbredte misforståelser runder artiklen af med at opstille seks principper for, hvordan følelsers betydning for politik kan forstås

Four cases on market orientation of value chains in agribusiness and fisheries

This working paper presents results from the project ‘Supra-company level determinants of degree of market orientation of value chains in agriculture and fisheries’, which is carried out in cooperation between MAPP – Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark, the Norwegian College of Fisheries Science, University of Tromsø, Norway, and the Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Scotland. It has benefited from grants from the Danish Social Science Research Council and from the Norwegian Research Council. The present working paper is the ‘long’ version of the empirical work in the first major phase of the project, where we study four examples of food value chains to get insight into their degree of market orientation and possible determinants. The insights gained here have been used in subsequent empirical work that is currently underwayMarket orientation;