Local School-System Use of State-Level Educational Goals in Selected States

Problem. A major component of state-level educational accountability systems is the specification of goals upon which other components of the systems are established. The use being made of these goals at the local-school-district level in states where they exist has not been formally investigated. This study examines the extent of use being made of state- level educational goals in the development of local-district goals and programs in the states of Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Method. The writer developed a six-item survey instrument to examine specific uses of state-level goals by local districts. This was sent to 766 local school-distrlct superintendents in Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, andRhode Island. There were 608 or 80 percent usable returns available for analysis. The subjects were asked to indicate a rank selection ranging from always to never regarding Che use of state goals in each category. Six hypotheses were developed for the study. The first and second hypotheses related to the use of state-level goals in local district goal and program development. Hypothesis three related to the question of state and local district goal compatibility. The fourth and fifth hypotheses were concerned with the structure and adequacy of the state\u27s assessment program. Hypothesis six related to state-level goals providing direction and purpose for local educational programs. The Kolmogorov-Smimov nonparametrlc test was used to test the data. Results. Null hypotheses specifying there would be no significant difference in the number of times each of five ranks identified as, always, usually, sometimes» infrequently, and never, would be selected by respondents were formulated. All six null hypotheses were rejected at the .05 level of significance, with the point of maximum divergence between what was expected and what was observed occurring at the rank specified as usually . In subgroups of each of the states and small-sized school districts (less than 3,000 pupils), medium-sized school districts (3,001 to 10,000 pupils),and large-sized school districts (over 10,000 pupils) the points of maximum divergence between the expected and observed were statistically significant for at least four and usually six of the hypotheses tested. The consistent exception was Rhode Island where the six null hypotheses were retained. Conclusions. (1) State-level educational goals are influential in the determination of local-district goals and the development of local- district programs in the states of Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan. (2) Superintendents of local school districts in the states of Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan feel their state departments of education view local-district and state-level goal compatibility as desirable. (3) Superintendents of local school districts in the states of Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan feel their state-level assessment programs are structured to evaluate educational outcomes in light of state-level goals and that they do so adequately. (4) Superintendents of school districts in Rhode Island do not support the value of educational goals in local districts to the same extent as those in Colorado, Maryland, and Michigan. (5) School district student population has no influence on the extent to which state-level goals are considered useful at the local-district level in the states in which the study was conducted

Batons and bare heads: the strike at Amato Textile, February 1958

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 3 October, 198

Mobile Banking Adoption: An Exploration of The Behavioural Intention of Consumers in Ireland

This paper investigates mobile banking adoption in Ireland and identifies constructs that influence consumers’ behavioural intentions to adopt mobile banking. A survey tested relationships between proposed factors and consumers’ behavioural intentions. Findings indicate perceived trust, perceived usefulness and compatibility are important influencing factors on consumers’ behaviour. The paper concentrates on six factors affecting behavioural intention to adopt mobile banking. There is a high probability that consumers adopt mobile banking if it is compatible with beliefs, values and, lifestyle experiences. Few studies addressed mobile banking applications on mobile devices in developed nations, nor explored reasons for/against mobile banking adoption in Ireland

The Origin of B-Type Runaway Stars: Non-LTE Abundances as a Diagnostic

There are two accepted mechanisms to explain the origin of runaway OB-type stars: the Binary Supernova Scenario (BSS), and the Cluster Ejection Scenario (CES). In the former, a supernova explosion within a close binary ejects the secondary star, while in the latter close multi-body interactions in a dense cluster cause one or more of the stars to be ejected from the region at high velocity. Both mechanisms have the potential to affect the surface composition of the runaway star. TLUSTY non-LTE model atmosphere calculations have been used to determine atmospheric parameters and carbon, nitrogen, magnesium and silicon abundances for a sample of B-type runaways. These same analytical tools were used by Hunter et al. (2009) for their analysis of 50 B-type open cluster Galactic stars (i.e. non-runaways). Effective temperatures were deduced using the silicon-ionization balance technique, surface gravities from Balmer line profiles and microturbulent velocities derived using the Si spectrum. The runaways show no obvious abundance anomalies when compared with stars in the open clusters. The runaways do show a spread in composition which almost certainly reflects the Galactic abundance gradient and a range in the birthplaces of the runaways in the Galactic disk. Since the observed Galactic abundance gradients of C, N, Mg and Si are of a similar magnitude, the abundance ratios (e.g., N/Mg) are, as obtained, essentially uniform across the sample

Book Reviews

Andrew Singleton, Mary Lou Rasmussen, Anna Halafoff and Gary Bouma, Freedoms, Faiths and Futures: Teenage Australians on Religion, Sexuality and Diversity - Dixon Neil Francis, Religiosity in Australia - Hughes Jason Goroncy and Rod Pattenden, Imagination in an Age of Crisis: Soundings from the Arts and Theology - Lambert Robert Dixon and Mary Eastham, Encountering God: Practical theology and the mission to heal, Explorations in Practical Theology series - Maher Hughes, Philip. Australia’s Religious and Non-Religious Profiles: Analysis of the 2021 Census Data - Rei

Prediction and Control of Urban Stormwater Quality- A Case Study

Paper by Philip B. Bedient, Jeff L. Lambert, Chris B. Amandes, and David P. Smit

The effectiveness of M-health technologies for improving health and health services: a systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND: The application of mobile computing and communication technology is rapidly expanding in the fields of health care and public health. This systematic review will summarise the evidence for the effectiveness of mobile technology interventions for improving health and health service outcomes (M-health) around the world. FINDINGS: To be included in the review interventions must aim to improve or promote health or health service use and quality, employing any mobile computing and communication technology. This includes: (1) interventions designed to improve diagnosis, investigation, treatment, monitoring and management of disease; (2) interventions to deliver treatment or disease management programmes to patients, health promotion interventions, and interventions designed to improve treatment compliance; and (3) interventions to improve health care processes e.g. appointment attendance, result notification, vaccination reminders.A comprehensive, electronic search strategy will be used to identify controlled studies, published since 1990, and indexed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Global Health, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, or the UK NHS Health Technology Assessment database. The search strategy will include terms (and synonyms) for the following mobile electronic devices (MEDs) and a range of compatible media: mobile phone; personal digital assistant (PDA); handheld computer (e.g. tablet PC); PDA phone (e.g. BlackBerry, Palm Pilot); Smartphone; enterprise digital assistant; portable media player (i.e. MP3 or MP4 player); handheld video game console. No terms for health or health service outcomes will be included, to ensure that all applications of mobile technology in public health and health services are identified. Bibliographies of primary studies and review articles meeting the inclusion criteria will be searched manually to identify further eligible studies. Data on objective and self-reported outcomes and study quality will be independently extracted by two review authors. Where there are sufficient numbers of similar interventions, we will calculate and report pooled risk ratios or standardised mean differences using meta-analysis. DISCUSSION: This systematic review will provide recommendations on the use of mobile computing and communication technology in health care and public health and will guide future work on intervention development and primary research in this field

The application of pneumatic jigging in the recovery of metallic fraction from shredded printed wiring boards

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest growing waste streams worldwide with volumes increasing by 40% each year. WEEE has attracted increasing concern worldwide due to its high metal content and the potential environmental threat which results from uncontrolled recycling practices. Innovative physical separation techniques for WEEE recycling are preferential compared with chemical methods because of the reduction of energy and chemical consumption as well as potential environmental threats. Pneumatic jigging is a dry separation process capable of achieving good separation of coarse material within a very narrow density range, which makes it suitable as a pretreatment process for WEEE recycling. The work presented in this paper investigates the potential application of pneumatic jigging in metal recovery from WEEE. A pilot scale pneumatic jig has been developed by University of Nottingham Ningbo to separate shredded printed wiring boards into two streams: a light fraction (mainly non-metallic fraction consisting of glass fiber, fluffs, and plastic pieces) and dense fraction (metallic fraction). The novelty of work presented in this paper is the application of a dry separation technique in WEEE recycling for metal recovery. Compared with conventional wet separation processes involved in WEEE recycling industry, dry separation has the advantage of zero secondary pollution. The results of this experimental program show pneumatic jigging to be an effective and environmental friendly technique as a pretreatment process for the recovery of the metallic fraction from shredded WEEE

Early-type stars observed in the ESO UVES Paranal Observatory Project - V. Time-variable interstellar absorption

The structure and properties of the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) on small scales, sub-au to 1 pc, are poorly understood. We compare interstellar absorption-lines, observed towards a selection of O- and B-type stars at two or more epochs, to search for variations over time caused by the transverse motion of each star combined with changes in the structure in the foreground ISM. Two sets of data were used: 83 VLT- UVES spectra with approximately 6 yr between epochs and 21 McDonald observatory 2.7m telescope echelle spectra with 6 - 20 yr between epochs, over a range of scales from 0 - 360 au. The interstellar absorption-lines observed at the two epochs were subtracted and searched for any residuals due to changes in the foreground ISM. Of the 104 sightlines investigated with typically five or more components in Na I D, possible temporal variation was identified in five UVES spectra (six components), in Ca II, Ca I and/or Na I absorption-lines. The variations detected range from 7\% to a factor of 3.6 in column density. No variation was found in any other interstellar species. Most sightlines show no variation, with 3{\sigma} upper limits to changes of the order 0.1 - 0.3 dex in Ca II and Na I. These variations observed imply that fine-scale structure is present in the ISM, but at the resolution available in this study, is not very common at visible wavelengths. A determination of the electron densities and lower limits to the total number density of a sample of the sightlines implies that there is no striking difference between these parameters in sightlines with, and sightlines without, varying components.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Mask Projection Microstereolithography of Novel Biocompatible Polymers

Mask Projection Microstereolithography (MPμSL) selectively cures entire layers of photopolymer to create three-dimensional parts with features on the micron scale. The resolution and scale of MPμSL are ideal for fabricating tissue engineering scaffolds with designed mesostructure. While MPμSL have excellent resolution, there are few biocompatible materials that are compatible with the vat photopolymerization processes. A novel diacrylate functionalized Pluronic L-31 block-copolymer and poly(propylene glycol diacrylate) were synthesized and processed with MPμSL. The resulting structures were analyzed for biocompatibility, as well as accuracy and mechanical strength to assess feasibility for use in tissue engineering scaffold fabrication. Preliminary fabricated scaffold geometries are presented to validate experimental results.Mechanical Engineerin