Cognitive Frameworks that Enable South Carolina High School Principals to Implement Smaller Learning Communities

The demands of an ever-changing technological and diverse global society contribute to the need for systemic change in today\u27s secondary schools. Faced with these realities, American high schools must set course on a new mission for education. Not only must high schools require differentiated instructions to accommodate students\u27 needs, high school personnel must also be held accountable for student learning by producing a high quality education. Because of the variety of these diverse issues, high school principals are faced with overcoming the challenges and obstacles that confront high school reforms. The research regarding smaller learning communities is well-documented and encouraging. While the practice can become the focus for producing higher achievement, educators must create new paradigms of operations. In many cases, traditional standards and procedures must be abandoned in order to increase school-wide success. Little is known of South Carolina\u27s high school administrators as they attempt to find solutions to meet the needs of rapidly growing and diverse student populations. Little is also known of the experiences of South Carolina high school principals as they implement smaller learning communities, or the forces confronting those transitions. Therefore, the researcher examined the supporting and impeding forces experienced by South Carolina high school principals implementing smaller learning communities. In addition, the researcher analyzed the strategies used by administrators to overcome the forces, using Bolman and Deal\u27s (2008) four frames: human resources, political, structural, and symbolic. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with administrators in seven South Carolina high schools located in five school districts. The researcher analyzed the forces as well as strategies used by administrators to overcome the forces at work. The researcher categorized the strategies used by administrators to deal with the forces into four frames: human resources, political, structural, and symbolic. In analyzing the cognitive frameworks commonly used by administrators in implementing smaller learning communities, the researcher found that the majority of cognitive frames fell within the human resource framework. The second largest group of responses fell within the structural framework followed by the symbolic framework and then the political framework

An Open Source Pattern Recognition Toolbox for MATLAB

Pattern recognition and machine learning are becoming integral parts of algorithms in a wide range of applications. Different algorithms and approaches for machine learning include different tradeoffs between performance and computation, so during algorithm development it is often necessary to explore a variety of different approaches to a given task. A toolbox with a unified framework across multiple pattern recognition techniques enables algorithm developers the ability to rapidly evaluate different choices prior to deployment. MATLAB is a widely used environment for algorithm development and prototyping, and although several MATLAB toolboxes for pattern recognition are currently available these are either incomplete, expensive, or restrictively licensed. In this work we describe a MATLAB toolbox for pattern recognition and machine learning known as the PRT (Pattern Recognition Toolbox), licensed under the permissive MIT license. The PRT includes many popular techniques for data preprocessing, supervised learning, clustering, regression and feature selection, as well as a methodology for combining these components using a simple, uniform syntax. The resulting algorithms can be evaluated using cross-validation and a variety of scoring metrics to ensure robust performance when the algorithm is deployed. This paper presents an overview of the PRT as well as an example of usage on Fisher's Iris dataset

E Pluribus Unum: Religious Pluralism in the Military

America has been called a nation with the soul of a church. 1 Religious language and symbolism rooted in the Judea-Christian experience abounds in the history and social ritual of America. Since the first inaugural address of President George Washington, our chief executives have invoked that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every defect. 2 And the first ten amendments to the Constitution included a prohibition against state­ imposed religion and a guarantee of religious freedom for our citizens

Archaeological Backgrounds of the Sanctuary: A Search for Egyptian Cultural Influence in the Construction of the Hebrew Tent-Sanctuary

Problem Although the documented description of the construction of the tent-sanctuary appears to give it an Egyptian context in terms of the materials used and the culture of the artisans, in three distinct spheres (sacred, royal-domestic, and military), very little work has been done in comparing the descriptions in the text with the recovered archaeological fabric from Egypt and no study has, as yet, taken the next step of quantifying that comparison through a potentially-repeatable statistical analysis in an effort to determine, in an unbiased manner, the nature of the relationship. Method Design and frequency data of the appearing materials were collected from the Hebrew text regarding the Hebrew tent-sanctuary’s courtyard perimeter barrier, its tabernacle (the central structure itself), and the furnishings within the courtyard and tabernacle. These data were analyzed to provide data sets that could be used for purposes of comparison. Data were next collected from mobile structures and their courtyard perimeter barriers. This was taken from sacred, royal-domestic, and military spheres of New Kingdom Egypt. Frequency data of appearing materials data were also collected from mobile structures, their courtyard perimeters, and any known furnishings. Design data from the furnishings in KV62 (Kings Valley tomb number 62, i.e., the tomb of Tutankhamun) were analyzed and compared with similar data from furnishings in other New Kingdom period-contexts as well as contexts before it to determine cultural preference tendencies in New Kingdom Egypt. These data were analyzed to provide data sets that could be used for purposes of comparison. Finally, data from the Hebrew text were finally compared with data from the Egyptian archaeological record to determine if cultural influence could be identified in each of the elements under study. Results Cultural influence can clearly be identified in some of the elements of the tent-sanctuary. Conclusion. Although the archaeological record is recognized to be incomplete, enough data is available to determine confidently that the description of the construction of the Hebrew tent-sanctuary fits well with the context of New Kingdom Egypt. While not every element of the tent-sanctuary appears to have had Egyptian cultural influence in design, significantly all materials were only available in one period of Egyptian history – the New Kingdom. This study has the potential to inform other studies (typological, symbolic, phenomenological, or interpretive) regarding the tent-sanctuary. Also, because of the relatively clear connection, some of the descriptions of the tent-sanctuary can inform studies on certain elements of New Kingdom Egypt, particularly those associated with the mobile military camp

Foraminiferal Populations of the Goodland Formation, Tarrant County, Texas

Recent studies of foraminiferal populations of the Gulf of Mexico made by Phleger (1951 and 1954), Parker, et al. (1953) , Lowman (1949), and Shepard and Moore (1955) show that different kinds of Foraminifera inhabit waters of different depth, salinity and temperature. These studies should provide evidence from which micropaleontologists may infer the nature of ancient environments, assuming always that fossil Foraminifera had the same habits as their nearest of kin in the modern assemblages. Albritton, et al. (1954) and Curtis (1955) have made quantitative studies of ancient populations, and have found that the Foraminifera tend to corroborate and supplement the chronicle of sedimentation as established on lithologic and other evidence