High School Students at Risk: The Challenge of Dropouts and Pushouts

Analyzes the factors contributing to high dropout rates at schools in New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas. Explores the available alternatives and program reforms that have been implemented to improve graduation rates at urban schools

Immigrant Students, Urban High Schools: The Challenge Continues

Uses examples from New York, Houston, and North Carolina to explore some of the innovative programs that are helping immigrants become educated citizens and productive workers, and highlights issues related to establishing a new educational framework

MINDS MOVING ON SILENCE: P.B. Shelley, Robert Browning, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot.

The purpose of this study is to explore the function and significance of the various representations and manifestations of silence in the poetry of Shelley, Browning, Yeats and Eliot. Attention ranges from specific allusions to the absence of speech and sound, to the role played by punctuation and poetic form. The choice of these poets stems from Shelley’s function as an acknowledged, influential precursor to both Browning and Yeats and, as an un-acknowledged, though arguably no less essential, influence on Eliot. The aim is to establish to what extent poetic interaction with silence alters and shifts in the period under study, and to make coherent the development from Shelley to Eliot in their fascination with silence, and its centrality to poetic expression. The approach primarily involves close textual analysis of the poetry itself, the objective being to access a new angle of consideration by focusing on each poet’s particular relationship with silence, and the extent to which this cumulatively expands into either a coherent philosophy, or a series of recurring themes on the part of the poet. The thesis is also concerned with poetic influence. Theorists who have previously written on silence, such as Steiner and Wagner-Lawlor, are also engaged with, as are critics concerned with the specific poets and epochs addressed (e.g Bloom, Ricks, Keach, O’Neill, and Perry). Chapters look in turn at Shelley’s Mont Blanc, considering the role played by silence in the poem’s consideration of the relationship between imagination and nature (1); at the same poet’s treatment of the relationship between poetry and death (2); at Browning’s relationship with the unrealized objective, especially in relation to love (3); at the role of the silent auditor in Browning’s dramatic monologues (4); at the relationship between silence and the unknown in Yeats’s poetry, and the extent to which he substituted an aesthetic approach for Browning’s preoccupation with justice and pragmatism (5); at silence and the fertile nature of the contradictory in Yeats (6); at modernity and language’s simultaneous pursuit of, and resistance to, silence in the poetry of Eliot (7). Overall, the thesis demonstrates that to discuss the silence of poetry should be as natural, and as necessary, as to discuss the language of it

Rethinking Urban Geographies of Architectural Form and Experience:Exploring 'Event-Space'at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technogy (FACT Centre),Liverpool

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Clinical influences on antibiotic prescribing decisions for lower respiratory tract infection: a nine country qualitative study of variation in care

Objectives: there is variation in antibiotic prescribing for lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) in primary care that does not benefit patients. This study aims to investigate clinicians' accounts of clinical influences on antibiotic prescribing decisions for LRTI to better understand variation and identify opportunities for improvement.Design: multi country qualitative interview study. Semi-structured interviews using open-ended questions and a patient scenario. Data were subjected to five-stage analytic framework approach (familiarisation, developing a thematic framework from the interview questions and emerging themes, indexing, charting and mapping to search for interpretations), with interviewers commenting on preliminary reports.Setting: primary care.Participants: 80 primary care clinicians randomly selected from primary care research networks based in nine European cities.Results: clinicians reported four main individual clinical factors that guided their antibiotic prescribing decision: auscultation, fever, discoloured sputum and breathlessness. These were considered alongside a general impression of the patient derived from building a picture of the illness course, using intuition and familiarity with the patient. Comorbidity and older age were considered main risk factors for poor outcomes. Clinical factors were similar across networks, apart from C reactive protein near patient testing in Tromsø. Clinicians developed ways to handle diagnostic and management uncertainty through their own clinical routines.Conclusions: clinicians emphasised the importance of auscultation, fever, discoloured sputum and breathlessness, general impression of the illness course, familiarity with the patient, comorbidity, and age in informing their antibiotic prescribing decisions for LRTI. As some of these factors may be overemphasised given the evolving evidence base, greater standardisation of assessment and integration of findings may help reduce unhelpful variation in management. Non-clinical influences will also need to be addresse

Biomarker-guided duration of Antibiotic Treatment in Children Hospitalised with confirmed or suspected bacterial infection (BATCH): Protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Introduction Procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker more specific for bacterial infection and responds quicker than other commonly used biomarkers such as C reactive protein, but is not routinely used in the National Health Service (NHS). Studies mainly in adults show that using PCT to guide clinicians may reduce antibiotic use, reduce hospital stay, with no associated adverse effects such as increased rates of hospital re-admission, incomplete treatment of infections, relapse or death. A review conducted for National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends further research on PCT testing to guide antibiotic use in children.Methods and analysis Biomarker-guided duration of Antibiotic Treatment in Children Hospitalised with confirmed or suspected bacterial infection is a multi-centre, prospective, two-arm, individually Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) with a 28-day follow-up and internal pilot. The intervention is a PCT-guided algorithm used in conjunction with best practice. The control arm is best practice alone. We plan to recruit 1942 children, aged between 72 hours and up to 18 years old, who are admitted to the hospital and being treated with intravenous antibiotics for suspected or confirmed bacterial infection. Coprimary outcomes are duration of antibiotic use and a composite safety measure. Secondary outcomes include time to switch from broad to narrow spectrum antibiotics, time to discharge, adverse drug reactions, health utility and cost-effectiveness. We will also perform a qualitative process evaluation. Recruitment commenced in June 2018 and paused briefly between March and May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Giant Huang–Rhys Factor for Electron Capture by the Iodine Intersitial in Perovskite Solar Cells

Improvement in the optoelectronic performance of halide perovskite semiconductors requires the identification and suppression of nonradiative carrier trapping processes. The iodine interstitial has been established as a deep level defect and implicated as an active recombination center. We analyze the quantum mechanics of carrier trapping. Fast and irreversible electron capture by the neutral iodine interstitial is found. The effective Huang–Rhys factor exceeds 300, indicative of the strong electron–phonon coupling that is possible in soft semiconductors. The accepting phonon mode has a frequency of 53 cm–1 and has an associated electron capture coefficient of 1 × 10–10 cm3 s–1. The inverse participation ratio is used to quantify the localization of phonon modes associated with the transition. We infer that suppression of octahedral rotations is an important factor to enhance defect tolerance

Protocol for an open label: phase I trial within a cohort of foetal cell transplants in people with Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterised by motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. Currently, no disease-modifying therapies are available to slow or halt disease progression. Huntington’s disease is characterised by relatively focal and specific loss of striatal medium spiny neurons, which makes it suitable for cell replacement therapy, a process involving the transplantation of donor cells to replace those lost due to disease. TRIDENT (TRIal DEsigns for delivery of Novel Therapies in neurodegeneration) is a phase I Trial Within a Cohort (TWiC) designed to assess safety and feasibility of transplanting human fetalstriatal cells into the striatum of people with Huntington’s disease. A minimum of 18 participants will be enrolled in the study cohort, and up to five eligible participants will be randomly selected to undergo transplantation of 12-22 million fetal cells in a dose escalation paradigm. Independent reviewers will assess safety outcomes (lack of significant infection, bleeding or new neurological deficit) four weeks after surgery, and ongoing safety will be established before conducting each subsequent surgery. All participants will undergo detailed clinical and functional assessment at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Surgery will be performed one month after baseline, and transplant participants will undergo regular clinical follow-up for at least 12 months. Evaluation of trial processes will also be undertaken. Transplant participants and their carers will be interviewed approximately one month before and after surgery. Interviews will also be conducted with non-transplanted participants and healthcare staff delivering the intervention and involved in the clinical care of participants. Evaluation of clinical and functional efficacy outcomes and intervention costs will be carried out to explore plausible trial designs for subsequent randomised controlled trials aimed at evaluating efficacy and cost-effectiveness of cell replacement therapy. TRIDENT will enable the assessment of the safety, feasibility, acceptability and cost of fetalcell transplants in people with Huntington’s disease. The data collected will inform trial designs for complex intracranial interventions in a range of neurodegenerative conditions and facilitate the development of stable surgical pipelines for delivery of future stem cell trials