School Law for the Principal, A Handbook for Practitioners

A book review of School Law for the Principal, A Handbook for Practitioners, by Robert J. Shoop and Dennis R. Dunklee

The Effects of Catalyst, Free Fatty Acids, and Water on Transecterification of Beef Tallow

Transesterification of beef tallow and methanol is affected by many factors. Catalyst, free fatty acids, and water in beef tallow, and reaction time were investigated. Sodium hydroxide (NUOH) was a more effective catalyst than sodium methoxide (NaMeOj. NaOH and NaMeO reached their maximum activities at 0.3% and 0.5%, w/w of beef tallow, respectively. The presence of water had more negative effect on transesterification than did the presence of free fatty acids (FFA). For best results, the water content of beef tallow should be kept not beyond 0.0696, w/w. FFA content of beef tallow should be kept below 0.596, w/w. The transesterification of beef tallow was very slow in the first minute. The production of beef tallow methyl esters (BTME) was complete after about 15 min. There were still some mono- and diglycerides in the BTME phase after the reaction was finished

Biodiesel Fuel from Animal Fat. Ancillary Studies on Transesterification of Beef Tallow

Transesterification of beef tallow was investigated. The solubility of ethanol in beef tallow was much higher than that of methanol. At 100 °C the solubility of methanol was 19% (w/w). The solubility of ethanol in beef tallow reached 100% (w/w) at about 68 °C. For the distribution of methanol between beef tallow methyl esters (BTME) and glycerol, the percentage of total methanol in the glycerol phase was higher than that in the fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) phase in a simulated system at room temperature. At 65-80 °C, however, the percentage of total methanol in FAME (60% (w/w)) was higher than that in glycerol (40% (w/w)) in a 90:10 (w/w) blend of FAME and glycerol. This coincided with the methanol distribution in the transesterified product. The process for making beef tallow methyl esters should recover methanol using vacuum distillation, separate the ester and glycerol phases, and then wash the beef tallow methyl esters with warm water. At neutral pH, the separation of ester and glycerol and water washing was easier because it reduced emulsion formation

Policosanol Contents and Composition of Grain Sorghum Kernels and Dried Distillers Grains

Grain sorghum can be a major source of policosanols, long-chained alcohols, that have beneficial physiological activities. Sorghum dried distillers grains (DDG), a by-product of ethanol production from grain sorghum. contain a large amount of policosanols. Content and composition of policosanols in long-chained lipids extracted from grain sorghum kernels and DDG were determined. Long-chained lipids were extracted using hot hexane or hot ethanol. The major components of the long-chained lipids extracted from grain sorghum kernels. as determined using HPLC were policosanols (37-44%), aldehydes (44-55%), and acids (4-5%). Long-chained lipids from DDG contained 52% policosanols, 23% aldehydes. 6.4% acids. and l7% wax esters/steryl esters. Composition of policosanols in DDG matched the composition in grain sorghum kernels, as determined by gas chromatography. even though the content of policosanols in DDG was greater than the content in grain sorghum kernels. Policosonal composition ranges were 0-1% C22:0, 0-3% C24:0. 6-8% C26:0, l% C27:0. 43-47% C28:0. 1-2% C29:0. 40-43% C30:0. and 1-4% C32:0

Intelligent Reference Curation for Visual Place Recognition via Bayesian Selective Fusion

A key challenge in visual place recognition (VPR) is recognizing places despite drastic visual appearance changes due to factors such as time of day, season, weather or lighting conditions. Numerous approaches based on deep-learnt image descriptors, sequence matching, domain translation, and probabilistic localization have had success in addressing this challenge, but most rely on the availability of carefully curated representative reference images of the possible places. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, dubbed Bayesian Selective Fusion, for actively selecting and fusing informative reference images to determine the best place match for a given query image. The selective element of our approach avoids the counterproductive fusion of every reference image and enables the dynamic selection of informative reference images in environments with changing visual conditions (such as indoors with flickering lights, outdoors during sunshowers or over the day-night cycle). The probabilistic element of our approach provides a means of fusing multiple reference images that accounts for their varying uncertainty via a novel training-free likelihood function for VPR. On difficult query images from two benchmark datasets, we demonstrate that our approach matches and exceeds the performance of several alternative fusion approaches along with state-of-the-art techniques that are provided with prior (unfair) knowledge of the best reference images. Our approach is well suited for long-term robot autonomy where dynamic visual environments are commonplace since it is training-free, descriptor-agnostic, and complements existing techniques such as sequence matching.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, accepted in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter

Distributed expertise: Qualitative study of a British network of multidisciplinary teams supporting parents of children with chronic kidney disease

© 2014 The Authors. Background: Long-term childhood conditions are often managed by hospital-based multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) of professionals with discipline specific expertise of a condition, in partnership with parents. However, little evidence exists on professional-parent interactions in this context. An exploration of professionals' accounts of the way they individually and collectively teach parents to manage their child's clinical care at home is, therefore, important for meeting parents' needs, informing policy and educating novice professionals. Using chronic kidney disease as an exemplar this paper reports on one aspect of a study of interactions between professionals and parents in a network of 12 children's kidney units in Britain. Methods: We conducted semi-structured, qualitative interviews with a convenience sample of 112 professionals (clinical-psychologists, dietitians, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, play-workers, therapists and social workers), exploring accounts of their parent-educative activity. We analysed data using framework and the concept of distributed expertise. Results: Four themes emerged that related to the way expertise was distributed within and across teams: (i) recognizing each other's' expertise, (ii) sharing expertise within the MDT, (iii) language interpretation, and (iv) acting as brokers. Two different professional identifications were also seen to co-exist within MDTs, with participants using the term 'we' both as the intra-professional 'we' (relating to the professional identity) when describing expertise within a disciplinary group (for example: 'As dietitians we aim to give tailored advice to optimize children's growth'), and the inter-professional 'we' (a 'team-identification'), when discussing expertise within the team (for example: 'We work as a team and make sure we're all happy with every aspect of their training before they go home'). Conclusions: This study highlights the dual identifications implicit in 'being professional' in this context (to the team and to one's profession) as well as the unique role that each member of a team contributes to children's care. Our methodology and results have the potential to be transferred to teams managing other conditions

Using Prior Knowledge and Student Engagement to Understand Student Performance in an Undergraduate Learning-to-Learn Course

This study examined prior knowledge and student engagement in student performance. Log data were used to explore the distribution of final grades (i.e., weak, good, excellent final grades) occurring in an elective under-graduate course. Previous research has established behavioral and agentic engagement factors contribute to academic achievement (Reeve, 2013). Hierarchical logistic regression using both prior knowledge and log data from the course revealed: (a) the weak-grades group demonstrated less behavioral engagement than the good-grades group, (b) the good-grades group demonstrated less agentic engagement than the excellent-grades group, and (c) models composed of both prior knowledge and engagement measures were more accurate than models composed of only engagement measures. Findings demonstrate students performing at different grade-levels may experience different challenges in their course engagement. This study informs our own instructional strategies and interventions to increase student success in the course and provides recommendations for other instructors to support student success

Thermal Degradation Kinetics of Distillers Grains and Solubles in Nitrogen and Air

The pyrolysis and oxidation kinetics of distillers grains and solubles were determined using thermogravimetric analysis. The starting temperature of pyrolysis and oxidation of distillers grains and solubles increased with the increase of heating rate and initial moisture content. The pyrolysis and oxidation of distillers grains and solubles were completed at 650°C and 850°C, respectively, which were independent of the heating rate and the initial moisture content. The residual weights of distillers grains and solubles after pyrolysis and oxidation were 27.15% and 5.49% of the original dry mass of distillers grains and solubles. Thermogravimetrical analysis data was used to determine kinetic parameters of the thermal degradation of distillers grains and solubles. Predicted dynamic residual weights of distillers grains and solubles during thermal degradation agreed well with experimental data. Keywords: biomass, distillers grains and solubles, kinetics, TGA, thermochemica

Controlling woody plants with 2,4,5-T; 2,4-D and ammate

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