Regulation of intercommunal financial flows with geostatistics and GIS

Concerning the characterisation or classification of municipalities a wide range of different approaches exists. Usually some historical, functional, and/or political indicators are used for such a classification. These indicators are usually structured simple, referring to inhabitant size, political importance, configuration of available infrastructure like hospitals and schools, places of work, or the like. However, an application field, where a quite specific, meaningful, and comprehensible classification for each municipality is of fundamental interest, is the local financial adjustment between communities on the same hierarchical administrative level. Which municipality delivers gladly more money than it is forced to do by law, or which community renounces voluntarily external support? Therefore, well elaborated indicators are needed to define the amount of money which has to be transferred, generally spoken, from rich communities to the poorer ones. However, it is obvious that a pure redistribution of revenues between financially strong and financially weak communities, which would lead in principle to a more or less equal financial configuration of the communities, is not sufficient for a fair system of financial adjustment. Such a redistribution system would not consider the different financial loads of the budgets of different types of communes. These varying financial loads for varying types of commues can be characterised by the following two concepts: 'costs of width' and 'costs of density'. The 'costs of width' are explained mainly by geographical reasons for peripheral and/or mountainous communities with low population density, which implies specific financial load for the particular community. By contrast, 'costs of density' are explained by disproportional high socio-demographic burdens and high costs of infrastructure in central and urban communities. Meaningful indicators for such a financially oriented classification of municipalities need detailed investigations, to be silent completely of that these indicators also need political acceptance, in the end. This paper presents a study carried out for the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, which made part of the cantonal revision of the system of inter-communal financial adjustment. The aim was to provide means for a cantonal regulation on how the financial adjustment between the communities should be regulated. Therefore, socio-demographic and geographic indicators have been evaluated in order to find rules to reflect the financial load of the municipal budgets. The heuristically driven statistical modelling has been carried out using multiple regression. Besides the presentation of the technical approach, this paper discusses the analysed indicators in the perspective of regional policy and territorial justice.

Encouraging teachers to become research-active

De Bie, M., & Van der Klink, M. (2010). Encouraging teachers to become research-active. Paper presented at the ATEE conference. August, 28, 2010, Budapest, Hungary.This paper discusses the evaluation of trajectories for teachers involved in teacher researc

Redoublement et stigmatisation : conséquences pour l’image de soi des élèves

Dans le champ de recherche dédié au redoublement, les recherches s’intéressent principalement aux conséquences cognitives. L’intérêt de cette recherche est de se focaliser sur les conséquences psychologiques du redoublement. Pour cela, des élèves redoublants et non-redoublants ont complété un questionnaire destiné à : 1) mesurer les stéréotypes rattachés aux redoublants, 2) comparer l’estime de soi des élèves redoublants à celle de leurs pairs non-redoublants. Les résultats montrent que les redoublants sont victimes de stéréotypes négatifs qui peuvent affecter leur estime de soi. Les résultats sont ensuite discutés et des pistes de réflexion et d’amélioration sont avancées.Research regarding grade retention has mainly been interested in its consequences on pupils’ cognitive competencies. This study focuses on the consequences of grade retention on pupils’ psychological well-being. Retained as well as promoted pupils had to complete a questionnaire designed to: 1) measure stereotypes related to pupils that repeat a year, 2) compare their level of self-esteem with non-retained pupils’ one. Results show that retained pupils are negatively stereotyped and that such a discrimination may affect their self-esteem. Findings are then discussed and future research directions are proposed

Improved detection of artifactual viral minority variants in high-throughput sequencing data

textabstractHigh-throughput sequencing (HTS) of viral samples provides important information on the presence of viral minority variants. However, detection and accurate quantification is limited by the capacity to distinguish biological from artificial variation. In this study, errors related to the Illumina HiSeq2000 library generation and HTS process were investigated by determining minority variant frequencies in an influenza A/WSN/1933(H1N1) virus reverse-genetics plasmid pool. Errors related to amplification and sequencing were determined using the same plasmid pool, by generation of infectious virus using reverse genetics followed by in duplo reverse-transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) amplification and HTS in the same sequence run. Results showed that after "best practice" quality control (QC), within the plasmid pool, one minority variant with a frequency >0.5% was identified, while 84 and 139 were identified in the RT-PCR amplified samples, indicating RT-PCR amplification artificially increased variation. Detailed analysis showed that artifactual minority variants could be identified by two major technical characteristics: their predominant presence in a single read orientation and uneven distribution of mismatches over the length of the reads. We demonstrate that by addition of two QC steps 95% of the artifactual minority variants could be identified. When our analysis approach was applied to three clinical samples 68% of the initially identified minority variants were identified as artifacts. Our study clearly demonstrated that, without additional QC steps, overestimation of viral minority variants is very likely to occur, mainly as a consequence of the required RT-PCR amplification step. The improved ability to detect and correct for artifactual minority variants, increases data resolution and could aid both past and future studies incorporating HTS. The source code has been made available through Sourceforge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mva-ngs)

Un réseau d’enseignement prioritaire dans le canton de Genève : quels effets sur les élèves ?

La lutte contre l’échec scolaire est en débat permanent à l’école, et ce quel que soit le pays. Depuis de nombreuses années, certains pays européens ont mis en place des politiques d’éducation compensatoire inspirées de celles introduites aux États-Unis dès les années soixante. En 2006, le canton de Genève a mis en place une politique de ce type. Après avoir donné un aperçu de la situation des politiques d’éducation prioritaire en Europe et de leurs effets, nous décrirons le réseau d’enseignement prioritaire genevois (REP par la suite) et ses spécificités. Dans un deuxième temps, nous tenterons de mesurer ses effets sur les acquis des élèves en comparant les élèves du REP à d’autres provenant d’établissements comparables non REP. Un groupe témoin d’établissements présentant les mêmes caractéristiques que les écoles REP a été constitué, ceci afin de se rapprocher du schéma des études quasi expérimentales. Des analyses multiniveaux ont été réalisées sur différentes mesures de performances scolaires. Conformément à ce que montre la littérature existante, les analyses ne permettent pas de mettre en évidence des effets de cette politique sur les acquis des élèves mais plutôt sur le climat scolaire.The fight against school failure is under permanent debate at school whatever the country. Many years ago, some European countries implemented priority education policies inspired by those introduced in the USA in the 1960s. In 2006, the same kind of policy was implemented in Geneva. The outline of priority education policies and their effects in Europe will be followed by the presentation of Geneva’s priority education network (REP) and its specific characteristics. Then, attempts at measuring its impact on students’ learning outcomes will be based on benchmarking REP students against non-REP students from comparable schools. A control group of schools featuring the same characteristics as REP schools was established in order to come close to the model of quasi-experimental studies. Multilevel analyses of various measures of academic performance were carried out. In keeping with what existing literature shows, analyses cannot prove tangible effects of this policy on students’ achievement but rather on the school environment.La lucha contra el fracaso escolar es un debate permanente en la escuela, sea cual sea el país. Desde hace muchos años, algunos países europeos pusieron en marcha políticas de educación compensatoria inspiradas en las que se introdujeron en Estados Unidos desde el principio de los años sesenta. En 2006, el cantón de Ginebra puso en marcha una política de ese tipo. Tras haber dado una idea general de la situación de las políticas de educación prioritaria en Europa y de sus efectos, describiremos la red de enseñanza prioritaria de Ginebra (REP más tarde) y sus especificidades. En un segundo tiempo, trataremos de medir sus efectos respecto a las adquisiciones de los alumnos comparando a los alumnos de la REP con otros procedentes de centros comparables pero no pertenecientes a la REP. Un grupo experimental de centros que presentan las mismas características que las escuelas REP se constituyó a fin de acercarse al esquema de los estudios casi experimentales. Se realizaron análisis multiniveles respecto a diferentes medidas de éxitos escolares. Conforme con lo que muestran los estudios existentes, los análisis no permiten poner de realce efectos de dicha política en las adquisiciones de los alumnos pero sí en el ambiente escolar.Der Kampf gegen schulischen Misserfolg steht in der Schule in allen Ländern permanent zur Debatte. Seit mehreren Jahren haben einige europäische Länder eine schulpolitische Kompensation eingeführt, die sich von der amerikanischen Politik der 60er Jahre hat inspirieren lassen. 2006 hat der Kanton Genf eine solche Politik eingeführt. Nachdem wir uns einen Überblick über schulpolitische Fördermaßnahmen in Europa und ihre Auswirkungen gemacht haben, beschreiben wir das Genfer Fördernetz REP und seine Besonderheiten. Dann versuchen wir, seinen Einfluss auf den Schülererwerb zu messen, in dem wir die REP-Schüler mit anderen Schülern aus Schulen außerhalb des REP vergleichen. Eine Probegruppe von Schulen mit den gleichen Merkmalen wie die REP-Schulen wurde gebildet, um so nah wie möglich am Schema der quasi experimentellen Studien zu kommen. Multistufen-Analysen wurden über verschiedene Messungen der Schülerleistung durchgeführt. Im Gegensatz zu dem, was die bestehende Literatur zeigt, erlauben die Analysen nicht, die Auswirkungen dieser Politik auf den Schülererwerb zu betonen, sondern eher auf das Schulklima

The Role of Intravitreal Corticosteroids in the Treatment of DME: Predictive OCT Biomarkers

Abstract: This work aims to summarize predictive biomarkers to guide treatment choice in DME. Intravitreal anti-VEGF is considered the gold standard treatment for centers involving DME, while intravitreal steroid treatment has been established as a second-line treatment in DME. However, more than 1/3 of the patients do not adequately respond to anti-VEGF treatment despite up to 4-weekly injections. Not surprisingly, insufficient response to anti-VEGF therapy has been linked to low-normal VEGF levels in the serum and aqueous humor. These patients may well benefit from an early switch to intravitreal steroid treatment. In these patients, morphological biomarkers visible in OCT may predict treatment response and guide treatment decisions. Namely, the presence of a large amount of retinal and choroidal hyperreflective foci, disruption of the outer retinal layers and other signs of chronicity such as intraretinal cysts extending into the outer retina and a lower choroidal vascular index are all signs suggestive of a favorable treatment response of steroids compared to anti-VEGF. This paper summarizes predictive biomarkers in DME in order to assist individual treatment decisions in DME. These markers will help to identify DME patients who may benefit from primary dexamethasone treatment or an early switc

Children's opinions about organ donation:a first step to assent?

Background: Parents have to decide about organ donation after the death of their child. Although most parents probably would like to respect their child's intentions, parents often are not aware of their child's wishes. This requires insight into children's opinions about donation. Methods: An internet survey that investigated whether Dutch children in the age range of 12 through 15 years had heard about organ donation, what their opinions were on donation and whether the topic had been discussed at home. Questionnaire response rate 38%. Results: Around 99% of 2016 responders had heard about organ donation and about the possibility of becoming a donor, 75% preferred to decide for themselves about donation, 43% had discussed organ donation more than once at home, 66% were willing to donate. The willingness to donate was positively associated with age and socio-economic status. Conclusion: This survey indicates that these children at 12 through 15 years of age are capable and willing to think about organ donation. Thought should be given about how to raise awareness and how to enable parents and children to develop some sort of health literacy concerning the concept of organ donation. Children and their parents should be given adequate opportunities to receive appropriate information, suited to their psychological and moral developmental status

Education on organ donation and transplantation in primary school; teachers' support and the first results of a teaching module

Organ and tissue donation can also involve children. Because of its sensitivity, this topic requires careful decision making. Children have the ability to carefully reflect on this subject and enjoy participating in family discussions about it. Therefore, what children need is proper information. When schools are used to educate children about this subject, information about teacher support for this type of lesson along with its effects on the depth of family discussions is important.A questionnaire was sent to all 7,542 primary schools in the Netherlands. The goal was to gather information on teachers' perspectives about a neutral lesson devoted to organ and tissue donation, and also on the best age to start giving such a lesson. The second part of our study examined the effects of a newly developed lesson among 269 primary school pupils. The school response was 23%. Of these, 70% were positive towards a lesson; best age to start was 10-11 years. Pupils reported 20% more family discussions after school education and enjoyed learning more about this topic. There is significant support in primary schools for a school lesson on organ and tissue donation. Educational programs in schools support family discussions