Governing the Global Regulatory System

This chapter is set against a background in which the regulatory world is grappling with the realization that its regulatory regimes have been less than adequate to cope with the fast changing pace of financial innovation, sophisticated securitization and unfettered financial liberalization

Teachers' Perceptions of the Sources of Collective Efficacy in an Organizational Environment Conducive to Collective Learning

Collective teacher efficacy has emerged as a significant predictor of student achievement and is theorized to influence teachers' actions in ways that improve student learning. Bandura's theory of efficacy formation posits that efficacy beliefs are formed from the perception and interpretation of four sources of efficacy. This qualitative study explored the organizational antecedents of collective teacher efficacy, specifically, how the organizational context of the school, conceptualized as a professional learning community (PLC) influenced teachers' perceptions and interpretations of the sources of efficacy. Teachers were interviewed and observed interacting with faculty and administrators. The study found that the PLC conditions shared vision, collective learning, and shared and supportive leadership had the most significant impact on teachers' collective efficacy beliefs. In addition, the student demographic, predominantly minority, low-income students, influenced how teachers conceptualized the teaching task and how they assessed the competence of their colleagues. Individual-level attributes such as years of teaching experience also accounted for differences in teachers' perceptions and interpretations of efficacy sources. Finally, the study found support for the importance of the principal's role in the development of teachers' collective efficacy beliefs

Controls-structures-electromagnetics interaction program

A technology development program is described involving Controls Structures Electromagnetics Interaction (CSEI) for large space structures. The CSEI program was developed as part of the continuing effort following the successful kinematic deployment and RF tests of the 15 meter Hoop/Column antenna. One lesson learned was the importance of making reflector surface adjustment after fabrication and deployment. Given are program objectives, ground based test configuration, Intelsat adaptive feed, reflector shape prediction model, control experiment concepts, master schedule, and Control Of Flexible Structures-II (COFS-II) baseline configuration

Evaluating the Cephalonia method of library induction

This is a PDF version of an article published in SCONUL Focus© 2007. SCONUL Focus is available online at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletterThis article discusses the results of a survey carried out at the University of Chester library into student feedback of the Cephalonia method of library induction

Solution of the Multiple-Constraint Allocation Problem Using Recursive Search Dynamic Programming

Engineerin

Infant Serum and Maternal Milk Vitamin B-12 Are Positively Correlated in Kenyan Infant-Mother Dyads at 1-6 Months Postpartum, Irrespective of Infant Feeding Practice.

BackgroundVitamin B-12 is an essential nutrient required for many functions including DNA synthesis, erythropoiesis, and brain development. If maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentrations are low, infants may face elevated risks of deficiency when exclusively breastfed.ObjectiveWe evaluated cross-sectional associations between infant serum vitamin B-12 concentrations and maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentrations at 1-6 mo postpartum among an unsupplemented population in rural western Kenya, and assessed biological demographic, and dietary characteristics associated with adequate infant serum vitamin B-12.MethodsWe modeled 1) infant serum vitamin B-12 using maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentration with linear regression; and 2) adequate (>220 pmol/L) infant serum vitamin B-12 using hypothesized biological, demographic, and dietary predictors with logistic regression. In both models, we used generalized estimating equations to account for correlated observations at the cluster-level.ResultsThe median (quartile 1, quartile 3) infant serum vitamin B-12 concentration was 276 pmol/L (193, 399 pmol/L) and approximately one-third of infants had serum vitamin B-12 ≤220 pmol/L, indicating that they were vitamin B-12 depleted or deficient. There was a positive correlation between maternal milk and infant serum vitamin B-12 (r = 0.36, P < 0.001) and in multivariable analyses, maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentration was significantly associated with infant serum vitamin B-12 adequacy (P-trend = 0.03).ConclusionsDespite a high prevalence (90%) of maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentrations below the level used to establish the Adequate Intake (<310 pmol/L), there was a low prevalence of infant vitamin B-12 deficiency. We found few factors that were associated with infant vitamin B-12 adequacy in this population, including infant feeding practices, although maternal vitamin B-12 status was not measured. The contribution of maternal milk to infant vitamin B-12 status remains important to quantify across populations, given that maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentration is modifiable with supplementation. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01704105

Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Panel Two: Who\u27s Minding the Baby?)

A central characteristic of our current gender arrangements is that they pit ideal worker women against marginalized caregiver women in a series of patterned conflicts I call gender wars. One version of these are the mommy wars that we see often covered in the press between employed mothers and mothers at home. Employed mothers at times participate in the belittlement commonly felt by homemakers. Also mothers at home, I think, at times participate in the guilt-tripping that\u27s often felt by mothers who are employed. These gender wars are a central but little understood characteristic of the gender system that grew up after 1780, which historians call domesticity. One of the basic arguments in the book is that gender has proved unbending in the sense that we\u27ve progressed from the original form of domesticity, the breadwinner/housewife version, to the contemporary form of domesticity, the ideal worker-marginalized caregiver system. This modern form is what I sometimes call an attempt again to invent a language that is widely accessible, the dominant domestic ecology. I found that if you call it the sex-gender system, people feel somewhat differently than if you call it the dominant family ecology. The important point is that these gender wars, which are an inherent characteristic of domesticity, are seriously undertheorized by feminist theorists. I think they\u27re really important, because they go to the core of building an effective coalition for gender change with respect to this work-family axis, these economic meanings of gender that Adrienne and I are focusing on. The classic strategy of American feminists has been that women should achieve equality by performing as ideal workers along with the men, with child care delegated to the market. I call this the full commodification model, until Adrienne came up with a far better name. She calls it the delegation model. So I\u27ll call it the delegation model. Delegation to the market in this country, which was originally conceived of to involve some degree of social subsidy, has become delegation to a largely unsubsidized market in which child care workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the society. They also have extremely high rates of turnover, which is not good because children need continuity of care. The result is a delegation model that is not likely to appeal to nonprivileged people, because in this social context, delegation means that working-class people, who a generation ago had access to the same kind of mothercare that middle-class people had, today have only market child care that reflects their disadvantaged class position