Leading a gifted and talented programme in an international school: an examination from a moral leadership perspective

This thesis presents an examination of leadership practice as it responds to the implementation of a gifted and talented program. The examination is conducted through the lens of moral leadership theories. This thesis heeds the call from researchers who have suggested the need for moral case studies to assist school leaders in 'making confident ethical judgments that transcend mere intuition' (Campbell, 1995: p. 605). Theories from moral philosophy and concepts from moral psychology are brought into the discussion in an attempt to address concerns with respects to the theoretical underpinnings of the concept moral leadership. The combined framework advances a model of a moral process that provides specific sign posts that allow for an inquiry into the moral decision making a school leader undergoes in addressing a moral issue. This study uses a multi-method research design involving both narrative and statistical analyses focused upon data generated from semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, observations, and document analysis. My analysis of key informants provides additional insight into the process that school leaders undergo in order to address a moral issue. The significance of the analysis was the generation of five categories: personal integrity, professional ethics, structural collaboration, exogenous influences and constructive concerns. Each of the five categories highlighted were influential in the decision to implement the gifted and talented program. The organisational and geographic context for this examination is an International School located in Turkey (IST)

Multi-Spectral Imaging from LEO: High-Resolution Images and Data from the NAPA-2 Turn-Key Mission

Napa-2 is a 6U Earth observation satellite flying the Simera Sense MultiScape 100CIS: a 7-band multi-spectral line-scan imager. Together with an on-ground calibration and processing chain from Pinkmatter Solutions, the Napa-2 system can deliver high-quality multi-spectral line scan images at an impressive ground sampling distance of 5m. After its launch and deployment in July 2021, hundreds of line scan images have been taken and valuable (and critical) data was obtained from the spacecraft platform related to attitude and control and timing. Imperative to the success of obtaining high-quality images, was the implementation of the newly developed ISISPACE Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS). Line scan images were acquired under different conditions, such as simple flyovers, target pointing, and while executing forward-motion compensation maneuvers. The latter included imaging while the ground speed was reduced up to 50 times! In addition, time-delayed integration was applied in various levels to find the optimal signal-to-noise ratio. With the demand for hyper-spectral imaging from CubeSats, ISISPACE believes that the operational experience gained with multi-spectral imaging in combination with the attitude and orbital control system is vital to be able to educate future customers on the optical performance they can expect

Evidence for diagnosis of early chronic pancreatitis after three episodes of acute pancreatitis : a cross-sectional multicentre international study with experimental animal model

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is an end-stage disease with no specific therapy; therefore, an early diagnosis is of crucial importance. In this study, data from 1315 and 318 patients were analysed from acute pancreatitis (AP) and CP registries, respectively. The population from the AP registry was divided into AP (n=983), recurrent AP (RAP, n=270) and CP (n=62) groups. The prevalence of CP in combination with AP, RAP2, RAP3, RAP4 and RAP5+was 0%, 1%, 16%, 50% and 47%, respectively, suggesting that three or more episodes of AP is a strong risk factor for CP. Laboratory, imaging and clinical biomarkers highlighted that patients with RAP3+do not show a significant difference between RAPs and CP. Data from CP registries showed 98% of patients had at least one AP and the average number of episodes was four. We mimicked the human RAPs in a mouse model and found that three or more episodes of AP cause early chronic-like morphological changes in the pancreas. We concluded that three or more attacks of AP with no morphological changes to the pancreas could be considered as early CP (ECP).The new diagnostic criteria for ECP allow the majority of CP patients to be diagnosed earlier. They can be used in hospitals with no additional costs in healthcare.Peer reviewe

Endoscopic sphincterotomy for delaying choLecystectomy in mild acute biliarY pancreatitis (EMILY study): Protocol of a multicentre randomised clinical trial

Introduction: According to the literature, early cholecystectomy is necessary to avoid complications related to gallstones after an initial episode of acute biliary pancreatitis (ABP). A randomised, controlled multicentre trial (the PONCHO trial) revealed that in the case of gallstone-induced pancreatitis, early cholecystectomy was safe in patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis and reduced the risk of recurrent gallstone-related complications, as compared with interval cholecystectomy. We hypothesise that carrying out a sphincterotomy (ES) allows us to delay cholecystectomy, thus making it logistically easier to perform and potentially increasing the efficacy and safety of the procedure. Methods/Design: EMILY is a prospective, randomised, controlled multicentre trial. All patients with mild ABP, who underwent ES during the index admission or in the medical history will be informed to take part in EMILY study. The patients will be randomised into two groups: (1) early cholecystectomy (within 6 days after discharge) and (2) patients with delayed (interval) cholecystectomy (between 45 and 60 days after discharge). During a 12-month period, 93 patients will be enrolled from participating clinics. The primary endpoint is a composite endpoint of mortality and recurrent acute biliary events (that is, recurrent ABP, acute cholecystitis, uncomplicated biliary colic and cholangitis). The secondary endpoints are organ failure, biliary leakage, technical difficulty of the cholecystectomy, surgical and other complications

Mesenchymal stem cells promote macrophage polarization toward M2b-like cells

Mesenchymal stem or stromal cells (MSCs) act on different components of the immune response including macrophages (MPhis). Therefore this study has been committed to explore how MSCs may modify the effect of MPhi polarization upon an inductive environment using mouse bone marrow (BM)-derived "naive", unpolarized MPhis. Phagocytosis of various MPhi subtypes was different since M1 and M2b showed poorer, while M2a higher rate of phagocytosis. MSCs significantly promoted yeast ingestion by M1 and M2b and diminished it by M2a cells. Under polarizing conditions, MSCs profoundly affected the TNFalpha production of MPhi subtypes since M1 and M2b MPhis produced less and M2a produced higher amount of TNFalpha while the amount of IL-10 was not affected. The most striking effect of MSCs was registered on M2b cells since the inflammatory TNFalpha dominance remarkably shifted to the immunosuppressive IL-10. Prepolarized M1 cells readily converted to M2a and M2b states when polarizing conditions changed from M1 to M2a or M2b induction, respectively. Repolarizing from M1 to M2a resulted in the decline of IL-10 and TNFalpha and defined elevation of Ym1 similar to levels characteristic to M2a primarily polarized from naive BM-MPhis. Similarly, polarization of M1 to M2b MPhis was successful showing increase in IL-10 and reduction in TNFalpha levels characteristic to M2b cells. However, when co-culturing with MSCs, M1-M2a or M1-M2b transition was not affected. Crosstalk between MPhis and MSCs depended on PGE-2 since COX-2 inhibition reduced the effect of MSCs to establish an IL-10-dominant cytokine production by MPhis