303 research outputs found

    The gendering of educational leadership styles: mentoring and the deconstruction of binaries that influence women's access to the superintendency

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    At the onset of this research, approximately 24.1% of superintendents in the United States and 15.7% of superintendents in North Carolina were women. These statistics indicate a national gap of 51.9 percentage points and a 68.6 percentage point gap in North Carolina for gender representation in the superintendency. To better understand the under representation of women in the superintendency, I studied the experiences of how female superintendents in North Carolina were/are being mentored, as well as how they have/are mentoring others. This study explored the mentoring experiences of seven female superintendents in North Carolina to determine the impact such experiences play in reproducing the gendering of leadership roles. The impact of mentoring experiences on subjectivity, agency, and women's access to the superintendency was also explored. Poststructural feminism served as the theoretical lens to inquire about practices that reinforce socially constructed beliefs which associate leadership styles with gender and the extent to which these may impact access for women to the superintendency. The results of the study not only contribute to recommendations for improving mentoring experiences and opportunities for women aspiring to the superintendency, but also identify ways that mentoring can support the work of both men and women in creating a more equitable system. The findings of the research suggest that current superintendents have immense power in women's access to the superintendency. As mentors, they can provide protégés with authentic job opportunities, model a variety of effective leadership practices and provide reflective and supportive discourse with and about protégés. Using these strategies positively impact the protégés subjectivity within educational leadership. The results also indicate that socially constructed patriarchal assumptions about leadership and gender are still deeply embedded and more work is needed to deconstruct these assumptions as they complicate women's access to and work within the superintendency

    Prospero and Pax2 combinatorially control neural cell fate decisions by modulating Ras- and Notch-dependent signaling

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The concept of an equivalence group, a cluster of cells with equal potential to adopt the same specific fate, has served as a useful paradigm to understand neural cell type specification. In the <it>Drosophila </it>eye, a set of five cells, called the 'R7 equivalence group', generates a single photoreceptor neuron and four lens-secreting epithelial cells. This choice between neuronal versus non-neuronal cell fates rests on differential requirements for, and cross-talk between, Notch/Delta- and Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-dependent signaling pathways. However, many questions remain unanswered related to how downstream events of these two signaling pathways mediate distinct cell fate decisions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we demonstrate that two direct downstream targets of Ras and Notch signaling, the transcription factors Prospero and dPax2, are essential regulators of neuronal versus non-neuronal cell fate decisions in the R7 equivalence group. Prospero controls high activated MAPK levels required for neuronal fate, whereas dPax2 represses Delta expression to prevent neuronal fate. Importantly, activity from both factors is required for proper cell fate decisions to occur.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data demonstrate that Ras and Notch signaling are integrated during cell fate decisions within the R7 equivalence group through the combinatorial and opposing activities of Pros and dPax2. Our study provides one of the first examples of how the differential expression and synergistic roles of two independent transcription factors determine cell fate within an equivalence group. Since the integration of Ras and Notch signaling is associated with many developmental and cancer models, these findings should provide new insights into how cell specificity is achieved by ubiquitously used signaling pathways in diverse biological contexts.</p

    Probing the conserved roles of cut in the development and function of optically different insect compound eyes

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    Astonishing functional diversity exists among arthropod eyes, yet eye development relies on deeply conserved genes. This phenomenon is best understood for early events, whereas fewer investigations have focused on the influence of later transcriptional regulators on diverse eye organizations and the contribution of critical support cells, such as Semper cells (SCs). As SCs in Drosophila melanogaster secrete the lens and function as glia, they are critical components of ommatidia. Here, we perform RNAi-based knockdowns of the transcription factor cut (CUX in vertebrates), a marker of SCs, the function of which has remained untested in these cell types. To probe for the conserved roles of cut, we investigate two optically different compound eyes: the apposition optics of D. melanogaster and the superposition optics of the diving beetle Thermonectus marmoratus. In both cases, we find that multiple aspects of ocular formation are disrupted, including lens facet organization and optics as well as photoreceptor morphogenesis. Together, our findings support the possibility of a generalized role for SCs in arthropod ommatidial form and function and introduces Cut as a central player in mediating this role

    Emulating Natural Disturbances for Declining Late- Successional Species: A Case Study of the Consequences for Cerulean Warblers (Setophaga cerulea)

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    Forest cover in the eastern United States has increased over the past century and while some late-successional species have benefited from this process as expected, others have experienced population declines. These declines may be in part related to contemporary reductions in small-scale forest interior disturbances such as fire, windthrow, and treefalls. To mitigate the negative impacts of disturbance alteration and suppression on some late-successional species, strategies that emulate natural disturbance regimes are often advocated, but large-scale evaluations of these practices are rare. Here, we assessed the consequences of experimental disturbance (using partial timber harvest) on a severely declining late-successional species, the cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea), across the core of its breeding range in the Appalachian Mountains. We measured numerical (density), physiological (body condition), and demographic (age structure and reproduction) responses to three levels of disturbance and explored the potential impacts of disturbance on source-sink dynamics. Breeding densities of warblers increased one to four years after all canopy disturbances (vs. controls) and males occupying territories on treatment plots were in better condition than those on control plots. However, these beneficial effects of disturbance did not correspond to improvements in reproduction; nest success was lower on all treatment plots than on control plots in the southern region and marginally lower on light disturbance plots in the northern region. Our data suggest that only habitats in the southern region acted as sources, and interior disturbances in this region have the potential to create ecological traps at a local scale, but sources when viewed at broader scales. Thus, cerulean warblers would likely benefit from management that strikes a landscape-level balance between emulating natural disturbances in order to attract individuals into areas where current structure is inappropriate, and limiting anthropogenic disturbance in forests that already possess appropriate structural attributes in order to maintain maximum productivity

    Association of the First 1,000 Days Systems-Change Intervention on Maternal Gestational Weight Gain

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    Objective: To examine the associations of a clinical and public health systems-change intervention on the prevalence of excess gestational weight gain among high-risk, low-income women. Methods: In a quasi-experimental trial, we compared the prevalence of excess gestational weight gain among women before (n=643) and after (n=928) implementation of the First 1,000 Days program in two community health centers in Massachusetts. First 1,000 Days is a systematic program starting in early pregnancy and lasting through the first 24 months of childhood to prevent obesity among mother-child pairs. The program includes enhanced gestational weight gain tracking and counseling, screening for adverse health behaviors and sociocontextual factors, patient navigation and educational materials to support behavior change and social needs, and individualized health coaching for women at high risk for excess gestational weight gain based on their prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) or excess first-trimester weight gain. The primary outcome was gestational weight gain greater than the 2009 Institute of Medicine (now known as the National Academy of Medicine) guidelines according to prepregnancy BMI. Results: Among 1,571 women in the analytic sample, mean (SD) age was 30.0 (5.9) years and prepregnancy BMI was 28.1 (6.1); 65.8% of women started pregnancy with BMIs of 25 or higher, and 53.2% were Hispanic. We observed a lower prevalence (55.8-46.4%; unadjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.69, 95% CI 0.49-0.97), similar to results in a multivariable analysis (adjusted OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.49-0.99), of excess gestational weight gain among women with prepregnancy BMIs between 25 and 29.9. Among women who were overweight at the start of pregnancy, the lowest odds of excess gestational weight gain were observed among those with the most interaction with the program's components. Program enrollment was not associated with reduced excess gestational weight gain among women with prepregnancy BMIs of 30 or higher. Conclusions: Implementation of a systems-change intervention was associated with modest reduction in excess gestational weight gain among women who were overweight but not obese at the start of pregnancy

    Emulating Natural Disturbances for Declining Late-Successional Species: A Case Study of the Consequences for Cerulean Warblers (Setophaga cerulea)

    Get PDF
    Forest cover in the eastern United States has increased over the past century and while some late-successional species have benefited from this process as expected, others have experienced population declines. These declines may be in part related to contemporary reductions in small-scale forest interior disturbances such as fire, windthrow, and treefalls. To mitigate the negative impacts of disturbance alteration and suppression on some late-successional species, strategies that emulate natural disturbance regimes are often advocated, but large-scale evaluations of these practices are rare. Here, we assessed the consequences of experimental disturbance (using partial timber harvest) on a severely declining latesuccessional species, the cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea), across the core of its breeding range in the Appalachian Mountains. We measured numerical (density), physiological (body condition), and demographic (age structure and reproduction) responses to three levels of disturbance and explored the potential impacts of disturbance on source-sink dynamics. Breeding densities of warblers increased one to four years after all canopy disturbances (vs. controls) and males occupying territories on treatment plots were in better condition than those on control plots. However, these beneficial effects of disturbance did not correspond to improvements in reproduction; nest success was lower on all treatment plots than on control plots in the southern region and marginally lower on light disturbance plots in the northern region. Our data suggest that only habitats in the southern region acted as sources, and interior disturbances in this region have the potential to create ecological traps at a local scale, but sources when viewed at broader scales. Thus, cerulean warblers would likely benefit from management that strikes a landscape-level balance between emulating natural disturbances in order to attract individuals into areas where current structure is inappropriate, and limiting anthropogenic disturbance in forests that already possess appropriate structural attributes in order to maintain maximum productivity

    Indulgent representation: theatricality and sectarian metaphor in The Tempest

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    At the end of The Tempest, Prospero (or, perhaps, the actor playing him) urges the audience, ‘As you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgence set me free’ (5.1.337-8). The lines are a plea for applause, for the audience to conclude the drama happily. As the play-world dissolves into the real world, at the threshold between fiction and reality, Prospero appeals to be set free from representation. He strikes an ethical bargain in the mode of the Lord's Prayer (‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’). But, in speaking of ‘pardon’ and ‘indulgence’, he also alludes to a much maligned Catholic practice of purchased remission of sins. Thus, the audience's decision over whether or not to applaud the drama is playfully implicated in trying out a confessional attitude. Even so, the status of these ‘Catholic’ terms as wordplay means that they only flirt with sectarian resonance, rather than declaring a theological message. Taking the play's self-conscious theatricality as a starting point, this essay explores the ambiguity of this epilogue. It questions what it means for a post-Reformation audience to ‘indulge’ in metaphorically ‘Catholic’ behaviour, and how a play that stages forgiveness as a form of revenge negotiates difference ethically. These themes are part of a broader theatrical dynamic in which representation is constantly destabilised. The essay offers a case-study of the significance of equivocally Catholic material in post-Reformation drama, suggesting that as much attention needs to be paid to dramaturgy as to theology

    The All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory eXplorer (AMEGO-X) Mission Concept

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    The All-sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory eXplorer (AMEGO-X) is designed to identify and characterize gamma rays from extreme explosions and accelerators. The main science themes include: supermassive black holes and their connections to neutrinos and cosmic rays; binary neutron star mergers and the relativistic jets they produce; cosmic ray particle acceleration sources including Galactic supernovae; and continuous monitoring of other astrophysical events and sources over the full sky in this important energy range. AMEGO-X will probe the medium energy gamma-ray band using a single instrument with sensitivity up to an order of magnitude greater than previous telescopes in the energy range 100 keV to 1 GeV that can be only realized in space. During its three-year baseline mission, AMEGO-X will observe nearly the entire sky every two orbits, building up a sensitive all-sky map of gamma-ray sources and emission. AMEGO-X was submitted in the recent 2021 NASA MIDEX Announcement of Opportunity.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figures, Published Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and System

    Improving delirium care in the intensive care unit: The design of a pragmatic study

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Delirium prevalence in the intensive care unit (ICU) is high. Numerous psychotropic agents are used to manage delirium in the ICU with limited data regarding their efficacy or harms.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This is a randomized controlled trial of 428 patients aged 18 and older suffering from delirium and admitted to the ICU of Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis. Subjects assigned to the intervention group will receive a multicomponent pharmacological management protocol for delirium (PMD) and those assigned to the control group will receive no change in their usual ICU care. The primary outcomes of the trial are (1) delirium severity as measured by the Delirium Rating Scale revised-98 (DRS-R-98) and (2) delirium duration as determined by the Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (CAM-ICU). The PMD protocol targets the three neurotransmitter systems thought to be compromised in delirious patients: dopamine, acetylcholine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. The PMD protocol will target the reduction of anticholinergic medications and benzodiazepines, and introduce a low-dose of haloperidol at 0.5-1 mg for 7 days. The protocol will be delivered by a combination of computer (artificial intelligence) and pharmacist (human intelligence) decision support system to increase adherence to the PMD protocol.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The proposed study will evaluate the content and the delivery process of a multicomponent pharmacological management program for delirium in the ICU.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00842608">NCT00842608</a></p
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