Need for Practice-Based Research in School Administration

Purpose: This article’s first objective is to establish the need for elevating the quantity and quality of practice-based research in school administration. The requirement is addressed in relation to (a) persisting social demands for school reform, (b) heightened demands for evidence-based practice in all professions, and (c) persistent criticisms indicating that field’s knowledge base and practice protocols are fragmented and weak. The second purpose is to propose that the need should be addressed at the level of individual preparation programs; specifically, faculty should assume responsibility for identifying and eradicating barriers to practice-based research. Proposed Conceptual Argument: In the context of an information-based society, practitioners in all professions are expected to access and analyze empirical data when addressing problems and making decisions. In school administration, the failure to respond to this anticipation presents both a social challenge (improving school effectiveness) and a professional challenge (legitimizing the need for practitioners to be licensed), and both are magnified by philosophical and epistemological dissonance among faculty. Implications: Reliance on external accountability in the absence of internal accountability will neither foster school improvement nor build social authority in school administration. Specifically, persistent indifference toward practice-based research and evidence-based practice will fuel doubts about the efficacy of professional administrators and the need to license them

Trace analysis of environmental matrices by large-volume injection and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

The time-honored convention of concentrating aqueous samples by solid-phase extraction (SPE) is being challenged by the increasingly wide spread use of large-volume injection (LVI) liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for the determination of traces of polar organic contaminants in environmental samples. Although different LVI approaches have been proposed over the last 40 years, the simplest and most popular way of performing LVI is known as single column LVI (SC-LVI), in which a large-volume of an aqueous sample is directly injected into an analytical column. For the purposes of this critical review, LVI is defined as an injected sample volume that is ≥ 10% of the void volume of the analytical column. Compared to other techniques, SC-LVI is easier to set up, as it only requires small hardware modifications to existing autosamplers and, thus, will represent the main focus of the current review. Although not new, SC-LVI is gaining acceptance and the approach is emerging as a technology that will render SPE nearly obsolete for many environmental applications. In this review, we discuss 1) the history and development of various forms of LVI, 2) the critical factors that one needs to consider when creating and optimizing SC-LVI methods and 3) example applications that demonstrate the range of environmental matrices, to which LVI is applicable such as drinking water, groundwater and surface water including seawater as well as wastewater. Furthermore, we give responses to answer a set of ‘frequently asked questions’ typically encountered from audiences and we indicate future directions and areas that need to be addressed to fully delineate the limits of SC-LVI.Keywords: Direct injection, Soil, Water, LC-MS/MS, Sample preparation, Large-volume injection, Wastewater, Solid-phase extraction, Liquid chromatograph

Trace analysis of environmental matrices by large-volume injection and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

The time-honored convention of concentrating aqueous samples by solid-phase extraction (SPE) is being challenged by the increasingly widespread use of large-volume injection (LVI) liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) for the determination of traces of polar organic contaminants in environmental samples. Although different LVI approaches have been proposed over the last 40 years, the simplest and most popular way of performing LVI is known as single-column LVI (SC-LVI), in which a large-volume of an aqueous sample is directly injected into an analytical column. For the purposes of this critical review, LVI is defined as an injected sample volume that is ≥10% of the void volume of the analytical column. Compared with other techniques, SC-LVI is easier to set up, because it requires only small hardware modifications to existing autosamplers and, thus, it will be the main focus of this review. Although not new, SC-LVI is gaining acceptance and the approach is emerging as a technique that will render SPE nearly obsolete for many environmental applications.In this review, we discuss: the history and development of various forms of LVI; the critical factors that must be considered when creating and optimizing SC-LVI methods; and typical applications that demonstrate the range of environmental matrices to which LVI is applicable, for example drinking water, groundwater, and surface water including seawater and wastewater. Furthermore, we indicate direction and areas that must be addressed to fully delineate the limits of SC-LVI

Current tools for the identification of miRNA genes and their targets

The discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), almost 10 years ago, changed dramatically our perspective on eukaryotic gene expression regulation. However, the broad and important functions of these regulators are only now becoming apparent. The expansion of our catalogue of miRNA genes and the identification of the genes they regulate owe much to the development of sophisticated computational tools that have helped either to focus or interpret experimental assays. In this article, we review the methods for miRNA gene finding and target identification that have been proposed in the last few years. We identify some problems that current approaches have not yet been able to overcome and we offer some perspectives on the next generation of computational methods

Westerns, weddings and web-weavers: gender as genre in organizational theory

This article focuses on the process of reading and its role in the construction of knowledge. Reading is an activity which is personal yet never singular: we bring to our reading of one text a range of knowledges, experiences and strategies derived from other texts. This 'intertextuality' means that 'meaning-making' is a complex negotiation process between reader and text, whereby linkages are made between divergent genres. This is explored through the author's own personal experiences of reading gender/organizational theory. These readings demonstrate the way in which 'narratives' of other genres, such as film and fiction, spill over, infect and manipulate the construction of narratives within organizational texts. Further, the ready intertextual connections which are made help to expose some of the embedded assumptions about gender. Whilst these are, in the main, quite traditional, the consideration of the processes involved in reading helps to challenge these as 'truths' as well as signpost possibilities for new forms of writing gender/organizational theor

Lifestyle transitions in plant pathogenic Colletotrichum fungi deciphered by genome and transcriptome analyses

Colletotrichum species are fungal pathogens that devastate crop plants worldwide. Host infection involves the differentiation of specialized cell types that are associated with penetration, growth inside living host cells (biotrophy) and tissue destruction (necrotrophy). We report here genome and transcriptome analyses of Colletotrichum higginsianum infecting Arabidopsis thaliana and Colletotrichum graminicola infecting maize. Comparative genomics showed that both fungi have large sets of pathogenicity-related genes, but families of genes encoding secreted effectors, pectin-degrading enzymes, secondary metabolism enzymes, transporters and peptidases are expanded in C. higginsianum. Genome-wide expression profiling revealed that these genes are transcribed in successive waves that are linked to pathogenic transitions: effectors and secondary metabolism enzymes are induced before penetration and during biotrophy, whereas most hydrolases and transporters are upregulated later, at the switch to necrotrophy. Our findings show that preinvasion perception of plant-derived signals substantially reprograms fungal gene expression and indicate previously unknown functions for particular fungal cell types

Security Needs of Citizens and Community Policing in Serbia – is There a Link?

The local community represents a context in which a real quality of social life can be researched. One of the life quality indicators is a degree of satisfying security needs of citizens. Among the resources which the local community engages to solve these needs, the police occupy the key position. Within the model of police engagement in the local community, the concept of community policing has great significance as a qualitatively new system of the police organization and functioning based on the correlation between the citizens’ expectations and what the police really do. By interviewing 750 respondents in five communities in Serbia, in which this policing strategy is being realized, their security needs are being determined. The research results indicate that the citizens of the researched communities are concerned about the extent and intensity of the different forms of violence and all forms of social behavior which jeopardize the security of their families. They recognize the police as a local community resource in charge of solving their security needs and they point out the necessity of undertaking preventive activities. The following factors are noticed as the limitation factors: lack of interdepartmental cooperation within the police services and insufficient local community involvement in problem solving