Marine Corps Leadership Lessons for the Workplace: A Case Study

The United States Marine Corps is a military organization and institution recognized for the past 236 years as the nation’s finest fighting force. Their structure, traditions, and approach to leadership are emulated worldwide as the model for military excellence. Although a military and government entity subject to bureaucracy, the Marines always seem to operate in the most efficient and effective manner possible. When the management principals, core values, planning, and decision making processes of the Marines are applied at different levels of the civilian business world, can cultural change occur resulting in a highly efficient and effective work environment? The challenge of this field project is to provide some recommendations that may or may not work at the plant, which is a real business unit that provides high rate, low technology products for the U.S. military at a local federal facility

Broader Strokes: The Curricular and Pedagogical Possibilities of Multiage Educational Settings

Multiage classrooms seem to be an idea of the past, as students in most schools across the country are grouped by age. However, research by Goldman (1981), Rhoades (1966), and Eisner (2003) argue that multiage grouping has significant social, behavioral, and intellectual advantages for students. Using educational criticism and connoisseurship as a methodology, this article examines the accounts of a professor who taught in a multiage school environment within the United States, as well as observations of a multiage school in the Masaka district of Uganda. This study aims to understand how curriculum and pedagogy interact within multiage system, as well as whether those interactions help or hinder students. Through interviews observations, and classroom artifacts, it was found as Perez, Breault, and White (2014) argue curriculum functions as a space, not only a given content trajectory. Additionally, it was found that in creating a space where community was encouraged, the school was able to move toward pedagogy of love

Shear bond strength of brackets to demineralize enamel after different pretreatment methods

Objective: To compare the influence of demineralized and variously pretreated demineralized enamel on the shear bond strength of orthodontic brackets. Materials and Methods: Sixty bovine enamel specimens were allocated to five groups (n  =  12). Specimens of group 1 were not demineralized and were not pretreated, but served as controls. The other specimens were demineralized to form artificial carious lesions. Samples from group 2 were only demineralized and were kept untreated in artificial saliva. The other samples were pretreated with highly concentrated fluoride preparations (group 3: Elmex Gelee, 1.23% F; group 4: Clinpro White Varnish, 2.23% F) or with an infiltrating resin (group 5: Icon). After respective pretreatments, brackets were adhesively fixed on all specimens with an adhesive system after etching with 35% phosphoric acid and application of a primer and bracket resin cement (Transbond XT). Bracket shear bond strength was evaluated with a universal testing machine. Statistical analysis was performed by one-way analysis of variance followed by a post-hoc Scheffé test. Results: Shear bond strength in control group 1 was statistically significantly greater compared with that in all other groups. Application of the infiltrating resin Icon (group 5) as pretreatment resulted in statistically significantly greater bond strength as compared with pretreatments with fluoride compounds (groups 3 and 4) and treatment provided without pretreatment (group 2). Groups 2, 3, and 4 did not significantly differ from each other. Conclusion: Pretreatment with the infiltrating resin is a beneficial approach to increasing the shear bond strength of brackets to demineralized enamel

Gender plays no role in student ability to perform on computer-based examinations

BACKGROUND: To see if there is a difference in performance when students switch from traditional paper-and-pencil examinations to computer-based examinations, and to determine whether there are gender differences in student performance in these two examination formats. METHODS: This study involved first year medical students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign over three Academic Years 2002–03/2003–04 and 2003–05. Comparisons of student performance by overall class and gender were made. Specific comparisons within courses that utilized both the paper-and-pencil and computer formats were analyzed. RESULTS: Overall performance scores for students among the various Academic Years revealed no differences between exams given in the traditional pen-and-paper and computer formats. Further, when we looked specifically for gender differences in performance between these two testing formats, we found none. CONCLUSION: The format for examinations in the courses analyzed does not affect student performance. We find no evidence for gender differences in performance on exams on pen-and-paper or computer-based exams

High Throughput, Multiplexed Pathogen Detection Authenticates Plague Waves in Medieval Venice, Italy

Background: Historical records suggest that multiple burial sites from the 14th-16(th) centuries in Venice, Italy, were used during the Black Death and subsequent plague epidemics.Methodology/Principal Findings: High throughput, multiplexed real-time PCR detected DNA of seven highly transmissible pathogens in 173 dental pulp specimens collected from 46 graves. Bartonella quintana DNA was identified in five (2.9%) samples, including three from the 16th century and two from the 15th century, and Yersinia pestis DNA was detected in three (1.7%) samples, including two from the 14th century and one from the 16th century. Partial glpD gene sequencing indicated that the detected Y. pestis was the Orientalis biotype.Conclusions: These data document for the first time successive plague epidemics in the medieval European city where quarantine was first instituted in the 14th century

A renewable tissue resource of phenotypically stable, biologically and ethnically diverse, patient-derived human breast cancer xenograft models.

Breast cancer research is hampered by difficulties in obtaining and studying primary human breast tissue, and by the lack of in vivo preclinical models that reflect patient tumor biology accurately. To overcome these limitations, we propagated a cohort of human breast tumors grown in the epithelium-free mammary fat pad of severe combined immunodeficient (SCID)/Beige and nonobese diabetic (NOD)/SCID/IL-2γ-receptor null (NSG) mice under a series of transplant conditions. Both models yielded stably transplantable xenografts at comparably high rates (∼21% and ∼19%, respectively). Of the conditions tested, xenograft take rate was highest in the presence of a low-dose estradiol pellet. Overall, 32 stably transplantable xenograft lines were established, representing 25 unique patients. Most tumors yielding xenografts were "triple-negative" [estrogen receptor (ER)-progesterone receptor (PR)-HER2+; n = 19]. However, we established lines from 3 ER-PR-HER2+ tumors, one ER+PR-HER2-, one ER+PR+HER2-, and one "triple-positive" (ER+PR+HER2+) tumor. Serially passaged xenografts show biologic consistency with the tumor of origin, are phenotypically stable across multiple transplant generations at the histologic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and genomic levels, and show comparable treatment responses as those observed clinically. Xenografts representing 12 patients, including 2 ER+ lines, showed metastasis to the mouse lung. These models thus serve as a renewable, quality-controlled tissue resource for preclinical studies investigating treatment response and metastasis