Permeating the social justice ideals of equality and equity within the context of Early Years: challenges for leadership in multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools

The ideology and commitment of social justice principles is central to Early Years practice, however, the term social justice in education is complex and remains contested. This paper explores the ideology of social justice through links between equality and equity and how it is embedded within Early Years, and what remain the potential challenges for leadership. Interviews in English multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools were conducted. Findings showed that the ideology of social justice, equality and equity was interpreted differently. Multi-cultural schools appear to use a greater variety of activities to embed social justice principles that involved their diverse communities more to enrich the curriculum. In mono-cultural schools leadership had to be more creative in promoting equality and equity given the smaller proportion of their diverse pupil and staff population. Tentative conclusions suggest that the vision for permeating equality and equity in Early Years, at best, is at early stages

Secondary school pupils' preferences for different types of structured grouping practices

The aim of this paper is to explore pupils’ preferences for particular types of grouping practices an area neglected in earlier research focusing on the personal and social outcomes of ability grouping. The sample comprised over 5,000 year 9 pupils (aged 13-14 years) in 45 mixed secondary comprehensive schools in England. The schools represented three levels of ability grouping in the lower school (years 7 to 9). Pupils responded to a questionnaire which explored the types of grouping that they preferred and the reasons for their choices. The majority of pupils preferred setting, although this was mediated by their set placement, type of school, socio-economic status and gender. The key reason given for this preference was that it enabled work to be matched to learning needs. The paper considers whether there are other ways of achieving this avoiding the negative social and personal outcomes of setting for some pupils

Challenges of Early Years leadership preparation: a comparison between early and experienced Early Years practitioners in England

Leadership has been under-researched in the Early Years (EY) sector of primary schools in England, especially in leading change for professional development. The aim of this paper is to theorise what the leadership culture for EY practitioners looks like, and how Initial Teacher Training providers and schools are preparing practitioners for leadership. Using case studies of EY practitioners in different stages of their career in primary schools, we offer an insight into their preparedness for leadership in EY, the implication being that leadership training requires an understanding and embedding of the EY culture and context. Interviews with both sample groups allowed for deeper insight into the lived world. Interviews were also conducted with the head teachers to gain an overview of the leadership preparation they provided. The main findings suggest that newer EY practitioners are better prepared for leadership from their university training in comparison to more experienced EY practitioners

Per-operative stent placement in the right pulmonary artery; a hybrid technique for the management of pulmonary artery branch stenosis at the time of pulmonary valve replacement in adult Fallot patients

After having undergone surgical correction at an early age, many patients with tetralogy of Fallot develop long-term complications including progressive pulmonary regurgitation and peripheral pulmonary stenosis. A high percentage of these patients need to undergo a second operation in their adolescence or early adulthood. If simultaneous treatment of both pulmonary regurgitation and peripheral pulmonary stenosis is warranted, a complete surgical approach has several disadvantages. We describe four cases of Fallot patients with severe pulmonary regurgitation and peripheral pulmonary stenosis who were treated using a hybrid approach involving surgical implantation of a pulmonary homograft and peroperative stenting of the pulmonary artery

Assessing the diagnostic accuracy of the identification of hyperkinetic disorders following the introduction of government guidelines in England

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies have suggested that both underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis routinely occur in ADHD and hyperkinesis (hyperkinetic disorders). England has introduced governmental guidelines for these disorders' detection and treatment, but there has been no study on clinical diagnostic accuracy under such a regime.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All open cases in three Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the South East of England were assessed for accuracy in the detection of hyperkinetic disorders, using a two-stage process employing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for screening, with the cut-off between "unlikely" and "possible" as the threshold for identification, and the Development And Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) as a valid and reliable standard.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>502 cases were collected. Their mean age 11 years (std dev 3 y); 59% were clinically diagnosed as having a hyperkinetic disorder including ADHD. Clinicians had missed two diagnoses of hyperkinesis and six of ADHD. The only 'false positive' case was one that had become asymptomatic on appropriate treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The identification of children with hyperkinetic disorders by three ordinary English CAMHS teams appears now to be generally consistent with that of a validated, standardised assessment. It seems likely that this reflects the impact of Governmental guidelines, which could therefore be an appropriate tool to ensure consistent accurate diagnosis internationally.</p

Boolean Dynamics with Random Couplings

This paper reviews a class of generic dissipative dynamical systems called N-K models. In these models, the dynamics of N elements, defined as Boolean variables, develop step by step, clocked by a discrete time variable. Each of the N Boolean elements at a given time is given a value which depends upon K elements in the previous time step. We review the work of many authors on the behavior of the models, looking particularly at the structure and lengths of their cycles, the sizes of their basins of attraction, and the flow of information through the systems. In the limit of infinite N, there is a phase transition between a chaotic and an ordered phase, with a critical phase in between. We argue that the behavior of this system depends significantly on the topology of the network connections. If the elements are placed upon a lattice with dimension d, the system shows correlations related to the standard percolation or directed percolation phase transition on such a lattice. On the other hand, a very different behavior is seen in the Kauffman net in which all spins are equally likely to be coupled to a given spin. In this situation, coupling loops are mostly suppressed, and the behavior of the system is much more like that of a mean field theory. We also describe possible applications of the models to, for example, genetic networks, cell differentiation, evolution, democracy in social systems and neural networks.Comment: 69 pages, 16 figures, Submitted to Springer Applied Mathematical Sciences Serie

Rabies molecular virology, diagnosis, prevention and treatment

Rabies is an avertable viral disease caused by the rabid animal to the warm blooded animals (zoonotic) especially human. Rabies occurs in more than 150 countries and territories. According to an estimation by WHO, almost 55,000 people die because of rabies every year. The Dogs are the major reason behind this, approximately 99% human deaths caused by dog's bites. Developing and under developing countries, both are the victims of rabies. With the post-exposure preventive regimes, 327,000 people can prevent this disease annually

A blood-based diagnostic test incorporating plasma Aβ42/40 ratio, ApoE proteotype, and age accurately identifies brain amyloid status: Findings from a multi cohort validity analysis

BACKGROUND: The development of blood-based biomarker tests that are accurate and robust for Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) pathology have the potential to aid clinical diagnosis and facilitate enrollment in AD drug trials. We developed a high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS)-based test that quantifies plasma Aβ42 and Aβ40 concentrations and identifies the ApoE proteotype. We evaluated robustness, clinical performance, and commercial viability of this MS biomarker assay for distinguishing brain amyloid status. METHODS: We used the novel MS assay to analyze 414 plasma samples that were collected, processed, and stored using site-specific protocols, from six independent US cohorts. We used receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analyses to assess assay performance and accuracy for predicting amyloid status (positive, negative, and standard uptake value ratio; SUVR). After plasma analysis, sites shared brain amyloid status, defined using diverse, site-specific methods and cutoff values; amyloid PET imaging using various tracers or CSF Aβ42/40 ratio. RESULTS: Plasma Aβ42/40 ratio was significantly (p \u3c 0.001) lower in the amyloid positive vs. negative participants in each cohort. The area under the ROC curve (AUC-ROC) was 0.81 (95% CI = 0.77-0.85) and the percent agreement between plasma Aβ42/40 and amyloid positivity was 75% at the optimal (Youden index) cutoff value. The AUC-ROC (0.86; 95% CI = 0.82-0.90) and accuracy (81%) for the plasma Aβ42/40 ratio improved after controlling for cohort heterogeneity. The AUC-ROC (0.90; 95% CI = 0.87-0.93) and accuracy (86%) improved further when Aβ42/40, ApoE4 copy number and participant age were included in the model. CONCLUSIONS: This mass spectrometry-based plasma biomarker test: has strong diagnostic performance; can accurately distinguish brain amyloid positive from amyloid negative individuals; may aid in the diagnostic evaluation process for Alzheimer\u27s disease; and may enhance the efficiency of enrolling participants into Alzheimer\u27s disease drug trials

Changes observed in radionuclide bone scans during and after teriparatide treatment for osteoporosis

# The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Purpose Visual changes on radionuclide bone scans have been reported with teriparatide treatment. To assess this, serial studies were evaluated and quantified in ten postmenopausal women with osteoporosis treated with teriparatide (20 μg/day subcutaneous) who had 99m Tc-methylene diphosphonate (MDP) bone scans (baseline, 3 and 18 months, then after 6 months off therapy). Methods Women were injected with 600 MBq 99m Tc-MDP, and diagnostic bone scan images were assessed at 3.5 h. Additional whole-body scans (10 min, 1, 2, 3 and 4 h) were analysed for 99m Tc-MDP skeletal plasma clearance (Kbone). Regional Kbone differences were obtained for the whole skeleton and six regions (calvarium, mandible, spine, pelvis, upper and lower extremities). Bone turnover markers (BTM) were also measured. Results Most subjects showed visual changes on 3- and 18month bone scan images that disappeared after 6 months off therapy. Enhanced uptake was seen predominantly in the calvarium and lower extremities. Whole skeleton Kbone displayed a median increase of 22 % (3 months, p=0.004) and 34 % (18 months, p=0.002) decreasing to 0.7% (6 months off therapy). Calvarium Kbone changes were three times larger than other sites. After 6 months off therapy, all Kbone and BTM values returned towards baseline