Cultural characteristics and Native American student achievement in Oklahoma public schools.

Indian students have the lowest level of academic achievement, and the highest dropout rates in the nation according to the United States Department of Education. Additionally, Indian students are disproportionately placed in special education and remediation programs in public schools. This research project investigates the possible reasons creating this massive social problem for American Indian tribes.Guiding this research are the following questions: How do tribal cultures affect Indian student achievement? Why is there a continuing history of low educational performance among Indian students? Why do studies continue to support the general findings that Native American students continue to qualify for Title I compensatory programs; and disproportionately placed in special education classes compared to dominate Euro American students? Does a lack of understanding of tribal cultures by public schools adversely affect American Indian student achievement?The purpose of this study is to determine if a common cluster of cultural characteristics between tribes, and the public schools lack of knowledge and understanding about Native cultures, contributes significantly to the poor performance of Native American students in all areas of educational indicators. Data were gathered through the qualitative method of in-depth personal interviews.Information was recorded, transcribed and analyzed for emerging and recurring themes and patterns relating to the purpose of this study. Findings revealed an overwhelming wealth of information from the case studies directly related to Native culture and achievement in public schools.This phenomenological study investigated an emergent theory that the unique cultures of Native Americans have a direct relationship to many Indian students' abilities to achieve in America's public schools. Throughout the history of Indian education, national reports have repeatedly stated that school curricula need to consider the cultural and language differences of Indian students

China in Latin America: lessons for South-South cooperation and sustainable development

This repository item contains a report from the Boston University Global Economic Governance Initiative. The Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI) is a research program of the Center for Finance, Law & Policy, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. It was founded in 2008 to advance policy-relevant knowledge about governance for financial stability, human development, and the environment

Hospital Language Services for Patients with Limited English Proficiency: Results From a National Survey

Describes current practices, common barriers, and the specific resources and tools needed to provide language services to patients with limited English proficiency. Includes a summary of key findings and resource list for further study

AMAI

Honorable Mention Inspired by the people and culture of Zimbabwe. What inspired you to enter this special competition to create a modern architectural language for Africa? We are interested to involving ourselves to design prototype of modern architecture of Africa by research on the cultural and philosophical approach. Why do you believe African home-owners will be interested in building a home such as the one you have submitted today? We offer a compact living with a flexible space to hold a social activities and emphasizing a sustainability system in water usage. What did you find most interesting or challenging during the research and development of your prototype? The most challenging yet interesting process is finding the best fit philosophy and cultural value to be the basis of our design. Our design process avoided naively replicating the traditional form to our design, but still we maintain the traditional value and spirit. This is the challenge for us, as the architects of today we need to revive our traditional value, spirit, and culture to be presented in this modern era as our proud identity through modern architectural expressions

Asymptotics for power posterior mean estimation

Power posteriors "robustify" standard Bayesian inference by raising the likelihood to a constant fractional power, effectively downweighting its influence in the calculation of the posterior. Power posteriors have been shown to be more robust to model misspecification than standard posteriors in many settings. Previous work has shown that power posteriors derived from low-dimensional, parametric locally asymptotically normal models are asymptotically normal (Bernstein-von Mises) even under model misspecification. We extend these results to show that the power posterior moments converge to those of the limiting normal distribution suggested by the Bernstein-von Mises theorem. We then use this result to show that the mean of the power posterior, a point estimator, is asymptotically equivalent to the maximum likelihood estimator.Comment: 8 pages, In Proceedings of the 59th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computin

Fescue Toxicosis

Tall fescue [Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.] is a cool-season, perennial grass frequently infected with the fungal endophyte Neotyphodium coenophialum. An endophyte is a fungus or bacteria that lives entirely within the tissue spaces of plants and is only visible microscopically. The plant and fungus enjoy a relationship that is symbiotic—mutually beneficial to both organisms. The fungus has free access to the plant’s nutrients and the plant provides a means for the endophyte to reproduce through infected seeds. The fungus, in turn, produces chemicals (ergot alkaloids) that function as chemical defenses, making the plant more vigorous, pest-resistant, drought-resistant, and tolerant of many adverse soil and environmental conditions. The endophyte produces a variety of ergot alkaloids, of which ergovaline is the primary concern and accounts for approximately 80 percent to 97 percent of the alkaloids in tall fescue. Ergovaline concentrations in tall fescue can range between 0-3,000 ppb (DM) with the highest concentrations in the stem and seedhead and in the bottom 3 inches of the plant. Hay from infected fields can remain high in ergovaline even when stored over several years. “Fescue toxicosis” is the general term used for the clinical diseases that can affect cattle consuming endophyte-infected tall fescue

Nitrate Poisoning

Nitrates are present in all plants, but normally their concentrations are not excessive. Under normal growing conditions, nitrate from the soil is absorbed by the roots of forage plants, and is supplied to the upper portions of the plant (primarily leaves) where it is converted into plant protein. However, adverse environmental conditions (such as drought), sudden weather changes (cool, cloudy weather), leaf damage (due to hail, frost, or herbicides), or heavy fertilization with nitrogen, can cause plants to develop and retain potentially dangerous levels of nitrate. The lower stalks and stems at the base of the plant are the site of accumulation. Grains, seeds and leaves do not accumulate significant amounts. Nitrate levels will remain high until there is new leaf growth. Plants with high stem-to-leaf ratios are more likely to cause nitrate intoxication. Levels of nitrate will remain high until there is new leaf growth, increasing photosynthesis that provides the necessary energy to utilize the excess nitrate. Hay will remain a hazard because toxicity is unchanged by drying, but the nitrate concentrations in ensiled forage crops may be reduced by up to 60 percent with proper fermentation and microbial degradation

Cyanide Poisoning in Ruminants

Prussic acid, cyanide, or hydrocyanic acid are all terms relating to the same toxic substance. Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from a blue dye (Prussian blue) and because of its acidic nature it became known by the common name “prussic acid.” Cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting toxins that affect cattle

Work-life variables influencing attrition among beginning agriscience teachers of Texas

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of former beginning agriscience teachers and to explore the relationships between these perceptions, the characteristics of former beginning agriscience teachers, work satisfaction, work-life balance, and their reasons for leaving the profession. Information was gathered from former secondary agriscience teachers across Texas who left the profession during the 2001-2 through 2005-6 academic years. A survey instrument was created specifically for this study through which information about perceived work satisfaction, work-life balance, effect of work-life on attrition, and demographic characteristics of the former beginning agriscience teachers was gathered. Data were analyzed using descriptive and correlational statistics. For this population, work satisfaction, work-life balance, and teacher attrition were not found to differentiate among demographic and career characteristics: age, gender, ethnicity, employment, salary, teacher training institution, years of experience, agriscience department size, hours on the job, or FFA area association. The results suggested evidence of an inverse relationship between work satisfaction and beginning agriscience teacher attrition as well as an inverse relationship between work-life balance and agriscience teacher attrition. Nearly half of all respondents reported the wanting of balance between professional work and personal life as their chief reason for leaving the profession. Closely following this reason were the placement of students in agriscience classes who did not choose to be in the elective courses and too much time away from family. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents offered the recommendation to set a maximum student enrollment per class period and to decrease the number of class preparations/course sections taught by beginning teachers. Over half of the respondents made the recommendation to share the load of shows and contests equally among teachers and to increase the number of teachers in the agriscience department. To improve the preparation and retention of agriscience teachers, two-thirds of the respondents recommended a salary increase. The recommendation following salary and given by nearly half of respondents was to provide mentor teachers. And, one-third of respondents offered the recommendation for more follow-ups from university teacher trainers

Evolution of the CD163 family and its relationship to the bovine gamma delta T cell co-receptor WC1

Background: The scavenger receptor cysteine rich (SRCR) domain is an ancient and conserved protein domain. CD163 and WC1 molecules are classed together as group B SRCR superfamily members, along with Spα, CD5 and CD6, all of which are expressed by immune system cells. There are three known types of CD163 molecules in mammals, CD163A (M130, coded for by CD163), CD163b (M160, coded for by CD163L1) and CD163c-α (CD163L1 or SCART), while their nearest relative, WC1, is encoded by a multigene family so far identified in the artiodactyl species of cattle, sheep, and pigs. Results: We annotated the bovine genome and identified genes coding for bovine CD163A and CD163c-α but found no evidence for CD163b. Bovine CD163A is widely expressed in immune cells, whereas CD163c-α transcripts are enriched in the WC1+ γδ T cell population. Phylogenetic analyses of the CD163 family genes and WC1 showed that CD163c-α is most closely related to WC1 and that chicken and platypus have WC1 orthologous genes, previously classified as among their CD163 genes. Conclusion: Since it has been shown that WC1 plays an important role in the regulation of γδ T cell responses in cattle, which, like chickens, have a high percentage of γδ T cells in their peripheral blood, CD163c-α may play a similar role, especially in species lacking WC1 genes. Our results suggest that gene duplications resulted in the expansion of CD163c-α-like and WC1-like molecules. This expanded repertoire was retained by species known as γδ T cell high , but homologous SRCR molecules were maintained by all mammals