School Budgets and Student Achievement in California: The Principal's Perspective

Presents the results of workshops conducted with 45 elementary, middle, and high school principals from California public schools. Documents the variety of resource allocation strategies used by principals to maximize student academic performance

A political -economic view of the federal organization of work

Using a comparative historical review of changes in the organization of work, this study analyzes the changing organization of federal work in relation to the organization of work in the private sector. Following a break in 1883 with the simple control wielded by political appointees running federal agencies, federal work became more tightly controlled through a greater bureaucratic organization of government work. However, a continuing influence of private work practices on federal work, such as the incorporation of the principles of scientific management, suggests not only a relationship between private and federal work practices but one that is stronger than a mere copying of management styles, such as that which is occurring in the contemporary control of work through the use of externalized work forces. The 1980s were characterized by a reorganization of work in the private sector. Core work forces were shaved by outsourcing work to private contractors, moving work offshore, and/or creating temporary and partial jobs without beneficial employment contracts. In the 1990s the federal sector has been following the corporate lead by downsizing primary work forces and outsourcing or privatizing the work. Following three views of power, the social pluralist perspective, the structural Marxist conception, and an instrumentalist image of power, the connection between the private and public organization of work will be analyzed by looking at the introduction of scientific management into federal work and identifying civil service reform legislation and its proponents and then attempting to trace their social connections to private industry. Such an analysis may not only lend empirical support to a particular way of seeing the interaction between the economic and political structures but also may provide insight regarding the construction of the social organization of federal work

The Role of Secondary Education in Promoting Sustainable Development in the Caribbean and Latin America

This dissertation research completed a secondary data analysis of international education data collected for Latin American and Caribbean countries. This study utilized a quantitative methodological approach which established correlative, frequency and factor sparsity (Pareto) illustrations. This project sought to understand how secondary education contributes to sustainable development in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The Global Education Monitoring Report 2017 analyzed educational outcomes of second and third world countries and became the basis of this research. However, for this secondary data analysis research project, the researcher only focused on data specific to LAC countries. The following key areas of inquiry: (1) efforts by LAC to provide access to universal secondary education, (2) disparities in educational access based on gender, income and location, (3) in-school deterrents and social norms, (4) disparities in educational outcomes based on gender were used as a guide for this research project. The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has identified four major areas of concern for LAC regarding educational outcomes: (1) a lack of public investment in universal education impacts achievement of education at all levels, (2) failure to invest in female students increases economic instability (3) gender bias in educational outcomes and (4) social norms and in-school deterrents and its effect on completion. This research found that sustainable development does have an impact on educational outcomes for male and female students at both the lower and secondary levels. Further, the wealth gap that exists between LAC countries significantly contributes to educational outcomes

Time Domain Born Approximation

The time domain Born approximation for ultrasonic scattering from volume flaws in an elastic medium is described. Results are given both for the direct and the inverse problem. The time domain picture leads to simple intuitive formulas which we illustrate by means of several simple examples. Particular emphasis is given to the front surface echo and its use in reconstructing the properties of the flaw

The role of plant-soil interactions in peatland carbon cycling at a Scottish wind farm

Northern peatlands play an important role in the cycling of carbon (C) globally, and contain up to one third of the world’s soil C despite only covering a small percentage of its land surface (Gorham, 1991). Changes in climate and land use are increasing the vulnerability of these vast C stocks, by altering the conditions favourable for peat accumulation and therefore C sequestration. The establishment of wind farms on peatlands is increasing in the UK, as a result of the growing need for sustainable energy and the suitably high wind speeds that are typical to these upland ecosystems (Smith et al., 2014). There is limited understanding of the impacts of operational wind farms on their host ecosystems, but evidence to suggest that wind farms create microclimate conditions by altering ground-level temperature is increasing (Armstrong et al., 2014a; Baidya Roy and Traiteur, 2010; L. Zhou et al., 2012). The sensitivity of peatland C cycling processes to wind farm-induced microclimatic changes represents a considerable gap in knowledge. Further, the role that aboveground and belowground peatland communities have in mediating the effects of wind farm microclimates on C cycling processes remains unknown. By examining plant-soil interactions across a peatland at Black Law Wind Farm and under a range of microclimate conditions in the laboratory, this thesis aimed to investigate the influence of plant functional type (PFT) and microclimatic conditions on physical, chemical and biological peatland properties, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and litter decomposition. Results show that a PFT legacy in peat plays a mediatory role in the response of CO2 and CH4 emissions to microclimatic differences in temperature and water table. Mass loss of litter is primarily driven by PFT differences in litter quality, with interactions between litter types controlling decomposition of litter mixtures via non-additive effects, and interactions between litter types and PFT legacies in peat affecting the likelihood of home-field advantage and disadvantage (HFA and HFD) litter mass loss. This thesis demonstrates that the direct effects of microclimatic changes in temperature and water table are important drivers of peatland C cycling processes; however the indirect effects of microclimate change on plant community composition e.g. the relative proportion of PFTs could influence these processes to a greater extent. Examining the importance of PFTs in C cycling processes at wind farm peatlands is important in improving predictions of peatland C sequestration under future climate change scenarios, and in calculating the C savings achieved by land-based renewable technologies

Cell-free biosynthesis of abscisic acid (ABA) in extracts of flavedo from Citrus sinensis (L.) osbeck

The biosynthetic origin of the plant growth regulator abscisic acid remains equivocal and almost nothing is known about the enzymes involved in this process. The present research programme describes the development of a cell-free system, capable of synthesizing abscisic acid and attempts to provide further information about the biochemistry and enzymology of this important biosynthetic pathway. Cell-free extracts were prepared either directly from the flavedo (crude) or from an acetone powder derived from flavedo, of mature coloured fruits of Citrus sinensis L. cv. Midknight and incubated with mevalonic acid, isopentenyl pyrophosphate, famesylpyrophosphate, geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate, ß-carotene and 1',4'-trans-abscisic acid diol. The neutral and acidic products formed were purified by thin-layer chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography, and quantified by high performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography-electron capture and unequivocally identified by combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Abscisic acid, 1',4'-trans-abscisic acid diol and phaseic acid were unequivocally identified as the major acidic products formed in this cell-free system. The acid fraction also contained xanthoxin acid. Labelled and unlabelled ß-carotene was converted into the neutral compounds xanthoxin and xanthoxin alcohol. In addition. high performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array analYSis of the oxy-carotenoid fraction revealed the complete spectrum of ß, ß-carotenoids induding zeaxanthin, antheraxanthin and violaxanthin with accumulation of an oxygenated carotenoid tentatively identified as 9- cis-violaxanthin. Identification of putative C₁₅ intermediates was achieved by either UV spectrophotometry and combined capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or microchemical analYSis and co-chromatography. Refeeding studies using (±)-[2-¹⁴C]_ abscisic acid diol as substrate revealed that abscisic acid was not metabolized to abscisic acid diol, suggesting that it was/is produced as an intermediate rather than as a catabolite of ABA in this system. Stigmasterol, and to a lesser extent cholesterol reduced conversion of ß-carotene to abscisic acid but did not influence transformation of 1',4'-trans-abscisic acid diol to abscisic acid. AM01618 stimulated fonnation of abscisic acid and appeared to exert its effect at the level of conversion of 1' ,4'-trans-abscisic acid diol. Zeatin and the cytokinin analogue, ancymidol inhibited the biosynthesis of abscisic acid whereas dithiothreitol increased incorporation of label from ß-carotene into abscisic acid suggesting involvement of a cytochrome P450-type mixed function oxidase in this reaction sequence. Sodium dodecylsulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of the enzyme extract derived from Citrus flavedo revealed the presence of a 53 kD protein with peroxidase activity characteristic of a cytochrome P-450. Abscisic acid biosynthesizing activity was always greater in extracts from acetone powder and abscisic acid biosynthesis was enhanced in the presence of AMO 1618, NAD+, NADH, NADPH, MgCI₂ and Molybdate but was inhibited by FAD. Activity was further enhanced by the addition of (R,S)-abscisic acid as a cold-pool trap and by induding 0.1% w/v of either Tween 20 or Triton X 100 in the extraction buffer. When cis-ß-carotene was used as substrate, no abscisic acid was produced. Conversely when either all-trans-ß-carotene or a mixture of the two isomers was used, incorporation into abscisic acid occurred. Upoxygenase activity in cell-free extracts of Citrus flavedo increased with increasing protein concentration. As the ability of lipoxygenase to make xanthoxin from violaxanthin, had been reported, increased activity in the cell-free system implied that carotenoid deavage was being brought about by a non-haem oxygenase with lipoxygenase-like properties. Reports had implicated phoshorylation in the activation of many catalytic enzymes (Hanks et aI., 1985). Phosphorylation of the enzymes in this cell-free system proved unsuccessful. Further, it had been reported that in vitro phosphorylation of several membrane polypeptides and soluble polypeptides from com, had been promoted by the addition of Ca²₊ In this cell-free system Ca + did not have a stimulatory effect on protein phosphorylation. Dioxygenases generally occur as soluble enzymes, where they catalyse many oxygenation reactions in metabolic pathways. The addition of 2-oxo-glutarate, a requirement of most soluble oxidases, did not affect the activity of the cell-free system

A revision of the genus Rafnia thunb.(fam. Fabaceae : sub. fam. Papilionoideae)

A taxonomic revision of Rafnia Thunb. (Fam. Fabaceae, Subfam . Papili onoideae) is presented in which 21 species are recognised. The relative value of the taxonomic characters is discussed. An electron microscopy study of the seed surface, pollen grains and several sexual characters has been undertaken. Two keys are included , one using vegetative and floral characters and the other using ultrastructure of the testa. Each species description is accompanied by illustrations and a distribution map. Historical and ecological notes on the genus are give

The Automation of the Born Inversion for Ultrasonic Flaw Sizing

The Born approximation has been widely employed as a basis for determining flaw sizes using individual pulse-echo waveforms together with the assumption of an ellipsoidal flaw geometry. A major difficulty in implementing such algorithms has been the determination of the time delay corresponding to the flaw centroid. However, both the time delay calculation and the flaw size determination itself can be performed in an optimal fashion using statistical estimation techniques with an appropriate error model. We will discuss the application of these techniques to an automated flaw-sizing algorithm requiring a minimum of operator input, and will compare the results obtained by this method with those obtained by previous operator-intensive methods