Addressing the Wicked Problem of English Learner Disproportionality by Examining Speech-Language Pathologists’ Beliefs: Applying Q Methodology to Special Education

The attribution of academic failure to an educational disability instead of a lack of English proficiency is one factor contributing to the disproportionate representation of English learners (ELs) in special education. As gatekeepers to special education, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must ensure that ELs found eligible for special education under the category of Speech and Language Impairment are truly those with an impairment due to Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or another developmental disability, not children exhibiting differences from standard English use due to cultural or linguistic differences or lack of English proficiency. However, many SLPs’ ongoing reliance on invalid procedures to make a determination about an EL’s language learning ability makes their ability to make appropriate determinations of special education eligibility problematic. This exploratory study hypothesized that factor(s) besides the lack of knowledge or resources as previously documented may be presenting a barrier to the fidelity with which SLPs perform bilingual assessments. This study utilized Q methodology, a unique gestalt procedure whose aim is to reveal how configurations of themes are interconnected among a group of participants. A set of California school-based SLPs sorted a set of subjective statements about linguistic diversity, bilingualism, ELs’ learning potential, and the use of EL language assessment best practices. Sorts were intercorrelated and revealed 4 distinct profiles defined by their beliefs and attitudes. While areas of consensus among the 4 profiles were discovered, the profiles diverged in their beliefs about the importance and value of using EL assessment best practices, their perceptions of social pressure to utilize these best practices, their perceptions of ELs situated in either strengths-based or deficit thinking, and their perceptions of the degree of control they have over using EL assessment best practices. Results shed new light on the association of SLPs’ assessment practices with the issue of EL disproportionality and suggest ways to enhance the ability of pre-service educators, professional development providers, and school administrators to create targeted remedies for the “wicked” problem of EL disproportionality in special education

Legacies of Wartime Order: Punishment Attacks and Social Control in Northern Ireland

Many armed groups create informal institutions to maintain social order during conflict. The remnants of these informal institutions form a key challenge for governments in postconflict societies in their attempts to reestablish themselves as credible state authorities. The persistence of paramilitary groups’ informal “justice” systems in the form of so-called punishment attacks in Northern Ireland, more than twenty years on from the Good Friday Agreement, offers insights into the legacy of wartime institutions. We argue that armed actors can benefit from the social control wartime institutions grant them long after the conflict ends and both armed actors and civilians are socialized into relying on these institutions. Building on research on wartime institutions, criminal governance, and postwar state-building, we examine how the informal “justice” systems created during the Troubles (1968–98) remain at the fringes of postwar society, drawing on historical works, interviews with stakeholders, geocoded data on “punishment attacks,” and survey data

Representing Complexity in Part-Whole Relationships within the Foundational Model of Anatomy

The Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) is a frame-based ontology that represents declarative knowledge about the structural organization of the human body. Part-whole relationships play a particularly important role in this representation. In order to assure that knowledge-based applications relying on the FMA as a resource can reason about anatomy, we have modified and enhanced currently available schemes of meronymic relationships. We have introduced and defined distinct partitions for decomposing anatomical structures and attributed the part relationships in order to eliminate ambiguity and enhance specificity in the richness of meronymic relationships within the FMA

Perceptions of the past in the post-Soviet space

Honing in on how citizens in the former Soviet Union find themselves in an information competition over their own past, this paper explores whether and why ordinary people’s perceptions of historical events and figures in their country’s past are in line with a Russian-promoted narrative that highlights World War II – known as the “Great Patriotic War” in Russia and some former Soviet states – as a glorious Soviet victory and Stalin as a great leader. We draw on comparative survey data across six states and one de facto state in 2019–2020 to examine whether geopolitical or cultural proximity to Russia is associated with a more favourable view on a Russian-promoted narrative about the past. We find that closer geopolitical proximity to Russia is associated with perceiving the past in line with the Russian-promoted narrative, though the findings are less consistent when it comes to measures for closer cultural proximity

Bilinear forms on Grothendieck groups of triangulated categories

We extend the theory of bilinear forms on the Green ring of a finite group developed by Benson and Parker to the context of the Grothendieck group of a triangulated category with Auslander-Reiten triangles, taking only relations given by direct sum decompositions. We examine the non-degeneracy of the bilinear form given by dimensions of homomorphisms, and show that the form may be modified to give a Hermitian form for which the standard basis given by indecomposable objects has a dual basis given by Auslander-Reiten triangles. An application is given to the homotopy category of perfect complexes over a symmetric algebra, with a consequence analogous to a result of Erdmann and Kerner.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1301.470

Examining the Effectiveness of Marketing Practices of a Nonprofit Institution of Higher Education: Internal Service Provider

Abstract - Quality education is the sum of Institutions of Higher Education’s (IHE) parts, including classroom instruction and internal services, that are key to a student’s success during and after college. The purpose of this study is to address an understudied sector in the nonprofit marketing literature (i.e., Institutions of Higher Education internal service providers). The current study extends Dakouan et al. (2019) work by examining the marketing efforts of an IHE’s career services center’s effectiveness in creating awareness and increasing attendance at career events. The study focuses on outbound marketing strategies addressing the research question “to what extent are outbound marketing strategies successful in creating awareness and increasing attendance at IHE’s career fairs?” Data were collected over three academic years through an intercept survey provided at career fairs and through a database of social media and digital marketing analytics at a medium-sized university located in the Southeastern United States. Frequency analyses were used to determine the effectiveness of marketing strategies in bringing awareness and increasing attendance to IHE career fairs. Further, attendance data were compared between results of frequency analyses of outbound marketing strategies. The findings revealed that only two effective forms of outbound communications used by the subject IHE’s career center were personal selling by faculty and email blast. Findings also revealed that social and internet marketing strategies used by the subject IHE career center were not effective. The results have implications as to a need for continual marketing research of trends in marketing best practices. The findings demonstrated the need for adding inbound marketing strategies(Dakouan et al., 2019) and hiring and/or training staff in marketing research, social media, and internet marketing skills. From the study’s findings, it was concluded that Filip’s(2012) study was supported. Thus, to create awareness and increase attendance at events provided by an IHE’s internal services providers, strategically applied marketing best practices are necessary

Results on Photon Production in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC

The status of the search for direct photons in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 130 GeV and sqrt{s_NN} = 200 GeV with the PHENIX experiment is presented. Within errors, no excess of direct photons was found in a first analysis pass done on a limited data set. Significantly reduced systematic and statistical uncertainties are expected in future analyses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Talk presented at the Quark Matter 2002 conference, Nantes, France, July 18-24, 2002. To appear in the proceedings (Nucl. Phys. A

The partnering with patients model of nursing interventions : A first step to a practice theory

The development of a body of knowledge, gained through research and theory building, is one hallmark of a profession. This paper presents the “Partnering with Patients Model of Nursing Interventions”, providing direction towards how complex nursing interventions can be developed, tested and subsequently adopted into practice. Coalescence of understanding of patient-centred care, the capabilities approach and the concept of complex healthcare interventions led to the development of the model assumptions and concepts. Application of the model to clinical practice is described, including presentation of a case study, and areas for future research including understanding both patients’ and nurses’ perceptions and experiences when the model is in use, and testing the effect of nursing interventions based on the model are recommende