High-Growth Elementary Schools in Arkansas Based on Performance on the ACT Aspire Examinations

This section highlights elementary schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2018 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading

High-Growth Elementary Schools in Arkansas Based on Performance on the ACT Aspire Examinations

This section highlights elementary schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2018 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading

High-Growth Middle Schools in Arkansas Based on Performance on the ACT Aspire Examinations

This section highlights middle schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2018 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading

High-Growth High Schools in Arkansas Based on Performance on the ACT Aspire Examinations

This section highlights high schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2018 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading

The Business Guide to the Low Carbon Economy: California

Outlines California's climate change policy and offers a detailed framework for calculating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and purchasing offsets. Includes focus areas for each sector, reference lists, and profiles of successful strategies

The Effects of Social-Adjustive and Value-Expressive Attitudes on Preferences Towards Counterfeit Luxury Goods and Logos

The market for counterfeit luxury goods has been growing exponentially over the past several years, causing the luxury brand market to lose approximately $12 billion per year (International Chamber of Commerce 2004). In the United States, over 750,000 jobs are lost annually due to counterfeiting (US Chamber of Commerce 2006). This study hypothesizes that consumers with Social-Adjustive attitudes have a higher preference towards logos and will be generally indifferent towards authenticity, while Value-Expressive consumers prefer higher quality bags and are generally indifferent towards the presence of logos. Consumers’ degree of preference towards their respective variable (quality or logo) is slightly different in each control situation (i.e. logo is more important to Social-Adjustive consumers when bags are counterfeit as opposed to authentic). This paper examines the purchase intent for handbags varying by either logo or authenticity. The independent variables used to measure purchase intent (dependent variable) are consumers’ attitudes towards counterfeits and luxury goods: Value-Expressive and Social-Adjustive. Using survey data, 123 female Union College students are categorized by attitude. Responses from these categories determined the effects of attitudes on preferences. Purchase intent for four bag comparison questions (two per hypothesis) is measured using regression analysis. Attitude functions are regressed on purchase intent in different ways to measure their pure and joint effects of each attitude on purchase intent. My research expands on previous research by examining the effect of consumers’ attitudes on purchase intent when dealing with logo preference

Early Hearing Loss and Language Outcomes: A Review and Case Study

Early hearing loss is a widespread medical and developmental concern that affects over 1 in 500 infants (Mehl, 1998). Hearing impairments in children have been linked to a variety of adverse developmental outcomes, including poor speech and language ability and difficulties with cognition and social-emotional adjustment. Early intervention has been demonstrated to be one of the most important factors in influencing outcomes for children born with congenital hearing loss (Vohr et al., 2008). This review and case study aims to outline the connection between early hearing loss, intervention, and speech/language abilities by exploring the case of a 13-month-old infant with early hearing loss. KD, the subject of interest, was born with bilateral moderate/severe sensorineural hearing loss and received amplification at three months of age. After undergoing several speech and language evaluations, KD was found to have above average linguistic abilities, suggesting that her early hearing loss has not hindered her development in this area, thus far

Graduation Rates in Arkansas: An Updated Analysis

High school graduation rate has become an increasingly important measure of school performance over the past fifteen years. Graduation is an important event, as studies have shown that failing to graduate from high school is associated with several negative consequences including lower lifetime wages, poorer health, and an increased likelihood of incarceration. This paper examines several district- and school-level variables that may impact the high school graduation rate in a given school, district or region

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Growth Arkansas Schools, 2017

This section highlights [middle] schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades [5] through [8] in April 2017 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading. Each table in this section presents the Top 20 schools for the noted subject area and school level. In addition, these tables include the region in which the schools are located, the grades served at the school, the weighted achievement score, and the content growth score in that particular subject. The level of the schools, namely Elementary, Middle, and High, have been based on the school allocation given through the My School Info portal of the Arkansas Department of Education website

Fibroblast growth factor signalling in the development and functions of the choroid plexus

The choroid plexuses (CPs) are secretory organs that lie within the brain ventricles. Mature CPs produce cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) which surrounds the central nervous system (CNS). During embryogenesis, prior to terminal differentiation of neurons and glia, CPs are morphologically distinct and have secretory capacity, suggesting that CPs may influence the extracellular environment of the developing CNS. Although the roles of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) as morphogenic and mitogenic signals during CNS development are well characterised, they have not been addressed in embryonic CPs. In this study, I investigated the FGF receptor (FGFR) family in relation to CP development and function. I found that several FGFRs are differentially expressed in the CPs during murine development. This finding was important because many individuals with the human disorder, syndromic craniosynostosis (SCS), have constitutively active FGFRs, and frequently suffer from raised intracranial pressure. This led to the hypothesis that increased FGFR signalling alters the function of the CPs. In order to elucidate the functional role of FGF signalling in the embryonic CP, I used several approaches. Firstly, I cultured CP epithelial cells (CPe) in Matrigel, and demonstrated that CPe in this matrix formed hollow vesicles, maintained their ultrastructural characteristics, and had secretory activity. I found that the CPe marker, transthyretin, was expressed in culture. Treatment of CPe with FGF2 significantly increased vesicle diameter, but did not seem to alter secretion, indicating that the FGF2 effect was on vesicle formation. Secondly, I cultured CPe monolayers, and established that at least one effect of FGF2 was to stimulate CPe cell division. An analysis of proteins in CSF of children with SCS showed no significant change in the concentration of transthyretin secreted by the CPs. These data indicate that FGF signalling is involved in CP development, and that FGFs may function to stimulate CP proliferation, rather than affecting CSF constituents or CP secretion rates during embryonic development