336 research outputs found
An Evaluation of the Pilot Appraisal System Adopted by the Omaha Public Schools
Currently, teacher evaluation is a dominant educational concern. Articles dealing with the problems and solutions to the evaluation of teaching reveal the extensiveness of the problem. There are complaints from teachers regarding the specifics of evaluation such as: too many administrative visits, too few administrative visits, insufficient feedback after the evaluation, lack of administrative understanding of the curriculum, lack of time for the teacher to correct the problems identified and of opportunity for teacher improvement. There are also complaints from administrators. These complaints include the lack of time to make observations, lack of understanding of the teacher\u27s goals and lack of opportunity to gather needed data to justify a competency hearing
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The effect of age and diapause on the long-term intake of protein and sugar by two species of blowflies, Phormia regina (Meig.) and Protophormia terraenovae (R.D.).
Facilitation, competition and parasitic facilitation amongst invasive and native liana seedlings and a native tree seedling
Lianas are prevalent in gaps and edges of forests where they compete intensely with trees, reducing growth and recruitment. Invasive lianas have the potential to be particularly harmful as the competitive advantage of the liana life history may be coupled with the more competitive qualities of invasiveness. However, in early stages of growth of lianas and native tree seedlings, facilitatory interactions or competitive interactions associated with soil nutrients may be more prevalent. We investigated interactions at the early stages of growth between native and invasive lianas with a common rainforest tree of temperate Australian rainforests under different light conditions. Invasive lianas, as a group, were not more competitive than native lianas in reducing growth of a native rainforest seedling. At this stage in the life cycle most lianas were as competitive as a conspecific seedling. However, one invasive liana, Anredera cordifolia, was particularly competitive and reduced biomass of tree seedlings. Light had little effect on growth of lianas nor on the impact of competition, however, specific leaf area differed between low and medium light conditions.
Moderate light did improve growth in the rainforest tree seedling. When lianas were grown with a rainforest tree, three liana species overyielded, while one species was unaffected by growing with the tree seedling. Overyielding suggests a strong positive interaction with the neighbouring plant, mediated through belowground processes. We discuss the potential for these interactions to be facilitative, parasitic or competitive. We therefore show that interactions early in the life of rainforest species can be complex mixtures of interactions which are likely to influence the ability of lianas to dominate rainforests
Randomized Trial of Antibiotics in Addition to Tocolytic Therapy to Treat Preterm Labor
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess whether antibiotic
therapy plus tocolysis given to women in preterm labor would prolong pregnancy
compared with tocolysis alone
Improving Outpatient Diabetes Care
More than 20% of patients in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have diabetes; therefore, disseminating “best practices” in outpatient diabetes care is paramount. The authors’ goal was to identify such practices and the factors associated with their development. First, a national VHA diabetes registry with 2008 data identified clinical performance based on the percentage of patients with an A1c \u3e9%. Facilities (n = 140) and community-based outpatient clinics (n = 582) were included and stratified into high, mid, and low performers. Semistructured telephone interviews (31) and site visits (5) were conducted. Low performers cited lack of teamwork between physicians and nurses and inadequate time to prepare. Better performing sites reported supportive clinical teams sharing work, time for non-face-to-face care, and innovative practices to address local needs. A knowledge management model informed our process. Notable differences between performance levels exist. “Best practices” will be disseminated across the VHA as the VHA Patient-Centered Medical Home model is implemented
Measuring the neutron star equation of state using X-ray timing
One of the primary science goals of the next generation of hard X-ray timing
instruments is to determine the equation of state of the matter at supranuclear
densities inside neutron stars, by measuring the radius of neutron stars with
different masses to accuracies of a few percent. Three main techniques can be
used to achieve this goal. The first involves waveform modelling. The flux we
observe from a hotspot on the neutron star surface offset from the rotational
pole will be modulated by the star's rotation, giving rise to a pulsation.
Information about mass and radius is encoded into the pulse profile via
relativistic effects, and tight constraints on mass and radius can be obtained.
The second technique involves characterising the spin distribution of accreting
neutron stars. The most rapidly rotating stars provide a very clean constraint,
since the mass-shedding limit is a function of mass and radius. However the
overall spin distribution also provides a guide to the torque mechanisms in
operation and the moment of inertia, both of which can depend sensitively on
dense matter physics. The third technique is to search for quasi-periodic
oscillations in X-ray flux associated with global seismic vibrations of
magnetars (the most highly magnetized neutron stars), triggered by magnetic
explosions. The vibrational frequencies depend on stellar parameters including
the dense matter equation of state. We illustrate how these complementary X-ray
timing techniques can be used to constrain the dense matter equation of state,
and discuss the results that might be expected from a 10m instrument. We
also discuss how the results from such a facility would compare to other
astronomical investigations of neutron star properties. [Modified for arXiv]Comment: To appear in Reviews of Modern Physics as a Colloquium, 23 pages, 9
figure
Atmospheric Effects on Neutron Star Parameter Constraints with NICER
We present an analysis of the effects of uncertainties in the atmosphere
models on the radius, mass, and other neutron star parameter constraints for
the NICER observations of rotation-powered millisecond pulsars. To date, NICER
has applied the X-ray pulse profile modeling technique to two
millisecond-period pulsars: PSR J0030+0451 and the high-mass pulsar PSR
J0740+6620. These studies have commonly assumed a deep-heated fully-ionized
hydrogen atmosphere model, although they have explored the effects of
partial-ionization and helium composition in some cases. Here we extend that
exploration and also include new models with partially ionized carbon
composition, externally heated hydrogen, and an empirical atmospheric beaming
parametrization to explore deviations in the expected anisotropy of the emitted
radiation. None of the studied atmosphere cases have any significant influence
on the inferred radius of PSR J0740+6620, possibly due to its X-ray faintness,
tighter external constraints, and/or viewing geometry. In the case of PSR
J0030+0451 both the composition and ionization state could significantly alter
the inferred radius. However, based on the evidence (prior predictive
probability of the data), partially ionized hydrogen and carbon atmospheres are
disfavored. The difference in the evidence for ionized hydrogen and helium
atmospheres is too small to be decisive for most cases, but the inferred radius
for helium models trends to larger sizes around or above 14-15 km. External
heating or deviations in the beaming that are less than at emission
angles smaller than 60 degrees, on the other hand, have no significant effect
on the inferred radius.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures (2 of which are figure sets), 3 tables. Accepted
for publication in Ap
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