Influence of the cotton industry on education in South Carolina.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Pedagogy or Ideological Struggle? An Examination of Pupils’ and Teachers’ Expectations for Talk in the Classroom

This paper draws on research into teachers' and pupils' perceptions of talk in school. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives, it shows that expectations of talk are grounded in particular sociocultural values that represent hegemonic interpretations of the quality of talk and classroom discourse. Although much has been written about classroom talk, the pupils' voice is often absent from discussion. The children in this study revealed very different views of the expectations of talk from that of their teachers'. In particular, they appeared uncertain about whether their teachers liked them to talk but they seemed very clear that the teacher was in control of the talk. Despite pupils' enthusiasm for talk, their teachers held negative views of certain pupils' performance. It is argued that both pupils' and teachers' expectations are guided more by their own perceptions of an ideal state than by pedagogic or heuristic motives

Renewable energy target scheme report of the expert panel

An examination of the operation, costs and benefits of the RET, including the economic, environmental and social impacts, the extent to which the objectives of the scheme are being met and the interaction of the RET with other Commonwealth and state and territory policies. Introduction The Review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme was jointly announced by the Hon Ian Macfarlane MP, the Minister for Industry, and the Hon Greg Hunt MP, the Minister for the Environment, on 17 February 2014. The Terms of Reference state that the review is to examine the operation, costs and benefits of the RET scheme including the economic, environmental and social impacts, the extent to which the objectives of the scheme are being met and the interaction of the RET with other Australian Government and state and territory government policies. The review is to provide advice on whether the objectives of the RET scheme are still appropriate and the range of options available for reducing its impact on electricity prices

Creating an Interprofessional Collaborative Research Opportunity for Physical and Occupational Therapy Students

Physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) professional associations assert the importance that entry-level therapists learn and apply the knowledge and skills necessary for interprofessional collaborative practice; however, the majority of PT and OT programs do not have the other discipline at their university. A challenge exists for the creation of a transparent active learning opportunity promoting interprofessional student engagement when the two professions do not reside in the same university. This case study provides a model for how to feasibly create an interprofessional experience for students in universities that do not include a complementary or collaborative allied health professional program, using various technologies. While creating this collaborative project, we provided opportunities to meet the Interprofessional Education Collaborative’s (IPEC) competencies: a) value/ethics for interprofessional practice, b) roles and responsibilities, c) interprofessional communication, and d) teams and teamwork through participation in a breast cancer survivorship research study. Within this demonstration project, the faculty were able to make “micro level” changes to foster interprofessional collaboration among universities with other allied health profession programs, which may lead to improved health outcomes for our clients

High resolution mapping of Twist to DNA in Drosophila embryos: Efficient functional analysis and evolutionary conservation

Cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) function by binding sequence specific transcription factors, but the relationship between in vivo physical binding and the regulatory capacity of factor-bound DNA elements remains uncertain. We investigate this relationship for the well-studied Twist factor in Drosophila melanogaster embryos by analyzing genome-wide factor occupancy and testing the functional significance of Twist occupied regions and motifs within regions. Twist ChIP-seq data efficiently identified previously studied Twist-dependent CRMs and robustly predicted new CRM activity in transgenesis, with newly identified Twist-occupied regions supporting diverse spatiotemporal patterns (>74% positive, n = 31). Some, but not all, candidate CRMs require Twist for proper expression in the embryo. The Twist motifs most favored in genome ChIP data (in vivo) differed from those most favored by Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX) (in vitro). Furthermore, the majority of ChIP-seq signals could be parsimoniously explained by a CABVTG motif located within 50 bp of the ChIP summit and, of these, CACATG was most prevalent. Mutagenesis experiments demonstrated that different Twist E-box motif types are not fully interchangeable, suggesting that the ChIP-derived consensus (CABVTG) includes sites having distinct regulatory outputs. Further analysis of position, frequency of occurrence, and sequence conservation revealed significant enrichment and conservation of CABVTG E-box motifs near Twist ChIP-seq signal summits, preferential conservation of ±150 bp surrounding Twist occupied summits, and enrichment of GA- and CA-repeat sequences near Twist occupied summits. Our results show that high resolution in vivo occupancy data can be used to drive efficient discovery and dissection of global and local cis-regulatory logic

Crimson: A Data Management System to Support Evaluating Phylogenetic Tree Reconstruction Algorithms

Evolutionary and systems biology increasingly rely on the construction of large phylogenetic trees which represent the relationships between species of interest. As the number and size of such trees increases, so does the need for efficient data storage and query capabilities. Although much attention has been focused on XML as a tree data model, phylogenetic trees differ from document-oriented applications in their size and depth, and their need for structure based queries rather than path-based queries. This paper focuses on Crimson, a tree storage system for phylogenetic trees used to evaluate phylogenetic tree reconstruction algorithms within the context of the NSF CIPRes project. A goal of the modeling component of the CIPRes project is to construct a huge simulation tree representing a gold standard of evolutionary history against which phylogenetic tree reconstruction algorithms can be tested. In this demonstration, we highlight our storage and indexing strategies and show how Crimson is used for benchmarking phylogenetic tree reconstruction algorithms. We also show how our design can be used to support more general queries over phylogenetic trees

P18 Caring for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) during the COVID-19 pandemic: a transcontinental study

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial challenges to the support systems of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) internationally – this study explored the care experiences of people with (IDD) as reported by nurses in Ireland, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Aim The aim of this study was to carry out an international investigation into the basic care needs experience of people with IDD one year into the Covid 19 pandemic internationally, as observed by nurses. Methods An online 52-item questionnaire was used to survey a convenience sample of 369 nurses across North America, Europe and Australasia. Descriptive statistics were used to rank the challenges in caring for PWIDD. Manifest content analysis was used to analyse open-ended responses. This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Review Board at one of the co-author’s educational institution. Results The quantitative findings from this study were similar across global regions in terms of the challenges faced by people with IDD, including disrupted socialisation with family/friends, limitations to day programming or educational activities, ensuring sufficient staffing to care for people with IDD and coping with pandemic related changes. Qualitative content analysis of open-ended survey responses revealed many challenges for people with IDD during the pandemic which included, issues relating to meaningful socialisation and daytime activation for positive mental/behavioural health and issues regarding access to the quality healthcare care and understating and adapting to changing public health guidelines. Conclusion Overall this study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the existing often unrecognized health and care inequities experienced by people with IDD. Continuing issues with access to care and support for people with IDD in health and social care settings were further impaired by the pandemic. The importance of having meaningful activity and socialization for overall well-being of people with IDD during a long-term public health crisis became very much apparent in the study’s findings. This is especially tragic in a group already experiencing inequitable distribution of healthcare, compounding existing disadvantages across a multitude of life domains. These problems are often accentuated by the stigma associated with disability, and a lack of understanding of the healthcare needs of this population. This study benefited greatly from an international collaboration made more possible due great advances in virtual communication during the pandemic

Direct Numerical Simulation of Radiation Pressure-Driven Turbulence and Winds in Star Clusters and Galactic Disks

[abridged] The pressure exerted by the radiation of young stars may be an important feedback mechanism in forming star clusters and the disks of starburst galaxies. However, there is great uncertainty in how efficiently radiation couples to matter in these high optical depth environments. In particular, it is unclear what levels of turbulence the radiation can produce, and whether the infrared radiation trapped by the dust opacity can give rise to heavily mass-loaded winds. In this paper we report a series of two-dimensional flux-limited diffusion radiation-hydrodynamics calculations performed with the code ORION in which we drive strong radiation fluxes through columns of dusty matter confined by gravity. We consider both systems where the radiation flux is sub-Eddington throughout the gas column, and where it is super-Eddington at the midplane but sub-Eddington in the atmosphere. In the latter, we find that the radiation-matter interaction gives rise to radiation-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which drives supersonic turbulence at a level sufficient to fully explain the turbulence seen in Galactic protocluster gas clouds, and to make a non-trivial contribution to the turbulence observed in starburst galaxy disks. However, the instability also produces a channel structure in which the radiation-matter interaction is reduced because the radiation field is not fully trapped. For astrophysical parameters relevant to forming star clusters and starburst galaxies, we find that this effect reduces the net momentum deposition rate in the dusty gas by a factor of ~2-6 compared to simple analytic estimates, and that in steady state the Eddington ratio reaches unity and there are no strong winds. We provide an approximation formula, appropriate for implementation in analytic models and non-radiative simulations, for the force exerted by the infrared radiation field in this regime.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, emulateapj format, accepted to ApJ. This version has extra discussion, but the results are unchanged. For movies of simulation results, see http://www.ucolick.org/~krumholz/downloads.htm

Biopsychosocial Intervention for Stroke Carers (BISC): protocol for a feasibility randomized controlled trial

Introduction Reducing length of hospital stay for stroke survivors often creates a shift in the responsibility of care towards informal carers. Adjustment to the caregiving process is experienced by many carers as overwhelming, complex and demanding, and can have a detrimental impact on mental and physical health and wellbeing. National policy guidelines recommend that carers’ needs are considered and addressed; despite this, few interventions have been developed and empirically evaluated. We developed a biopsychosocial intervention in collaboration with carers of stroke survivors. Our aim is to determine whether the intervention can be delivered in a group setting and evaluated using a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Methods and Analysis Feasibility randomised controlled trial (RCT) and nested qualitative interview study. We aim to recruit up to 40 stroke carers within one year of the stroke onset. Carers are randomised to usual care or usual care plus biopsychosocial intervention. Each intervention group will consist of five stroke carers. The intervention will focus on: psychoeducation, psychological adjustment to stroke, strategies for reducing unwanted negative thoughts and emotions, and problem solving strategies. The main outcome is the feasibility of conducting an RCT. Carer outcomes at six months include: anxiety and depression, quality of life, and carer strain. Data is also collected from stroke survivors at baseline and six months including: level of disability, anxiety and depression, and quality of life. Ethics and Dissemination Favourable ethical opinion was provided by East Midlands – Nottingham2 Research Ethics Committee (14/EMI/1264). This study will determine whether delivery of the biopsychosocial intervention is feasible and acceptable to stroke carers within a group format. It will also determine whether it is feasible to evaluate the effects of the biopsychosocial intervention in an RCT. We will disseminate our findings through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national and international conferences