Work Well: Promoting Health Behaviors and Self-Care Amongst Public School Faculty, Staff, & Administrators

Workplace wellness is a critical aspect within an organization. Failure to encourage and meet the wellness needs of staff can lead to increased absenteeism, decreased productivity, as well as increased stress levels. Improved workplace wellness in an academic setting has not only potential positive impact on employees but also the students they teach. Evidence shows that implementing wellness initiatives in academic settings has the potential to improve the overall wellbeing of teachers as well as students. Interventions include a Walkabout Challenge, a Caring Peer Group, and education. The interventions are an effort to improve self-care habits amongst faculty and staff to improve wellness in the workplace

Spiritual Leadership as an Effective Leadership Style for the Public School Superintendent

Historically, the job of a public school superintendent has been to manage the operations of the district. With the pressures and changes in today\u27s world, there is a requirement for school leaders to command more skills than merely management skills. In order to understand what skills effective school leaders need, more research into effective leadership techniques and skills is necessary. More current research has begun to study a higher moral method of leadership, one in which the leader allows his spirituality to guide all of his decisions and relationships. The study of spiritual leadership focused on education, specifically, the superintendent, is greatly needed to provide insights into the professional development of future educational leaders. The purpose of this study was to determine if spiritual leadership is an effective style of leadership for superintendents of public schools by describing how it looks in practice and identifying the varying characteristics that are held in common by those superintendents identified as spiritual leaders. A qualitative design was utilized to achieve an in-depth understanding of the leadership characteristics that the two selected superintendents displayed under the conditions of the superintendency. Through a case study approach, the investigation was conducted using the following research methods: semi-structured one-on-one interviews with the superintendent, key members of the administrative team and School Board, onsite observations, and document analysis. Data was analyzed in two stages; a with-in case analysis and a cross-case analysis, to find core consistencies and reveal patterns and themes within each case and secondly, make comparisons between the two cases. This study may have implications for those in educational leadership positions for their own spiritual leadership development and their support of others. Awareness of the factors that influence the participants, recognized for their spiritual leadership, may promote an understanding of spiritual formation factors. Insight into the practices and daily interactions of superintendents perceived as spiritual leaders by their assistants and other key administrators and stakeholders may provide knowledge into how to recognize a spiritual leader in the hiring process and an understanding of successful spiritual practices in education

One-Dimensional Mean Line Code Technique to Calculate Stage-by-Stage Compressor Characteristics

Because modem turbine engines have such complex flow fields, extensive testing is required to ensure stability. The testing of these engines and their components is very expensive. To offset testing costs, computer simulations are often used. Several computer simulations have been developed at Arnold Engineering Development Center for this purpose. These codes require stage-by-stage compressor characteristics in order to simulate flow through a compressor. A technique to calculate compressor characteristics was developed using a mean line code (MLC). This MLC was modified to include loss and deviation correlations from open literature and to account for the conservation of angular momentum as the flow area changes between blade rows. In this research, it was determined that the MLC could predict the compressor total pressure characteristics for the normal operating range within about 4.9-percent difference when compared to data for a single fan rotor compressor. For this same fan rotor, the MLC could predict the compressor total temperature characteristics within 1.2-percent difference. It was also determined that for a single compressor stage, the MLC could predict the compressor total pressure characteristics for the normal operating conditions within I. 7-percent accuracy when compared to data. For this compressor stage, the MLC could predict the compressor total temperature characteristics within 1.0-percent accuracy

Training Together: State Policy and Collective Participation in Early Educator Professional Development

This study used one state’s early care and education work-force registry and professional development attendance data to examine early educator patterns of professional development participation and the extent of collective participation. The article presents the concept of collective participation in professional development, discusses its potential benefits, and highlights the utility of statewide digital tracking of early educators’ patterns of professional development for informing policy. Results show that collective participation is uncommon in early education and care but can be increased through professional development policy decisions. The article concludes with implications for research and policy

Education and Mentoring of Staff Nurses in Evidence Based Practice

Current gaps in nursing practice can decrease by the translation, implementation, and dissemination of evidence-based practice (EBP). The purpose of this project was to provide staff nurses with EBP education and mentoring in identifying and addressing nursing practice issues using EBP to manage patient care. The Advancing Research & Clinical Practice through Close Collaboration (ARCC) and the social cognitive theory were used as a framework to guide this project development, which addressed if medical surgical nurses receiving education in EBP practice led to improved use, implementation, and improved best practice outcomes. Seven randomly selected medical surgical nurses from a local community 200-bed hospital were recruited to participate in this project. The participants were placed in a quiet room and asked to complete a pre ARCC EBP Beliefs Scale survey, review newly developed EBP education tool, and complete a post ARCC EBP Beliefs Scale survey. The EBP Beliefs Scale (EBPB) survey was used pre and post EBP educational tool review and consisted of 16 statements addressing nurses\u27 beliefs about EBP knowledge. This survey also addressed the implementation of EBP into nursing practice. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze the surveys. The results of the survey show a positive correlation between receiving education and mentoring with utilizing EBP in nursing practice. The results of this quality improvement project\u27s social impact will improve collaboration in healthcare organizations and nursing staff to improve the use, translation, and dissemination of EBP projects for patient care improvements and overall improved patient care outcomes

TweetDrought: A Deep-Learning Drought Impacts Recognizer based on Twitter Data

Acquiring a better understanding of drought impacts becomes increasingly vital under a warming climate. Traditional drought indices describe mainly biophysical variables and not impacts on social, economic, and environmental systems. We utilized natural language processing and bidirectional encoder representation from Transformers (BERT) based transfer learning to fine-tune the model on the data from the news-based Drought Impact Report (DIR) and then apply it to recognize seven types of drought impacts based on the filtered Twitter data from the United States. Our model achieved a satisfying macro-F1 score of 0.89 on the DIR test set. The model was then applied to California tweets and validated with keyword-based labels. The macro-F1 score was 0.58. However, due to the limitation of keywords, we also spot-checked tweets with controversial labels. 83.5% of BERT labels were correct compared to the keyword labels. Overall, the fine-tuned BERT-based recognizer provided proper predictions and valuable information on drought impacts. The interpretation and analysis of the model were consistent with experiential domain expertise

Molecular evolution of the vesicle coat component βCOP in Toxoplasma gondii

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 44 (2007): 1284-1294, doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.02.031.Coatomer coated (COPI) vesicles play a pivotal role for multiple membrane trafficking steps throughout the eukaryotic cell. Our focus is on βCOP, one of the most well known components of the COPI multi-protein complex. Amino acid differences in βCOP may dictate functional divergence across species during the course of evolution, especially with regards to the evolutionary pressures on obligate intracellular parasites. A bioinformatic analysis of βCOP amino acid sequences was conducted for 49 eukaryotic species. Cloning and sequence analysis of the Toxoplasma gondii βCOP homologue revealed several amino acid insertions unique to T. gondii and one C-terminal insertion that is unique to apicomplexan parasites. These findings led us to investigate the possibility that βCOP experienced functional divergence during the course of its evolution. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis revealed a tree consistent with pan eukaryote distribution and long-branch lengths were observed among the apicomplexans. Further analysis revealed that kinetoplast βCOP underwent the most amount of change, leading to perhaps an overall change of function. In comparison, T. gondii exhibited subtle yet specific amino acid changes. The amino acid substitutions did not occur in the same places as other lineages, suggesting that TgβCOP has a role specific to the apicomplexans. Our work identifies forty-eight residues that are likely to be functionally important when comparing apicomplexan, kinetoplastid, and fungal βCOP.KMH is an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Infectious Disease; SLP was supported by an NIH training grant (NIH/NIAID/TMP T 32 7030); AGM was supported by the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Program in Global Infectious Diseases, also funded by the Ellison Medical Foundation

Glucocorticoid-Induced TNFR-Related Protein Stimulation Reverses Cardiac Allograft Acceptance Induced by CD40-CD40L Blockade

CD40-CD40L blockade has potent immunosuppressive effects in cardiac allograft rejection but is less effective in the presence of inflammatory signals. To better understand the factors that mediate CD40-CD40L blockade-resistant rejection, we studied the effects of stimulation through glucocorticoid-induced TNFR-related protein (GITR), a costimulatory protein expressed by regulatory and effector T cells. Stimulation of CD40−/− or wild-type recipient mice treated with anti-CD40L mAb (WT+anti-CD40L) and with agonistic anti-GITR mAb resulted in cardiac allograft rejection. GITR stimulation did not induce rejection once long-term graft acceptance was established. In vitro, GITR stimulation increased proliferation of effector T cells and decreased regulatory T cell () differentiation in both treatment groups. GITR-stimulated CD40−/− recipients rejected their allografts more rapidly compared to GITR-stimulated WT+anti-CD40L recipients, and this rejection, characterized by a robust Th2 response and significant eosinophilic infiltrate, could be mediated by CD4+ T cells alone. In contrast, both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were required to induce rejection in GITR-stimulated WT+anti-CD40L-treated recipients, and the pathology of rejection was less severe. Hence, early GITR stimulation could initiate graft rejection despite CD40 deficiency or anti-CD40L mAb treatment, though the recipient response was dependent on the mechanism of CD40-CD40L disruption