Turnaround principals : perceptions of effective district supports that lead to successful and sustainable change

Educators and politicians have grappled to discover and implement strategies to improve student achievement results. Districts’ efforts to recruit and retain effective principals and teachers are crucial because of the positive influence these educators have on student achievement. However, highly qualified teachers and principals are hard to come by, especially in areas where low-performing schools are nestled. The main purpose of the study was to understand the district supports turnaround school principals perceive as necessary to achieve sustainable success and to describe the experiences of the principals during at least their first year in the turnaround school setting. An interpretive research approach within phenomenological methodology allowed for understanding how each principal lived the turnaround school experience and how the supports they had and strategies they employed impacted school turnaround. The questions for turnaround leaders receiving campus SIG funds were as follows: 1. What do the turnaround principals perceive as successful strategies for school turnaround? 2. To what extent do turnaround principals perceive their districts helped or impeded their turnaround efforts? 3. How do participants make sense of being a principal at a turnaround school? Turnaround for this study was defined as a school for 2 years or more not meeting state standards, and effective school turnaround was defined as a school reaching the met standard status after 1 year of leadership. Five participants were recruited who had been the lead campus administrator for at least two years, and during their tenure, had led their campus out of improvement required (IR) status. Interview transcripts were coded using elaborative methods. The major themes were the following: (a) Successful Turnaround Strategies that was supported by seven subthemes, (b) Effective District Supports that was supported by two subthemes; (c) Lack of District Support that was supported by two subthemes, and (d) Making Meaning of the Turnaround Principalship that was supported by eight subthemes. Chapter 5 contains the adapted theoretical framework, implications, and recommendations.Educational Leadership and Polic

Asian-Indian Female International Students: A Photovoice Study of Health and Adaptation to the Immigration Experience

The purpose of this study was to explore the health related perspectives of female Asian-Indian international students enrolled in a mid-size public university in the United States. Using the biocultural model of human adaptation and photovoice methodology, we conducted a two-phase qualitative exploratory study whereby participants were interviewed, then asked to take photographs reflecting their physical or mental health. Their photographs and related narratives provided insights into the students’ health related beliefs and coping behaviors as they adapted to a new physical and social environment. The knowledge gained from this study provides health care professionals, counselors, and educators insights that might be helpful in providing culturally sensitive care and services to Asian Indian women living in the United States for the purposes of higher education

Military nurses caring for the enemy

Purpose: This phenomenological study described the lived experience and aftermath of U.S. military nurses assigned enemy detainees during Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom. Two themes emerged: Insurgent Assignments (subthemes included identification of and interactions with insurgents; training, precautions, and ethical issues, thoughts and feelings, coping, and meanings of insurgent care) and The Aftermath (subthemes were mental, emotional, personal, professional, and positive). Conclusions: Insurgent assignments caused ethical dilemmas and challenged theoretical constructs related to caring. Formal training is needed to prepare nurses for the practicalities of and responses to insurgent assignments. This work is the dissertation manuscript of Sharon Thompson, completed by faculty members in the School of Nursing at The University of Texas at Tyler. A final, published version of this article can be viewed at: https://doi.org/10.20467/1091-5710-18.2.6

Engaging Parents in System Design to Reduce Loss to Follow-Up

This article provides an overview of Virginia’s 1-3-6 Family Educator Project involving the induction and integration of parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing as leaders in systems change, and the investment of Virginia’s Early Hearing Detection & Intervention program in the project. The article describes the role of the 1-3-6 Family Educators and their success in collaborating with audiologists and hospitals, helping parents get timelier rescreenings of infants who did not pass the newborn hearing screening, and providing peer-to-peer support to parents. Details are provided about the 1-3-6 Family Educator Project to allow other states to consider replicating Virginia\u27s efforts to empower and support parents as an integral part of system change

TRH attenuates scopolamine-induced memory impairment in humans

The brain tripeptide thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) has been demonstrated to facilitate cholinergic neurotransmission. To test its interaction with the cholinergic system in humans, high-dose TRH (0.5 mg/kg) or placebo was administered intravenously (IV) to normal controls pretreated with scopolamine (0.5–0.75 mg IV), a centrally active muscarinic antagonist, which has been used to model aspects of the memory impairment of normal aging and of dementia. Compared to placebo, TRH markedly attenuated scopolamine-induced impairment of some measures of memory, most notably on a selective reminding task. This cognitive study is the first in humans to suggest a neuromodulatory effect of a peptide on the cholinergic system, and suggests a facilitatory role for TRH in human memory processes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46332/1/213_2005_Article_BF02245795.pd

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Globalization, Commodification and Mass Transplant of Nurses: Part 1

The world is currently facing a shortage of nurses and this is predicted to worsen as a result of the looming en masse retirement of the so-called ‘baby-boom’ generation. Moreover, this problem is foreseen to be far more pronounced in Western countries where the post-Second World War ‘baby-boom’ demographic was (and is) most prominent. Data collected by various international organizations illustrates a corresponding recent increase in nurse migration and that such mass transplantation inevitably involves the unidirectional movement of nurses from developing countries to developed Western countries. As a result, this two-part article examines this mass transplantation within the context of globalization. Part one provides compelling international data regarding the global shortage of nurses and the corresponding increase in nurse migration from ‘underdeveloped’ to ‘Western’ countries. It then situates the phenomenon in the context of global health and highlights the extent of the debate so far, such as it is