Cooperative teaching as a method of collaboration between regular and special educators in an integrated setting

Concerns about meeting the needs of students with disabilities through integration have led to increased collaboration between special and regular educators (Johnson, Pugach, & Devlin, 1990). Cooperative teaching, a nontraditional method of meeting the needs of students with disabilities, lacks sufficient research regarding its implementation. This study investigated, using a case study methodology, cooperative teaching arrangements in an integrated setting and formative factors impacting those arrangements. The researcher collected data regarding 10 different cooperative teaching partnerships. Data collection included the use of observation, interviewing, and the collection of documents. These facilitated a constant comparative method of analysis which allowed the researcher to discern patterns in the data regarding the cooperative teaching participants and the issues which emerged as influential in their relationships. These emergent issues included the areas of shared commitment to the cooperative method, issues of isolation and autonomy, forms and acceptance of assistance, trust and balance of power, relationship development and conflict resolution, and professional growth. Those issues helped delineate patterns among the cooperating partnerships which led to the creation of a model depicting the following four levels of cooperative relationships: (1) Parallel relationships were those in which partners worked in the same room--but almost always in a separate fashion--where separate goals may have been achieved by individual teachers despite little cooperation or communication between the 2 teachers, and where 1 or both partners were dissatisfied within the partnership. (2) Collateral relationships were those in which both partners worked compatibly on the surface and with common purpose, but one partner held a subordinate position to the other--especially with respect to decision-making power--and 1 or both teachers were dissatisfied within the partnership. (3) Convergent relationships were those in which partners had mostly similar philosophies, worked together in a constructive fashion towards an agreed upon purpose within the existing classroom structures, and were both satisfied within the partnership. (4) Transformative relationships were those in which partners had mostly similar philosophies, worked together in a constructive fashion towards an agreed upon purpose which exceeded the limits of existing classroom structures, and were both satisfied within the partnership

Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network

Multinational corporations use highly complex structures of parents and subsidiaries to organize their operations and ownership. Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) facilitate these structures through low taxation and lenient regulation, but are increasingly under scrutiny, for instance for enabling tax avoidance. Therefore, the identification of OFC jurisdictions has become a politicized and contested issue. We introduce a novel data-driven approach for identifying OFCs based on the global corporate ownership network, in which over 98 million firms (nodes) are connected through 71 million ownership relations. This granular firm-level network data uniquely allows identifying both sink-OFCs and conduit-OFCs. Sink-OFCs attract and retain foreign capital while conduit-OFCs are attractive intermediate destinations in the routing of international investments and enable the transfer of capital without taxation. We identify 24 sink-OFCs. In addition, a small set of five countries -- the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore and Switzerland -- canalize the majority of corporate offshore investment as conduit-OFCs. Each conduit jurisdiction is specialized in a geographical area and there is significant specialization based on industrial sectors. Against the idea of OFCs as exotic small islands that cannot be regulated, we show that many sink and conduit-OFCs are highly developed countries

The corporate elite community structure of global capitalism

A key debate on the merits and consequences of globalisation asks to what extent we have moved to a multipolar global political economy. Here we investigate this issue through the properties and topologies of corporate elite networks and ask: what is the community structure of the global corporate elite? In order to answer this question, we analyse how the largest one million firms in the world are interconnected at the level of corporate governance through interlocking directorates. Community detection through modularity maximisation reveals that regional clusters play a fundamental role in the network architecture of the global political economy. Transatlantic connections remain particularly strong: Europe and North America remain interconnected in a dense network of shared directors. A distinct Asian cluster stands apart as separate and oriented more towards itself. While it develops and gains economic and political power, Asia remains by and large outside the scope of the networks of the incumbent global (that is, North Atlantic) corporate elite. We see this as a sign of the rise of competing corporate elites. But the corporate elites from the traditional core countries still form a powerful opponent for any competing faction in the global corporate elite

The anatomy of a population-scale social network

Large-scale human social network structure is typically inferred from digital trace samples of online social media platforms or mobile communication data. Instead, here we investigate the social network structure of a complete population, where people are connected by high-quality links sourced from administrative registers of family, household, work, school, and next-door neighbors. We examine this multilayer social opportunity structure through three common concepts in network analysis: degree, closure, and distance. Findings present how particular network layers contribute to presumably universal scale-free and small-world properties of networks. Furthermore, we suggest a novel measure of excess closure and apply this in a life-course perspective to show how the social opportunity structure of individuals varies along age, socio-economic status, and education level.</p

Percutaneous foot joint needle placement using a C-arm flat-panel detector CT

Purpose: Image guidance is valuable for diagnostic injections in foot orthopaedics. Flat-detector computed tomography (FD-CT) was implemented using a C-arm, and the system was tested for needle guidance in foot joint injections. Methods: FD-CT—guided joint infiltration was performed in 6 patients referred from the orthopaedic department for diagnostic foot injections. All interventions were performed utilising a flat-panel fluoroscopy system utilising specialised image guidance and planning software. Successful infiltration was defined by localisation of contrast media depot in the targeted joint. The pre- and post-interventional numeric analogue scale (NAS) pain score was assessed. Results: All injections were technically successful. Contrast media deposit was documented in all targeted joints. Significant relief of symptoms was noted by all 6 participants. Conclusions: FD-CT—guided joint infiltration is a feasible method for diagnostic infiltration of midfoot and hindfoot joints. The FD-CT approach may become an alternative to commonly used 2D-fluoroscopically guidanc

The anatomy of a population-scale social network

Large-scale human social network structure is typically inferred from digital trace samples of online social media platforms or mobile communication data. Instead, here we investigate the social network structure of a complete population, where people are connected by high-quality links sourced from administrative registers of family, household, work, school, and next-door neighbors. We examine this multilayer social opportunity structure through three common concepts in network analysis: degree, closure, and distance. Findings present how particular network layers contribute to presumably universal scale-free and small-world properties of networks. Furthermore, we suggest a novel measure of excess closure and apply this in a life-course perspective to show how the social opportunity structure of individuals varies along age, socio-economic status, and education level. Our work provides new entry points to understand individual socio-economic failure and success as well as persistent societal problems of inequality and segregation