History of the educational system of Porto Rico

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

A Study of Sex Stereotyping in Characters Created By Fifth and Sixth Grade Young Authors in Their Stories

The purpose of this investigation was to develop and implement an instrument to analyze stories written by children to determine if sex-stereotyped roles were apparent in the main characters they created. The Analysis of Character Traits (ACT) was developed utilizing selected criteria identified in studies in which adults\u27 stories for children were analyzed for sex stereotyping. A sample of 84 books were selected from the prose manuscripts submitted to the 1983 Young Authors\u27 Conference sponsored by Southwest Missouri State University and the Springfield Chapter of the International Reading Association. This represented all the stories written by fifth and sixth grade authors that had human characters with male or female identity. Three research hypotheses were tested using the Chi square test of independence to determine if there was a significant relationship between the presence of stereotyping in main characters and the sex of the authors. Additional descriptive data from the ACT were also analyzed. The following conclusions were made: (1) Male and female authors tended to create both stereotyped and non-stereotyped characters almost exclusively of their own sex; (2) Sex stereotyping occurred in the characters created by both male and female authors to the same extent; and (3) Differences in the profiles of male and female characters revealed that the most highly exhibited traits for male characters were assertiveness, persistence, independence, and intelligence. The most highly exhibited traits for female characters included being expressive of inner emotions and acting affectionate, sensitive, and loving to others