Stigmatizing Labels, School Bonds, and Capital in the School Reentry Experiences and Educational Outcomes of Justice-Involved Youth

Research indicates that justice-involved youth who reenter public and alternative schools following contact with the juvenile justice system struggle to find a place in the school community and complete their educations. Because educational attainment affects recidivism rates, successful school reentry for justice-involved youth presents important research questions for policy and practice. This study examined school reentry through cases studies of adults who had been justice-involved youth and had experienced school reentry following contact with the juvenile justice system. Study participants’ school reentry experiences were examined through a theoretical framework comprised of labeling, social control, and field theories. Findings suggest that institutional and human barriers make school reentry a complex, emotional experience for justice-involved youth. Findings also support the utility of a new theoretical framework – school exclusion theory – to describe the stigmatization, isolation, and alienation that justice-involved youth encounter from schools and school personnel who resist their reentry. Implications for theory and practice and recommendations for schools and school personnel are discussed

Teacher Wellbeing in Remote Australian Communities

This paper reports on a project aimed at investigating teacher wellbeing in remote communities in Australia. It utilised a multiple case study methodology to investigate the lived experiences of remote Australian teachers, particularly how remote teachers simultaneously manage the wellbeing and academic needs of their students. Findings show how the challenges of working in remote places impact teacher wellbeing and provides six practical recommendations about how to better support remote teachers. There is a present need to develop a framework of remote teachers thriving, so systems and communities are not over-reliant upon teachers’ individual resilience in hard-to-staff places

Properties of Hot Stars in the Wolf-Rayet galaxy NGC5253 from ISO Spectroscopy

ISO-SWS spectroscopy of the WR galaxy NGC5253 is presented, and analysed to provide estimates of its hot young star population. Our approach differs from previous investigations in that we are able to distinguish between the regions in which different infrared fine-structure lines form, using complementary ground-based observations. The high excitation nebular [SIV] emission is formed in a very compact region, which we attribute to the central super-star-nucleus, and lower excitation [NeII] nebular emission originates in the galactic core. We use photo-ionization modelling coupled with the latest theoretical O-star flux distributions to derive effective stellar temperatures and ionization parameters of Teff>38kK, logQ=8.25 for the compact nucleus, with Teff=35kK, logQ<8 for the larger core. Results are supported by more sophisticated calculations using evolutionary synthesis models. We assess the contribution that Wolf-Rayet stars may make to highly ionized nebular lines (e.g. [OIV]). From our Br(alpha) flux, the 2" nucleus contains the equivalent of approximately 1000 O7V star equivalents and the starburst there is 2-3Myr old; the 20" core contains about 2500 O7V star equivalents, with a representative age of 5Myr. The Lyman ionizing flux of the nucleus is equivalent to the 30 Doradus region. These quantities are in good agreement with the observed mid-IR dust luminosity of 7.8x10^8 L(sun) Since this structure of hot clusters embedded in cooler emission may be common in dwarf starbursts, observing a galaxy solely with a large aperture may result in confusion. Neglecting the spatial distribution of nebular emission in NGC5253, implies `global' stellar temperatures (or ages) of 36kK (4.8Myr) and 39kK (2.9 or 4.4Myr) from the observed [NeIII/II] and [SIV/III] line ratios, assuming logQ=8.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, uses mn.sty, to appear in MNRA

A DFT study on secondary reaction pathways in the acid-catalysed Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime in aprotic solvent

Non-availability of competent supervisory staff, a focus on improving performance indicators rather than clinical guidance, and lack of a functional referral system, collectively create an environment that is non-conducive for improving patient care while also contributing to the isolation of physicians. Applying a systems thinking approach and using measles and tuberculosis as case examples, the study examined human advice-seeking behavior of primary health care (PHC) physicians in a rural district of Pakistan including the degree to which the existing PHC system supports their access to human advice. Findings underscore the need for a functional information system comprising context-sensitive knowledge management

BOSS-LDG: A Novel Computational Framework that Brings Together Blue Waters, Open Science Grid, Shifter and the LIGO Data Grid to Accelerate Gravitational Wave Discovery

We present a novel computational framework that connects Blue Waters, the NSF-supported, leadership-class supercomputer operated by NCSA, to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Data Grid via Open Science Grid technology. To enable this computational infrastructure, we configured, for the first time, a LIGO Data Grid Tier-1 Center that can submit heterogeneous LIGO workflows using Open Science Grid facilities. In order to enable a seamless connection between the LIGO Data Grid and Blue Waters via Open Science Grid, we utilize Shifter to containerize LIGO's workflow software. This work represents the first time Open Science Grid, Shifter, and Blue Waters are unified to tackle a scientific problem and, in particular, it is the first time a framework of this nature is used in the context of large scale gravitational wave data analysis. This new framework has been used in the last several weeks of LIGO's second discovery campaign to run the most computationally demanding gravitational wave search workflows on Blue Waters, and accelerate discovery in the emergent field of gravitational wave astrophysics. We discuss the implications of this novel framework for a wider ecosystem of Higher Performance Computing users.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted as a Full Research Paper to the 13th IEEE International Conference on eScienc

Teacher Retention Policy Coherence: An Analysis of Policies and Practices Across Federal, State, and Division Levels

As part of a larger MERC study, this report provides an overview of federal, state, and regional policies and practices relevant to teacher retention. Using key informant interviews and document analysis, the report addresses the following research questions: What teacher retention policies exist at the federal, state, and local levels? How are these policies structured at the state level and local levels? How do teacher retention policies vary across MERC divisions? Following the findings, the report presents recommendations for policy and practice

Acoustic Processing of Fluidic Samples for Planetary Exploration

The search for life on other planetary bodies is driven by our quest to determine if Earth is unique with respect to harboring life. In order to answer this question, instrumentation with suitable sensitivity is required to measure biosignatures. In addition to accurate measurements by in-situ instruments, specialized sample acquisition and sample handling hardware is required to maximize the scientific information obtained from an acquired sample. This paper discusses a class of compact sample processing instrumentation using solid-state mechanisms that use acoustic waves to process samples prior to delivery to the instrument. Some of the acoustic sample processes that can be used to aid in preparation of liquid and liquid/solid mixtures include: mixing, milling, cavitating, lysing, heating, streaming, stirring, lofting, concentrating, segregating, and filtering. We will review these acoustic processes and show how they are generated using electromechanical systems. In addition to processing, these transduction systems could also use acoustics to interrogate physical properties such as the state of the sample, the acoustic velocity, and its attenuation. In order to generate these processes and sensing capabilities at these frequencies, a transduction mechanism is required to produce stress waves from electrical signals and vice versa. One commonly used technique is to use piezoelectric transducers that generate a stress that is linearly proportional to the voltage across the transducer and a voltage that is proportional to the stress on a transducer’s face. A variety of transducer modes are available to excite the sample, including thickness, transverse, radial, and shear extensional, and these can be used to build composite resonance structures including ultrasonic horns, tuning forks, bimorph, and unimorph benders to increase stress generated in the sample. We discuss how to model the acoustic interactions with the sample and the sample chamber in order to produce the required stress waves and illustrate the use of network models of piezoelectric transducers to accomplish this modeling. We demonstrate how to build up these models using Mason’s equivalent circuit for a piezoelectric and network models for acoustic layers in a design. Finally, to illustrate this acoustic processing ability, we will discuss a few systems that we have developed for sample handling systems for other planetary bodies like Mars and ocean worlds Enceladus and Europa

The PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence

We describe the PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact-object binary coalescences in advanced gravitational-wave detector data. The search was used in the first Advanced LIGO observing run and unambiguously identified two black hole binary mergers, GW150914 and GW151226. At its core, the PyCBC search performs a matched-filter search for binary merger signals using a bank of gravitational-wave template waveforms. We provide a complete description of the search pipeline including the steps used to mitigate the effects of noise transients in the data, identify candidate events and measure their statistical significance. The analysis is able to measure false-alarm rates as low as one per million years, required for confident detection of signals. Using data from initial LIGO's sixth science run, we show that the new analysis reduces the background noise in the search, giving a 30% increase in sensitive volume for binary neutron star systems over previous searches.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Classical and Quantum Gravit