An Unfinished Canvas: Allocating Funding and Instructional Time for Elementary Arts Education

An Unfinished Canvas found that California's elementary schools face unique challenges inproviding all students with sequential, standards-based arts education. In particular, elementary principals identified inadequate funding and insufficient instructional time as significant barriers to the provision of arts education. For this study, we sought to further understand the impact of funding and time on elementary arts education. To do so, we examined the allocation of funding and instructional time in 10 schools across five states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and California)

An Unfinished Canvas: Arts Education in California: Taking Stock of Policies and Practices

Provides an overview of K-12 arts education, including course offerings; availability of teachers, facilities, and materials; standards alignment, assessment, and accountability practices; and equal access. Discusses barriers and recommendations

A model of emulation funds

© 2014 AFAANZ. Emulation funds are a potentially cost-effective way for multimanager funds to improve their investment performance by delaying and netting trade signals from underlying managers. We develop a model to represent the expected sources of differential performance in an emulation fund relative to its underlying multimanager portfolio. The model formalises the expected interaction between potential savings and opportunity costs and allows us to observe complexities in the emulation process that are hidden without a benchmark. Finally, the functional representation of the model allows sensitivity analysis of the emulation fund to key parameters and enables us to determine theoretically optimal lag periods

Health professionals' perceptions of cultural influences on stroke experiences and rehabilitation in Kuwait

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 Informa UK Ltd.Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of health professionals who treat stroke patients in Kuwait regarding cultural influences on the experience of stroke and rehabilitation in Kuwait. Health professionals interviewed were from a variety of cultural backgrounds thus providing an opportunity to investigate how they perceived the influence of culture on stroke recovery and rehabilitation in Kuwait. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 health professionals with current/recent stroke rehabilitation experience in Kuwait, followed by thematic analysis of the verbatim transcripts. Results: The health professionals identified several features of the Kuwaiti culture that they believed affected the experiences of stroke patients. These were religious beliefs, family involvement, limited education and public information about stroke, prevailing negative attitudes toward stroke, access to finances for private treatment, social stigma and the public invisibility of disabled people, difficulties identifying meaningful goals for rehabilitation, and an acceptance of dependency linked with the widespread presence of maids and other paid assistants in most Kuwaiti homes. Conclusion: To offer culturally sensitive care, these issues should be taken into account during the rehabilitation of Kuwaiti stroke patients in their home country and elsewhere

Proximity effect in Nb-Mo layered films: Transition temperature and critical current dependence on period

The behavior of the transition temperature and critical current density for a Mo/Nb repeated bilayer system as a function of the number of periods was explored. The measured values of the transition temperature are compared to the theoretical predictions for the proximity effect in the dirty limit. We find that the transition temperature does not decrease as the number of periods increase. In addition, inductive critical current density measurements also show a scaling that indicates the superconductivity properties are not dependent on the number of bilayers.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, to be published Journal of Applied Physic

Autopsy examination in sudden cardiac death: a current perspective on behalf of the Association for European Cardiovascular Pathology.

In sudden cardiac death, an autopsy is an essential step in establishing a diagnosis of inherited cardiac disease and identifying families that require cardiac screening. To evaluate aspects of post-mortem practice in Europe, a questionnaire was designed and circulated to both clinical and forensic pathologists. There was a 48% response rate and information was obtained from 17 countries. The results showed a wide variety in the management of sudden cardiac death, with a general tendency towards a lack of thorough investigation. In up to 40% of cases, autopsies were not performed in subjects less than 50 years who may have died from cardiac disease. Reasons for this were lack of finance and lack of interest from police, legal authorities, and doctors. Only 50% of pathologists seem to follow a standard protocol for autopsy examination, apparently due to lack of expertise and/or training. When autopsies were performed, histology and toxicology were almost always taken, genetic studies were generally available and retention of the heart for specialist study was usually permitted. Our results suggest that although the standard of practice is appropriate in many centres, many more cases should have autopsies, especially in sudden deaths in subjects less than 50 years

Fecal Enterobacteriales enrichment is associated with increased in vivo intestinal permeability in humans

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been linked with increased intestinal permeability, but the clinical significance of this phenomenon remains unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential link between glucose control, intestinal permeability, diet and intestinal microbiota in patients with T2D. Thirty‐two males with well‐controlled T2D and 30 age‐matched male controls without diabetes were enrolled in a case–control study. Metabolic parameters, inflammatory markers, endotoxemia, and intestinal microbiota in individuals subdivided into high (HP) and normal (LP) colonic permeability groups, were the main outcomes. In T2D, the HP group had significantly higher fasting glucose (P = 0.034) and plasma nonesterified fatty acid levels (P = 0.049) compared with the LP group. Increased colonic permeability was also linked with altered abundances of selected microbial taxa. The microbiota of both T2D and control HP groups was enriched with Enterobacteriales. In conclusion, high intestinal permeability was associated with poorer fasting glucose control in T2D patients and changes in some microbial taxa in both T2D patients and nondiabetic controls. Therefore, enrichment in the gram‐negative order Enterobacteriales may characterize impaired colonic permeability prior to/independently from a disruption in glucose tolerance

Image RPI Reawakens Plasmaspheric Refilling Research

The plasmasphere is a toroidal region of cold plasma surrounding the Earth that results from ionospheric outflow and accumulation. The physics of refilling and the dynamics of this region have been studied for nearly 50-years. During that time many models have been proposed, but little has been done to test these models due to a lack of observational information. With the launch of the IMAGE Mission in March 2000 the Radio Plasma Imager has provided true field aligned density measurements that uniquely enable the testing of these models and a final determination of the physical processes important for the plasmasphere's recovery from storm-time conditions