Women's Migration, Urban Poverty and Child Health in Rajasthan

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High fat diet causes rebound weight gain

Acknowledgements This work was funded by a grant from Action Medical Research (SP4581). We are grateful to the animal house staff for looking after the animals.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Preponderance of Late-spiking Neurons in Rat Lateral Amygdala

Whole-cell recordings from rat lateral amygdala (LA) revealed two populations of principal neurons, that have similar pyramid-like morphologies but differing in firing pattern: late-spiking (LS, 66%) and regular-spiking (RS, 34%). The presence of large numbers of LS neurons arguably supports recent suggestions that the LA should be considered to be a functional extension of perirhinal cortex

Imbalancing the academy: the impact of research quality assessment

The UK exercises in research quality assessment since 1986 have had ill-defined objectives. For the first exercises, the results were simply 'to inform funding', seeking value for money in an evaluative, regulatory state. That aim remained, almost word for word, until the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2014, when there was an additional articulated intent 'to change behaviour'. There had already been much changed behaviour over the years, perhaps unintended,apparently unexpected,as staff adapted their responses to changing 'rules of the game' and the meaning they attributed to these. This article outlines the changing mechanics of successive exercises - the process means toil-defined policy ends, and analyses the impact of design features which have affected the staff, and distorted institutional strategies of both policy development and control of delivery. The cumulative effect is to imbalance the system to favour a small elite, leading to isomorphism and funding concentrated to an extent that risks loss of diversity and stifling of challenges to established ideas, failing to recognise a variety of excellences

Learning from the UK Research Excellence Framework: ends and means in research quality assessment, and the reliability of results in Education

This article first reviews the objectives/ends of research quality assessment in several countries to draw lessons for the UK REF and similar exercises. It then reviews work on performance management as a framework for reviewing the views of participants on the means to the end- the management of their experience in submitting to the 2014 REF. Finally, it examines the outcomes and considers how true a picture they paint of the quality of research, particularly in Education. It concludes with recommendations for change

FORMULATION OPTIMIZATION EFFECTS on MECHANICAL and RHEOLOGICAL PROPERTIES of FILLED POLYSILOXANES

Polysiloxanes are a class of high-performance polymeric materials that are used in a wide variety of applications, including O-rings, gaskets, sealants, coatings, and adhesives. These materials have high temperature resistances as well as flexibility at low temperatures. This is due to the bond between the oxygen and silicon atom, a bond that requires a high dissociation energy to break. However, their elastomers, which can be obtained by crosslinking linear precursors using various crosslinkers, generally exhibit low strength and have poor mechanical properties unless reinforced. Therefore, fillers, additives, UV-stabilizers, and anti-oxidants are often incorporated in order to improve the resulting properties. The process of compounding incorporates additives into polysiloxane formulations, with one approach being twin-screw extrusion which vigorously mixes the additives into the polymer matrix. In this work, a lab-scale co-rotating twin-screw extruder was used to compound a commercially available reinforcing silica filler, Hi-Sil-233D, and a commercial polysiloxane, vinyl-terminated diphenyl-dimethyl siloxane copolymer (Gelest PDV-0535), to determine a filler ceiling loading. These copolymers were then compounded with two crosslinkers, trimethylsiloxane-terminated methylhydro-dimethyl siloxane copolymer (HMS-082 & HMS-151). The crosslinking reactions were initiated with two separate catalysts, platinum acetylacetonate in 1,3-dioxolane (Pt(acac)2) and trimethyl(methylcyclopentadienyl) platinum IV in 1,3-dioxolane ((MeCp)Pt(Me)3). In addition, diethyl azodicarboxylate (DEAD) in dry toluene was used as a catalytic inhibitor. Finally, PDV-0535 with the Pt(acac)2) catalyst is compounded in varied formulations and cured to analyze the shelf life and mechanical properties of the fully formulated system. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to determine the consistency of the additive content by analyzing the percent residue. Oscillatory rheometry was used to determine yield stress; and flow rheology was used to evaluate the thixotropy of the compounded samples. Rheometric analysis also helped determine the shelf-life of the polysiloxane system before becoming fully crosslinked. Soxhlet extraction was used to determine the gel content of the crosslinked systems. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was used to measure the mechanical properties of the fully cured polysiloxane formulations

Western Guide to Curriculum Review

The Curriculum Review guide offers ideas about how to get started on the review process—questions to ask at the beginning of and during the process, suggestions about information to be gathered and how, issues to think about as you decide what to include in the curriculum, and ideas about how to teach the curriculum involving new and alternative pedagogies.https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/tsc-purple-guides/1003/thumbnail.jp

Experienced Kentucky Female Superintendents\u27 Perceptions of Political Leadership

Women historically hit a glass ceiling when trying to reach for a school district’s highest position. While nationally an overwhelming majority of educators are female, approximately only a quarter of all superintendents are women. In Kentucky, 19% of public school superintendents are female. Female superintendent research has focused on the barriers that inhibit women from obtaining the superintendency; however, recently a shift to focus on how women lead has occurred. The superintendency encompasses five roles: instructional leader, manager, political leader, communicator and applied social scientist. Although female superintendents’ strength is often instructional leadership, the role of political leader is met with some difficulty. This exploratory study examines experienced Kentucky female superintendents’ perceptions and practices of political leadership. The research was conducted in two phases: Phase 1 invited all Kentucky female superintendents to participate in demographic questionnaire, and Phase 2 encompassed two one-hour interviews with six experienced Kentucky superintendents. Four main areas provide the foundation for inquiry: preservice experiences, defining political leadership, behaviors of political leadership, and levels of political leadership. Kentucky female superintendents stated political leadership was the role they were least prepared for in the infancy of their superintendency. Female superintendents’ lived-experiences differed from the norm of political leadership. Female district leaders outlined a cyclical, proactive process of political leadership dependent on relationships—networking. Women superintendents capitalized on referent power to develop a “political lens” when making decisions. Study participants reported two distinct levels of political leadership (local and state), and they connected their district’s vision to resources—people—and served as a bridge to connect outside resources into the district. This work affirms previous research concerning female superintendents but also brings to light how women perceive politics, which is outside some of the previous norms and research concerning political leadership