Inclusive education policy, the general allocation model and dilemmas of practice in primary schools

Background: Inclusive education is central to contemporary discourse internationally reflecting societies’ wider commitment to social inclusion. Education has witnessed transforming approaches that have created differing distributions of power, resource allocation and accountability. Multiple actors are being forced to consider changes to how key services and supports are organised. This research constitutes a case study situated within this broader social service dilemma of how to distribute finite resources equitably to meet individual need, while advancing inclusion. It focuses on the national directive with regard to inclusive educational practice for primary schools, Department of Education and Science Special Education Circular 02/05, which introduced the General Allocation Model (GAM) within the legislative context of the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (Government of Ireland, 2004). This research could help to inform policy with ‘facts about what is happening on the ground’ (Quinn, 2013). Research Aims: The research set out to unearth the assumptions and definitions embedded within the policy document, to analyse how those who are at the coalface of policy, and who interface with multiple interests in primary schools, understand the GAM and respond to it, and to investigate its effects on students and their education. It examines student outcomes in the primary schools where the GAM was investigated. Methods and Sample The post-structural study acknowledges the importance of policy analysis which explicitly links the ‘bigger worlds’ of global and national policy contexts to the ‘smaller worlds’ of policies and practices within schools and classrooms. This study insists upon taking the detail seriously (Ozga, 1990). A mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis is applied. In order to secure the perspectives of key stakeholders, semi-structured interviews were conducted with primary school principals, class teachers and learning support/resource teachers (n=14) in three distinct mainstream, non-DEIS schools. Data from the schools and their environs provided a profile of students. The researcher then used the Pobal Maps Facility (available at www.pobal.ie) to identify the Small Area (SA) in which each student resides, and to assign values to each address based on the Pobal HP Deprivation Index (Haase and Pratschke, 2012). Analysis of the datasets, guided by the conceptual framework of the policy cycle (Ball, 1994), revealed a number of significant themes. Results: Data illustrate that the main model to support student need is withdrawal from the classroom under policy that espouses inclusion. Quantitative data, in particular, highlighted an association between segregated practice and lower socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds of students. Up to 83% of the students in special education programmes are from lower socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds. In some schools 94% of students from LSES backgrounds are withdrawn from classrooms daily for special education. While the internal processes of schooling are not solely to blame for class inequalities, this study reveals the power of professionals to order children in school, which has implications for segregated special education practice. Such agency on the part of key actors in the context of practice relates to ‘local constructions of dis/ability’, which is influenced by teacher habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). The researcher contends that inclusive education has not resulted in positive outcomes for students from LSES backgrounds because it is built on faulty assumptions that focus on a psycho-medical perspective of dis/ability, that is, placement decisions do not consider the intersectionality of dis/ability with class or culture. This study argues that the student need for support is better understood as ‘home/school discontinuity’ not ‘disability’. Moreover, the study unearths the power of some parents to use social and cultural capital to ensure eligibility to enhanced resources. Therefore, a hierarchical system has developed in mainstream schools as a result of funding models to support need in inclusive settings. Furthermore, all schools in the study are ‘ordinary’ schools yet participants acknowledged that some schools are more ‘advantaged’, which may suggest that ‘ordinary’ schools serve to ‘bury class’ (Reay, 2010) as a key marker in allocating resources. The research suggests that general allocation models of funding to meet the needs of students demands a systematic approach grounded in reallocating funds from where they have less benefit to where they have more. The calculation of the composite Haase Value in respect of the student cohort in receipt of special education support adopted for this study could be usefully applied at a national level to ensure that the greatest level of support is targeted at greatest need. Conclusion: In summary, the study reveals that existing structures constrain and enable agents, whose interactions produce intended and unintended consequences. The study suggests that policy should be viewed as a continuous and evolving cycle (Ball, 1994) where actors in each of the social contexts have a shared responsibility in the evolution of education that is equitable, excellent and inclusive.

Pharmacotherapy optimization in older patients by a structured clinical pharmacist assessment and intervention

Introduction: Older individuals are particularly vulnerable to potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP), drug related problems (DRPs) and adverse drug reactions (ADRs). A number of different interventions have been proposed to address these issues. However to-date there is a paucity of well-designed trials examining the impact of such interventions. Therefore the aims of this work were to: (i) establish a baseline PIP prevalence both nationally and internationally using the STOPP, Beers and PRISCUS criteria, (ii) identify the most comprehensive method of assessing PIP in older individuals, (iii) develop a structured pharmacist intervention supported by a computer decisions support system (CDSS) and (iv) examine the impact of this intervention on prescribing and incidence of ADRs. Results: This work identified high rates of PIP across all three healthcare settings in Ireland, 84.7% in the long term care, 70.7% in secondary care and 43.3% in primary care being reported. This work identified that for a comprehensive assessment of prescribing to be undertaken, an amalgamation of all three criteria should be deployed simultaneously. High prevalences of DRPs and PIP in older hospitalised individuals were identified. With 82.0% and 76.3% of patients reported to have at least one DRP or PIP instance respectively. The structured pharmacist intervention demonstrated a positive impact on prescribing, with a significant reduction MAI scores being reported. It also resulted in the intervention patients’ having a reduced risk of experiencing an ADR when compared to the control patients (absolute risk reduction of 6.8 (95% CI 1.5% - 12.3%)) and the number needed to treat = 15 (95% CI 8 - 68). However the intervention was found to have no significant effect on length of stay or mortality rate. Conclusion: This work shows that PIP is highly prevalent in older individuals across three healthcare settings in Ireland. This work also demonstrates that a structured pharmacist intervention support by a dedicated CDSS can significantly improve the appropriateness of prescribing and reduce the incidence of ADRs in older acutely ill hospitalised individuals.

Human interfaces to structured documents

This research investigates some of the reasons for the reported difficulties experienced by writers when using editing software designed for structured documents. The overall objective was to determine if there are aspects of the software interfaces which militate against optimal document construction by writers who are not computer experts, and to suggest possible remedies. Studies were undertaken to explore the nature and extent of the difficulties, and to identify which components of the software interfaces are involved. A model of a revised user interface was tested, and some possible adaptations to the interface are proposed which may help overcome the difficulties. The methodology comprised: 1. identification and description of the nature of a ‘structured document’ and what distinguishes it from other types of document used on computers; 2. isolation of the requirements of users of such documents, and the construction a set of personas which describe them; 3. evaluation of other work on the interaction between humans and computers, specifically in software for creating and editing structured documents; 4. estimation of the levels of adoption of the available software for editing structured documents and the reactions of existing users to it, with specific reference to difficulties encountered in using it; 5. examination of the software and identification of any mismatches between the expectations of users and the facilities provided by the software; 6. assessment of any physical or psychological factors in the reported difficulties experienced, and to determine what (if any) changes to the software might affect these. The conclusions are that seven of the twelve modifications tested could contribute to an improvement in usability, effectiveness, and efficiency when writing structured text (new document selection; adding new sections and new lists; identifying key information typographically; the creation of cross-references and bibliographic references; and the inclusion of parts of other documents). The remaining five were seen as more applicable to editing existing material than authoring new text (adding new elements; splitting and joining elements [before and after]; and moving block text).

Novel structured emulsions for delivering of food flavours

Flavour release from food is determined by the binding of flavours to other food ingredients and the partition of flavour molecules among different phases. Food emulsions are used as delivery systems for food flavours, and tailored structuring in emulsions provides novel means to better control flavour release. The current study investigated four structured oil-in-water emulsions with structuring in the oil phase, oil-water interface, and water phase. Oil phase structuring was achieved by the formation of monoglyceride (MG) liquid crystals in the oil droplets (MG structured emulsions). Structured interface was created by the adsorption of a whey protein isolate (WPI)-pectin double layer at the interface (multilayer emulsion). Water phase structured emulsions referred to emulsion filled protein gels (EFP gels), where emulsion droplets were embedded in WPI gel network, and emulsions with maltodextrins (MDs) of different dextrose-equivalent (DE) values. Flavour compounds with different physicochemical properties were added into the emulsions, and flavour release (release rate, headspace concentration and air-emulsion partition coefficient) was described by GC headspace analysis. Emulsion structures, including crystalline structure, particle size, emulsion stability, rheology, texture, and microstructures, were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction, light scattering, multisample analytical centrifuge, rheometry, texture analysis, and confocal laser scanning microscopy, respectively. In MG structured emulsions, MG self-assembled into liquid crystalline structures and stable β-form crystals were formed after 3 days of storage at 25 °C. The inclusion of MG crystals allowed tween 20 stabilized emulsions to present viscoelastic properties, and it made WPI stabilized emulsions more sensitive to the change of pH and NaCl concentrations. Flavour compounds in MG structured emulsions had lower initial headspace concentration and air-emulsion partition coefficients than those in unstructured emulsions. Flavour release can be modulated by changing MG content, oil content and oil type. WPI-pectin multilayer emulsions were stable at pH 5.0, 4.0, and 3.0, but they presented extensive creaming when subjected to salt solutions with NaCl ≥ 150 mM and mixed with artificial salivas. Increase of pH from 5.0 to 7.0 resulted in higher headspace concentration but unchanged release rate, and increase of NaCl concentration led to increased headspace concentration and release rate. The study also showed that salivas could trigger higher release of hydrophobic flavours and lower release of hydrophilic flavours. In EFP gels, increases in protein content and oil content contributed to gels with higher storage modulus and force at breaking. Flavour compounds had significantly reduced release rates and air-emulsion partition coefficients in the gels than the corresponding ungelled emulsions, and the reduction was in line with the increase of protein content. Gels with stronger gel network but lower oil content were prepared, and lower or unaffected release rates of the flavours were observed. In emulsions containing maltodextrins, water was frozen at a much lower temperature, and emulsion stability was greatly improved when subjected to freeze-thawing. Among different MDs, MD DE 6 offered the emulsion the highest stability. Flavours had lower air-emulsion partition coefficients in the emulsions with MDs than those in the emulsion without MD. Moreover, the involvement of MDs in the emulsions allowed most flavours had similar release profiles before and after freeze-thaw treatment. The present study provided information about different structured emulsions as delivery systems for flavour compounds, and on how food structure can be designed to modulate flavour release, which could be helpful in the development of functional foods with improved flavour profile.

The relationship between rural livelihoods and livestock keeping: the case of Sidama Zone, Southern Ethiopia

This study examines the relationship between rural livelihoods and livestock keeping in Sidama Zones, southern Ethiopia. The livelihood context, assets and strategies of households are the key features of rural livelihoods considered in the study; while households’ livestock ownership, dependence on livestock and livestock management are the main aspects of livestock keeping examined. The study used the sustainable livelihood approach as a framework for data collection and analysis. Describing the main features of rural livelihoods and livestock keeping, and the general pattern of relationship between them, this study mainly aims at identifying the main livelihood factors that determine livestock keeping in the study area. Descriptive statistics, pair wise correlations, mean comparisons and analysis of variance were used to describe rural livelihoods and livestock keeping as well as the relationship between them. Tobit regressions were used to examine the effect of the various livelihood factors on households’ livestock ownership and dependence; Poisson regressions are used to investigate the factors that influence the intensity of livestock management measured by the use of different technologies and inputs. The findings indicated that a number of livelihood factors - assets, livelihood strategies, livelihood shocks and institutional supports - significantly determine the different aspects of livestock keeping. These include: human assets such as age, education and family size; social assets such as membership to social groups; financial assets such as credit; natural assets such as land, and household physical assets; and livelihood strategies such as diversification into farm and nonfarm activities, and coping mechanisms. In addition the livelihood vulnerability context such as shocks and institutional support are among the main determinants of livestock keeping. The results, by and large, matched the findings of previous studies, and it is concluded that households livestock keeping depends on their livelihoods. Accordingly, it is recommended that policies aiming at livestock asset building and productivity improvement should take the livelihoods of rural households in to consideration. As such the study contribute to scholarly works in the area of rural livelihoods, in general, and livestock keeping, in particular. It also contributes to a better understanding of the problems of livestock keeping within the context of rural livelihoods in the country and to the formulation of appropriate policy for the development of the sector.

The student bullying of teachers in Irish second level schools: exploring the influence of historical low state intervention in education on the development of contemporary policy responses in Ireland

The student bullying of teachers (SBT) is a distinct and complex form of bullying with a multiplicity of diverse, changeable and intersecting causes which is experienced by and affects teachers in a variety of ways. SBT is both a national and an international phenomenon which is under-recognised in academic, societal and political spheres, resulting in limited conceptual understanding and awareness of the issue. This study explores teachers’ experiences of SBT behaviours in Irish second level schools as well as teachers’ perceptions regarding training, policies and supports in Ireland to address the issue. Specifically, the study seeks to explore the influence of historical low State intervention in education on contemporary policies and supports to deal with SBT in Ireland. A mixed methods approach involving a survey of 531 second level school teachers and 17 semi-structured interviews with teachers, Year Heads and representatives from teacher trade unions and school management bodies was employed to collect and analyse data. Findings indicate that SBT behaviours are prevalent in many forms in Irish second level schools. The hidden nature of the phenomenon has simultaneously contributed to and is reinforced by limited understanding of the issue as well as teachers’ reluctance to disclose their experiences. Findings reveal that teachers perceive the contemporary policies, training and support structures in Ireland to be inadequate in equipping them to effectively deal with SBT. State intervention in addressing SBT behaviours to date, has been limited, therefore many teachers are forced to respond to the issue based on their own initiatives and assumptions rather than from an informed critically reflective approach, supported by national guidelines and sufficient State investment. This has resulted in a piecemeal, un-coordinated and ad-hoc approach to SBT in Irish schools both in terms of teachers’ management of SBT behaviours and with respect to the supports extended to staff. The potential negative consequences of SBT behaviours on teachers’ wellbeing and professional performance and thus, on the education system itself, underlines the need for a strategic, evidence-based, resourced and integrated approach which includes, as a pivotal component, consultation with teachers, whose contribution to the process is crucial.

Design principles for an enterprise systems chartering method

Our research follows a design science approach to develop a method that supports the initialization of ES implementation projects – the chartering phase. This project phase is highly relevant for implementation success, but is understudied in IS research. In this paper, we derive design principles for a chartering method based on a systematic review of ES implementation literature and semi-structured expert interviews. Our analysis identifies differences in the importance of certain success factors depending on the system type. The proposed design principles are built on these factors and are linked to chartering key activities. We specifically consider system-type-specific chartering aspects for process-centric Business Intelligence & Analytics (BI&A) systems, which are an emerging class of systems at the intersection of BI&A and business process management. In summary, this paper proposes design principles for a chartering method – considering specifics of process-centric BI&A.

Bayesian variable selection in structured high-dimensional covariate spaces with applications in genomics

We consider the problem of variable selection in regression modeling in high-dimensional spaces where there is known structure among the covariates. This is an unconventional variable selection problem for two reasons: (1) The dimension of the covariate space is comparable, and often much larger, than the number of subjects in the study, and (2) the covariate space is highly structured, and in some cases it is desirable to incorporate this structural information in to the model building process. We approach this problem through the Bayesian variable selection framework, where we assume that the covariates lie on an undirected graph and formulate an Ising prior on the model space for incorporating structural information. Certain computational and statistical problems arise that are unique to such high-dimensional, structured settings, the most interesting being the phenomenon of phase transitions. We propose theoretical and computational schemes to mitigate these problems. We illustrate our methods on two different graph structures: the linear chain and the regular graph of degree k. Finally, we use our methods to study a specific application in genomics: the modeling of transcription factor binding sites in DNA sequences. © 2010 American Statistical Association.

The impact of structured support groups for pregnant South African women recently diagnosed HIV positive.

The authors of this study evaluated a structured 10-session psychosocial support group intervention for newly HIV-diagnosed pregnant South African women. Participants were expected to display increases in HIV disclosure, self-esteem, active coping and positive social support, and decreases in depression, avoidant coping, and negative social support. Three hundred sixty-one pregnant HIV-infected women were recruited from four antenatal clinics in Tshwane townships from April 2005 to September 2006. Using a quasi-experimental design, assessments were conducted at baseline and two and eight months post-intervention. A series of random effects regression analyses were conducted, with the three assessment points treated as a random effect of time. At both follow-ups, the rate of disclosure in the intervention group was significantly higher than that of the comparison group (p<0.001). Compared to the comparison group at the first follow-up, the intervention group displayed higher levels of active coping (t=2.68, p<0.05) and lower levels of avoidant coping (t=-2.02, p<0.05), and those who attended at least half of the intervention sessions exhibited improved self-esteem (t=2.11, p<0.05). Group interventions tailored for newly HIV positive pregnant women, implemented in resource-limited settings, may accelerate the process of adjusting to one's HIV status, but may not have sustainable benefits over time.

Structured Illumination Microscopy and a Quantitative Image Analysis for the Detection of Positive Margins in a Pre-Clinical Genetically Engineered Mouse Model of Sarcoma.

Intraoperative assessment of surgical margins is critical to ensuring residual tumor does not remain in a patient. Previously, we developed a fluorescence structured illumination microscope (SIM) system with a single-shot field of view (FOV) of 2.1 × 1.6 mm (3.4 mm2) and sub-cellular resolution (4.4 μm). The goal of this study was to test the utility of this technology for the detection of residual disease in a genetically engineered mouse model of sarcoma. Primary soft tissue sarcomas were generated in the hindlimb and after the tumor was surgically removed, the relevant margin was stained with acridine orange (AO), a vital stain that brightly stains cell nuclei and fibrous tissues. The tissues were imaged with the SIM system with the primary goal of visualizing fluorescent features from tumor nuclei. Given the heterogeneity of the background tissue (presence of adipose tissue and muscle), an algorithm known as maximally stable extremal regions (MSER) was optimized and applied to the images to specifically segment nuclear features. A logistic regression model was used to classify a tissue site as positive or negative by calculating area fraction and shape of the segmented features that were present and the resulting receiver operator curve (ROC) was generated by varying the probability threshold. Based on the ROC curves, the model was able to classify tumor and normal tissue with 77% sensitivity and 81% specificity (Youden's index). For an unbiased measure of the model performance, it was applied to a separate validation dataset that resulted in 73% sensitivity and 80% specificity. When this approach was applied to representative whole margins, for a tumor probability threshold of 50%, only 1.2% of all regions from the negative margin exceeded this threshold, while over 14.8% of all regions from the positive margin exceeded this threshold.

Computer aided parallelisation tools (CAPTools) — conceptual overview and performance on the parallelisation of structured mesh codes

Computer Aided Parallelisation Tools (CAPTools) is a toolkit designed to automate as much as possible of the process of parallelising scalar FORTRAN 77 codes. The toolkit combines a very powerful dependence analysis together with user supplied knowledge to build an extremely comprehensive and accurate dependence graph. The initial version has been targeted at structured mesh computational mechanics codes (eg. heat transfer, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)) and the associated simple mesh decomposition paradigm is utilised in the automatic code partition, execution control mask generation and communication call insertion. In this, the first of a series of papers [1–3] the authors discuss the parallelisations of a number of case study codes showing how the various component tools may be used to develop a highly efficient parallel implementation in a few hours or days. The details of the parallelisation of the TEAMKE1 CFD code are described together with the results of three other numerical codes. The resulting parallel implementations are then tested on workstation clusters using PVM and an i860-based parallel system showing efficiencies well over 80%.

An automatable generic strategy for dynamic load balancing in parallel structured mesh CFD codes

Parallel computing is now widely used in numerical simulation, particularly for application codes based on finite difference and finite element methods. A popular and successful technique employed to parallelize such codes onto large distributed memory systems is to partition the mesh into sub-domains that are then allocated to processors. The code then executes in parallel, using the SPMD methodology, with message passing for inter-processor interactions. In order to improve the parallel efficiency of an imbalanced structured mesh CFD code, a new dynamic load balancing (DLB) strategy has been developed in which the processor partition range limits of just one of the partitioned dimensions uses non-coincidental limits, as opposed to coincidental limits. The ‘local’ partition limit change allows greater flexibility in obtaining a balanced load distribution, as the workload increase, or decrease, on a processor is no longer restricted by the ‘global’ (coincidental) limit change. The automatic implementation of this generic DLB strategy within an existing parallel code is presented in this chapter, along with some preliminary results.

Automatic and effective multi-dimensional parallelisation of structured mesh based codes

The most common parallelisation strategy for many Computational Mechanics (CM) (typified by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications) which use structured meshes, involves a 1D partition based upon slabs of cells. However, many CFD codes employ pipeline operations in their solution procedure. For parallelised versions of such codes to scale well they must employ two (or more) dimensional partitions. This paper describes an algorithmic approach to the multi-dimensional mesh partitioning in code parallelisation, its implementation in a toolkit for almost automatically transforming scalar codes to parallel form, and its testing on a range of ‘real-world’ FORTRAN codes. The concept of multi-dimensional partitioning is straightforward, but non-trivial to represent as a sufficiently generic algorithm so that it can be embedded in a code transformation tool. The results of the tests on fine real-world codes demonstrate clear improvements in parallel performance and scalability (over a 1D partition). This is matched by a huge reduction in the time required to develop the parallel versions when hand coded – from weeks/months down to hours/days.

CAPLib - A 'thin layer' message passing library to support computational mechanics codes on distributed memory parallel systems

The Computer Aided Parallelisation Tools (CAPTools) [Ierotheou, C, Johnson SP, Cross M, Leggett PF, Computer aided parallelisation tools (CAPTools)-conceptual overview and performance on the parallelisation of structured mesh codes, Parallel Computing, 1996;22:163±195] is a set of interactive tools aimed to provide automatic parallelisation of serial FORTRAN Computational Mechanics (CM) programs. CAPTools analyses the user's serial code and then through stages of array partitioning, mask and communication calculation, generates parallel SPMD (Single Program Multiple Data) messages passing FORTRAN. The parallel code generated by CAPTools contains calls to a collection of routines that form the CAPTools communications Library (CAPLib). The library provides a portable layer and user friendly abstraction over the underlying parallel environment. CAPLib contains optimised message passing routines for data exchange between parallel processes and other utility routines for parallel execution control, initialisation and debugging. By compiling and linking with different implementations of the library, the user is able to run on many different parallel environments. Even with today's parallel systems the concept of a single version of a parallel application code is more of an aspiration than a reality. However for CM codes the data partitioning SPMD paradigm requires a relatively small set of message-passing communication calls. This set can be implemented as an intermediate `thin layer' library of message-passing calls that enables the parallel code (especially that generated automatically by a parallelisation tool such as CAPTools) to be as generic as possible. CAPLib is just such a `thin layer' message passing library that supports parallel CM codes, by mapping generic calls onto machine specific libraries (such as CRAY SHMEM) and portable general purpose libraries (such as PVM an MPI). This paper describe CAPLib together with its three perceived advantages over other routes: - as a high level abstraction, it is both easy to understand (especially when generated automatically by tools) and to implement by hand, for the CM community (who are not generally parallel computing specialists); - the one parallel version of the application code is truly generic and portable; - the parallel application can readily utilise whatever message passing libraries on a given machine yield optimum performance.

Structured reflection breaks embedded in an online course – effects on learning experience, time on task and performance

The purpose of this article is to gain an insight into the effects of practicing short, frequent,and structured reflection breaks interspersed with the learning material in a computer-based course. To that end, the study sets up a standardized control trial with two groups of secondary school pupils. The study shows that while performance is not affected by these embedded “reflection rituals,” they significantly impact time on task and perceived learning. The study also suggests that the exposure to such built-in opportunities for reflection modifies the engagement with the content and fosters the claimed readiness for application of a similar reflective approach to learning in other occasions.