Attempting to improve standardized test results using Study Islands' web-based mastery program

State standardized testing has always been a tool to measure a school’s performance and to help evaluate school curriculum. However, with the school of choice legislation in 1992, the MEAP test became a measuring stick to grade schools by and a major tool in attracting school of choice students. Now, declining enrollment and a state budget struggling to stay out of the red have made school of choice students more important than ever before. MEAP scores have become the deciding factor in some cases. For the past five years, the Hancock Middle School staff has been working hard to improve their students’ MEAP scores in accordance with President Bush's “No Child Left Behind” legislation. In 2005, the school was awarded a grant that enabled staff to work for two years on writing and working towards school goals that were based on the improvement of MEAP scores in writing and math. As part of this effort, the school purchased an internet-based program geared at giving students practice on state content standards. This study examined the results of efforts by Hancock Middle School to help improve student scores in mathematics on the MEAP test through the use of an online program called “Study Island.” In the past, the program was used to remediate students, and as a review with an incentive at the end of the year for students completing a certain number of objectives. It had also been used as a review before upcoming MEAP testing in the fall. All of these methods may have helped a few students perform at an increased level on their standardized test, but the question remained of whether a sustained use of the program in a classroom setting would increase an understanding of concepts and performance on the MEAP for the masses. This study addressed this question. Student MEAP scores and Study Island data from experimental and comparison groups of students were compared to understand how a sustained use of Study Island in the classroom would impact student test scores on the MEAP. In addition, these data were analyzed to determine whether Study Island results provide a good indicator of students’ MEAP performance. The results of the study suggest that there were limited benefits related to sustained use of Study Island and gave some indications about the effectiveness of the mathematics curriculum at Hancock Middle School. These results and implications for instruction are discussed.

Comparative study of anchorage strengths of epoxy coated hooked bars

Hooked reinforcing bars (rebar) are used frequently to carry the tension forces developed in beams and transferred to columns. Research into epoxy coated hooked bars has only been minimally performed and no research has been carried out incorporating the coating process found in ASTM A934. This research program compares hooked rebar that are uncoated, coated by ASTM A775, and coated by ASTM A934. In total, forty-two full size beam-column specimens were created, instrumented and tested to failure. The program was carried out in three phases. The first phase was used to refine the test setup and procedures. Phase two explored the spacing of column ties within the joint region. Phase three explored the three coating types found above. Each specimen included two hooked rebar which were loaded and measured independently for relative rebar slip. The load and displacement of the hooked rebar were analyzed, focusing on behavior at the levels of 30 ksi, 42 ksi and 60 ksi of rebar stress. Statistical and general comparisons were made using the coating types, tie spacing, and rebar stress level. Many of the parameters composing the rebar and concrete were also tested to characterize the components and specimens. All rebar tested met ASTM standards for tensile strength, but the newer ASTM A934 method seemed to produce slightly lower yield strengths. The A934 method also produced coating thicknesses that were very inconsistent and were higher than ASTM maximum limits in many locations. Continuity of coating surfaces was found to be less than 100% for both A775 and A934 rebar, but for different reasons. The many comparisons made did not always produce clear conclusions. The data suggests that the ACI Code (318-05) parameter of 1.2 for including epoxy coating on hooked rebar may need to be raised, possibly to 2.5, but more testing needs to be performed before such a large value change is set forth. This is particularly important as variables were identified which may have a larger influence on rebar capacity than the Development Length, of which the current 1.2 factor modifies. Many suggestions for future work are included throughout the thesis to help guide other researchers in carrying out successful and productive programs which will further the highly understudied topic of hooked rebar.

Decentralized or centralized production : impacts to the environment, industry, and the economy

Since product take-back is mandated in Europe, and has effects for producers worldwide including the U.S., designing efficient forward and reverse supply chain networks is becoming essential for business viability. Centralizing production facilities may reduce costs but perhaps not environmental impacts. Decentralizing a supply chain may reduce transportation environmental impacts but increase capital costs. Facility location strategies of centralization or decentralization are tested for companies with supply chains that both take back and manufacture products. Decentralized and centralized production systems have different effects on the environment, industry and the economy. Decentralized production systems cluster suppliers within the geographical market region that the system serves. Centralized production systems have many suppliers spread out that meet all market demand. The point of this research is to help further the understanding of company decision-makers about impacts to the environment and costs when choosing a decentralized or centralized supply chain organizational strategy. This research explores; what degree of centralization for a supply chain makes the most financial and environmental sense for siting facilities; and which factories are in the best location to handle the financial and environmental impacts of particular processing steps needed for product manufacture. This research considered two examples of facility location for supply chains when products are taken back; the theoretical case involved shoe resoling and a real world case study considered the location of operations for a company that reclaims multiple products for use as material inputs. For the theoretical example a centralized strategy to facility location was optimal: whereas for the case study a decentralized strategy to facility location was best. In conclusion, it is not possible to say that a centralized or decentralized strategy to facility location is in general best for a company that takes back products. Each company’s specific concerns, needs, and supply chain details will determine which degree of centralization creates the optimal strategy for siting their facilities.

How to Create Posters

This morning Ms. Hayden will introduce you to a computer program designed to help you create a poster for presentation tomorrow.

Remembering Lee Metcalf

Abstract Montana's Lee Metcalf was an extraordinary Montana leader with an unbelievable record of accomplishment fighting for the little people against the forces of economic and political power. The public memory is so short that this film will serve to help reacquaint Lee & Donna Metcalf to most of those who were around during their time. But it will also provide an opportunity for new generations to receive a perspective of an important leader from an important time. (Language from YouTube version of the film, written and provided by Executive Producer Evan Barrett) Lee Warren Metcalf (January 28, 1911 – January 12, 1978) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Representative (1953–1961) and a U.S. Senator (1961–1978) from Montana. He was permanent acting President pro tempore of the Senate, the only person to hold that position, from 1963 until his death in 1978. U.S. House of Representatives During his tenure in the House, Metcalf served on the Education and Labor Committee (1953–1959), Interior and Insular Affairs Committee (1955–1959), Select Astronautics and Space Exploration Committee (1958), and Ways and Means Committee (1959–1960). He became known as one of Congress's "Young Turks" who promoted liberal domestic social legislation and reform of congressional procedures. He introduced legislation to provide health care to the elderly ten years before the creation of Medicare. He earned the nickname "Mr. Education" after sponsoring a comprehensive bill providing for federal aid to education. He also voted against legislation that would have raised grazing permits on federal lands, and led the opposition to a bill that would have swapped forested public lands for cutover private lands. He was elected chairman of the Democratic Study Group in 1959. U. S. Senate Regarded as "a pioneer of the conservation movement", Metcalf worked to protect the natural environment and regulate utilities. He helped pass the Wilderness Act of 1964, and supported the creation of the Great Bear Wilderness and the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. In 1962, he introduced a "Save Our Streams" bill to preserve natural recreation facilities and protect fish and wildlife from being destroyed by highway construction. He was a longtime member of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission. He was also active on the issue of education. He was a leading supporter of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the effort to extend the G.I. Bill's educational benefits to a new generation of veterans, and the development of legislation to improve federally-aided vocational education.[1] The Peace Corps was established under leadership of Metcalf and Senator Mansfield. In 1983, by act of Congress, the Lee Metcalf Wilderness area was created in southwestern Montana in honor of the late Congressman. The Great Bear Wilderness and Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness areas were also created as a result of Metcalf's efforts in Congress, in addition to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. Metcalf was ranked number 15 on a list of the 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century by the Missoulian newspaper. This text is courtesy of Wikipedia®, a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization, and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

CompAS: A new approach to commonality and variability analysis with applications in computer assisted orthopaedic surgery

In rapidly evolving domains such as Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (CAOS) emphasis is often put first on innovation and new functionality, rather than in developing the common infrastructure needed to support integration and reuse of these innovations. In fact, developing such an infrastructure is often considered to be a high-risk venture given the volatility of such a domain. We present CompAS, a method that exploits the very evolution of innovations in the domain to carry out the necessary quantitative and qualitative commonality and variability analysis, especially in the case of scarce system documentation. We show how our technique applies to the CAOS domain by using conference proceedings as a key source of information about the evolution of features in CAOS systems over a period of several years. We detect and classify evolution patterns to determine functional commonality and variability. We also identify non-functional requirements to help capture domain variability. We have validated our approach by evaluating the degree to which representative test systems can be covered by the common and variable features produced by our analysis.

The Impact of Western Social Workers in Romania - a Fine Line between Empowerment and Disempowerment

Ideally the social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance their well-being (IFSW 2004). The social work practice, however, often proves to be different. Social workers are always in the danger to make decisions for their clients or define problems according to their own interpretation and world view. In quite a number of cases, the consequence of such a social work practice is that the clients feel disempowered rather than empowered. This dilemma is multiplying when western social workers get involved in developing countries. The potential that intervention, with the intention to empower and liberate the people, turns into disempowerment is tremendously higher because of the differences in tradition, culture and society, on the one side and the power imbalance between the ‘West’ and the ‘Rest’ on the other side. Especially in developing countries, where the vast majority of people live in poverty, many Western social workers come with a lot of sympathy and the idea to help the poor and to change the world. An example is Romania. After the collapse of communism in 1989, Romania was an economically, politically and socially devastated country. The pictures of the orphanages shocked the western world. As a result many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), churches and individuals were bringing humanitarian goods to Romania in order to alleviate the misery of the Romanian people and especially the children. Since then, important changes in all areas of life have occurred, mostly with foreign financial aid and support. At the political level, democratic institutions were established, a liberal market economy was launched and laws were adapted to western standards regarding the accession into the European Union and the NATO. The western world has left its marks also at the grassroots level in form of NGOs or social service agencies established through western grants and individuals. Above and beyond, the presence of western goods and investment in Romania is omnipresent. This reflects a newly-gained freedom and prosperity - Romania profits certainly from these changes. But this is only one side of the medal, as the effect of westernisation contradicts with the Romanian reality and overruns many deep-rooted traditions, thus the majority of people. Moreover, only a small percentage of the population has access to this western world. Western concepts, procedures or interpretations are often highly differing from the Romanian tradition, history and culture. Nevertheless, western ideas seem to dominate the transition in many areas of daily life in Romania. A closer look reveals that many changes take place due to pressure of western governments and are conditioned to financial support. The dialectic relationship between the need for foreign aid and the implementation becomes very obvious in Romania and often leads, despite the substantial benefits, to unpredictable and rather negative side-effects, at a political, social, cultural, ecological and/or economic level. This reality is a huge dilemma for all those involved, as there is a fine line between empowering and disempowering action. It is beyond the scope of this journal to discuss the dilemma posed by Western involvement at all levels; therefore this article focuses on the impact of Western social workers in Romania. The first part consists of a short introduction to social work in Romania, followed by the discussion about the dilemma posed by the structure of project of international social work and the organisation of private social service agencies. Thirdly the experiences of Romanian staff with Western social workers are presented and then discussed with regard to turning disempowering tendencies of Western social workers into empowerment.

Seniors in Society. Strategies to Retain Individual Autonomy

The research project on "Seniors in Society. Strategies to Retain Individual Autonomy" (2002 - 2004) is supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. It's importance is empha-sized by the relevance of social and economic aspects of demographic ageing of the popula-tion and that of fundamental changes associated with the transformation of Czech society. The objectives of the research are (1) to find out seniors' material and social resources sup-porting their relative autonomy in everyday life, (2) to record their personal expectations from state, community, or formal and informal support and aid institutions, respectively, and (3) to uncover their engagement in social interaction and individual experiencing of the integration into social groups. The data acquired become the base for (4) identifying the typologies corre-sponding to the levels of seniors' social integration (i.e. groups of relatives, friends, neighbours, special-interest and professional groups). By applying qualitative methods, we explore (5) strategies of everyday life and coping with life cycle events and crisis within par-ticular types. Special attention is paid to the family background of the seniors, including rela-tives in the vertical line. Specifically, we focus on (6) conditions under which family is capa-ble and willing to help or actually is helping it's oldest members, as well as on their interpre-tation within (7) identified types of the relatives supportive systems.

Feasibility of Using EMG for Early Detection of the Facial Nerve During Robotic Direct Cochlear Access

HYPOTHESIS Facial nerve monitoring can be used synchronous with a high-precision robotic tool as a functional warning to prevent of a collision of the drill bit with the facial nerve during direct cochlear access (DCA). BACKGROUND Minimally invasive direct cochlear access (DCA) aims to eliminate the need for a mastoidectomy by drilling a small tunnel through the facial recess to the cochlea with the aid of stereotactic tool guidance. Because the procedure is performed in a blind manner, structures such as the facial nerve are at risk. Neuromonitoring is a commonly used tool to help surgeons identify the facial nerve (FN) during routine surgical procedures in the mastoid. Recently, neuromonitoring technology was integrated into a commercially available drill system enabling real-time monitoring of the FN. The objective of this study was to determine if this drilling system could be used to warn of an impending collision with the FN during robot-assisted DCA. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sheep was chosen as a suitable model for this study because of its similarity to the human ear anatomy. The same surgical workflow applicable to human patients was performed in the animal model. Bone screws, serving as reference fiducials, were placed in the skull near the ear canal. The sheep head was imaged using a computed tomographic scanner and segmentation of FN, mastoid, and other relevant structures as well as planning of drilling trajectories was carried out using a dedicated software tool. During the actual procedure, a surgical drill system was connected to a nerve monitor and guided by a custom built robot system. As the planned trajectories were drilled, stimulation and EMG response signals were recorded. A postoperative analysis was achieved after each surgery to determine the actual drilled positions. RESULTS Using the calibrated pose synchronized with the EMG signals, the precise relationship between distance to FN and EMG with 3 different stimulation intensities could be determined for 11 different tunnels drilled in 3 different subjects. CONCLUSION From the results, it was determined that the current implementation of the neuromonitoring system lacks sensitivity and repeatability necessary to be used as a warning device in robotic DCA. We hypothesize that this is primarily because of the stimulation pattern achieved using a noninsulated drill as a stimulating probe. Further work is necessary to determine whether specific changes to the design can improve the sensitivity and specificity.

The Impact of a Brief Intervention on Medical Students' Readiness to Screen for DV - Changes in Decisional Balance and Self-Efficacy

Introduction: Domestic violence (DV) affects millions of Americans each year. Yet, there is a dearth of theory-based DV curricula, resulting in physicians unprepared to screen for DV. This study utilized a survey based on constructs from the Transtheoretical Model to assess the readiness of first- and second-year medical students to screen for DV. Information from this survey will be used to help institutionalize DV education into the medical curriculum. [See PDF for complete abstract]

School Based Health Centers Should Provide Contraception to Teens

Many students are sexually active, and hundreds of thousands experience pregnancy every year. Smith, Novello, and Chacko’s research found that students at a school where contraception is available on site were more likely to access contraception and less likely to experience pregnancy – illustrating the power of school based health centers (SBHCs) to help students take responsibility and protect their own futures. Yet the majority of SBHCs are prohibited from dispensing contraception. To remove barriers in access to contraception and help reduce teen pregnany, policymakers, school administrators, and health providers should ensure that SBHCs follow youth-friendly protocols and provide confidential access to contraception.

Resilient Families Help Make Resilient Children

Many children are resilient despite dysfunctional families and communities. Resilience theory and research describe families’ positive impact on children’s resilience, yet it can often be challenging to identify these factors in children’s multi-problem families. Strategies for enhancing family resilience can strengthen the family treatment approaches that are commonly used to help children. This paper explains how family resilience influences children's resilience and applies this knowledge to a case example of a struggling family. It proposes methods for identifying and enhancing family protective factors that support children’s resilience.

A Multidisciplinary Team Experience with Food Insecurity & Failure to Thrive

Food insecurity (FI) affects millions of people in the United States and is associated with medical problems, as well as poorer physical and emotional-behavioral adjustment. Failure to thrive is a condition where children fail to gain an appropriate amount of weight, and it can cause long-term effects on cognitive and psychomotor development. While the extent to which FI may contribute to FTT is unclear, FI may contribute both directly through inadequate caloric or nutrient intake and indirectly through increased family stress, parental depression and a chaotic family environment. We present an overview of how FI and FTT may interact, followed by a case study from our multidisciplinary clinic for children with FTT. The importance of screening for FI as well as FTT is discussed. We describe ways for individuals, organizations, and agencies to help reduce the effects of FI in both individuals and their communities.

EU trade agreements and their impacts on human rights: study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

The European Union’s (EU) trade policy has a strong influence on economic development and the human rights situation in the EU’s partner countries, particularly in developing countries. The present study was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) as a contribution to further developing appropriate methodologies for assessing human rights risks in development-related policies, an objective set in the BMZ’s 2011 strategy on human rights. The study offers guidance for stakeholders seeking to improve their knowledge of how to assess, both ex ante and ex post, the impact of Economic Partnership Agreements on poverty reduction and the right to food in ACP countries. Currently, human rights impacts are not yet systematically addressed in the trade sustainability impact assessments (trade SIAs) that the European Commission conducts when negotiating trade agreements. Nor do they focus specifically on disadvantaged groups or include other benchmarks relevant to human rights impact assessments (HRIAs). The EU itself has identified a need for action in this regard. In June 2012 it presented an Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy that calls for the inclusion of human rights in all impact assessments and in this context explicitly refers to trade agreements. Since then, the EU has begun to slightly adapt its SIA methodology and is working to define more adequate human rights–consistent procedures. It is hoped that readers of this study will find inspiration to help contribute to this process and help improve human rights consistency of future trade options.

Practices of pediatric oncology and hematology providers regarding fertility issues: A European survey.

BACKGROUND Fertility is impaired in many survivors of childhood cancer following treatment. Preservation of fertility after cancer has become a central survivorship concern. Nevertheless, several doctors, patients, and families do not discuss fertility and recommendations for fertility preservation in pediatrics are still lacking. Recommendations based on scientific evidence are needed and before their development we wanted to assess the practice patterns of fertility preservation in Europe. PROCEDURES On behalf of the PanCare network, we sent a questionnaire to pediatric onco-hematology institutions across Europe. The survey consisted of 21 questions assessing their usual practices around fertility preservation. RESULTS One hundred ninety-eight institutional representatives across Europe received the survey and 68 (response rate 34.3%) responded. Pre-treatment fertility counseling was offered by 64 institutions. Counseling was done by a pediatric onco-hematologist in 52% (33/64) and in 32% (20/64) by a team. The majority of institutions (53%) lacked recommendations for fertility preservation. All 64 centers offered sperm banking; eight offered testicular tissue cryopreservation for pre-pubertal males. For females, the possibility of preserving ovarian tissue was offered by 40 institutions. CONCLUSIONS There is a high level of interest in fertility preservation among European centers responding to our survey. However, while most recommended sperm cryopreservation, many also recommended technologies whose efficacy has not been shown. There is an urgent need for evidence-based European recommendations for fertility preservation to help survivors deal with the stressful topic of fertility. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2014;9999:1-5. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.