Culturally Appropriate Authentic Assessments: Exploring the Use of Authentic Assessments for African American Children at Risk for Special Education in Urban Settings

Authentic assessments provide an alternative to informal and formal assessments which may reduce the number of African Americans in special education programs. This literature review will explore the use of authentic assessment for at risk students in special education programs in urban settings

Urban Education Research: A Paradigm Shift

Significantly due to the institutional separation of theory and practice, the gap between academia and society continues to broaden, arguably pointing towards the failure of traditional educational research and, to an extent, the university’s neglect to authenticate alternate epistemologies and methodologies that seek to elicit mobilization, activism, and reform

Chronic regulation of colonic epithelial secretory function by activation of G protein-coupled receptors.

BACKGROUND: Enteric neurotransmitters that act at G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are well known to acutely promote epithelial Cl(-) and fluid secretion. Here we examined if acute GPCR activation might have more long-term consequences for epithelial secretory function. METHODS: Cl(-) secretion was measured as changes in short-circuit current across voltage-clamped T(84) colonic epithelial cells. Protein expression was measured by western blotting and intracellular Ca(2+) levels by Fura-2 fluorescence. KEY RESULTS: While acute (15 min) treatment of T(84) cells with a cholinergic G(q) PCR agonist, carbachol (CCh), rapidly stimulated Cl(-) secretion, subsequent CCh-induced responses were attenuated in a biphasic manner. The first phase was transient and resolved within 6 h but this was followed by a chronic phase of attenuated responsiveness that was sustained up to 48 h. CCh-pretreatment did not chronically alter responses to another G(q)PCR agonist, histamine, or to thapsigargin or forskolin which elevate intracellular Ca(2+) and cAMP, respectively. This chronically acting antisecretory mechanism is not shared by neurotransmitters that activate G(s)PCRs. Conditioned medium from CCh-pretreated cells mimicked its chronic antisecretory actions, suggesting involvement of an epithelial-derived soluble factor but further experimentation ruled out the involvement of epidermal growth factor receptor ligands. Acute CCh exposure did not chronically alter surface expression of muscarinic M(3) receptors but inhibited intracellular Ca(2+) mobilization upon subsequent agonist challenge. CONCLUSIONS \u26 INFERENCES: These data reveal a novel, chronically acting, antisecretory mechanism that downregulates epithelial secretory capacity upon repeated G(q)PCR agonist exposure. This mechanism involves release of a soluble factor that uncouples receptor activation from downstream prosecretory signals

Investigating First Returns: The Effect of Multicolored Vectors

By definition, a first return is the immediate moment that a path, using vectors in the Cartesian plane, touches the x-axis after leaving it previously from a given point; the initial point is often the origin. In this case, using certain diagonal and horizontal vectors while restricting the movements to the first quadrant will cause almost every first return to end at the point (2n,0), where 2n counts the equal number of up and down steps in a path. The exception will be explained further in the sections below. Using the first returns of Catalan, Schröder, and Motzkin numbers, which resulted from the lattice paths formed using a combination of diagonal and/or horizontal vectors, we then investigated the effect that coloring select vectors will have on each of the original generatin

Knowledge integration in One Health policy formulation, implementation and evaluation

The One Health concept covers the interrelationship between human, animal and environmental health and requires multistakeholder collaboration across many cultural, disciplinary, institutional and sectoral boundaries. Yet, the implementation of the One Health approach appears hampered by shortcomings in the global framework for health governance. Knowledge integration approaches, at all stages of policy development, could help to address these shortcomings. The identification of key objectives, the resolving of trade-offs and the creation of a common vision and a common direction can be supported by multicriteria analyses. Evidence-based decision-making and transformation of observations into narratives detailing how situations emerge and might unfold in the future can be achieved by systems thinking. Finally, transdisciplinary approaches can be used both to improve the effectiveness of existing systems and to develop novel networks for collective action. To strengthen One Health governance, we propose that knowledge integration becomes a key feature of all stages in the development of related policies. We suggest several ways in which such integration could be promoted

People out of place : emotional geography, postmodern identity and gender in three contemporary Japanese texts.

Master of Arts in English. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2015.This dissertation examines contemporary Japanese notions of place, gender and identity as discussed in three texts by Japanese and Japanese-descended authors. The texts under examination include Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film Tokyo Sonata (2008), Haruki Murakami’s novel After Dark (2007) and Japanese-American author Ruth Ozeki’s novel A Tale for the Time Being (2013). Within each text, I will discuss how the author or filmmaker’s conception of location affects, and is affected by, their characters’ shifting experience of identity and gender. I begin with a brief exploration of the history of Japan’s exposure to the West, and the Orientalist notions which have been perpetuated about Japan which contribute to the image of Japan as other. Thereafter I examine theories of emotional geography, which is the exploration of the emotional connections between self, setting and society at large. I then tie this theoretical perspective with conceptions of the fluidity of gender and postmodern identity’s imaginings of the fractured self. Each text progressively widens the spatial areas of interest – from Kurosawa’s concern for the home, Murakami’s focus on the city, and Ozeki’s discussion of trans-oceanic and imaginative spaces – while emphasising the dynamic interplay of place, person and performativity within each of these spaces. Each of these arenas of thought are linked through their interest in the destruction of the rigid boundaries governing human experience, and I will argue that each of the texts under analysis presents a profound observation of not only what it means to be Japanese today, but also offers a touching and hopeful case for shared humanity on a global scale

Análise de dados de linha de embalagem de medicamentos para criação de indicadores de produção

Data analysis techniques have reached an important role in all industry sectors, including the pharmaceutical industry. Data-driven decision making and process optimization are essential applications in the industry. Thus, the objective of this study is to perform a data analysis of a pharmaceutical packaging line to create production indicators, with a particular focus on the OEE indicator. The methodology used was the CRISP-DM framework with some adaptations, involving several data analysis steps such as business understanding, data comprehension, data cleaning and transformation, exploratory analysis, and data visualization. The obtained results consisted of graphical performance indicators for the packaging line machinery, enabling a more in-depth analysis of the pharmaceutical packaging line.As técnicas de análise de dados alcançaram um papel importante em todos os setores da indústria, incluindo a indústria farmacêutica. A tomada de decisões e otimização de processos industriais baseada em dados são aplicações essenciais para a Indústria. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste trabalho é realizar uma análise dos dados de uma linha de embalagem de medicamentos de um laboratório farmacêutico para criação de indicadores de produção, com um destaque para o indicador de desempenho OEE. A metodologia utilizada foi o CRISP-DM com algumas adaptações, tendo como passos diversas etapas de análise de dados, tais como compreensão do negócio, entendimento dos dados, limpeza e transformação dos dados, realização de análises exploratórias e a visualização dos dados. Os resultados obtidos foram os indicadores gráficos de desempenho das máquinas da linha de embalagem, possibilitando uma análise mais aprofundada da linha de embalagem de medicamentos