The Impact of School Improvement Grants on Student Outcomes: Findings From a National Evaluation Using a Regression Discontinuity Design

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program received more than $3 billion with the goal of substantially improving student achievement. The SIG program’s funding was to help states turn around the nation’s persistently lowest-achieving schools using one of four school intervention models—transformation, turnaround, restart, or closure. We used a regression discontinuity design and a large sample of schools from more than 20 states to evaluate the impact of implementing a SIG-funded intervention model on use of SIG-promoted practices and student outcomes. Our regression discontinuity design exploited cutoff values on the continuous variables used to define the SIG eligibility tiers to compare outcomes in schools that just met the eligibility cutoff for receiving SIG funding to outcomes in schools that just missed it. We found that SIG had no impact on any of the outcomes we examined, including math and reading test scores, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. Using a correlational analysis, we found the turnaround model was associated with larger student achievement gains in math than the transformation model for grades 6 through 12.     

Founders’ human capital and the growth of new technology-based firms: A competence-based view

In this paper, we analyze empirically the relation between the growth of new technology-based firms and the human capital of founders, with the aim of teasing out the “wealth” and “capability” effects of human capital. For this purpose, we take advantage of a new data set relating to a sample composed of 506 Italian young firms that operate in high-tech industries in both manufacturing and services. In accordance with competence-based theories, the econometric estimates show that the nature of the education and of the prior work experience of founders exerts a key influence on growth. In fact, founders’ years of university education in economic and managerial fields and to a lesser extent in scientific and technical fields positively affect growth while education in other fields does not. Similarly prior work experience in the same industry of the new firm is positively associated with growth while prior work experience in other industries is not. Furthermore, it is the technical work experience of founders as opposed to their commercial work experience that determines growth. The fact that within the founding team there are individuals with prior entrepreneurial experiences also results in superior growth. Lastly, we provide evidence that there are synergistic gains from the combination of the complementary capabilities of founders relating to (i) economic-managerial and scientific-technical education and (ii) technical and commercial industry-specific work experiences. We conclude that the human capital of founders of new technology-based firms is not just a proxy for personal wealth.     

Women show similar central and peripheral fatigue to men after half-marathon*

Women are known to be less fatigable than men in single-joint exercises, but fatigue induced by running has not been well understood. Here we investigated sex differences in central and peripheral fatigue and in rate of force development (RFD) in the knee extensors after a half-marathon run. Ten male and eight female amateur runners (aged 25–50 years) were evaluated before and immediately after a half-marathon race. Knee extensors forces were obtained under voluntary and electrically evoked isometric contractions. Maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVC) force and peak RFD were recorded. Electrically doublet stimuli were delivered during the MVC and at rest to calculate the level of voluntary activation and the resting doublet twitch. After the race, decreases in MVC force (males: ?11%, effect size [ES] 0.52; females: ?11% ES 0.33), voluntary activation (males: ?6%, ES 0.87; females: ?4%, ES 0.72), and resting doublet twitch (males: ?6%, ES 0.34; females: ?8%, ES 0.30) were found to be similar between males and females. The decrease in peak RFD was found to be similar between males and females (males: ?14%, ES 0.43; females: ?15%, ES 0.14). Half-marathon run induced both central and peripheral fatigue, without any difference between men and women. The maximal and explosive strength loss was found similar between sexes. Together, these findings do not support the need of sex-specific training interventions to increase the tolerance to neuromuscular fatigue in half-marathoners.     

Stability of memristor neural networks with delays operating in the flux-charge domain

The paper considers a class of neural networks where flux-controlled dynamic memristors are used in the neurons and finite concentrated delays are accounted for in the interconnections. Goal of the paper is to thoroughly analyze the nonlinear dynamics both in the flux-charge domain and in the current-voltage domain. In particular, a condition that is expressed in the form of a linear matrix inequality, and involves the interconnection matrix, the delayed interconnection matrix, and the memristor nonlinearity, is given ensuring that in the flux-charge domain the networks possess a unique globally exponentially stable equilibrium point. The same condition is shown to ensure exponential convergence of each trajectory toward an equilibrium point in the voltage-current domain. Moreover, when a steady state is reached, all voltages, currents and power in the networks vanish, while the memristors act as nonvolatile memories keeping the result of computation, i.e., the asymptotic values of fluxes. Differences with existing results on stability of other classes of delayed memristor neural networks, and potential advantages over traditional neural networks operating in the typical voltage-current domain, are discussed.     

Model predictive control for pre-compensated power converters: Application to current mode control

Current Mode Control (CMC) is the standard approach to regulate DC-DC power converters in high performance applications, allowing to obtain a faster time-response and better closed-loop stability if compared to Voltage Mode Control (VMC). In the last decade, several algorithms have been proposed to improve standard CMC, most of them requiring to replace the original controller. However, it is common to have either analog or embedded CMC controllers which cannot be replaced easily in commercial power converters. Inspired by very recent results in the topic, this paper proposes a Model Predictive Control (MPC) external loop aimed at optimally modifying the set-point of a CMC loop to improve converter performance. The proposed configuration is directly applicable to any pre-compensated converter as it does not require changes on the already-in-place controller. Moreover, by leveraging a multi-rate implementation, the benefits of MPC are introduced in power conversion without affecting much the computational cost of the over-all control system, contrary to what would happen for a direct MPC implementation. Simulation and experimental results on a synchronous DC-DC buck converter, controlled by a standard CMC algorithm, confirm the benefits of the approach.     

Preanalytical management: serum vacuum tubes validation for routine clinical chemistry

Introduction

The validation process is essential in accredited clinical laboratories. Aim of this study was to validate five kinds of serum vacuum tubes for routine clinical chemistry laboratory testing.

Materials and methods:

Blood specimens from 100 volunteers in five diff erent serum vacuum tubes (Tube I: VACUETTE^®, Tube II: LABOR IMPORT^®, Tube III: S-Monovette^®, Tube IV: SST^® and Tube V: SST II^®) were collected by a single, expert phlebotomist. The routine clinical chemistry tests were analyzed on cobas^® 6000 module. The significance of the diff erences between samples was assessed by paired Student’s t-test after checking for normality. The level of statistical significance was set at P < 0.005. Finally, the biases from Tube I, Tube II, Tube III, Tube IV and Tube V were compared with the current desirable quality specifications for bias (B), derived from biological variation.

Results and conclusions:

Basically, our validation will permit the laboratory or hospital managers to select the brand’s vacuum tubes validated according him/her technical or economical reasons, in order to perform the following laboratory tests: glucose, total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, triglycerides, total protein, albumin, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, alkaline phosphatise, aspartate aminotransferase, gamma-glutamyltransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, calcium, iron, sodium and potassium. On the contrary special attention will be required if the laboratory already performs creatinine, amylase, phosphate and magnesium determinations and the quality laboratory manager intend to change the serum tubes. We suggest that laboratory management should both standardize the procedures and frequently evaluate the quality of in vitro diagnostic devices.     

The effective reduction of tourniquet application time after minor modification of the CLSI H03-A6 blood collection procedure

Introduction:

The phlebotomists’ procedures are a still source of laboratory variability. The aim of this study was to verify the efficacy of minor modification in procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture from CLSI H03-A6 document is able to reduce the tourniquet application time.

Materials and methods:

Thirty phlebotomists were invited to participate. Each phlebotomist was trained individually to perform the new venipuncture procedure that shortens the time of tourniquet release and removal. The phlebotomy training program was delivered over 8h. After training, all phlebotomists were monitored for 20 working days, to guarantee the adoption of the correct new procedures for collection of diagnostic blood specimens. After this time frame the phlebotomists were evaluated to verify whether the new procedure for blood collection derived from CLSI H03-A6 document was effective to improve the quality process by decrease in tourniquet application time. We compared the tourniquet application time and qualitative difference of phlebotomy procedures between laboratories before and after phlebotomy training.

Results:

The overall mean ± SD tourniquet application time before and after this intervention were 118 ± 1 s and 30 ± 1 s respectively. Minor modifications in procedure for blood collection were able to reduce significantly the tourniquet application time (−88 s, P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

The minor modifications in procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture from CLSI H03-A6 document were able to reduce the tourniquet application time. Now the proposed new procedure for collection of diagnostic blood specimens by venipuncture could be considered usefulness and should be put into practice by all quality laboratory managers and/or phlebotomy coordinators to avoid preanalytical errors regard venous stasis and guarantee patient safety.     

Widening participation,the instrumentalization of knowledge and the reproduction of inequality

According to Michel Foucault, modernity is predicated on the emergence of an instrumental idea of knowledge, which does not affect the constitution of the individual as a subject. This article aims to explore this thesis in the context of British Higher Education through a problematization of widening participation policies, and how they have been increasingly constructed in economic-instrumental terms. This approach suggests two main considerations within the framework of Foucault's argument. First, widening participation initiatives have contributed to reinforce an idea of knowledge as an instrumental set of notions external to the subject rather than a process of transformation of the self. Second, widening participation initiatives have been dominated by a neoliberal approach to the problem of inequality which has turned students into seemingly equal consumers of knowledge. However, it will be argued, this approach contributes to reproduce in different ways the inequality gap between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds.