Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

In January 2004 President Bush authorized the DC School Choice Incentive Act, an initiative funded at $14 million that created a scholarship program providing 1,700 low-income Washington, DC, children the opportunity to attend participating K–12 nonpublic schools in the district. In addition to offering opportunities to participating children, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program opens a door for examining the implications when more families are given the opportunity to select private schools for their children. This article reviews the results of a qualitative assessment aimed at understanding how families experienced their first year in the program. Referencing direct quotes from families that took part in focus groups, we address the following areas of participants' experience: reaction to the choice opportunity, motivation for participation, what was valued in schools, how information was received, selection of final school, reaction to new school environment, parent responses to new challenges, student–school responses to new challenges, financial policies, and overall satisfaction. Each section contains family responses juxtaposed with popular literature on school choice. This report is the first in a series that will monitor the experiences of families during the first 5 years of this program.     

Writer identification approach based on bag of words with OBI features

Handwriter identification aims to simplify the task of forensic experts by providing them with semi-automated tools in order to enable them to narrow down the search to determine the final identification of an unknown handwritten sample. An identification algorithm aims to produce a list of predicted writers of the unknown handwritten sample ranked in terms of confidence measure metrics for use by the forensic expert will make the final decision.Most existing handwriter identification systems use either statistical or model-based approaches. To further improve the performances this paper proposes to deploy a combination of both approaches using Oriented Basic Image features and the concept of graphemes codebook. To reduce the resulting high dimensionality of the feature vector a Kernel Principal Component Analysis has been used. To gauge the effectiveness of the proposed method a performance analysis, using IAM dataset for English handwriting and ICFHR 2012 dataset for Arabic handwriting, has been carried out. The results obtained achieved an accuracy of 96% thus demonstrating its superiority when compared against similar techniques.     

Predicting vertical ground reaction force during running using novel piezoresponsive sensors and accelerometry

ABSTRACT

Running is a common exercise with numerous health benefits. Vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) influences running injury risk and running performance. Measurement of vGRF during running is now primarily constrained to a laboratory setting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new approach to measuring vGRF during running. This approach can be used outside of the laboratory and involves running shoes instrumented with novel piezoresponsive sensors and a standard accelerometer. Thirty-one individuals ran at three different speeds on a force-instrumented treadmill while wearing the instrumented running shoes. vGRF was predicted using data collected from the instrumented shoes, and predicted vGRF were compared to vGRF measured via the treadmill. Per cent error of the resulting predictions varied depending upon the predicted vGRF characteristic. Per cent error was relatively low for predicted vGRF impulse (2–7%), active peak vGRF (3–7%), and ground contact time (3–6%), but relatively high for predicted vGRF load rates (22–29%). These errors should decrease with future iterations of the instrumented shoes and collection of additional data from a more diverse sample. The novel technology described herein might become a feasible way to collect large amounts of vGRF data outside of the traditional biomechanics laboratory.     

髋关节滑膜皱襞生长发育的应用解剖学研究

木文对胎儿、儿童和成人三个年龄组,总计126侧髋关节进行了解剖学观测.发现片状滑膜皱襞在胎儿5月龄时就已经发生,绒毛状皱襞则在儿童早期才开始出现.并发现滑膜皱襞伴随着机体的生长发育,形态逐渐增大,数量逐渐增多,直到成年期方趋于稳定.同时发现,髋关节的滑膜皱襞(唇外皱襞)主要分布在三个部位:股骨头韧带的基部、髋臼唇外缘和股骨颈滑膜反折处.特别是髋臼唇外缘的滑膜皱襞有少数(9.52%)嵌入头臼之间的缝隙之中,作者认为唇外皱襞(C皱襞)是导致儿童髋关节滑膜皱襞综合症的形态学基础.     

NATIONAL STUDY OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHERS

Three major urban community college districts replicated a study of very effective teachers originally conducted at the City Colleges of Chicago. Researchers at the cooperating institutions identified teachers who had outstanding reputations and whose students achieved'at very high levels. Intensive interviews revealed four common attributes of the ninety teachers involved in the original and replication studies. The teachers plan and organize goals, they show respect and interest in their students, they encourage student participation, and they monitor student progress and respond accordingly. The excellent teachers in this study are exceptionally dedicated and hard working. Many of the techniques that they use can be successfully used by other teachers who would like to improve their own teaching.     

Implementation as a Focus of Consultation to Evaluate Academic Tutoring Services in an Urban School District: A Case Study Example

This article describes a multiagency initiative to evaluate academic tutoring services by focusing on the processes that contribute to effective program implementation. Community-based tutoring service providers serving students in the Cincinnati Public Schools (OH) partnered to initiate a “Seal of Approval” process for promoting evidence-based practices among tutoring providers, assigning merit to effective programs, and eliminating or remediating ineffective practices. The consultant-driven process evaluation was designed to be fair and equitable among an array of tutoring service providers. This case example has implications for consultants, tutoring program directors, and school district administrators seeking to establish an accountability system for tutoring service providers.     

Socialization of graduate teaching assistants: a case study in an American university

Although graduate teaching assistants [GTAS] play an important role on most American university campuses, and despite the fact that the GTA experience is often the only formal professional training that faculty receive, little is known about how GTAS are prepared for their role. One of the most enigmatic processes related to GTA role development is that of socialization. This paper reports the results of a study examining the types of messages that new GTAS receive about their role and the manner in which particular types of communication strategies are used to cope with inconsistencies and conflicts among those messages. It was found that GTAS are exposed to thematic messages about what it means to be a GTA, that they experienced difficulties when attempting to use those messages to guide behavior and decision‐making, and that information‐seeking strategies were used in response to the specific types of problems that were experienced.