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This article tells the story of the #EndCCStigma social media campaign and podcast. Created by a community college president, this grassroots effort to elevate the public perception of community colleges is comprised of a Twitter hashtag, a news aggregation algorithm, and a podcast series. In addition to delving into the concept of "stickiness" within these marketing efforts, which refers to ideas that are, among other things, simple, unexpected and emotional, the three-part theory of the campaign is analyzed. Local and national news stories that were aggregated as part of the campaign are highlighted as case studies. Direct transcriptions from the podcast series are shared to provide extensive first-hand voices of community college students, faculty, staff, and advocates. The article ends with an examination of recent national data on community college stigma, as well as the results of a survey on a community college campus conducted by students themselves.

Background: Adoption and use of effective, research-based instructional strategies (RBISs) for STEM education is less widespread than hoped. To promote further use of RBISs, the propagation paradigm suggests that developers work with potential adopters during the development process, and provide ongoing support after adoption. This article investigates the impact of a faculty online learning community (FOLC) as a professional development mechanism for supporting faculty adopting a research-based curriculum. An FOLC uses video conference technology and online platforms to connect geographically dispersed faculty with similar backgrounds (e.g., physics faculty) and supports their teaching development. In the context of a specific FOLC, this article seeks to determine the outcomes the FOLC achieves, and how. Results: Analysis of an FOLC meeting identified opportunities for rich, complex social interaction centered on the research-based curriculum. By functioning as a sounding board for ideas, a space to share experiences, a source of affective support, and a venue for troubleshooting, the FOLC mediates the achievement of a range of outcomes related to implementation of the curriculum. Survey results indicate that members feel a sense of community in the FOLC and that it provides encouragement through teaching challenges. Further results indicate participants' increased confidence in using the curriculum; familiarity with the curriculum structure and content; increased knowledge of pedagogical techniques; reflection on teaching practices in the curriculum; and use of pedagogical techniques aligned with the curriculum's core principles. Emerging evidence supports more distal outcomes, including student learning, persistence in using the curriculum, reflection in teaching practice across courses taught, and use of research-based pedagogy in other courses. Conclusions: The propagation paradigm emphasizes the need for ongoing support for adopters of RBISs. The FOLC model provides participating faculty with ongoing support through participation in a community and is an effective support mechanism for adopters of a research-based curriculum. In this study, FOLC members are increasing their knowledge and use of pedagogical techniques in the curriculum-specific course and beyond. This is facilitated by the opportunities in the FOLC for troubleshooting, idea sharing, and receiving encouragement through challenges. This model has the potential to support adopters of additional educational innovations.

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Fifteen years ago, following recommendations from research on science education for prospective teachers and for students more broadly, "Physics and Everyday Thinking" introduced activities within an inquiry-based undergraduate physics course that explicitly focus on the nature of science and nature of learning. This component of the curriculum is referred to as learning about learning. Since then, this same team developed a series of other curricula. These later curricula, "Physics and Everyday Thinking" (2nd ed.), "Physical Science and Everyday Thinking, Learning Physics, Learning Physical Science," and "Next Generation Physical Science and Everyday Thinking" all retain a focus on learning about learning as a priority. While similar theoretical grounding guided development across all these curricula, this particular component evolved considerably. These changes were motivated by practical considerations, developments in research, changes to the K-12 expectations, and changes in physics departments, as well as changes to the team. We introduce the term responsive curriculum development to describe the changes made to this aspect of the curricula. With responsive curriculum development, the development process is responsive to contextual, social, and policy factors so that the materials remain relevant and adaptable in diverse contexts and time periods.

The use of biochar for the adsorption of contaminants from soil and water has received considerable interest due to biochar's high surface area, negative charge, and resistance to degradation. However, a knowledge gap still exists concerning the optimum selection of feedstocks and pyrolysis temperatures to maximise sorption capacity for metals. In this study, biochars were produced from 4 different feedstock materials (hay, wheat straw, coco coir, and pine bark) at 10 pyrolysis temperatures ranging from 300 °C to 750 °C, at 50 °C intervals. Batch sorption experiments were conducted to determine the maximum Pb sorption capacity for each biochar using the Langmuir model. The sorption isotherms fit the Langmuir model well (generally R2 > 0.7). The Langmuir maximum sorption capacity increased with an increase in pyrolysis temperature, according to a sigmoidal relationship. A sigmoidal model was fit to the data to derive the theoretical maximum possible sorption capacity obtainable from a feedstock. We observed a positive correlation between the nitrogen content of the feedstock and the theoretical maximum possible sorption capacity obtainable from the feedstock. This relationship highlights the importance of nitrogen content in feedstock to create biochars with a high Pb sorption capacity. It is possible that cation–π interactions with heterocyclic N structures are the primary mechanism for the sorption of Pb to these biochars, and this warrants further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on consultation meetings with eight community groups across rural England, this paper examines local perspectives on housing affordability, and the consequences of low levels of "within area" housing access for rural economies and communities, contrasting the reflective understanding of residents with normative and established perspectives on the same issues. Because it now seems likely that rural planning policy in England will, in some measure, be reconstructed from the bottom-up, prioritising local control, an analysis of residents' perspectives gives some insight into the shape of future policy intervention. The research reveals a highly nuanced understanding of affordability and the development needs of villages. Sometimes local views--particularly those of commuting or retired households--are dismissed as being motivated by NIMBYism. But this is a partial truth, with rural residents displaying reflective dissatisfaction with official perspectives on rural housing problems. (Contains 1 figure.)

We record 392 species or morphospecies of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) for Manitoba, Canada, which is 154 more species than reported in 2015 and includes five new generic records since 2015 (Ashmeadiella, Brachymelecta, Eucera, Neolarra, and Triepeolus). Thirteen new records reported here are new for Canada: Calliopsis (Nomadopsis) australior Cockerell, Perdita (Perdita) tridentata Stevens, Brachymelecta interrupta (Cresson), Diadasia (Dasiapis) ochracea (Cockerell), Melissodes bidentis Cockerell, Nomada crawfordi crawfordi Cockerell, Nomada fuscicincta Swenk, Nomada sphaerogaster Cockerell, Nomada xantholepis Cockerell, Triepeolus cf. grindeliae Cockerell, Dianthidium (Dianthidium) parvum (Cresson), Coelioxys (Xerocoelioxys) nodis Baker, and Megachile (Megachiloides) dakotensis Mitchell. We remove the following species from the list of Manitoba bees based on re-examination of voucher material: Andrena (Ptilandrena) geranii Robertson, Andrena (Rhacandrena) robertsonii Dalla Torre, Andrena (Simandrena) nasonii Robertson, Andrena (Trachandrena) ceanothi Viereck, Andrena (Trachandrena) quintilis Robertson, Lasioglossum (Hemihalictus) pectoraloides (Cockerell), Lasioglossum (Lasioglossum) forbesii (Robertson), and Dianthidium (Dianthidium) concinnum (Cresson). We propose that Nomada alpha paralpha Cockerell, 1921 and N. alpha dialpha Cockerell, 1921 are junior synonyms of N. alpha Cockerell, 1905. Nomada arenicola Swenk, 1912 is considered a junior synonym of N. fervida Smith, 1854. Protandrena albertensis (Cockerell) and Neolarra mallochi Michener are recognised as valid species. We provide additional notes on taxonomy, nomenclature, and behaviour for select species in the list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic deposition of nitrogen (N) and elevated CO2 (eaCO2) are expected to increase continuously and rapidly in the near future and influence global carbon cycling. These parameters affect the ecosystem by regulating the microbial community and contribute to soil organic matter decomposition. The study was performed to understand the effects of N additions (4 and 6mgl−1) and eaCO2 (700 ppm) on carbon (C)/nitrogen (N) content in the soil, microbial community, and plant biomass (Alternanthera philoxeroides species). The results showed that when the atmospheric CO2 concentration was raised, the total organic carbon (TOC) in the soil statistically increased (P < 0.05) by 4% and 3% under low and high N additions respectively, while the inorganic carbon content also increased by 1% and 3% (P > 0.05) under the same conditions. The increase in the soil TOC content was a result of the movement of carbon from water to the soil due to the presence of vascular tissues of plants in the water. The redundancy analysis (RDA) results revealed that the presence of plant species was responsible for the carbon content increment in the soil. The plant biomass content increased by 30.96% (P = 0.081) and 31.36%, (P = 0.002) under low and high N addition respectively due to the increment in atmospheric CO2. The nitrogen content in the plant species decreased (p > 0.05) by 8.62% and 6.25% at low and high N addition respectively when atmospheric CO2 was raised. This suggests that soil microbes competed with the plants for inorganic nitrogen in the soil and the microbes used up the inorganic nitrogen before it got to the plants. The gram-positive bacteria and fungi population decreased under high N addition and eaCO2 while gram-negative bacteria increased, suggesting that N additions and eaCO2 affected the microbial function and correlated with the nitrogen reduction in the soil. The results from this study serve as a guide to researchers and stakeholders in making policies with regard to the constant increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years automatic number plate recognition systems have been increasingly used to monitor urban link travel time. However, the set of travel times produced will contain erroneous records for a variety of reasons including the misreading of the licence plates by the camera, vehicles stopping en-route, and vehicles taking nondirect routes between the two camera sites. This paper proposes a novel technique called the overtaking rule, which uses the serial temporal structure of the data to filter out these erroneous travel time records. The paper proposes a methodology to measure the performance of a licence plate cleaning method, and it is subsequently shown that the overtaking rule outperforms existing cleaning methods. CE Database subject headings: Travel time; Vehicles; Urban areas; Traffic management.

Phenotyping is considered a significant bottleneck impeding fast and efficient crop improvement. Similar to many crops, Brassica napus , an internationally important oilseed crop, suffers from low genetic diversity, and will require exploitation of diverse genetic resources to develop locally adapted, high yielding and stress resistant cultivars. A pilot study was completed to assess the feasibility of using indoor high-throughput phenotyping (HTP), semi-automated image processing, and machine learning to capture the phenotypic diversity of agronomically important traits in a diverse B. napus breeding population, SKBnNAM, introduced here for the first time. The experiment comprised 50 spring-type B. napus lines, grown and phenotyped in six replicates under two treatment conditions (control and drought) over 38 days in a LemnaTec Scanalyzer 3D facility. Growth traits including plant height, width, projected leaf area, and estimated biovolume were extracted and derived through processing of RGB and NIR images. Anthesis was automatically and accurately scored (97% accuracy) and the number of flowers per plant and day was approximated alongside relevant canopy traits (width, angle). Further, supervised machine learning was used to predict the total number of raceme branches from flower attributes with 91% accuracy (linear regression and Huber regression algorithms) and to identify mild drought stress, a complex trait which typically has to be empirically scored (0.85 area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, random forest classifier algorithm). The study demonstrates the potential of HTP, image processing and computer vision for effective characterization of agronomic trait diversity in B. napus , although limitations of the platform did create significant variation that limited the utility of the data. However, the results underscore the value of machine learning for phenotyping studies, particularly for complex traits such as drought stress resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purchasing from the third sector can generate important benefits for local authorities, third sector organizations and wider society. Accordingly, policy documents increasingly include third sector organizations in public procurement strategies. Against this background, this article analyses how third sector organizations have fared in public procurement in a local council in the UK that has a reputation for socially responsible public procurement. The findings show the importance of continuously monitoring public spending on procurement and highlight the need for further research on the involvement of third sector organizations in public sector procurement. This article addresses an important area for public administration, namely how to achieve social value und social benefits in public procurement. More specifically, this article focuses on the inclusion of third sector organizations in public procurement. Departing from a brief overview over the benefits of procuring from third sector organizations, this article shows that the successful inclusion of third sector organizations needs to be accompanied by continuous monitoring of their share in public sector spend and points to the need for key performance indicators to continuously monitor third sector spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No, the title isn't a joke. It's a question that I've heard many times in the last 30 years, in discussions at INFORMS board meetings, as well as (with the [...]

Peter Drucker, the great business writer, adviser and counselor, used to ask his clients, 'What is your business?' He was dismayed by how often the client couldn't give a coherent [...]

We all have to make presentations, technical or non-technical, with or without PowerPoint or its relatives. We all have to listen to them too, so we share the turnoff experience [...]

What INFORMS members do in analytics, operations research and management science is effective when it helps people understand better the options they have and the consequences of decisions they make. [...]

INFORMS President president@informs.org The Presidents Desk column appears in each bimonthly issue of OR/MS Today. This year I'd like to use these columns to ask for ideas and suggestions train [...]

The article presents a study which examines surgical outcomes of secondary alveolar bone grafting (ABG) with premaxillary osteotomy in a single surgeon cohort of complete bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP) patients. Topics include determination of Incorporating premaxillary osteotomy into secondary ABG surgical protocol as a safe technique for fistula repair; benefits of premaxillary osteotomy; and favorable rates of postoperative fistulae and canine eruption in premaxillary osteotomy.

Purpose: To identify risks factors for retreatment post-laser in situ keratomeliusis (LASIK).Materials& Methods: A retrospective chart review from December 2008 to September 2012 identified 1,402 patients (2,581 eyes) that underwent LASIK treatment for myopia with the Intralase™ FS, STAR S4 IR™ Excimer Laser, and WaveScan WaveFront™ technology. In this group, 83 patients were retreated. All charts were reviewed for preoperative age, gender, initial manifest refraction spherical equivalent (MRSE), total astigmatism, and iris registration.Results: Increased incidence rates of retreatment post-LASIK were preoperative age >40 years (p < 0.001), initial MRSE > -3.0 D (p = 0.02), and astigmatism >1D (p = 0.001). Iris registration capture did not significantly reduce the retreatment rate (p = 0.12).Conclusions: Risk factors for retreatment included preoperative age >40 years, initial MRSE > -3.0 D, and astigmatism >1D. There was no difference in retreatment rate for patients based on gender or iris registration capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Your editorial on the red card system (March 26) raises some interesting questions. You rightly identify the complexities of providing 'patient-centred' services yet omit one key issue: the NHS is [...]

Policy actors tasked with delivering against rural housing needs face a key conceptual conundrum familiar to researchers: how to define need and how to link that concept to the idea of localness. Community perspectives on this issue reveal that ‘official’ priorities are often not considered to reflect the true nature of local need. There is considerable appetite for setting ‘community priority’ and for assuming direct responsibility for housing delivery. Discussions with community groups in different parts of rural England are used to expose these concerns, which accord with the UK government's localism agenda, a component of which is the empowerment of parish councils to deliver additional homes for ‘local need’, above planned allocations. However, although community perspectives may become vital in driving future policy outcomes, there are associated risks. These perspectives may belong to a dominant minority, with a tendency to draw narrow definitions of localness and local interest as a means of closing the door to unwanted development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to take a careful and sober inquiry into the political and economic origins of today's financial crisis. We find that the political and economic causes of this crisis lie in the easy money policy of the Federal Reserve and the drastic regulatory and policy changes in the mortgage industry, which developed during the Clinton years and continued into the Bush administrations. We find that these policy changes were motivated by an administration-wide political goal for affordable housing, a goal seen as having moral importance, which was advanced almost without regard to its potential consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Trigonella (Fabaceae, tribe Trifolieae) includes potential new species for pasture legume production in phase farming systems of southern Australia. Performance under biotic stress is an important factor in selecting the most suitable species and genotypes for pasture legume breeding programs. Fifty-nine accessions representing 26 Trigonella species and two Medicago species (formerly with Trigonella) were evaluated for resistance to two aphid species, bluegreen aphid (Acyrthosiphon kondoi Shinji), and spotted alfalfa aphid (Therioaphis trifolii (monell) fm. maculata) in glasshouse experiments. An accession of Trigonella macrorrhyncha (Sa 32223) was found to be highly resistant to both the aphids. Accessions of T. coerulescens, T. cylindracea, T. gladiata, T. mesopotamica, T. schlumbergeri and Medicago monspeliaca were found to be resistant to bluegreen aphid, but susceptible to spotted alfalfa aphid. The resistance mechanism in T. macrorrhyncha involved both antixenosis (non-preference in a choice test) and antibiosis (reduced fecundity). The implications of these results for germplasm improvement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a critical review of computational techniques used to model, analyse and simulate signalling networks. We propose a conceptual framework, and discuss the role of signalling networks in three major areas: signal transduction, cellular rhythms and cell-to-cell communication. In order to avoid an overly abstract and general discussion, we focus on three case studies in the areas of receptor signalling and kinase cascades, cell-cycle regulation and wound healing. We report on a variety of modelling techniques and associated tools, in addition to the traditional approach based on ordinary differential equations (ODEs), which provide a range of descriptive and analytical powers. As the field matures, we expect a wider uptake of these alternative approaches for several reasons, including the need to take into account low protein copy numbers and noise and the great complexity of cellular organisation. An advantage offered by many of these alternative techniques, which have their origins in computing science, is the ability to perform sophisticated model analysis which can better relate predicted behaviour and observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States that entrepreneurs are generally thought to have a high level of intensity that drives them toward business success, although individually their levels may vary widely. Findings indicate that intensity levels may also vary among racial groups. Study design; Black students less assertive; Results.

Abstract: Multiple Individual Audit Outcome Web (MIAOW) is a pictorial representation of outcomes, which is used widely in industry, finance, and sports, but not, to the best of our knowledge, in our specialty. It was developed to display multiple audit outcomes for patients in cleft surgery and we show its use in that area, but equally it could be applied to other areas such as orthognathic surgery, and head and neck oncology. We report how it can be used to display surgical outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]