170,129 research outputs found
Making inroads in educational leadership within the Euro-Mediterranean context : a collaborative initiative between Italy and Malta
No full textA sense of urgency shapes our national discourse on state education.
Students strive to meet new academic standards while their teachers work to
improve the quality and equity of education opportunities. Yet achievement gaps
persist, particularly in urban and rural schools . The demand for effective
leadership is clear. We need school leaders who visualise successful student
learning, understand the work necessary to achieve it, and have the skills to
engage with others to make it happen. How can we prepare more individuals to
meet these challenges? This paper explores what three universities – two in Italy
and one in Malta – are doing to establish a programme that offers an innovative
pathway to school leadership. It presents the inception of this partnership, the
rationale behind the discourse that has evolved over the years, and the
establishment of links between the universities and other bodies within the
Mediterranean and Commonwealth contexts with the aim of preparing the next
generation of school leaders needed within the Euro-Mediterranean region. The
concluding part presents a number of opportunities that lie ahead and highlights
the various challenges that await us as we embark on this journey.peer-reviewe
Fragilità familiari: progetti patrimoniali a breve e a lungo termine a Genova nei secoli XIII-XIV
No full textHSM871003 Supplementary Material - Supplemental material for Healthcare supply chain management: Application in the Maltese Healthcare System
No full textSupplemental material, HSM871003 Supplementary Material for Healthcare supply chain management: Application in the Maltese Healthcare System by Sandra C Buttigieg, Frank Bezzina, Andrew Xuereb and Prasanta K Dey in Health Services Management Research</p
The Role of School Leadership on Student Achievement: Evidence from Timss2003
No full textLeadership, and especially head-teachers� leadership, has been object of study since the late �60s, but the concept of leadership is neither unanimously defined, nor a consensus has been yet reached on its actual role and actual relevance within the school environment. Good leadership can certainly contribute to school improvement by abetting the motivation, participation, and coordination of the teachers; recent studies have widened the range of action of school leadership research to the various organizational levels: school managers, department heads, coordinators, teachers, and distributed leadership that could yield a higher impact on student achievement than what yet showed. This dissertation takes its moves within the strand of research that identifies a significant role of leadership for student achievement and tries to understand whether there are patterns of behavior of head-teachers that yield better results than others with respect to facilitating the student learning process and whether such patterns are consistent or replicable across countries.
To address this question, the study uses the TIMSS2003 and investigates the relationship between head-teacher time allocation and school characteristics, student background, and student achievement in 18 countries. The model used in the empirical analysis is a three level Multilevel Model with random effects (evaluated using the R-Statistics software) that aims at evaluating the interaction effect between a particular school level variable (the time used by the head-teacher in managerial or leadership activities) and the explanatory variables describing school and student characteristics. What the study shows is that head-teacher specialization (either in management or in leadership) has negligible direct effect on student achievement. Most of all, however, head-teacher specialization reduces the impact that family SES has on student achievement. Moreover, by investigating the impact of school management and school leadership on student achievement on a country-by-country level, a parallelism emerges between the institutional characteristics of school systems and the prevalent head-teacher specialization effect, suggesting that head-teachers are professional that do their best to favor the good functioning of their schools by using the tools that the existing regulations give them.JRC.G.9 - Econometrics and statistical support to antifrau
Detachment of Descemets-membrane In A Case of Keratoconus
No full textThe authors (A.M.B., P.E.B., R.R., and C.B.) report on an unusual case of spontaneous detachment of Descemet's membrane occurring in an anomalous keratoconus, which demonstrates a globular profile and a regular astigmatism as in keratoglobus. The latter was excluded since the ectasia was acquired in later life and the cornea was thinned only in the central zone even though a Fleischer ring and Vogt's lines were absent. The patient subsequently underwent penetrating keratoplasty and the removed corneal button was examined by light microscopy confirming a detachment of Descemet's membrane. The temporal lip of the original tear was rolled up in a typical clock-spring manner. The patient had suffered for many years from atopic dermatitis, which is a known condition to be associated with keratoconus. General examination of the patient revealed a lean build, arachnodactyly, thin skin with a velvety texture, livido reticularis in the lower limbs, and marked dental neglect. Although an underlying mesodermal abnormality was suspected, there were not enough elements to fit this case into a recognized disease pattern
L’osservazione sul campo del lavoro dei dirigenti scolastici: tra amministrazione, management e leadership
No full textQuesto articolo presenta il metodo basato sull’osservazione partecipativa quale dispositivo di ricerca utile a migliorare la nostra comprensione del lavoro dei dirigenti scolastici. L’applicazione di questo metodo ha fornito un ritratto realistico di come un gruppo di 10 dirigenti scolastici della Provincia Autono- ma di Trento abbia svolto la propria attività quotidiana in un periodo di osservazione di cinque giorni. Lo studio ha dato un contributo in tre direzioni: a) i dirigenti scolastici osservati hanno riflettuto sulle proprie azioni dopo un’esperienza vissuta secondo quanto Schön (1983) descrive come «riflessione nell’agire»; b) quanto raccolto fornisce un quadro informativo rispetto a come prendono vita situazioni che vedono una contrapposizione tra norme e realtà quotidiana; c) lo studio ha analizzato non solo cosa fanno i dirigenti scolastici, ma anche come e perché lo fanno, approfondendo la dimensione transattiva della leadership rispetto a quella trasformazionale.This paper presents a method based on participatory observation, as a research tool useful for impro- ving our understanding of the work of head teachers. Application of this method provided a realistic portrait of how a group of 10 head teachers in the Autonomous Province of Trento carried out their daily activities over a period of five days. The study made a contribution to three areas: a) the head teachers observed reflected on their actions after an experience which Schön (1983) describes as «reflection during action»; b) the data collected provided information about how situations involving conflict betwe- en norms and everyday life can arise; c) the study focused not only on what head teachers do but also how and why they do it, examining the negotiating role as compared to the transformational role of leadership
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Mitomycin C in highly myopic eyes - Author reply
No full textOphthalmology. 2005 Feb;112(2):208-18; discussion 219.
Mitomycin C modulation of corneal wound healing after photorefractive keratectomy in highly myopic eyes.
Gambato C, Ghirlando A, Moretto E, Busato F, Midena E.
SourceRefractive Surgery Service and Antimetabolite Therapy Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Abstract
PURPOSE: To evaluate the role of topical mitomycin C in corneal wound healing (CWH) after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) in highly myopic eyes.
DESIGN: Prospective, double-masked, randomized clinical trial.
PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-two eyes of 36 patients affected by high (>7 diopters) myopia.
METHODS: In each patient, one eye was randomly assigned to PRK with intraoperative topical 0.02% mitomycin C application, and the fellow eye was treated with a placebo. Postoperatively, mitomycin C-treated eyes received artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months), whereas the fellow eye was treated with fluorometholone sodium 2% and artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), contrast sensitivity, manifest refraction, and biomicroscopy. Contrast sensitivity was determined using the Pelli-Robson chart. Corneal confocal microscopy documented CWH.
RESULTS: Mean follow-up was 18 months (range, 12-36). No side effects or toxic effects were documented. At 12-month follow-up examination, UCVAs (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) were 0.4+/-0.48 and 0.5+/-0.53 (P = .03) in mitomycin C-treated eyes and corticosteroid-treated eyes, respectively. At 1 year, corneal haze developed in 20% of corticosteroid-treated eyes, versus 0% of mitomycin C-treated eyes. At 12, 24, and 36 months, corneal confocal microscopy showed activated keratocytes and extracellular matrix significantly more evident in untreated eyes (Ps = 0.004, 0.024, and 0.046, respectively).
CONCLUSION: Topical intraoperative application of 0.02% mitomycin C can reduce haze formation in highly myopic eyes undergoing PRK.
Comment in
Ophthalmology. 2006 Feb;113(2):357; author reply 357-8
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
