A note on circular neighbor balanced designs

ABSTRACT

This paper describes some methods of constructing circular neighbor balanced and circular partially neighbor balanced block designs for estimation of direct and neighbor effects of the treatments. A class of circular neighbor balanced block designs with unequal block sizes is also proposed.     

Generalized confounded row–column designs

Generalized Confounded Row–Column (GCRC) designs for factorial experiments have been introduced and methods of constructing GCRC designs have been discussed. Fractionally replicated GCRC designs have also been constructed. The designs obtained ensure balancing with respect to estimable effects.     

Teaching without being taught how: social work practice faculty voices

ABSTRACT

Social work practice faculty have an important role in socializing MSW students to the field and practice of social work. This study, based on interviews with 15 faculty teaching an advanced clinical practice course in the United States, examines how faculty conceptualize teaching and learning. Faculty were asked about the theories or frameworks that guided their teaching, their own journeys to teaching and the resources that support their teaching. The study found that participants drew largely on their own experiences as student learners and social work practitioners and did not have much formal training in teaching and student learning. Furthermore, while half of the participants were able to identify a learning theory that guided their teaching, the other half were not. Finally, while participants articulated the need for support regarding their own teaching, many of the schools did not have formal faculty development opportunities. The paper ends with recommendations for supporting current and new faculty regarding teaching and student learning.     

Generalized modulus power transformations

Several power transformations proposed in the past are examined to find out the type of distributions that they can normalize, and a general family of transformations "the Generalized Modulus Power Transformation- (GEMPT), is proposed, The GEMPT will remove skewness and kurtosis and induce normality from a broad class of distributions, which we investigate, implying certain limitations for all power transformations. The use of GEMPT is illustrated and shown to iead to a better approximation to a normal distribution in an example in which the response is expected to follow a rectangular hyperbola.     

Variance-balanced row–column designs involving diallel crosses incorporating specific combining abilities for comparing test lines with a control line

In this paper, the problem of comparing t test lines with a control line under a row–column setup in complete diallel cross experiment is investigated when specific combining ability (sca) effect is included in the model. Three classes of Mating-Environmental Row–Column (MERC) designs have been obtained which are variance balanced for estimating the contrasts pertaining to general combining ability (gca) effects free from sca effects.     

Challenges for ESL teacher professionalization in the US: a case study

As the language minority student population in the US increases at a rapid pace, a larger number of teachers are pursuing a primary or secondary certification in English as a Second Language (ESL). This case study describes the professional development efforts to provide an ESL endorsement to a group of K‐12 teachers in a large mid‐western university. It describes the systemic nature underlying their professional development, highlighting the influence of different constituencies. These range from federal, state, county and district levels to the university teacher preparation program, as well as the teachers themselves. By understanding how these factors influence teachers' professional development, the authors identify important lessons that can be learned by teacher educators.     

Optimal Circular Block Designs for Neighbouring Competition Effects

Competition or interference occurs when the responses to treatments in experimental units are affected by the treatments in neighbouring units. This may contribute to variability in experimental results and lead to substantial losses in efficiency. The study of a competing situation needs designs in which the competing units appear in a predetermined pattern. This paper deals with optimality aspects of circular block designs for studying the competition among treatments applied to neighbouring experimental units. The model considered is a four-way classified model consisting of direct effect of the treatment applied to a particular plot, the effect of those treatments applied to the immediate left and right neighbouring units and the block effect. Conditions have been obtained for the block design to be universally optimal for estimating direct and neighbour effects. Some classes of balanced and strongly balanced complete block designs have been identified to be universally optimal for the estimation of direct, left and right neighbour effects and a list of universally optimal designs for v<20 and r<100 has been prepared.     

Neighbor-Balanced Bipartite Block Designs

This article deals with the neighbor-balanced block design setting when there are two disjoint sets of treatments, one set consisting of test treatments and the other of control treatments. The interest here is to estimate the contrasts pertaining to test treatments vs. control treatments (with respect to direct and neighbors) with as high precision as possible. Some series of neighbor-balanced block designs for comparing a set of test treatments to a set of control treatments have been developed. The designs obtained are totally balanced in the sense that all the contrasts among test treatments for direct and neighbor effects are estimated with same variance and all the contrasts pertaining to test vs. control for direct and neighbor effects are estimated with the same variance.     

Social Support: An Important Factor for Treatment Adherence and Health-related Quality of Life of Patients with End-stage Renal Disease

ABSTRACT

End-stage Renal Disease (ESRD) or chronic kidney disease constitutes a serious public health problem in the United States. The purpose of this study is to examine the causal relationship of perceived social support with treatment adherence and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of ESRD patients. The study utilized a non-experimental research design and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze the data collected from a sample of 413 ESRD patients. The findings of the study supported a statistically significant relationship between perceived social support and HRQOL as well as between perceived social support and treatment adherence. Formulating appropriately targeted interventions to improve social support may help in enhancing the HRQOL and treatment adherence, where both those factors were empirically supported to be related to mortality and hospitalizations in ESRD patients. This study helps to enhance the body of knowledge relating to HRQOL of ESRD patients, and provided foundation for interventions in improving treatment adherence and the HRQOL. Future research may focus on the complexities associated with the HRQOL and treatment adherence in ESRD patients, with emphasis on demographic characteristics and its relationship with social support.