School Inspectors do not add Value to Teacher Instructional Effectiveness in Government-Aided Primary Schools of the Least Developed African countries: Case of Uganda.

A least developed country is one with a less developed industrial base and low human development index relative to other countries In Africa there are thirty- three countries that are classified as least countries Such countries in Africa include Burundi Eretria Ethiopia Malawi Rwanda Tanzania Zambia Togo Guinea Bissau Central African Republic and Uganda to list a few Mwanazia G M 1985 These countries are doing everything possible to cause social economic industrial and agricultural development so as to be among the developed countries They visualize education as the key to the development status they intend to achieve Their budgets are targeting strengthening primary education which will be enhanced by the school inspection systems they each have Wanga H K 1985 Uganda a former British protectorate that won her independence in 1962 located within the tropics of cancer and Capricorn also has the equator imaginary line horizontally running through it According to its Vision 2040 primary education is one of the fundamental bases the country hopes to use to achieve the middle income social economic development status Uganda hopes that to achieve a strong primary education base teacher instructional effectiveness will be the way to g

Frontier metrics for a process-based understanding of deforestation dynamics

Agricultural expansion into tropical and subtropical forests often leads to major social-ecological trade-offs. Yet, despite ever-more detailed information on where deforestation occurs, how agriculture expands into forests remains unclear, which is hampered by a lack of spatially and temporally detailed reconstruction of agricultural expansion. Here, we developed and mapped a novel set of metrics that quantify agricultural frontier processes at unprecedented spatial and temporal detail. Specifically, we first derived consistent annual time series of land-use/cover to, second, describe archetypical patterns of frontier expansion, pertaining to the speed, the diffusion and activity of deforestation, as well as post-deforestation land use. We exemplify this approach for understanding agricultural frontier expansion across the entire South American Chaco (1.1 million km2), a global deforestation hotspot. Our study provides three major insights. First, agricultural expansion has been rampant in the Chaco, with more than 19.3 million ha of woodlands converted between 1985 and 2020, including a surge in deforestation after 2019. Second, land-use trajectories connected to frontier processes have changed in major ways over the 35 year study period we studied, including substantial regional variations. For instance, while ranching expansion drove most of the deforestation in the 1980s and 1990s, cropland expansion dominated during the mid-2000s in Argentina, but not in Paraguay. Similarly, 40% of all areas deforested were initially used for ranching, but later on converted to cropping. Accounting for post-deforestation land-use change is thus needed to properly attribute deforestation and associated environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions or biodiversity loss, to commodities. Finally, we identified major, recurrent frontier types that may be a useful spatial template for land governance to match policies to specific frontier situations. Collectively, our study reveals the diversity of frontier processes and how frontier metrics can capture and structure this diversity to uncover major patterns of human–nature interactions, which can be used to guide spatially-targeted policies.H2020 European Research Councilhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010663Belgian Federal Science Policy Officehttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002749Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschunghttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002347Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschafthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Peer Reviewe

UTB/TSC Catalog 1992-1993

https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/brownsvillelegacycatalogs/1022/thumbnail.jp

UTB/TSC Undergraduate Catalog 1995-1996

https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/brownsvillelegacycatalogs/1024/thumbnail.jp

UTB/TSC Undergraduate Catalog 1994-1995

https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/brownsvillelegacycatalogs/1023/thumbnail.jp

Energy cost of living / CAC No. 171

Includes bibliographic references (p. 42)

TOWARDS BUILDING AN INTELLIGENT INTEGRATED MULTI-MODE TIME DIARY SURVEY FRAMEWORK

Enabling true responses is an important characteristic in surveys; where the responses are free from bias and satisficing. In this thesis, we examine the current state of surveys, briefly touching upon questionnaire surveys, and then on time diary surveys (TDS). TDS are open-ended conversational surveys of a free-form nature with both, the interviewer and the respondent, playing a part in its progress and successful completion. With limited research available on how intelligent and assistive components can affect TDS respondents, we explore ways in which intelligent systems such as Computer Adaptive Testing, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Recommender Systems, and Decision Support Systems can be leveraged for use in TDS. The motivation for this work is from realizing the opportunity that an enhanced web based instrument can offer the survey domain to unite the various facets of web based surveys to create an intelligent integrated multi-mode TDS framework. We envision the framework to provide all the advantages of web based surveys and interviewer assisted surveys. The two primary challenges are in determining what data is to be used by the system and how to interact with the user – specifically integrating the (1) Interviewer-assisted mode, and (2) Self-administered mode. Our proposed solution – the intelligent integrated multi-mode framework – is essentially the solution to a set of modeling problems and we propose two sets of overreaching mechanisms: (1) Knowledge Engineering Mechanisms (KEM), and (2) Interaction Mechanisms (IxM), where KEM serves the purpose of understanding what data can be created, used and stored while IxM deals with interacting with the user. We build and study a prototype instrument in the interviewer-assisted mode based on the framework. We are able to determine that the instrument improves the interview process as intended and increases the data quality of the response data and is able to assist the interviewer. We also observe that the framework’s mechanisms contribute towards reducing interviewers’ cognitive load, data entry times and interview time by predicting the next activity. Advisor: Leenkiat So

Urban Heat and Transportation: Human Exposure and Infrastructure

abstract: Environmental heat is a growing concern in cities as a consequence of rapid urbanization and climate change, threatening human health and urban vitality. The transportation system is naturally embedded in the issue of urban heat and human heat exposure. Research has established how heat poses a threat to urban inhabitants and how urban infrastructure design can lead to increased urban heat. Yet there are gaps in understanding how urban communities accumulate heat exposure, and how significantly the urban transportation system influences or exacerbates the many issues of urban heat. This dissertation focuses on advancing the understanding of how modern urban transportation influences urban heat and human heat exposure through three research objectives: 1) Investigate how human activity results in different outdoor heat exposure; 2) Quantify the growth and extent of urban parking infrastructure; and 3) Model and analyze how pavements and vehicles contribute to urban heat. In the urban US, traveling outdoors (e.g. biking or walking) is the most frequent activity to cause heat exposure during hot periods. However, outdoor travel durations are often very short, and other longer activities such as outdoor housework and recreation contribute more to cumulative urban heat exposure. In Phoenix, parking and roadway pavement infrastructure contributes significantly to the urban heat balance, especially during summer afternoons, and vehicles only contribute significantly in local areas with high density rush hour vehicle travel. Future development of urban areas (especially those with concerns of extreme heat) should focus on ensuring access and mobility for its inhabitants without sacrificing thermal comfort. This may require urban redesign of transportation systems to be less auto-centric, but without clear pathways to mitigating impacts of urban heat, it may be difficult to promote transitions to travel modes that inherently necessitate heat exposure. Transportation planners and engineers need to be cognizant of the pathways to increased urban heat and human heat exposure when planning and designing urban transportation systems.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Engineering 201