Exploring Students’ Weaknesses in Reading Through Diagnostic Test

This thesis is entitled “Exploring students’ weaknesses in reading through diagnostic test”. Reading is the ability to achieve the meaning from written material. Reading is a substantial skill that needs to be taught in junior high school based on the ministry of the national education’s policy. Diagnostic test is used to identify students’ strength and weaknesses. This research is aimed to know whether Diagnostic Test could identify the problems faced by the students’ in reading. This research utilized quantitative approach by using test as an instrument. The population of this research was the second year students of SMP Negeri 5 Banda Aceh, and the sample was the students of class VIII 1. To collect the data, the researcher gave a test to the students. To analyze the result of the test percentages formula was used. Based on the findings, diagnostic test could find out students problems in reading. The result indicated that most of student (less than 50%) in understanding reading text, functional, but have serious problems in understanding main idea, supporting idea, synonym words and the purpose of the text(100%)

VV 655 and NGC 4418: Implications of an interaction for the evolution of a LIRG

VV 655, a dwarf irregular galaxy with HI tidal debris, is a companion to the lenticular luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) NGC 4418. NGC 4418 stands out among nearby LIRGs due to its dense central concentration of molecular gas and the dusty, bi-polar structures along its minor axis suggestive of a wind driven by a central starburst and possible nuclear activity. We seek to understand the consequences of the ongoing minor interaction between VV 655 and NGC 4418 for the evolution of the LIRG, including the origin of the gas supply responsible for its unusual nuclear properties. We investigate the structural, kinematic, and chemical properties of VV 655 and NGC 4418 by analyzing archival imaging data and optical spectroscopic observations from the SDSS-III and new spectra from SALT-RSS. We characterize their gas-phase metal abundances and spatially resolved, ionized gas kinematics, and demonstrate that the gas-phase metallicity in NGC 4418 significantly exceeds that in VV 655. No kinematic disturbances in the ionized gas are observed along the minor axis of NGC 4418, but we see evidence for ionized gas outflows from VV 655 that may increase the cross-section for gas stripping in grazing collisions. A faint, asymmetric outer arm is detected in NGC 4418 of the type normally associated with galaxy-galaxy interactions. The simplest model suggests that the minor interaction between VV 655 and NGC 4418 produced the unusual nuclear properties of the LIRG via tidal torquing of the interstellar medium of NGC 4418 rather than through a significant gas transfer event. In addition to inducing a central concentration of gas in NGC 4418, this interaction also produced an enhanced star formation rate and an outer tidal arm in the LIRG. The VV 655-NGC 4418 system offers an example of the potential for minor collisions to alter the evolutionary pathways of giant galaxies.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Preying on Neighborhoods: First Half of 2007 Foreclosure Update

This report is one of a series of analyses of the foreclosures in Chicago performed by NTIC since 1999. The report documents the role Adjustible Rate Mortgages (ARMs) have played in the current foreclosure crisis and infers changes in lending patterns. The report also includes a summary of action steps being advocated by the Save the American Dream campaign (http://www.savetheamericandream.org), a project of NTIC

Thermal Characterization of Polyurea Cross-linked Silica Aerogel-RTV 655 for Cryogenic Tank Applications

Thermal conductivities for different volume percentages of polyurea cross-linked silica aerogel to RTV 655 were experimentally determined. Silica aerogel is an ideal insulator with a makeup of up to 99% air. Polyurea cross-linked silica aerogel, PCSA, is a much stronger material while retaining the high thermal insulation properties of this group of materials. RTV 655 can be shaped into any geometry and is stable under extreme temperature conditions. RTV 655 is a space qualified polymer and the compound material made up of aerogel-RTV 655 is being considered here for use as a cryogenic propellant tank material for long duration space missions. Several samples were made to test thermal properties of different volume percentages in an effort to assess the thermal conductivity of the combination of polyurea cross-linked silica aerogel and RTV 655. Thermal conductivity results are presented comparing small aerogel discs embedded in RTV 655, a homogeneous compound consisting of micro scale aerogel particles embedded in RTV 655, large irregular geometry aerogels in RTV 655 and monolithic aerogel blocks embedded in RTV 655

Theoretical studies of a hydrogen abstraction tool for nanotechnology

In the design of a nanoscale, site-specific hydrogen abstraction tool, the authors suggest the use of an alkynyl radical tip. Using ab initio quantum-chemistry techniques including electron correlation they model the abstraction of hydrogen from dihydrogen, methane, acetylene, benzene and isobutane by the acetylene radical. By conservative estimates, the abstraction barrier is small (less than 7.7 kcal mol^-1) in all cases except for acetylene and zero in the case of isobutane. Thermal vibrations at room temperature should be sufficient to supply the small activation energy. Several methods of creating the radical in a controlled vacuum setting should be feasible. The authors show how nanofabrication processes can be accurately and inexpensively designed in a computational framework

\ud Strategic Social Marketing for Expanding the Commercial Market of Insecticide Treated Nets in Tanzania\ud

\ud The Department for International Development (DfID) has been supporting the introduction of ITNs in Tanzania since January 1998. The social marketing of ITNs for malaria prevention in Tanzania was introduced at a national scale in 2000 through the project Social Marketing of Insecticide Treated Nets (SMITN), funded by DfID and the Royal Netherlands Embassy (RNE) and implemented by Population Services International (PSI). This report reflects the SMARTNET project performance since July 2002. The SMARTNET project started in 2002 then was extended in 2004 and continued up to June 30th, 2007. The SMARTNET project was aimed at reduction of infant and under-5 mortality rates. The purpose of the project was to attain the Abuja target of regular usage of insecticide-treated nets (ITN) by 60% of the Tanzanians at high risk of malaria (children under-5 and pregnant women). The project aimed to increase the commercial availability of nets, at affordable prices; establish a nation-wide culture of ITN use; raise the percentage of net treated effectively with insecticide; and establish and maintain a monitoring and evaluation system. Population Services International Tanzania was contracted by DFID and RNE. The project is supervised by the NatNets Steering Committee, under responsibility of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), part of the Directorate of Preventive Services of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW). The commercial sector distributes and sells nets through a retail network, which reaches most of the wards in Tanzania. Over the years the sale of nets has increased steadily and will probably reach 3.5 million nets by the end of this year. The TRaC survey (PSI’s monitoring tool) conducted in April 2007 reports that 63% (54%) of pregnant women and 69% (55%) of U5s slept under a net (ITN) the previous night. Through the SMARTNET project insecticide re-treatment kits (NGAO) are promoted and the project has been making the net treatment kits free of charge available to all Tanzanian net manufacturers (TNM), for bundling with new nets. Purchasers of nets treat their new nets at home. While the regular Ngao protects for six months, PSI has introduced a longer lasting net treatment product, called Ngoa ya Muda Mrefu, which sustains under laboratory conditions at least 15 washes. The retreatment kits are sold through a dense network of retailers throughout the country. By the end of 2004 the Tanzania National Voucher Scheme (TNVS) was introduced, which issues vouchers to women during their first antenatal visit to a health clinic. This scheme is funded through subsidies from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). With the voucher women can purchase nets at a strongly reduced price (an average of US $ 1.00) from an accredited retailer of nets. Through this voucher system over 2 million nets have been purchased so far. About 80% of distributed vouchers are redeemed. The TNVS is the necessary complementary activity to reach large groups of the population at risk and to bring the nets within reach of the majority of the poor in the country.\u

Jews and the British Empire c.1900

In the years of high imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century what bearing did the British Empire have on the Jews, or Jews on the British Empire? The silence of scholarship might lead us to answer ‘not very much’. Concerned with the legacy of Jewish emancipation, the dynamics of social integration, the challenge of large-scale migration, and the representation of Jewish difference in political argument, historians of the Jews have barely touched on the subject. Historians of empire, for their part, have had other preoccupations too. Perhaps the identification of imperialism with Jewish finance by J. A. Hobson and other radical critics of empire in the 1890s and early 1900s, as well as the Jew-baiting rhetoric of some critics, has rendered the relationship of Jews to the Empire a difficult problem for later generations to address

A bibliography on formal methods for system specification, design and validation

Literature on the specification, design, verification, testing, and evaluation of avionics systems was surveyed, providing 655 citations. Journal papers, conference papers, and technical reports are included. Manual and computer-based methods were employed. Keywords used in the online search are listed