The Unique Social Isolation Homosexual Adolescents Experience

A pioneering group of teenagers are identifying themselves as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender or Questioning (GLBTQ). GLBTQ adolescents experience a unique social isolation as compared with other minority and oppressed groups. However, current research and interventions is aimed at addressing their social isolation only once these adolescents have come out . It was hypothesized that before coming out the social isolation that GLBTQ feel may be lessoned by educating all children before they begin to explore their sexual identity. A booklet was developed using feelings, experiences and supports before and after the coming out process, as identified by GLBTQ adolescents. With the proposed use of this booklet in a middle school health class the possible perceived effectiveness was analyzed. The data revealed a strong argument for the possible effectiveness for this educational book for all adolescents. While the breakdown of data into sub-categories revealed some variations between professionals and gender, there were no significant differences and all revealed a considerably high average rating of effectiveness. The exploratory data revealed some very important feedback both positive and valid constructive criticism. This data should be considered and further research should include adjusting the educational tool with some of the proposed input, as well as further research with a larger sample size for increased external validity

Formalism and judgement in assurance cases

This position paper deals with the tension between the desire for sound and auditable assurance cases and the current ubiquitous reliance on expert judgement. I believe that the use of expert judgement, though inevitable, needs to be much more cautious and disciplined than it usually is. The idea of assurance “cases ” owes its appeal to an awareness that all too often critical decisions are made in ways that are difficult to justify or even to explain, leaving the doubt (for the decision makers as well as other interested parties) that the decision may be unsound. By building a well-structured “case ” we would wish to allow proper scrutiny of the evidence and assumptions used, and of the arguments that link them to support a decision. A

La familia de falacias "enseñando para el examen"

This article explains the various meanings and ambiguities of the phrase “teaching to the test” (TttT), describes its history and use as a pejorative, and outlines the policy implications of the popular, but fallacious, belief that “high stakes” testing induces TttT which, in turn, produces “test score inflation” or artificial test score gains. The history starts with the infamous “Lake Wobegon Effect” test score scandal in the US in the 1980s. John J. Cannell, a medical doctor, discovered that all US states administering national norm-referenced tests claimed their students’ average scores exceeded the national average, a mathematical impossibility. Cannell blamed educator cheating and lax security for the test score inflation, but education insiders managed to convince many that high stakes was the cause, despite the fact that Cannell’s tests had no stakes. Elevating the high stakes causes TttT, which causes test score inflation fallacy to dogma has served to divert attention from the endemic lax security with “internally administered” tests that should have encouraged policy makers to require more external controls in test administrations. The fallacy is partly responsible for promoting the ruinous practice of test preparation drilling on test format and administering practice tests as a substitute for genuine subject matter preparation. Finally, promoters of the fallacy have encouraged the practice of “auditing” allegedly untrustworthy high-stakes test score trends with score trends from allegedly trustworthy low-stakes tests, despite an abundance of evidence that low-stakes test scores are far less reliable, largely due to student disinterestEste artículo explica los diversos significados y ambigüedades de la frase "enseñar para el examen" (TttT: teaching to the test en inglés), describe su historia y su uso como un peyorativo, y describe las implicaciones políticas de la creencia popular, pero falaz, que las pruebas de a “gran escala” inducen TttT que, a su vez, produce una "inflación en la calificación obtenida en el examen" o ganancias em cuanto a los puntos obtenidos en la prueba. La historia comienza con el infame escándalo de la puntuación de la prueba "Lake Wobegon Effect" en los Estados Unidos en los años ochenta. John J. Cannell, un médico, descubrió que todos los estados de los Estados Unidos que administraban pruebas nacionales con referencias normativas afirmaban que los puntajes promedio de sus estudiantes excedían el promedio nacional, una imposibilidad matemática. Cannell atribuyó a los educadores el engaño y la seguridad laxa por la inflación de la puntuación de los exámenes, pero los expertos en educación lograron convencer a muchos de que las pruebas a gran escala eran la causa, a pesar de que las pruebas de Cannell no tenían ninguna fiabilidad. Exagerar las pruebas a gran escala hace que TttT hace que la falla de la inflación de la puntuación de la prueba al dogma haya servido para desviar la atención de la seguridad laxa endémica con pruebas "internamente administradas" que deberían haber alentado a los responsables políticos a exigir más controles externos en las administraciones de las pruebas. La falacia es en parte responsable de promover la práctica ruinosa en la preparación de las pruebas en el formato de prueba y la administración de pruebas prácticas como un sustituto de la preparación de la materia original. Por último, los promotores de la falacia han fomentado la práctica de "auditar" tendencias de determinadas puntuación en las pruebas a gran escala con las tendencias de puntuación presuntamente confiables de las pruebas de baja exigencia, a pesar de la abundancia de pruebas donde las puntuaciones de las pruebas a menor escala son mucho menos confiables debido al desinterés de los estudiante

Major Fallacies Surrounding Stone Artifacts and Assemblages

While lithic objects can potentially inform us about past adaptations and behaviors, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of all of the various processes that influence what we recover from the archaeological record. We argue here that many assumptions used by archaeologists to derive behavioral inferences through the definition, conceptualization, and interpretation of both individual stone artifact forms and groups of artifacts identified as assemblages do not fit squarely with what we have learned from both ethnographic sources and analyses of archaeological materials. We discuss this in terms of two fallacies. The first is the fallacy of the “desired end product” in stone artifact manufacture, which also includes our ability to recognize such end products. The second fallacy has to do with the notions that lithic assemblages represent simple accumulations of contemporary behaviors and the degree to which the composition of the depositional units we study reliably match the kinds of activities that took place. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a comprehensive set of new methodologies and theoretical perspectives to solve these problems, our goal here is to stress the importance of rethinking some of our most basic assumptions regarding the nature of lithic objects and how they become part of the archaeological record. Such a revision is needed if we want to be able to develop research questions that can be addressed with the data we have available to us

Presenting Arguments as Fictive Dialogue

Presentation of an argument can take many different forms ranging from a monologue to advanced graphics and diagrams. This paper investigates the presentation of one or more arguments in the form of a fictive dialogue. This technique was already employed by Plato, who used fictive conversations between Socrates and his contemporaries to put his arguments forward. Ever since, there have been influential authors – including Desiderius Erasmus, Sir Thomas More and Mark Twain – that have used dialogue in this way. In this paper, we define the notion of a fictive dialogue, motivate it is as a topic for investigation, and present a qualitative and quantitative study of five fictive dialogues by well-known authors. We conclude by indicating how our preliminary and ongoing investigations may inform the development of systems that automatically generate argumentative fictive dialogue

Preliminary Results in a Multi-site Empirical Study on Cross-organizational ERP Size and Effort Estimation

This paper reports on initial findings in an empirical study carried out with representatives of two ERP vendors, six ERP adopting organizations, four ERP implementation consulting companies, and two ERP research and advisory services firms. Our study’s goal was to gain understanding of the state-of-the practice in size and effort estimation of cross-organizational ERP projects. Based on key size and effort estimation challenges identified in a previously published literature survey, we explored some difficulties, fallacies and pitfalls these organizations face. We focused on collecting empirical evidence from the participating ERP market players to assess specific facts about the state-of-the-art ERP size and effort estimation practices. Our study adopted a qualitative research method based on an asynchronous online focus group

The London Charter and the Seville Principles as sources of requirements for e-archaeology systems development purposes

[EN] Requirements engineering (RE) is a discipline of critical importance in software development. This paper provides a process and a set of software artefacts to help in the production of e-archaeology systems with emphasis on requirements reuse and standards. In particular, two important guidelines in the field of earchaeology, the London Charter and the Principles of Seville, have been shown as two sources of requirements to be considered as a starting point for developing this type of systems.[ES] La Ingeniería de Requisitos (IR) es una disciplina de importancia crítica en el desarrollo de software. Este artículo proporciona un proceso y un conjunto de artefactos software para ayudar en la producción de sistemas de e-arqueología con énfasis en reutilización de requisitos y estándares. En particular, dos guías relevantes en el campo de la e-arqueología, la Carta de Londres y los Principios de Sevilla, se han mostrado como dos fuentes de requisitos a tener en cuenta como punto de partida para el desarrollo de este tipo de sistemas.This research is part of the project PEGASO-PANGEA (TIN2009-13718-C02-02), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain).Carrillo Gea, JM.; Toval, A.; Fernández Alemán, JL.; Nicolás, J.; Flores, M. (2013). The London Charter and the Seville Principles as sources of requirements for e-archaeology systems development purposes. Virtual Archaeology Review. 4(9):205-211. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2013.4275OJS20521149CH'NG, E. et al. (2011): "From sites to landscapes: how computing technology is shaping archaeological practice", en Computer, vol. 44, n. 7, pp. 40-46.COS, J.A. et al. (2012): "Internationalization requirements for e-learning audit purposes", en Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON 2012, pp. 90-95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/educon.2012.6201027GLASS, R.L. (2002): Software engineering: facts and fallacies. Addison-Wesley. Boston.GREENFIELD, J. and SHORT, K. (2004): Software factories: assembling applications with patterns, models, frameworks, and tools. Wiley. Indianapolis.KÄKÖLÄ, T. and DUEÑAS, J.C. (Eds.) (2006): Software Product Lines. Research issues in engineering and management. Springer. Berlin Heidelberg. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33253-4TOVAL, A. et al. (2002): "Requirements reuse for improving information systems security: a practitioner's approach", en REJ Requirements Engineering Journal, vol. 6, n. 4, pp. 205-219.TOVAL, A. et al. (2008): "Eight key issues for an effective reuse-based requirements process", en IJCSSE International Journal of Computer Systems Science and Engineering, vol. 23, n. 6, pp. 373-385.TOVAL, A. et al. (2011): "Learning systems development using reusable standard-based requirements catalogs", en Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON 2011, pp. 907- 912. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/educon.2011.577325

Pressure relieving support surfaces (PRESSURE) trial : cost effectiveness analysis

Objective To assess tire cost effectiveness of alternating pressure mattresses compared with alternating pressure overlays for the prevention of pressure ulcers in patients admitted to hospital. Design Cost effectiveness analysis carried out alongside the pressure relieving support surfaces (PRESSURE) trial; a multicentre UK based pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Setting 11 hospitals in six UK NHS trusts. Participants Intention to treat population comprising 1971 participants. Main outcome measures Kaplan Meier estimates of restricted mean time to development of pressure ulcers and total costs for treatment in hospital. Results Alternating pressure mattresses were associated with lower overall costs (283.6 pound per patient on average, 95% confidence interval -377.59 pound to. 976.79) pound mainly due to reduced length of stay in hospital, and greater benefits (a delay in time to ulceration of 10.64 days on average, - 24.40 to 3.09). The differences in health benefits and total costs for hospital stay between alternating pressure mattresses and alternating pressure overlays were not statistically significant; however, a cost effectiveness acceptability curve indicated that on average alternating pressure mattresses compared with alternating pressure overlays were associated with air 80% probability of being cost saving. Conclusion Alternating pressure mattresses for the prevention of pressure ulcers are more likely to be cost effective and are more acceptable to patients than alternating pressure overlays