The Differentiation and Promotion of Students’ Rights in Portugal

This investigation includes a differential study (Study 1) and a quasi-experimental research (Study 2). In Study 1, the objective was to establish to what extent students’ rights existed and analyse the differentiation between students’ rights with Portuguese and immigrant mothers, throughout school years. The sample consisted of 537 students with Portuguese and immigrant mothers, distributed by different school years (7th, 9th and 11th grades). The Children’s Rights Scale (Hart et al., 1996; Veiga, 2001) was used. In Study 2, the purpose was to analyse the effects on students’ rights of the use by teachers of a communicational intervention program, supervised by school psychologists. The sample involved 7th and 9th grade students, in a total of four classes, two forming the experimental groups (n = 36) and two the control groups (n = 43); as in Study 1, the Children’s Rights Scale was used. The results indicated the effectiveness of the communicational intervention program on students’ rights and are consistent with previous studies. An implication is that psychologists and teachers, working together and taking a human rights perspective, may develop an important role in projects to promote the students’ rights

The Virtual Element Method with curved edges

In this paper we initiate the investigation of Virtual Elements with curved faces. We consider the case of a fixed curved boundary in two dimensions, as it happens in the approximation of problems posed on a curved domain or with a curved interface. While an approximation of the domain with polygons leads, for degree of accuracy $k \geq 2$, to a sub-optimal rate of convergence, we show (both theoretically and numerically) that the proposed curved VEM lead to an optimal rate of convergence

Basic principles of hp Virtual Elements on quasiuniform meshes

In the present paper we initiate the study of $hp$ Virtual Elements. We focus on the case with uniform polynomial degree across the mesh and derive theoretical convergence estimates that are explicit both in the mesh size $h$ and in the polynomial degree $p$ in the case of finite Sobolev regularity. Exponential convergence is proved in the case of analytic solutions. The theoretical convergence results are validated in numerical experiments. Finally, an initial study on the possible choice of local basis functions is included

Serendipity Face and Edge VEM Spaces

We extend the basic idea of Serendipity Virtual Elements from the previous case (by the same authors) of nodal ($H^1$-conforming) elements, to a more general framework. Then we apply the general strategy to the case of $H(div)$ and $H(curl)$ conforming Virtual Element Methods, in two and three dimensions