Ecologies of participation in school classrooms

The concept of legitimate peripheral participation was developed by considering informal learning contexts. However, its applicability to school classrooms is problematic. This is particularly so when teacher centred and decontextualised procedural practices predominate as they do in usual school mathematics classrooms. Different meanings of participation in community of practice theory are identified. The applicability of legitimate peripheral participation to school mathematics classrooms is critiqued by considering: the nature of social practice, learning relationships, power, agency, and identity. Different forms of participation in school mathematics are discussed and the concept of ecologies of participation is proposed as a means to understand the complexity and multidimensionality of participation in both formal and informal learning contexts

Use of remote sensing for land use policy formulation

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Use of remote sensing for land use policy formulation

The use of remotely sensed data for eliminating abuses and mismanagement of land and water resources in Michigan is discussed. Applications discussed include inventory of mosquito breeding sites; analysis of biomass in old field ecosystems used for wastewater recycling; areas for agricultural use; and preservation of the Grand Mere Dune environment. Services to users are described and contact activities reported

The development of the professional values and practice standard in the secondary graduate initial teacher training route in England

The paper reports on a pilot research project to investigate how trainee teachers develop an understanding of the competences that must be reached in the area of professional practice and values , which is one of the standards that needs to be met before the award of Qualified Teacher Status in England. Data were collected from secondary trainee teachers, their placement mentors in schools and university tutors. Data have been interpreted in the context of potential threats to the professionalism of teachers, through the introduction of managerialist influences in public funded education. The main findings are: that trainees think that the most dominant influence on developing understanding of professional values are their school placements ; there were little differences in the responses from four subject areas studied ; mentors and other lead teachers play an important role in the development of understanding of professional values; the grades awarded by mentors when assessing professional practice and values varies between the four subjects studied. The explanation for these findings is complex and is related to the understanding and interpretation of the standard by both mentors and trainee teachers. The findings highlight some of the difficulties in attempting to assess competency standards in an area that is underpinned by values and suggest that initial teacher training can best assist the development of the standard when it is approached in a critical way by all parties.</p

Use of remote sensing for land use policy formulation

Uses of remote sensing imagery were investigated based on exploring and evaluating the capability and reliability of all kinds of imagery for improving decision making on issues of land use at all scales of governmental administration. Emphasis was placed on applications to solving immediate problems confronting public agencies and private organizations. Resulting applications of remote sensing use by public agencies, public organizations, and related private corporations are described

Forecast horizon aggregation in integer autoregressive moving average (INARMA) models

This paper addresses aggregation in integer autoregressive moving average (INARMA) models. Although aggregation in continuous-valued time series has been widely discussed, the same is not true for integer-valued time series. Forecast horizon aggregation is addressed in this paper. It is shown that the overlapping forecast horizon aggregation of an INARMA process results in an INARMA process. The conditional expected value of the aggregated process is also derived for use in forecasting. A simulation experiment is conducted to assess the accuracy of the forecasts produced by the aggregation method and to compare it to the accuracy of cumulative h-step ahead forecasts over the forecasting horizon. The results of an empirical analysis are also provided

Is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) an Effective Therapy in Reducing Depressive Symptoms in Adults with Bipolar Depression?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an effective therapy in reducing depressive symptoms in adults with bipolar depression. STUDY DESIGN: Systematic review of three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that were published in the English language between 2016 and 2019. DATA SOURCES: Data sources included articles found using PubMed as the search engine and were selected based on their relevance to the research question as well as patient measured outcomes. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Outcomes measured include changes in depression symptoms measured using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) and Modified 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS). RESULTS: Tavares et al. found that 48% of patients with bipolar depression receiving active TMS were treatment responders with a numbers needed to treat (NNT) of 5. Yang et al. showed no differences in HDRS scores between groups at baseline and follow-up as shown by p=0.451 and F-score of 0.577. Finally, Fitzgerald et al. demonstrated a mean change from baseline of 3.4 in the active group and mean change from baseline of 3.0 in the sham group. While both are significant changes, there is no significant change between treatment groups at the conclusion of the 4 week study. CONCLUSIONS: Even though the study by Tavares et al.1showed a significant improvement with TMS in depressive symptoms in adults with bipolar depression, the other two studies by Yang et al. and Fitzgerald et al. demonstrated no difference between treatment groups. Based on these conflicting findings, the results from this systematic review are inconclusive. Thus, further research is needed that includes sufficiently larger sample sizes and longer treatment trials

Economic Development, Religion, and the Conditions for Domestic Terrorism

This study examines the conditions that facilitate domestic terrorism. Research on domestic terrorism has been sparse in comparison to studies that examine terrorism as a general phenomenon and transnational terrorism in particular. Most researchers find that a country’s level of economic development and religious composition do not help explain its experience with terrorism. I examine if these claims apply to terrorist activity at the domestic level to explore the extent to which domestic terrorism differs from other forms of terrorism. Specifically, I employ a negative binomial regression model with time-series, cross-sectional (TSCS) data in order to observe if economic development and religion can help explain levels of domestic terrorism while controlling for other factors, including political rights, population, education, and past domestic terrorist incidents. In line with much of the empirical evidence, I observe that poor countries are no more likely to suffer domestic terrorist attacks as wealthy ones. Since domestic terrorism can resemble civil war – a type of violence that does often emerge as a result of economic problems – this finding is especially noteworthy. Religious diversity in a country is correlated with a reduction in domestic terrorism, which stands in contrast to most research on transnational terrorism. Despite the international attention to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslim countries seem no more prone to domestic terrorism than others