Inclusion Needs Of 3.0 Students In Latin America

Recent changes in information and communication technologies offer people unprecedented opportunities to generate and share knowledge. Currently, inclusion refers to equal opportunities for the 3.0 person and it is not limited to special physical needs or reducing the digital divide.  Faced with this reality, universities, in general must transform themselves. Open universities, in particular, will have to renovate themselves and build the scenarios required by new students. This research paper explores distance learning students’ new inclusion needs and proposes four strategies to attend them

Assessing Leadership And Entrepreneurial Capabilities In A Latin American Youth Program

PEGE has now ended its third year.  PEGE, a program that encourages students to become contributing members of Society upon graduation from high school instills in participants the tools, techniques and mindset of an entrepreneur.  The program initially implemented in an English speaking school located in Bogotá, Colombia is beginning to spread to other schools.  Students in the program have evaluated the program and its impact and are uniformly satisfied with the program and recognize its value

Characteristic count rate profiles for a rotating modulator gamma-ray imager

Rotating modulation is a technique for indirect imaging in the hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray energy bands, which may offer an advantage over coded aperture imaging at high energies. A rotating modulator (RM) consists of a single mask of co-planar parallel slats typically spaced equidistance apart, suspended above an array of circular non-imaging detectors. The mask rotates, temporally modulating the transmitted image of the object scene. The measured count rate profiles of each detector are folded modulo the mask rotational period, and the object scene is reconstructed using pre-determined characteristic modulation profiles. The use of Monte Carlo simulation to derive the characteristic count rate profiles is accurate but computationally expensive; an analytic approach is preferred for its speed of computation. We present both the standard and a new advanced characteristic formula describing the modulation pattern of the RM; the latter is a more robust description of the instrument response developed as part of the design of a wide-field high-resolution telescope for gamma-ray astronomy. We examine an approximation to the advanced formula to simplify reconstruction software and increase computational speed, and comment on both the inherent limitations and usefulness of the approach. Finally, we show comparisons to the standard formula and demonstrate image reconstructions from Monte Carlo simulations. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Microbiome effects on immunity, health and disease in the lung

Chronic respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis (CF), are among the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. In the past decade, the interest in the role of microbiome in maintaining lung health and in respiratory diseases has grown exponentially. The advent of sophisticated multiomics techniques has enabled the identification and characterisation of microbiota and their roles in respiratory health and disease. Furthermore, associations between the microbiome of the lung and gut, as well as the immune cells and mediators that may link these two mucosal sites, appear to be important in the pathogenesis of lung conditions. Here we review the recent evidence of the role of normal gastrointestinal and respiratory microbiome in health and how dysbiosis affects chronic pulmonary diseases. The potential implications of host and environmental factors such as age, gender, diet and use of antibiotics on the composition and overall functionality of microbiome are also discussed. We summarise how microbiota may mediate the dynamic process of immune development and/or regulation focusing on recent data from both clinical human studies and translational animal studies. This furthers the understanding of the pathogenesis of chronic pulmonary diseases and may yield novel avenues for the utilisation of microbiota as potential therapeutic interventions

Invariant imbedding theory of mode conversion in inhomogeneous plasmas. II. Mode conversion in cold, magnetized plasmas with perpendicular inhomogeneity

A new version of the invariant imbedding theory for the propagation of coupled waves in inhomogeneous media is applied to the mode conversion of high frequency electromagnetic waves into electrostatic modes in cold, magnetized and stratified plasmas. The cases where the external magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the direction of inhomogeneity and the electron density profile is linear are considered. Extensive and numerically exact results for the mode conversion coefficients, the reflectances and the wave electric and magnetic field profiles inside the inhomogeneous plasma are obtained. The dependences of mode conversion phenomena on the magnitude of the external magnetic field, the incident angle and the wave frequency are explored in detail.Comment: 11 figures, to be published in Physics of Plasma

Strategically Strengthening The Software Export Sector: A Benchmarking Comparison Of National Experience

Software as a product for export has proven to be a major economic engine in several economies, including those of India and Ireland.  Current development efforts underway in Costa Rica by a variety of firms contribute to the potential for software development to become a key export sector in the Costa Rican economy.  However, potential roadblocks in the form of governmental restrictions could impair the sector’s promise and inhibit the growth the sector is capable of encouraging.  In order to identify strategic priorities to strengthen the software export sector, a comparative study of the situation in Costa Rica and key factors for successful software export are discerned.  Heeks and Nicholson (2002) investigated three countries noted for their success with software exports: India, Ireland and Israel.  Success variables previously identified by researchers were analyzed by Heeks and Nicholson, producing five key factor dimensions identified as contributing to the success of those three economies.  It is these five key factor dimensions on which Costa Rica’s current situation are assessed

Strategic Role, Challenges And Opportunities For Small And Medium Enterprises Facing DR-CAFTA: The Case Of Costa Rica

The development of regional business treaties and the subsequent removal of trade barriers has created new paradigms and challenges for companies in Latin America, especially in fast-growing Central America. This paper examines the role, challenges, and opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Costa Rica relative to the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA, or CAFTA in the US). Opportunities and challenges facing SMEs and the potential impact of DR-CAFTA on industry performances in Costa Rica are discerned. Central American nations and Costa Rica in particular, are facing new challenges, threats and opportunities that arise from trade agreements. Such is the case with DR-CAFTA. These paradigms and competitive pressures will directly impact external trade and sustainable economic development. Opportunities are associated with new laws and regulations, incentives to reinforce and improve business practices especially with regard to human capital, as well as new scenarios for international cooperation, commercial agreements and the growing use of outsourcing. The implications of DR-CAFTA are far-reaching and directly impact the development of small and medium enterprises in Costa Rica

Strategically Enhancing Business Capabilities And Social Development In The Hispanic Community

Hurricane Katrina displaced more than one million people while destroying or badly disrupting more than 40% of Louisiana’s economic base. Thousands of small businesses ceased to exist. The socio-economic damage in the U.S. appears without precedent. The growing Hispanic population in southeast Louisiana presents a unique and distinctive socio-economic challenge. As Hispanics move into the region in large numbers seeking economic opportunities, specific needs are emerging. A variety of work and social skills must be developed and nurtured. Business skills and guidance must be offered.  These needs must be recognized and addressed to facilitate a holistic assimilation of a growing Hispanic population into southeast Louisiana and develop a strong and literate workforce.  The Hispanic Business Resources & Technology Center (HBRTC) was created by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana (HCCL) in alliance with The Hispanic Apostolate Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, The Jefferson Parish School System, and Southeastern Louisiana University, to address the post-Katrina crisis in the New Orleans region and to address needs of Hispanic families and businesses.  The HBRTC is the first of its kind in the State of Louisiana to specifically address the myriad needs of the developing Hispanic workforce and community in Louisiana

Enhancing Multilingual Capability Among Hispanics

Hispanics are the country’s largest and fastest growing minority, but they are not an easily identified racial or ethnic group (Pew Hispanic Center, Trends 2005). In 2000, the U.S. Census reported 32.8 million Hispanics or Latinos in the United States, representing 12% of the total population. By 2004, the Hispanic population was estimated to have grown to over 40 million, an increase of more than 23% in just four years. The largest increase in the Hispanic population is occurring in the southern United States (Pew Hispanic Center). Paralleling the growth of the Hispanic population, the Hispanic labor force will expand to nearly 10 million by 2020 (Pew Hispanic Center).  Language barriers and cultural sensitivities need to be addressed for optimal inclusion of this force in the U.S. The dramatic expansion of the Latino population in the State of Louisiana emphasizes the importance of this group, both socially and culturally.  At the same time it presents new challenges and demands a real approach for addressing the languages barriers and the cultural sensitivities inherent in such a socioeconomic shift

Going It Alone: Developing An Independent Study Abroad Program

With a greater focus on internationalization, today’s business students are encouraged to participate in study abroad programs.  For smaller, regional business programs seeking a quality study abroad program, faculty and administrators may view “piggybacking” onto existing programs of larger universities as their only viable option.  However, piggyback participation in external programs may require that a university forsake its own standards and objectives, and accept the objectives of other study abroad programs.   Building on the experiences of one university’s study abroad program for MBAs, the idea that piggybacking onto other schools is the only means of creating a high quality international experience for students is rejected