8,082 research outputs found
Achievement evaluation of Colombia's Escuela Nueva : is multigrade the answer?
In the mid 1980s, half of Colombia's rural schools did not offer complete primary education and more than half of rural children between the ages of 7 and 9 had never attended school. Unitary schools - multigrade classrooms taught by one teacher - were established in the early 1960s in isolated rural areas with few students. However, when efforts were made to expand the program nationally several problems became apparent - with teacher training, with the automatic promotion system, and with the relevance of course content to rural life. Escuela Nueva was created in 1976 as an official improvement on the unitary school. By 1989 enrollment increased to 17,948 schools, serving 800,000 students. Escuela Nueva is a rural school in which one or two teachers offer all five years of primary education in or two multigrade classrooms. Promotion is flexible, but not automatic. Special instruction materials are used which encourage the practical application of what is learned to life in a rural community. The system supports peer instruction, with older students coaching younger ones. The schools have study corners focused on different subject areas and a small library that also functions as a community information center. Many activities are designed to involve parents in support of their child's learning. The authors found that Escuela Nueva had significantly improved student outcomes, community participation as well as reducing dropout rates.Primary Education,Gender and Education,Educational Sciences,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Teaching and Learning
You are the Last Lawyer They Will Ever See Before Exile: Padilla v. Kentucky and One Indigent Defender Office\u27s Account of Creating a Systematic Approach to Providing Immigration Advice in Times of Tight Budgets and High Caseloads
A Sample of 669 Ultra Steep Spectrum Radio Sources to Find High Redshift Radio Galaxies
Since radio sources with Ultra Steep Spectra (USS; alpha <~ -1.30; S ~
nu^alpha) are efficient tracers of high redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs), we
have defined three samples of such USS sources using the recently completed
WENSS, TEXAS, MRC, NVSS and PMN radio-surveys. Our combined sample contains 669
sources with S_1400 > 10 mJy and covers virtually the entire sky outside the
Galactic plane (|b|>15). For our 2 largest samples, covering declination > -35,
we selected only sources with angular sizes Theta < 1'. For 410 sources, we
present radio-maps with 0.3" to ~5" resolution from VLA and ATCA observations
or from the FIRST survey, which allows the optical identification of these
radio sources. We find that the spectral index distribution of 143,000 sources
from the WENSS and NVSS consists of a steep spectrum galaxy and a flat spectrum
quasar population, with the relative contribution of flat spectrum sources
doubling from S_1400 >0.1 Jy to S_1400 >2.5 Jy. The identification fraction of
our USS sources on the POSS (R <~ 20) is as low as 15%, independent of spectral
index alpha < -1.30. We further show that 85% of the USS sources that can be
identified with an X-ray source are probably contained in galaxy clusters, and
that alpha < -1.6 sources are excellent Galactic pulsar candidates, because the
percentage of these sources is four times higher in the Galactic plane. Our
sample has been constructed to start an intensive campaign to obtain a large
sample of high redshift objects (z>3) that is selected in a way that does not
suffer from dust extinction or any other optical bias [abridged].Comment: 28 Pages, 12 PostScript figures. Accepted for publication in
Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplements. Appendices B, C & D available on
http://www.strw.LeidenUniv.nl/~debreuck/paper
Epidemiology of Cryptococcosis and Cryptococcal Meningitis in a large retrospective cohort of patients after solid organ transplantation
Abstract
Background
Cryptococcosis is the third most common invasive fungal infection in solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients. There are no nationally representative data describing the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes of cryptococcosis after SOT.
Methods
We assembled a large cohort of adult SOT recipients using Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification billing data from Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases of Florida (2006β2012), New York (2006β2011), and California (2004β2010). Demographics, comorbidities, death, and cryptococcal infections coded during hospitalization were identified.
Results
A total of 42634 adults with SOT were identified during the study period. Cryptococcal disease was identified in 0.37% (n = 158), 44% of which had meningitis (n = 69). Median time to diagnosis of cryptococcosis was 464 days (range, 4β2393). The median time to onset of cryptococcosis was earlier for lung (191 days; range, 7.5β1816), heart (195 days; range, 4β1061), and liver (200 days; range, 4β1581) compared with kidney transplant recipients (616 days; range, 12β2393; P &lt; .001, log rank test). Very early-onset disease (&lt;30 days after transplantation) more frequently occurred in liver and lung transplant recipients. Lung transplant recipients had the highest risk of cryptococcosis (hazard ratio [HR], 2.10; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.21β3.60). Cryptococcosis was associated with death (HR, 2.29; 95% CI, 1.68β3.11), after adjusting for age, type of SOT, and other comorbidities.
Conclusions
Cryptococcosis is rare after SOT, but it is associated with significantly increased risk of death. Lung transplant recipients are at highest risk for cryptococcosis among SOTs. Nonkidney transplants have earlier onset of cryptococcosis and higher risk of death compared with kidney transplant recipients.
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