A qualidade do programa escola campeã: avaliação externa de gestão e eficiência

O artigo tem por objetivo apresentar a síntese dos principais resultados da avaliação externa, realizada pela Fundação Cesgranrio em 2004 e em 2005, do Programa Escola Campeã, no que se refere à gestão e à eficiência das Secretarias Municipais de Educação e escolas parceiras desse Programa. A análise dos resultados obtidos no período de 2001 a 2004, pelos 42 municípios avaliados, indica um crescimento em praticamente todos os indicadores de gestão que o Programa abordou. Constata-se restarem ainda poucos desafios, que demandam a reformulação de políticas e ações da gestão municipal, em especial no caso dos indicadores nomeados Plano de Carreiras, Plano Municipal de Educação e Articulação Municipal. Com relação à eficiência, verificou-se que ainda há problemas recorrentes e, portanto, um caminho a ser percorrido, na medida em que a evolução em grande parte dos indicadores dessa dimensão avaliada nas escolas ainda se mostrou acanhada quando confrontada com os critérios estabelecidos pelo Programa. Pode-se afirmar que os indicadores não atendidos representam falhas no tratamento estatístico de dados relacionados à eficiência da escola. A metodologia de avaliação aplicada ao Programa pode ser replicada todas as vezes que programas com perfil semelhante necessitarem ser avaliados. O modelo desenvolvido atendeu plenamente às especificidades do Programa iluminando suas qualidades, assim como aspectos relacionados à gestão e eficiência que ainda requerem especial atenção

Numerical Study of the Cahn-Hilliard Equation in One, Two and Three Dimensions

The Cahn-Hilliard equation is related with a number of interesting physical phenomena like the spinodal decomposition, phase separation and phase ordering dynamics. On the other hand this equation is very stiff an the difficulty to solve it numerically increases with the dimensionality and therefore, there are several published numerical studies in one dimension (1D), dealing with different approaches, and much fewer in two dimensions (2D). In three dimensions (3D) there are very few publications, usually concentrate in some specific result without the details of the used numerical scheme. We present here a stable and fast conservative finite difference scheme to solve the Cahn-Hilliard with two improvements: a splitting potential into a implicit and explicit in time part and a the use of free boundary conditions. We show that gradient stability is achieved in one, two and three dimensions with large time marching steps than normal methods.Comment: 20 pages with 12 figs. Accepted in the Physica

Avaliação dos desempenhos em matemática dos estudantes de Brasil e México: pisa 2003 e 2012: Evaluation of mathematics performances of students from Brazil and Mexico: pisa 2003 and 2012

O Programa Internacional de Avaliação de Estudantes (PISA), feita de forma amostral com alunos de 15 anos e coordenado pela Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE), disponibiliza, a cada ciclo avaliativo, uma variedade de informações sobre a educação básica de cada país participante. A apropriação desses resultados serve de subsídios para traçar diagnósticos e planejar as ações pedagógicas nas escolas. Este artigo apresenta e discute os avanços alcançados pelos estudantes brasileiros no PISA 2012, em termos de resultados em Matemática, quando comparados com a edição do PISA 2003. A partir das informações disponibilizadas dos diversos países participantes dessa avaliação, a discussão se faz também, em uma perspectiva comparada, entre Brasil e México. Tal escolha deve-se às características semelhantes entre esses dois países em termos de extensão territorial, questões sociais e sistemas educacionais. Além dos resultados cognitivos dos estudantes, as análises consideram algumas respostas aos questionários contextuais, respondidos pelos estudantes. Especialmente aquelas que sinalizam para a percepção de ênfases curriculares diferenciadas, estímulos ao desenvolvimento de processos próprios à Matemática e como estes são potencializados nas atividades em sala de aula

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in Heavy Deformed Nuclei

The zero neutrino mode of the double beta decay in heavy deformed nuclei is investigated in the framework of the pseudo SU(3) model, which has provided an accurate description of collective nuclear structure and predicted half-lives for the two neutrino mode in good agreement with experiments. In the case of $^{238}U$ the calculated zero neutrino half-life is at least three orders of magnitude greater than the two neutrino one, giving strong support of the identification of the radiochemically determined half-life as being the two neutrino double beta decay. For $^{150}Nd$ the zero neutrino matrix elements are of the order of magnitude of, but lesser than, those evaluated using the QRPA. This result confirms that different nuclear models produce similar zero neutrino matrix elements, contrary to the two neutrino case. Using these pseudo SU(3) results and the upper limit for the neutrino mass we estimate the $\beta\beta_{0\nu}$ half-lives for six nuclei. An upper limit for majoron coupling constant is extracted from the experimental data.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures not included, availables as poscript files upon reques

Effects of dilution and disorder on magnetism in diluted spin systems

The influence of configurational disorder on the magnetic properties of diluted Heisenberg spin systems is studied with regard to the ferromagnetic stability of diluted magnetic semiconductors. The equation of motion of the magnon Green's function is decoupled by Tyablikov approximation. With supercell approach, the concentrations of magnetic ions are determined by the size of the supercell in which there is only one magnetic ion per supercell in our method. In order to distinguish the influence of dilution and disorder, there are two kinds of supercells being used: the \textit{diluted and ordered} case and the \textit{diluted and disordered} case. The configurational averaging of magnon Green function due to disorder is treated in the augmented space formalism. The random exchange integrals between two supercells are treated as a matrix. The obtained magnon spectral densities are used to calculate the temperature dependence of magnetization and Curie temperature. The results are shown as following: (i) dilution leads to increasing the averaged distance of two magnetic ions, further decreases the effective exchange integrals and is main reason to reduce Curie temperature; (ii) spatial position disorder of magnetic ions results in the dispersions of the exchange integrals between two supercells and slightly changes ferromagnetic transition temperature; (iii) the exponential damping of distance dependence obviously reduces Curie temperature and should be set carefully in any phenomenological model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted by physica status solidi (b); added references and the corresponding remark

Candidate stellar occultations by large trans-neptunian objects up to 2015

We study large trans-neptunian objects (TNOs) using stellar occultations. We derive precise astrometric predictions for stellar occultations by Eris, Haumea, Ixion, Makemake, Orcus, Quaoar, Sedna, Varuna, 2002 TX300, and 2003 AZ84 for 2011-2015. We construct local astrometric catalogs of stars in the UCAC2 (Second US Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog) frame covering the sky path of these objects. For that purpose, during 2007-2009, we carried out an observational program at the ESO2p2/WFI (2.2 m Max-Planck ESO telescope with the Wide Field Imager) instrument. Astrometric catalogs with proper motions were produced for each TNO, containing more than 5.35 million stars covering the sky paths with 30' width in declination. The magnitude completeness is about R = 19 with a limit of about R = 21. We predicted 2717 stellar occultation candidates for all targets. Ephemeris offsets with about from 50 mas to 100 mas precision were applied to each TNO orbit to improve the predictions. They were obtained during 2007-2010 from a parallel observational campaign carried out with from 0.6 m to 2.2 m in size telescopes. This extends our previous work for the Pluto system to large TNOs, using the same observational and astrometric procedures. The obtained astrometric catalogs are useful for follow-up programs at small to large telescopes used to improve the candidate star positions and TNO ephemeris. They also furnish valuable photometric information for the field stars. For each TNO, updates on the ephemeris offsets and candidate star positions (geometric conditions of predictions and finding charts) are made available in the web by the group.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomy & Astrophysics in March 9th, 201

A Modular Assembly Platform for Rapid Generation of DNA Constructs

Traditional cloning methods have limitations on the number of DNA fragments that can be simultaneously manipulated, which dramatically slows the pace of molecular assembly. Here we describe GMAP, a Gibson assembly-based modular assembly platform consisting of a collection of promoters and genes, which allows for one-step production of DNA constructs. GMAP facilitates rapid assembly of expression and viral constructs using modular genetic components, as well as increasingly complicated genetic tools using contextually relevant genomic elements. Our data demonstrate the applicability of GMAP toward the validation of synthetic promoters, identification of potent RNAi constructs, establishment of inducible lentiviral systems, tumor initiation in genetically engineered mouse models, and gene-targeting for the generation of knock-in mice. GMAP represents a recombinant DNA technology designed for widespread circulation and easy adaptation for other uses, such as synthetic biology, genetic screens, and CRISPR-Cas9