The Role of the School District in High-Performance Title One Schools in South Texas

A mixed research study was designed and conducted to identify effective characteristics of high-performing, high-poverty schools. Four South Texas Title 1 schools identified as High Performing Schools by the Texas Education Agency in 2016 were selected for the study. To be selected, these schools were also required to meet or exceed a set of criteria applied by the researchers. An effective school model, comprised of eleven characteristics and school processes, was developed based on a synthesis of effective school research and served as the theoretical framework for the study. The characteristics include Culture, Leadership, Instruction, Improvement, Home and Community Relations, Curriculum, Environment, Professional Development, Vision/Mission, Resources, and Staff. Data was collected from professional school staff, principals, and parents related to the essentiality of the eleven effective characteristics and processes used by the schools. Onsite data collection from each school included a staff survey, focus group session, principal interview, and a parent survey. Results supported the essentiality of the eleven school characteristics synthesized from previous effective schools’ studies. The results also yielded valuable school district strategies that supported the High-Performing Reward Title 1 schools. These strategies included the provision of active specialized support by district staff, district curriculum designed by district teachers during the summer, instructional resources selected through teacher input, flexibility in implementing district supports, professional development during summer and the school year to meet individual teacher needs, district-designed student assessment, an intradistrict and inter-district competitive school environment focused on student achievement, and parent initiatives aligned to local needs

The Role of the School District in High-Performance Title One Schools in South Texas

A mixed research study was designed and conducted to identify effective characteristics of high-performing, high-poverty schools. Four South Texas Title 1 schools identified as High Performing Schools by the Texas Education Agency in 2016 were selected for the study. To be selected, these schools were also required to meet or exceed a set of criteria applied by the researchers. An effective school model, comprised of eleven characteristics and school processes, was developed based on a synthesis of effective school research and served as the theoretical framework for the study. The characteristics include Culture, Leadership, Instruction, Improvement, Home and Community Relations, Curriculum, Environment, Professional Development, Vision/Mission, Resources, and Staff. Data was collected from professional school staff, principals, and parents related to the essentiality of the eleven effective characteristics and processes used by the schools. Onsite data collection from each school included a staff survey, focus group session, principal interview, and a parent survey. Results supported the essentiality of the eleven school characteristics synthesized from previous effective schools’ studies. The results also yielded valuable school district strategies that supported the High-Performing Reward Title 1 schools. These strategies included the provision of active specialized support by district staff, district curriculum designed by district teachers during the summer, instructional resources selected through teacher input, flexibility in implementing district supports, professional development during summer and the school year to meet individual teacher needs, district-designed student assessment, an intra-district and inter-district competitive school environment focused on student achievement, and parent initiatives aligned to local needs

Black hole charges in dark matter haloes and the seeds of cosmic magnetic fields

We present improved estimates of the electric charge that black holes could hold when these are embedded in the ionised plasma within dark matter haloes (or galaxies) in the Universe. We have implemented the spontaneous emission of charges of opposite sign to that of the black hole via athermal Hawking evaporation, including its dependence on black hole spin, and we have estimated the equilibrium charge that arises as this charge loss is balanced by the continuous accretion of charges from the surrounding plasma. The resulting charge can be several orders of magnitude lower than previously estimated upper limits, but it can surpass the pair production limit noted by Gibbons (1974) by a margin that increases with the amplitude of the black hole spin and the density of the plasma. We also implement a calculation for the net charge and magnetic moment of dark matter haloes when the dark matter is made of primordial black holes and also for astrophysical black holes that form part of the stellar halo of galaxies. We calculate the resulting magnetic fields of $z=15$ haloes for these different cases, and show that both primordial black holes and stellar ones could provide the magnetic field that can seed the observed ones in present-day galaxies.Comment: prepared for submission to JCAP, comments welcom

Evaluación de la actividad antibacteriana de los extractos y fracciones de las hojas de siparuna sessiliflora (Kunth in Humb. y Bonpl.) A. DC.

Biólogo (a)Pregrad

Paralelizacion sobre una Arquitectura CUDA de un Algoritmo GLCM para el Análisis de Imagenes Hiperespectrales

98 p.Existen situaciones donde se deben analizar objetos o imágenes, para determinar el cumplimiento de condiciones relevantes de un área, las que están sujetas a la decisión de una persona. Intentando ser mas precisos y que estos procesos no este en virtud de la subjetividad, surgieron técnicas y algoritmos, como GLCM (Gray Level Co-ocurrence Matrix ), que analizan imágenes en busca de características o patrones que nos permitan tomar una decisión correcta. Las imágenes Hiperespectrales son apropiadas para ser analizadas; ya que poseen mayor información que otros tipos de imágenes, pero sumado a la complejidad del algoritmo, genera grandes tiempos de ejecución. Nuestro trabajo se enfoca en obtener los resultados de manera e ciente mediante el diseño y desarrollo de una versión paralela del algoritmo GLCM mediante CUDA;Arquitectura de computaci on paralela basada en el uso de una GPU para acelerar operaciones de cálculos de propósitos generales, que se ha masificado rápidamente debido a su alto rendimiento y accesibilidad.Primero se presenta la arquitectura CUDA con sus principales características y variables mas relevantes. Segundo se detallo la estructura del algoritmo GLCM y de las imágenes Hiperespectrales. Continuando con la definición de métricas y el diseño de las pruebas, algoritmo secuencial y paralelo. Los cuales fueron desarrollados en C y una extensión de C++ respectivamente. Finalmente se ejecutaron las pruebas y analizaron los resultados generados. Obteniendo tiempos de ejecución inferiores y lineales para la versión paralela en todos los experimentos.Basados en los resultados del speed-up, pudimos armar que el desempeño del algoritmo GLCM mejora considerablemente al paralelizarlo mediante el uso de CUDA. Palabras claves: GLCM, CUDA, Imagenes Hiperespectrales, Speed-up./ABSTRACT: Situations arise where objects or images are analysed to determine characteristics to aid with decision making. To improve ccuracy and to ensure that there is no bias, it has been suggested that techniques and algorithms such as GLCM (Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix), can be applied to analyse images and search for patterns or characteristics that aid with making decisions. Hyper-spectral imagery are appropriate for analysis; because they have more information than other types of images which adds to the complexity of the algorithms for manipulating these images and requires a long running time.Our thesis is based on acquiring the results in a e cient way through the design and development of a parallel version of the GLCM algorithm using CUDA; Parallel computing architectures based on the use of a GPU to accelerate general purpose operations. These architectures have massi ed quickly due to their high performance and accessibility.Firstly, the CUDA architecture with its principal characteristics and variables are presented. Secondly, the structure of the GLCM algorithm and hyper-spectral images are detailed. Next, the de nition of the metrics and the test, sequential and parallel algorithm design are considered. Which were developed in C and an extension of C++ respectivly. Finally the tests were executed and the generated results were analysed. Obtaining linear and lower execution times for the parallel version in all the experiments.Based on the results of the speed-up, we see that the performance of the GLCM algorithm considerably improves through the use of CUDA. Key words: GLCM, CUDA, Hyper-spectral Imagery, Speed-up

Angular momentum-Large-scale structure alignments in LCDM models and the SDSS

We study the alignments between the angular momentum of individual objects and the large-scale structure in cosmological numerical simulations and real data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Data Release 6. To this end we measure anisotropies in the two point cross-correlation function around simulated halos and observed galaxies, studying separately the 1- and 2-halo regimes. The alignment of the angular momentum of dark-matter haloes in LCDM simulations is found to be dependent on scale and halo mass. At large distances (2-halo regime), the spins of high mass haloes are preferentially oriented in the direction perpendicular to the distribution of matter; lower mass systems show a weaker trend that may even reverse to show an angular momentum in the plane of the matter distribution. In the 1-halo term regime, the angular momentum is aligned in the direction perpendicular to the matter distribution; the effect is stronger than for the 1-halo term and increases for higher mass systems. On the observational side, we focus our study on galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Data Release 6 (SDSS-DR6) with elongated apparent shapes, and study alignments with respect to the major semi-axis. We find an excess of structure in the direction of the major semi-axis for all samples; the red sample shows the highest alignment (2.7+-0.08%) and indicates that the angular momentum of flattened spheroidals tends to be perpendicular to the large-scale structure. (Abridged)Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS; the definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.co

Apuntes sobre el Proceso Museal. La exposición como archivo en proceso

Al comprender la museología como una disciplina que asume responsabilidades derivadas de su gestión de la memoria y de la representación se pone en evidencia la existencia de un fuerte vínculo entre museos, bibliotecas y archivos. Por otro lado, la especificidad del museo al transformar la cosa en musealia y generar una metarrealidad cultural, nos lleva a indagar los mecanismos a traves de los cuales los musealia nos convierten en observadores de segundo orden, capaces de mirarnos cuando observamos el acto museal en tanto que ejercicio ético de la memoria y el conocimiento. Estos apuntes presentan un estudio de caso consistente en un proyecto museológico sobre la milpa como patrimonio biocultural de México con el propósito de revisar sus condiciones de posibilidad y ponderar las consecuencias de este proceso museal concreto.On the one hand, understanding museology as a discipline that assumes responsibilities arising from its memory management and representation indicates a strong link between museums, libraries and archives. On the other hand, the specificity by which the museum transforms the thing into museum object and its capacity for generating a cultural meta-reality leads us to investigate how museum objects make us our own observers – how we look at ourselves watching the museum fact as an ethical exercise in memory and knowledge. These notes present a case study of a museum project on the milpa, a crop-growing system, as biocultural heritage of Mexico, to revise its possibilities and evaluate the consequences of this particular museum process

PROGRAMA DE ACTIVIDADES FISICO - DEPORTIVO COMO MEDIO PARA LA FORMACIÓN PROFESIONAL DE LOS ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS

El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo, en diseñar un programa de actividades físico - deportivo como medio para el proceso en formación profesional de los estudiantes universitarios, en la Universidad del Atlántico, Colombia. El estudio se abordó metodológicamente desde la perspectiva de una investigación proyectiva apoyada en una investigación de campo de tipo descriptivo. La población estuvo conformada por 3.000 sujetos pertenecientes a los estratos sociales de clase media y baja, habitantes de la región Costa Atlántica y la Región Andina de Colombia; La muestra quedo conformada por trecientos (300) sujeto y fue de tipo estratificado y probabilístico. Como técnica de recolección de datos se utilizaron la técnica de la observación no estructurada y la encuesta que a través de la aplicación del cuestionario denominado “Estrategias Recreativas”, permitió medir las variables del estudio. Luego de aplicado el instrumento se organizaron los datos para su tabulación, se vaciaron en cuadros de frecuencias y porcentajes. En atención a estos resultados se obtuvieron los insumos para diseñar programa deportivo físico-deportivo, el cual se realizó bajo la guía de profesionales especializados. En atención a estos resultados se obtuvieron las siguientes reflexiones: se generaron equipos deportivos de calidad, capaces de proyectar el prestigio de la universidad a través de su participación en eventos deportivos de competencia, así mismo, la necesidad de desarrollar proyectos específicos en especial de recreación orientados hacia la ocupación del tiempo libre de los estudiantes, dado la insuficiencia de la oferta de opciones de la universidad

Consumer credit information systems: A critical review of the literature. Too little attention paid by lawyers?

This paper reviews the existing literature on consumer credit reporting, the most extensively used instrument to overcome information asymmetry and adverse selection problems in credit markets. Despite the copious literature in economics and some research in regulatory policy, the legal community has paid almost no attention to the legal framework of consumer credit information systems, especially within the context of the European Union. Studies on the topic, however, seem particularly relevant in view of the establishment of a single market for consumer credit. This article ultimately calls for further legal research to address consumer protection concerns and inform future legislation

Rapid immunochromatographic tests for the diagnosis of chronic Chagas disease in at-risk populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Despite of a high disease burden, mainly in Latin America, Chagas disease (CD) is underdiagnosed and undertreated. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) might improve the access to diagnosis. The aim of this study is to review the accuracy of commercially available RDTs used in field conditions for the diagnosis of chronic CD in populations at risk, in endemic and non-endemic countries. Methods/Principal findings We undertook a comprehensive search of the following databases: PubMed, SCOPUS, LILACS (last up-date on the 01st July, 2017), without language or date limits. Non-electronic sources have been also searched. This review included clinical studies with cohort recruitment of individuals at risk of T. cruzi exposure, without age limits; adequate reference standards for the diagnosis of CD. We excluded case-control studies and those testing RDTs during acute CD. Data on test accuracies were pooled through a bivariate random-effects model. Only one index test was evaluated separately. Geographical area, commercial brand, disease prevalence, study size, and risk of bias were explored as possible source of heterogeneity. Values of sensitivity and specificity were computed to obtain summary positive/negative likelihood ratios, and summary diagnostic odds ratio. Ten studies were included on six different immunochromatographic RDTs. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of the RDTs resulted 96.6% (95% CI 91.3–98.7%) and 99.3% (95% CI 98.4–99.7%), respectively. Test accuracy was particularly good in endemic areas (98.07%/99.03% of sensitivity/specificity, respectively). One test (Stat-Pak) showed an overall sensitivity of 97% (95% CI 87.6–99.3) and specificity of 99.4% (95% CI 98.6–99.8). Conclusions/Significance RDTs demonstrated to be sufficiently accurate to recommend their use for screening in endemic areas, even as stand-alone tests. This approach might increase the accessibility to the diagnosis. However, an additional confirmatory test in case of positive result remains a prudent approach