Professional dialogues to foster dialogic pedagogy in mathematics: Design and test of a school-run teacher professional development programme

This dissertation is a mixed-methods study on the viability and impact of teacher-facilitated, school-embedded teacher professional development [TPD] programme to promote dialogue in primary mathematics in Chilean primary schools. Educational dialogue is conceived as a kind of talk that is both challenging and inclusive, giving students space to express and explore ideas collectively. Growing evidence supports its positive relationship with attainment, attitudes and reasoning. Still, internationally classroom talk patterns are usually non-dialogic, constraining students to a passive role. TPD is considered a key lever to bridge this gap. However, previous research often involves intensive, small-scale researcher-led interventions, which are costly and hardly scalable. This study aimed to (1) design and trial a programme to promote dialogic pedagogy in mathematics (2) understand its viability, and (3) assess its impact in teachers’ noticing, understanding and practices. The programme had built-in scalable features including semi-structured materials, low operational costs and local facilitators. Facilitators took part in an induction and then led 10-13 sessions with conceptual and practical components. Four schools initiated the implementation but only two of them finished (five participants in each). Data consists of pre-post lessons, pre-post video observations, interviews and teacher session recordings. Regarding viability, the programme was appreciated by participants, but two schools dropped out at different points in time. A tentative explanatory model indicated that these variations were linked to the leadership and research teams’ pressure and support, and facilitators’ ownership and commitment. In the meetings, facilitators’ actions were distinct from expert facilitation in the importance of management activities as well as their participation as peers. The peer-led TPD design tenets should, in consequence, be reconsidered to differentiate them from researcher-led models. Focusing on effectiveness, in the schools where the programme was implemented it led to positive results. Participants’ video observations shifted their focus towards dialogue. In the classroom and through interviews, participatory and elaborative aspects of dialogue were seen to increase, but not reasoning and challenging. Furthermore, teachers valued dialogue’s potential for improving inclusion and classroom climate. These results show that, where viable, the adopted TPD approach showed promise of being effective, while posing further questions about design and implementation conditions to favour scalability.Becas Chile/2015 - Nº 72160185 and the Cambridge Trus

Gravitational capture opportunites for asteroid retrieval missions

Asteroids and comets are of strategic importance for science in an effort to uncover the formation, evolution and composition of the Solar System. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are of particular interest because of its accessibility from Earth, but also because of their speculated wealth of resources. The exploitation of these resources has long been discussed as a means to lower the cost of future space endeavours. In this paper, we analyze the possibility of retrieving entire objects from accessible heliocentric orbits and moving them into the Earth’s neighbourhood. The asteroid retrieval transfers are sought from the continuum of low energy transfers enabled by the dynamics of invariant manifolds; specifically, the retrieval transfers target planar, vertical Lyapunov and halo orbit families associated with the collinear equilibrium points of the Sun-Earth Circular Restricted Three Body problem. The judicious use of these dynamical features provides the best opportunity to find extremely low energy Earth transfers for asteroidal material. With the objective to minimise transfer costs, a global search of impulsive transfers connecting the unperturbed asteroid’s orbit with the stable manifold phase of the transfer is performed. A catalogue of asteroid retrieval opportunities of currently known NEOs is presented here. Despite the highly incomplete census of very small asteroids, the catalogue can already be populated with 12 different objects retrievable with less than 500 m/s of Δv. All, but one, of these objects have an expected size and transfer requirements that can be met by current propulsion technologies. Moreover, the methodology proposed represents a robust search for future retrieval candidates that can be automatically applied to a growing survey of NEOs

Effects of Different Types of Noise on Foreign Accent Adaptation

Understanding foreign-accented speech can be difficult. Comprehension can be further compromised by environmental noise. Previous research has shown that listeners are able to adapt rapidly to a foreign accent. The present study examines how foreign accent (FA) adaptation is affected by two kinds of noise: speech-shaped white noise and competing speech. Native English listeners heard blocks of sentences produced by native-accented or foreign-accented talkers (Korean, Spanish) mixed with either type of noise, and indicated if the word written on the screen and the last word they heard were the same by pressing a button. Results show that listener responses were more accurate (though slower) when sentences were mixed with competing speech than with speech-shaped white noise. These findings suggest that while competing speech made word recognition more effortful, ultimately it was less disruptive than white noise for FA adaptation.Linguistic

Docentes do Curso de Bacharelado em Turismo da UFPEL: produção acadêmica no período de 2000 a 2013

A universidade como uma instituição voltada a formação de novas gerações, e tendo como funções básicas o ensino, pesquisa e extensão deve ser vista também como importante espaço de geração de conhecimento, e de divulgação desse conhecimento, nesta perspectiva este trabalho tem como objetivo identificar a produção científica dos docentes do curso de Bacharelado em Turismo da Universidade Federal de Pelotas - UFPel, na referida área, Para atender o objetivo proposto, foram coletados dados nos currículos Lattes dos docentes do curso, no período de 2000 a 2013/1, no que se refere a sua produção científica e o projetos de pesquisa concluídos e em andamento, no período. Constatou-se que há a necessidade de crescimento da produção científica na área e podendo-se dizer, ainda que há uma relação entre a produção científica dos docentes e sua titulação

Las relaciones comerciales de la Union Europea con sus vecinos: europeizacion, internacionalizacion o coordinacion?

La politica de Vecindad de la Union Europea se acostumbra a interpretar como un instrumento de europeizacion forzada. Gracias a su fuerza de negociacion, la Union Europea impondria a sus vecinos su modelo economico y hasta politico y social. Esta sin embargo no es la evidencia que se obtiene en el ambito del comercio. En consonancia con el modelo teorico de relaciones exteriores desarrollado por varios investigadores bajo la direccion de Esther Barbe, observamos como, en el ambito comercial, el modelo de relaciones entre la Union Europea y cuatro paises de la politica de Vecindad puede ser tanto de europeizacion como tambien de internacionalizacion o de coordinacion. El tipo de modelo aplicado viene condicionado, como asevera el marco teorico, por el cumplimiento de las condiciones necesarias que se requieren para que Europa imponga sus normas: legitimidad, incentivos y coherencia interna. Estas condiciones varian en funcion tanto del tema tratado como del pais vecino.trade policy, european neighbourhood policy, european union, europeanisation

Challenges for R&D and innovation in energy

In recent years,there has been a growing interest in the role of R&D and innovation in energy efficiency and dealing with climate change.To improve our knowledge in these matters a workshop was organized in Barcelona,Spain,in January 2014.This introduction to the special issue first presents some insights from the literature on challenges for R&D and innovation in energy.The second section summarises the articles from this workshop that make up this special issue and that provide new insights into innovation in energy.All the articles include energy policy recommendations based on the empirical analyses carried out

Electricity regulation and economic growth [WP]

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the effect of electricity regulation on economic growth. Although the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth has been extensively analysed in the empirical literature, this framework has not been used to estimate the effect of electricity regulation on economic growth. Understanding this effect is essential for the assessment of regulatory policy. Specifically, we assess the effects of two major regulations, renewable energy promotion costs and network cost, on electricity consumption and growth. A dataset for the period 2007-2013 and 22 European countries was compiled based on CEER reports and EUROSTAT databases. The results of the empirical analysis show that the two regulation instruments have a negative effect on electricity consumption and economic growth and provide estimates of their effects on growth in quantitative terms

O curso de visitadoras sanitárias em Portugal 1929-1952

O presente artigo tem por base um estudo em curso sobre a história do ensino de enfermagem no âmbito do Doutoramento em Enfermagem no Instituto de Ciências da Saúde da Universidade Católica Portuguesa e resulta de uma comunicação apresentada no I Simpósio Internacional de História de Enfermagem em Maio de 2013. Pretendemos contribuir para a discussão sobre a formação dos enfermeiros no campo da saúde pública através da análise dos primeiros planos curriculares emergentes do ensino sanitário e para o conhecimento da história de enfermagem. Recorreu-se à metodologia de investigação histórica, com orientação heurística e recurso à análise documental, abarcando a criação e organização do curso de visitadoras sanitárias. Constatou-se que o curso estava inserido no Instituto Superior de Higiene Doutor Ricardo Jorge (Faria, 1934). Foi criado em 1929 no Posto de Proteção à Infância e pretendeu responder à criação de um corpo de enfermeiras de visita previsto na reforma de 1926 proposta pelo Professor Ricardo Jorge (ISHRJ, 1953). A partir de 1931 funcionou nos termos do Decreto-lei nº20376 e habilitava para o exercício nos postos de proteção á infância, dispensários de higiene social e inspeção de epidemias (ISHRJ, 1946). Com a reforma de 1945 o curso passou a ter a duração de um ano escolar incluindo estágios com o mínimo de 4 meses. O plano foi ajustado levando a um saber construído no campo da prática da saúde pública centrada na medicina preventiva e social (ISHRJ, 1953). Em 1952 o curso foi revogado com a reforma do ensino de enfermagem. Considera-se que o curso constituiu um marco significativo para a enfermagem de saúde pública pelo reconhecimento do papel desempenhado pelas visitadoras junto da população na conjuntura política e sanitária da época.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A CONFIGURAÇÃO DAS RELAÇÕES UNIVERSIDADE E SOCIEDADE: A UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE PELOTAS EM PAUTA

A universidade como instituição voltada à formação das novas gerações deve estar comprometida com os valores fundamentais da contemporaneidade, como a ética, a transparência e justiça social, cumprindo com os deveres para com a sociedade que a financia. Tem-se observado que a efetivação do compromisso social da universidade e a reflexão sobre a dimensão social do ensino e da pesquisa têm sido papel da extensão universitária. Desse modo, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo refletir sobre a configuração das relações universidade e sociedade, referindo-se especificamente a Universidade Federal de Pelotas. Para atingir o objetivo proposto procedeu-se inicialmente o exame de bibliografia pertinente ao tema, e documentos institucionais. Em um segundo momento realizou-se uma pesquisa de cunho exploratório, a partir de uma amostra intencional, formada por docentes/pesquisadores e representantes de diferentes setores da comunidade externa da UFPel, Os dados obtidos, sinalizam que a uma universidade de qualidade, no que se refere à gestão da relação universidade e sociedade, precisa possuir relevantes propósitos socioculturais e econômicos para o desenvolvimento e crescimento do Brasil e cumprir com suas funções consideradas básicas de ensino e formação integral dos indivíduos e da sociedade, de modo eficaz

Insights into Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans consortia challenged by antimicrobials

Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), an usual nosocomial infection in the intensive care units and the most common in mechanically ventilated patients, is a serious problem due to high mortality and morbidity rates associated. The presence of the endotracheal tube is the principal risk factor for developing VAP because its surface is prone to microbial adhesion and the formation of biofilms, deserving thus high attention in clinical settings. Cell-to-cell communication is an important mechanism of interaction between VAP microorganisms, being involved in the process known as quorum-sensing (QS) that regulate the expression of virulence. To evaluate bacteria fungi cross-talk in co-infection, the biofilm-forming ability of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans, individually or jointly, before and after antibiotic and antifungal co-treatment was tested. Biofilms were characterized in terms of total mass and cell viability. Results showed that no antimicrobial combination was successful in the binary biofilms eradication. In some cases, the tolerance of the polymicrobial consortia was higher than that of single biofilms, highlighting that P. aeruginosa and C. albicans established synergistic relationships. To gain knowledge helping to explain those interactions, a quantitative real-time PCR approach was followed to inspect the expression profiles of some cell-cell communication genes involved in biofilm resistance. To overcome the tolerance issues, new antimicrobial combinatorial approaches using QS-inhibitors are being tested. Some combinations involving chlorogenic acid and ciprofloxacin displayed promising anti-biofilm potential