Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) as a Tool for Intercultural Education. A collaborative experience in secondary education in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, Mexico

This paper discusses the collaborative experience of creating educational materials for a secondary school in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, México. In this school, students from Nahuatl, Tun savi, Me'phaa and Spanish speaking communities live and learn together. The intercultural context provides challenges for science education that we sought to address. The use of collaborative technologies in science classes has made visible the cultural diversity in the classroom, helping students and teachers recognize themselves as active agents in the construction of common knowledge and in sharing their\ud knowledge. This experience also shows the importance of ICTs as technologies of expression that reinforce individual and collective identity in intercultural contexts

Correlates of Smoking Cessation Among Filipino Immigrant Men

A survey on tobacco use among 318 Filipino immigrant men aged 40–75 years was conducted in Los Angeles, California. Those who reported more English language use with their family, friends and neighbors (OR = 1.31) and who lived in households with complete smoking prohibition (OR = 3.82) were more likely to be successful in quitting smoking. Those who endorsed more positive beliefs on physical and social consequences of smoking (OR = 0.69) and who had mostly smoking friends (OR = 0.37) were less likely to be successful in quitting smoking. Our findings suggest that prohibiting smoking in households, creating social networks of non-smokers, and education or counseling are important components of a smoking cessation intervention for Filipino immigrant men

Geometric ferroelectricity in fluoroperovskites

We used first-principles calculations to investigate the existence and origin of the ferroelectric in- stability in the ABF3 fluoro-perovskites. We find that many fluoro-perovskites have a ferroelectric instability in their high symmetry cubic structure, which is of similar amplitude to that commonly found in oxide perovskites. In contrast to the oxides, however, the fluorides have nominal Born effective charges, indicating a different mechanism for the instability. We show that the instability originates from ionic size effects, and is therefore in most cases largely insensitive to pressure and strain, again in contrast to the oxide perovskites. An exception is NaMnF3, where coherent epitaxial strain matching to a substrate with equal in-plane lattice constants destabilizes the bulk Pnma structure leading to a ferroelectric, and indeed multiferroic, ground state with an unusual polarization/strain response