3,209 research outputs found
Quality Assurance System to monitor the teaching and learning process at the University of Aveiro (Portugal)
At the University of Aveiro (UA), in Portugal, institutional initiatives are being undertaken so that high levels of quality teaching and learning are achieved. This paper presents (a) the design of an evaluation model for quality assurance of teaching and learning and (b) the results of its application in a pilot study that ran in 2008/09 at the Departments of Electronics and Telecommunications, and Physics, of the UA. The Quality Assurance System (QAS) to monitor the process of teaching and learning at the UA emerges as extremely important, not only to regulate the teaching and learning process, following the quality assurance orientations at a national and international level, but also to reflect and share teaching practices that enhance the whole academic experience, both from students, teachers, and researchers‟ perspectives. The authors explore the design of the model and some findings of the pilot study, more specifically the identification of problematic and good practice situations identified by the students‟ survey and reports
Linking educational research to institutional measures of quality enhancement: a Portuguese project
At the University of Aveiro (UA), an institutional initiative is taking place for assessing and monitoring the quality of teaching and learning in Higher Education. The Quality Assurance System (QAS) of the teaching and learning process at the UA emerges as extremely important, not only to regulate the teaching and learning process, following the quality assurance orientations at a national and international level, but also to reflect and share teaching practices that enhance the whole academic experience, both from the students, the teachers, and researchers’ perspective. The authors explore the design of the model and a research study that aims to integrate the perspectives of students and teachers, through the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data - gathered in the evaluation model, so that: (i) intervention strategies/activities can be conceptualised for coping with the identified problems; (ii) a set of guidelines can be designed for the improvement of the evaluation model and associated instruments, and (iii) the QAS model and its results can be discussed with academia in terms of strengths and weaknesses aiming to engage them in the process of monitoring. This study is an effort to conciliate the educational research carried out by members of the Laboratory for the Evaluation of Educational Quality and the institutional framework for quality assurance
Pour les sites Pro-ana ou Pro-mia ou Comment tirer profit de ses ennemis
International audienceLa récente législation de 2008 sur l'incitation à l'anorexie conduit à interroger la pertinence d'une telle mesure. Car, s'il n'est pas possible de douter des bonnes intentions d'une telle loi, le doute reste permis quant à son efficacité. En effet, la structure même de la toile en limite le champ d'application, le peu de résultats de la lutte contre la violence et la pornographie sur le web en sont les témoins. Il est également possible de s'interroger sur qui est réellement mis en danger par de tels sites. Cependant, les sites pro-ana peuvent être mis au service de la médecine, à la fois comme terrain d'observation de ce qui a du mal à se dire dans le champ thérapeutique mais également comme retour sur la façon dont le monde médical et ses violences sont vus par celles que nous sommes censés aider
Isotope shifts and hyperfine structure of the Fe I 372 nm resonance line
We report measurements of the isotope shifts of the Fe I resonance line at 372 nm between all four stable
isotopes Fe, Fe, Fe, and Fe, as well as the
complete hyperfine structure of that line for Fe, the only stable
isotope having a non-zero nuclear spin. The field and specific mass shift
coefficients of the transition have been derived from the data, as well as the
experimental value for the hyperfine structure magnetic dipole coupling
constant of the excited state of the transition in Fe: MHz. The measurements were done by means of Doppler-free
laser saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a Fe-Ar hollow cathode using both
natural and enriched iron samples. The measured isotope shifts and hyperfine
constants are reported with uncertainties at the percent level.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Particle Currents in a Space-Time dependent and CP-violating Higgs Background: a Field Theory Approach
Motivated by cosmological applications like electroweak baryogenesis, we
develop a field theoretic approach to the computation of particle currents on a
space-time dependent and CP-violating Higgs background. We consider the
Standard Model model with two Higgs doublets and CP violation in the scalar
sector, and compute both fermionic and Higgs currents by means of an expansion
in the background fields. We discuss the gauge dependence of the results and
the renormalization of the current operators, showing that in the limit of
local equilibrium, no extra renormalization conditions are needed in order to
specify the system completely.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX file, uses epsf.sty. 4 figures available as a
compressed .ep
Nominal Unification of Higher Order Expressions with Recursive Let
A sound and complete algorithm for nominal unification of higher-order
expressions with a recursive let is described, and shown to run in
non-deterministic polynomial time. We also explore specializations like nominal
letrec-matching for plain expressions and for DAGs and determine the complexity
of corresponding unification problems.Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 26th International Symposium
on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2016), Edinburgh,
Scotland UK, 6-8 September 2016 (arXiv:1608.02534
Silent Transitions in Automata with Storage
We consider the computational power of silent transitions in one-way automata
with storage. Specifically, we ask which storage mechanisms admit a
transformation of a given automaton into one that accepts the same language and
reads at least one input symbol in each step.
We study this question using the model of valence automata. Here, a finite
automaton is equipped with a storage mechanism that is given by a monoid.
This work presents generalizations of known results on silent transitions.
For two classes of monoids, it provides characterizations of those monoids that
allow the removal of \lambda-transitions. Both classes are defined by graph
products of copies of the bicyclic monoid and the group of integers. The first
class contains pushdown storages as well as the blind counters while the second
class contains the blind and the partially blind counters.Comment: 32 pages, submitte
Effect of reheating on electroweak baryogenesis
The latent heat released during the expansion of bubbles in the electroweak
phase transition reheats the plasma and causes the bubble growth to slow down.
This decrease of the bubble wall velocity affects the result of electroweak
baryogenesis. Since the efficiency of baryogenesis peaks for a wall velocity
, the resulting baryon asymmetry can either be enhanced or
suppressed, depending on the initial value of the wall velocity. We calculate
the evolution of the phase transition taking into account the release of latent
heat. We find that, although in the SM the baryon production is enhanced by
this effect, in the MSSM it causes a suppression to the final baryon asymmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. References added. Revised version to be published
in Phys.Rev.
A New Source for Electroweak Baryogenesis in the MSSM
One of the most experimentally testable explanations for the origin of the
baryon asymmetry of the universe is that it was created during the electroweak
phase transition, in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. Previous
efforts have focused on the current for the difference of the two Higgsino
fields, , as the source of biasing sphalerons to create the baryon
asymmetry. We point out that the current for the orthogonal linear combination,
, is larger by several orders of magnitude. Although this increases
the efficiency of electroweak baryogenesis, we nevertheless find that large
CP-violating angles are required to get a large enough baryon
asymmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; numerical error corrected, which implies that
large CP violation is needed to get observed baryon asymmetry. We improved
solution of diffusion equations, and computed more accurate values for
diffusion coefficient and damping rate
Status of Electroweak Phase Transition and Baryogenesis
I review recent progress on the electroweak phase transition and
baryogenesis, focusing on the minimal supersymmetric standard model as the
source of new physics.Comment: 10 pp, 6 figures; plenary talk given at 6th Workshop on High Energy
Physics Phenomenology, 4 Jan. 2000, Chennai, India. v.2: added reference
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