Does local financing make primary schools more efficient : the Philippine case

In the highly centralized system of the Philippines, local funding provides the only source of flexibility to meet specific and urgent needs. The government in Manila, which pays all teacher salaries, finds it easier politically in times of fiscal belt-tightening to cut recurrent costs. Although local funds are a relatively small percentage of the education budget, they make an important contribution to covering maintenence and operating costs. The total cost of education per student also appears to lower in schools with greater local financing. Administrators and teachers have greater incentive to be cost-effective when forced to consider the effect of their behavior on the people who live and work in the local community. The policy implications of these findings for the Philippines, as well as other developing countries, are important. They strongly suggest that decentralization will increase efficiency. Without an increase in local funding, the quality of primary education will suffer.Teaching and Learning,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Business in Development

Student performance and school costs in the Philippines'high schools

A key consideration in the policy debate on the appropriate role of private schools in predominantly public school systems is cost effectiveness. The questions are: Do private school students learn more than their counterparts, and is it more or less expensive to educate students in private schools? Taking selectivity into account, the private schools show a significant edge over public schools in both English and Pilipino. Public schools, on the other hand, had a slight advantage in mathematics. A comparison of cost per student reveals a substantial advantage for private schools: public schools in the Philippines spend on average roughly twice as much as private schools. These findings strongly suggest that private schools are an efficient purveyor of secondary education in the formulation of policy measures that could threaten the existence of such schools.Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Educational Sciences

El papel del estrés oxidativo en la disfunción endotelial de la aterosclerosis

La enfermedad cardiovascular es una causa importante de morbilidad y mortalidad en el mundo. Resulta de la oclusión trombótica de las arterias como consecuencia de la rotura de una placa de ateroma, misma que se genera por disfunción endotelial e inflamación crónica, que a su vez son producidas por un estado de estrés oxidativo del organismo, a causa de un desbalance en la producción de especies reactivas de oxígeno y la eficiencia de los sistemas antioxidantes. Se sabe que la progresión de la placa de ateroma genera también por sí misma inflamación y estrés oxidativo. El objetivo de esta revisión es presentar los mecanismos por los cuales el estrés oxidativo es causa y consecuencia de la ateroesclerosis, llevando a un daño continuo del endotelio.La enfermedad cardiovascular es una causa importante de morbilidad y mortalidad en el mundo. Resulta de la oclusión trombótica de las arterias como consecuencia de la rotura de una placa de ateroma, misma que se genera por disfunción endotelial e inflamación crónica, que a su vez son producidas por un estado de estrés oxidativo del organismo, a causa de un desbalance en la producción de especies reactivas de oxígeno y la eficiencia de los sistemas antioxidantes. Se sabe que la progresión de la placa de ateroma genera también por sí misma inflamación y estrés oxidativo. El objetivo de esta revisión es presentar los mecanismos por los cuales el estrés oxidativo es causa y consecuencia de la ateroesclerosis, llevando a un daño continuo del endotelio

The Use Of Analogies As A Methodology In The School Of Medicine

In recent years, the School of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico has been largely engaged in the global medical education trend, through the implementation of curriculum changes which include new methods of teaching and learning. These "new" methods seek to change from the use of teacher-centered strategies or traditional ones, to the student-centered strategies or innovating ones.The fulfillment of this study is due to the need to find educative strategies which help improve our students learning in a clinical subject which is taught in the basic sciences cycle (this cycle comprises the first and second year of the degree), allowing the interrelation between basic sciences and clinical sciences subjects

A tandem duplication within the fibrillin 1 gene is associated with the mouse tight skin mutation.

Mice carrying the Tight skin (Tsk) mutation have thickened skin and visceral fibrosis resulting from an accumulation of extracellular matrix molecules. These and other connective tissue abnormalities have made Tskl + mice models for scleroderma, hereditary emphysema, and myocardial hypertrophy. Previously we localized Tsk to mouse chromosome 2 in a region syntenic with human chromosome 15. The microfibrillar glycoprotein gene, fibrillin 1 (FBN1), on human chromosome 15q, provided a candidate for the Tsk mutation. We now demonstrate that the Tsk chromosome harbors a 30- to 40-kb genomic duplication within the Fbn1 gene that results in a larger than normal in-frame Fbn1 transcript. These findings provide hypotheses to explain some of the phenotypic characteristics of Tskl + mice and the lethality of Tsk/Tsk embryos

Association of occult chronic kidney disease with cardiovascular risk and their risk factors in university workers

Occult chronic kidney disease (OCKD) and cardiovascular risk (CVR) share risk factors that trigger chronic degenerative diseases. Aim. To assess the association of OCKD with CVR and its risk factors in a sample of university workers. Material and methods. This is a crosssectional study. From 89 volunteers the lipid profile, glucose, urea, creatinine and uric acid were obtained from blood as well as anthropometric measures and blood pressure. They were classified by their CVR calculated by the Framingham equation, into the groups: with-CVR and without-CVR; and by their glomerular filtration rate (GFR) into: with-OCKD and without-OCKD. Then into subgroups of each CVR factor (CVRF): sex, smoking, diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension. The statistical differences between groups (p <0.05) and the correlation between CVR and GFR and the odds ratio (OR) for each CVRF were determined. Results. A negative correlation between the OCKD and the CVR was obtained for men (p = - 0.743, p = 0.000) and women (p = - 0.874, p = 0.000). The overall prevalence of hypertension was 23.6% (OR = 15.43 for CVR, 95% CI, 4.04 - 58.95, OR = 14.75 for OCKD, 95% CI 2.76 - 78.23) and older than 50 years of 33.7% (OR for CVR = 20.37, 95% CI, 6.25 - 66.43). Conclusions. OCKD is strongly associated with the CVR. Furthermore, each CVRF impacts in different range and level to the development of cardiovascular disease and kidney failure

A Kinematic Comparison of Gait with A Backpack Versus A Trolley for Load Carriage in Children.

The use of a school trolley is reaching and even surpassing the use of backpacks in many countries, although a recommended load has not been studied. To accomplish this, 3D gait kinematics of the lower limbs and thorax were analysed in 49 students walking unloaded, pulling a school trolley or carrying a backpack, all with either 10%, 15%, or 20% BW. The variables obtained were the degrees of flexion/extension, adduction/abduction and internal/external rotation of the thorax, pelvis, hip, knee and ankle. Statistical parametric mapping was used to evaluate differences between conditions and loads throughout the gait cycle. In the backpack conditions, the magnitudes of the differences decreased from proximal to distal joints compared to the unloaded condition. The use of a school trolley only required minor kinematic adaptations. Therefore, from kinematic analysis, it is recommended to avoid loads above 10% BW for children using a backpack and below 20% BW for children using a trolley

Constraints on Lema\^{\i}tre-Tolman-Bondi models from Observational Hubble Parameter data

We use the observational Hubble parameter data (OHD), both the latest observational dataset (Stern et al. 2010, referred to as SJVKS) and the simulated datasets, to constrain Lema\^{\i}tre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) void models. The necessity of the consistency check on OHD itself in the LTB cosmology is stressed. Three voids are chosen as test models and are constrained using the Union2 dataset of SN Ia as well as OHD. Despite their different parametrization, the results from our test models show some indicating similarities, e.g., the best-fit voids obtained from OHD are all considerably broader than those from SN Ia. Due to the small size of the SJVKS dataset, the constraints are not conclusive. The constraining power of the future OHD observations are therefore investigated, through a Figure of Merit (FoM) analysis based on the Monte Carlo simulated data. We found that, in the case that the future OHD become more consistent with SN Ia, the results from the test models are almost unanimous: 1) as many as 32 OHD data points at the SJVKS-like uncertainty level are needed to give a higher FoM than the Union2 dataset of SN Ia; 2) precise observation helps reduce this required number; 3) increasing the survey depth does not always increase the FoM. On the other hand, if the future OHD and the Union2 dataset keep favor different voids, in a similar manner as they do at present, the 1{\sigma} confidence regions obtained from the two probes should finally separate. We test this conjecture and found that, the minimum observational requirement (the size of the dataset, the uncertainty level and the survey depth) for this inconsistency to emerge depends strongly on the void model.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Heparan sulphate mediates swine vesicular disease virus attachment to the host cell

Heparan sulphate (HS) has been found to serve as receptor for initial cell binding of numerous viruses. Different glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), including heparin and HS, were analysed for their ability to bind swine vesicular disease virus (SVDV), a picornavirus with close homology to human coxsackie B5 virus. Binding of SVDV was established by heparin-affinity chromatography. In addition, infection of IB-RS-2 epithelial porcine cells was inhibited by treating the virus with soluble HS, heparin, and chondroitin sulphate B (CS-B), as well as by enzymic digestion of cell surface GAGs. Analysis of the infection course showed that SVDV uses cellular HS for its binding to the cell surface and that this interaction occurs during attachment of the virus, prior to its internalization into the cell. Sequence analysis of SVDV variants selected for their lack of sensitivity to heparin inhibition in vitro led to the identification of two residues (A2135V and 11 266K) potentially involved in heparin/HS interaction. The location of these residues in a three-dimensional model shows that they are clustered in a well-exposed region of the capsid, providing a physical mechanism that could account for the heparin-binding phenotype

Unified model of baryonic matter and dark components

We investigate an interacting two-fluid cosmological model and introduce a scalar field representation by means of a linear combination of the individual energy densities. Applying the integrability condition to the scalar field equation we show that this "exotic quintessence" is driven by an exponential potential and the two-fluid mixture can be considered as a model of three components. These components are associated with baryonic matter, dark matter and dark energy respectively. We use the Simon, Verde & Jimenez (2005) determination of the redshift dependence of the Hubble parameter to constrain the current density parameters of this model. With the best fit density parameters we obtain the transition redshift between non accelerated and accelerated regimes z_{acc}=0.66 and the time elapsed since the initial singularity t_0= 19.8 Gyr. We study the perturbation evolution of this model and find that the energy density perturbation decreases with the cosmological time.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures A new section adde