Creating a dual Ph.D. degree program between Oklahoma State University & Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla, Mexico

Presentation made at Latinos in the Heartland (11th : 2013 : Columbia, Mo.) and published in the annual conference proceedings.Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP University) and Oklahoma State University (OSU) have developed a strong international academic relationship since 1992. Both institutions share and understand the importance of educating students to live in a global and multicultural society (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992) and have developed, among other academic exchange opportunities, 25 dual degree programs at the Masters level. As part of the dual degree, students have the opportunity to earn two Masters Degrees, in two different countries, in approximately two years (Fabregas-Janeiro & Nuno de la Parra, 2011). American, Canadian, and Mexican students have benefited from these innovative international Master programs. Overall, students' evaluation of the dual Masters Degree program has been very positive. Participating students perceived these programs as an opportunity to experience cultural immersion and language development in a challenging and international learning environment (Brandhorst, 2011). Due to the extraordinary outcomes of the dual degree programs, UPAEP University and OSU expanded the degree to the doctoral level. The Department of Agricultural Education, Communications, and Leadership, OSU and the Department of Education of the Centro Inter-disciplinario de Postgrados at UPAEP finalized a Memorandum of Understanding to offer a dual Ph.D. program. Students will earn two Ph.D. degrees, one in Agricultural Education at OSU and one in Education or Economic Development and Strategic Sectors at UPAEP (Oklahoma State University, 2010; UPAEP, 2011). The purpose of the Ph.D. dual degree program is to provide students the opportunity to study in, and benefit from, the academic and cultural environment of OSU in the United States and UPAEP in Puebla, Mexico. Students enrolled in the dual Ph.D. program will earn 75 credit hours equating to 15 more than the current Ph.D. program at OSU. The students will have a home institution that awards the degree, and a host institution where the student studies abroad, taking courses in partial fulfillment of the host institution's degree requirements. All students enrolled in the dual degree should have the academic background and language skills to enable them to benefit from participating in regular university classes at each institution (English and Spanish proficiency). Each student must meet applicable admission requirements at both OSU and UPAEP (UPAEP & Oklahoma State University, 2011). This presentation provides details on the successful relationship between OSU andUPAEP, how the degree plan will be executed at each institution, including the development of the agreement (Appendix A), and how students will progress toward completion of the degree, as well as the resources required to implement such a program at other institutions

Pulmonary artery sling: a rare cause of stridor and respiratory distress

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assessing Changes in Intercultural Sensitivity among Agricultural Students Exposed to International Experiences

The purpose of this study was to assess changes in intercultural sensitivity among Agriculture college students at a land-grant university who participated in a designated international I-course or a faculty-led short study abroad program to America, Asia/Oceania, and Europe. Using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).A nonequivalent group design pretest, posttest, with a comparison group, was used for data collection and analysis. One hundred and sixty-two students, clustered into five groups, participated in the study. The data were analyzed using split-plot factorial design 5 x 2. Findings indicated that all five groups were in the Ethnocentric Phase of the developmental continuum for both the pre and posttest, among the groups regarding development of intercultural sensitivity as a result of an international experience or I-course. The authors recommend that course facilitators include facets of intercultural dimensions in the curriculum as a means for assisting students acquire intercultural competence. Interventions should be designed according to individual levels of intercultural sensitivity. Reflexive journaling and group discussions should be used as an integral partof institutional curricular enhancement plans to increase intercultural competence. Institutional, intercultural goals should include moving students toward the acceptance stage of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). Further research should identify specific variables related to developing intercultural sensitivity among college students

Portuguese Adaptation of Students Engagement in Schools International Scale (SESIS)

The importance of student’s engagement has been recently pointed out in research. However, there has been a lack of engagement assessment instrument, pertaining psychometric qualities. Objective: This paper presents the Portuguese adaptation of the “Student’s Engagement in School International Scale” (SESIS), drawn up from a12 countries international study (Lam et al., 2012; Lam et al., in press). Method: Psychometric properties of this scale were examined with data from 685 students from different grades (6th, 7th, 9th and 10th), from both sexes, and different regions of the country. Results: Factorial analysis of the results, with varimax rotation, lead to three different factors which explain 50.88% of the variance. The scale integrates the original 33 items, and cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions. For the external validity study, the relationship between student’s engagement in school results and other school variables — academic performance, self-concept — was considered, and significant relations were observed, as expected. Conclusion: The data presented highlights the qualities of SESIS, as well as its usefulness for research purposes. Suggestion: It is suggested the investigation of the extension of SESIS’s three-dimensionality, in future studiesKeywords: Innovation, technology, research projects, etc. [Arial 10-point, justified alignment]

Experiencia en el desarrollo de una herramienta para la enseñanza de comunicaciones digitales en carreras de Informática

Este trabajo presenta una herramienta de aprendizaje asistido por banco de pruebas formada por tres elementos: plataforma hardware, arquitectura de software multicapa y herramienta gráfica (gtTAL). Para el desarrollo de la herramienta se ha optado por una arquitectura multicapa donde el nivel más alto es una interfaz gráfica que permite la interacción con la plataforma sin necesidad de tener conocimientos de programación de hardware a bajo nivel. Por tanto, los estudiantes pueden testear algoritmos fácilmente sin desarrollar un nuevo programa desde cero, reduciendo significativamente el tiempo empleado para las tareas de implementación y optimización.Peer Reviewe

Exploration of Large Digital Sky Surveys

We review some of the scientific opportunities and technical challenges posed by the exploration of the large digital sky surveys, in the context of a Virtual Observatory (VO). The VO paradigm will profoundly change the way observational astronomy is done. Clustering analysis techniques can be used to discover samples of rare, unusual, or even previously unknown types of astronomical objects and phenomena. Exploration of the previously poorly probed portions of the observable parameter space are especially promising. We illustrate some of the possible types of studies with examples drawn from DPOSS; much more complex and interesting applications are forthcoming. Development of the new tools needed for an efficient exploration of these vast data sets requires a synergy between astronomy and information sciences, with great potential returns for both fields.Comment: To appear in: Mining the Sky, eds. A. Banday et al., ESO Astrophysics Symposia, Berlin: Springer Verlag, in press (2001). Latex file, 18 pages, 6 encapsulated postscript figures, style files include

Prescription of rhythmic patterns for legged locomotion

As the engine behind many life phenomena, motor information generated by the central nervous system (CNS) plays a critical role in the activities of all animals. In this work, a novel, macroscopic and model-independent approach is presented for creating different patterns of coupled neural oscillations observed in biological central pattern generators (CPG) during the control of legged locomotion. Based on a simple distributed state machine, which consists of two nodes sharing pre-defined number of resources, the concept of oscillatory building blocks (OBBs) is summarised for the production of elaborated rhythmic patterns. Various types of OBBs can be designed to construct a motion joint of one degree-of-freedom (DOF) with adjustable oscillatory frequencies and duty cycles. An OBBs network can thus be potentially built to generate a full range of locomotion patterns of a legged animal with controlled transitions between different rhythmic patterns. It is shown that gait pattern transition can be achieved by simply changing a single parameter of an OBB module. Essentially this simple mechanism allows for the consolidation of a methodology for the construction of artificial CPG architectures behaving as an asymmetric Hopfield neural network. Moreover, the proposed CPG model introduced here is amenable to analogue and/or digital circuit integration