Effects of Simulated Student Interaction on Student Perceptions of Teaching Presence

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of the instructor posting in online discussions as a simulated student; particularly the impact simulated student interaction (SSI) had on the instructor/student relationship. Student perceptions were examined using a modified version of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) survey to determine what impact SSI had on teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence within the online classroom. The full 34 item CoI Survey was piloted in the summer of 2014 at a small comprehensive university located in northeast Texas. A factor analysis was conducted on the data and the top items from each factor in the instrument extracted. The resulting 17 item instrument demonstrated both validity and reliability. This modified CoI Survey was used in the fall of 2014 with three special education courses making up a control group and an intervention group in a pre-post experimental design. An ANOVA was performed to compare the results of the pre-course and post-course surveys by group. The ANOVA showed a statistically significant difference for all three factors for the intervention group between the pre- and post-course survey, while no significance between surveys was shown for the control group

The elderly and AIDS: Coping strategies and health consequences in rural Tanzania

The elderly are often especially likely to be adversely affected by the death from AIDS of prime-aged adults. The authors use a longitudinal survey of households from northwestern Tanzania in 1991-94 to compare the activities and wellbeing of the elderly in households before and after the death of a prime-aged adult with those of the elderly in households that did not experience the death of an adult. A significant proportion of adults suffering from AIDS return to their parents’ home shortly before death. Time spent by the elderly performing household chores rises following an adult’s death, and their participation in wage employment falls; no evidence is found of increased participation in farm work among the elderly. Evidence shows that the physical well-being of the elderly as measured by body mass index is reduced before the death of an adult relative but recovers thereafter. These results suggest that interventions to prevent a decline in well-being should be focused on the elderly in households with an AIDS patient during the period of illness. Finally, the physical well-being of the elderly in poor and better-off households prior to an adult’s death is compared with that of the elderly in the poorest households that did not experience the death of an adult. The comparison indicates clearly that the poor have the lowest body mass index. Thus, deaths of adults from AIDS are likely to have the largest adverse impacts on the elderly in poor households. A broader group of elderly poor people with pervasive low health status should also be the focus of public policy designed to improve the welfare of the elderly

fem*MAP Berlin 2049: Feminist spatial systems for a non-sexist city

In search of a feminist perspective for Berlin and an answer to the question of what a non-sexist city could and should look like, an analysis of hegemonic and feminist spatial systems was carried out based on practice-based teaching research formats. Using critical mapping (Harley, 1989; Wood, 1992) with a collective-feminist approach, this paper will demonstrate the potential of the map as a tool that allows for a non-hegemonic perspective of space. The mapping research reveals how the dichotomy of the terms public and private determines hegemonic spatial systems and how the concept of commons as a counter-image and third spatial realm opens up a possible typology of feminist spatial systems. Thus, in the evaluation of the results, the need for new common notions in urban planning discourse is discussed.publicad

Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad: ISO 9000:2000 implementado en Empresas de Productos y servicios de Nicaragua

El aseguramiento de la calidad es una evolución natural del Control de Calidad, que resultaba limitado y poco eficaz para prevenir el surgimiento de defectos en la producción. Para ello, se hizo necesario crear sistemas de calidad que incorporasen la prevención y que, en todo caso, sirvieran para anticipar los errores antes de que estos se produjeran. La implantación de un Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad: ISO 9000:2000 se lleva a cabo mediante una metodología de aplicación, de modo que las empresas aseguren a sus clientes, activos y potenciales, que son capaces de cumplir con los requerimientos que demanden, tanto evidentes como supuestos, generando en ellos la confianza necesaria para iniciar, continuar y afianzar una relación comercial. La serie ISO esta compuesta por ocho principios básicos para una efectiva gestión del sistema de calidad siendo los más significativos el Enfoque satisfacción hacia los consumidores y el basado en los procesos. La aplicación de estos principios forma parte del proceso para obtener la certificación. Las compañías interesadas en certificarse deben demostrar que sus operaciones cumplen los requerimientos establecidos en la norma ISO 9001 ante un consultor ISO 9000 independiente. Las Empresas beneficiadoras y comercializadoras de café en Matagalpa que se tomaron como referencia en este estudio, tanto las que están apenas en el proceso de certificación y las que ya la han logrado, enmarcan que su objetivo principal para contar con un sistema de aseguramiento es alcanzar un servicio y producto de calidad, mediante el control de los todos los procesos productivos siendo este tipo de sistema una herramienta para enfrentarse a la competencia globalizada que trae consigo los tratados de libre comerci

Dust Destruction Rates and Lifetimes in the Magellanic Clouds

The nature, composition, abundance, and size distribution of dust in galaxies is determined by the rate at which it is created in the different stellar sources and destroyed by interstellar shocks. Because of their extensive wavelength coverage, proximity, and nearly face-on geometry, the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) provide a unique opportunity to study these processes in great detail. In this paper we use the complete sample of supernova remnants (SNRs) in the MCs to calculate the lifetime and destruction efficiencies of silicate and carbon dust in these galaxies. We find dust lifetimes of 22 +- 13 Myr (30 +- 17 Myr) for silicate (carbon) grains in the LMC, and 54 +- 32 Myr (72 +- 43 Myr) for silicate (carbon) grains in the SMC. The significantly shorter lifetimes in the MCs, as compared to the Milky Way, are explained as the combined effect of their lower total dust mass, and the fact that the dust-destroying isolated SNe in the MCs seem to be preferentially occurring in regions with higher than average dust-to-gas (D2G) mass ratios. We also calculate the supernova rate and the current star formation rate in the MCs, and use them to derive maximum dust injection rates by asymptotic giant branch stars and core collapse supernovae. We find that the injection rates are an order of magnitude lower than the dust destruction rates by the SNRs. This supports the conclusion that, unless the dust destruction rates have been considerably overestimated, most of the dust must be reconstituted from surviving grains in dense molecular clouds. More generally, we also discuss the dependence of the dust destruction rate on the local D2G mass ratio, the ambient gas density and metallicity, as well as the application of our results to other galaxies and dust evolution models.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 5 tables, accepted to Ap

Report on NCLOS Conference: “The limits and possibilities of sovereignty, as both the organizing logic and the central legal principle underpinning Law of the Sea and Ocean Governance (LOSOG)”, Tromsø, 25 and 25 November 2021

The law of the sea is facing fundamental challenges, including material challenges, epistemic challenges, and challenges relating to ocean justice and geopolitical dynamics. To address these challenges, NCLOS has been engaged with several projects, one of which focusses on problematizing the logic of sovereignty and investigating how sovereignty could be redefined, adapted, and rethought to respond to such systemic challenges.4 As such, sovereignty is one of the NCLOS’s common research themes for 2021-22. The Centre organized a two-day conference (Aurora Conference), from 25-26 November 2021, with the purpose of facilitating a discussion on the research done/in progress, and to identify issues and questions for further research. The conference consisted of three sessions. Session 1 focused on the theme: “Problematizing sovereignty (in a LOSOG context) – evolution and critique”. Session 2 dealt with the topic “Sovereignty challenged and under transformation”. Session 3 examined the theme of “Sovereignty across spaces”. All the sessions followed the same two-layered format: first the speakers presented their research relating to their respective session-specific themes, and second, the presentations were followed by questions and answers, as well as an inclusive round-table discussion.5 This report captures, as much as possible, the main points raised in the presentations and during the discussions. It also highlights some general concluding remarks reflecting the common threads connecting the three sessions and offers suggestions (provided by the participants) for the way forward

Comparison of architectures for PAPR reduction in OFDM combining pilot symbols with constellation extension

The Proceeding at: IEEE Eurocon Conference, took place at 2013, July 01-04, in Zagreb (Croacia)A main drawback of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems is that they suffer from a high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) at the transmitted signal. We propose three different architectures of a PAPR reduction technique combining pilot symbols with constellation extension. These architectures make use of a metric-based amplitude predistortion algorithm for the constellation extension embedded with orthogonal pilot symbols. Since neither the constellation extension nor the orthogonal pilots degrade the Bit Error Rate (BER), then the combined architectures also guarantee system performance. The three proposals outperform the previous algorithms (SAP and OPS) in terms of PAPR reduction, due to adequately joining pilots symbols with constellation extension. Moreover, the three architectures are examined from a complexity point of view, yielding a comparison in terms of computational load, what is straightforwardly related to implementation energy efficiency.This work has been partly funded by the Spanish national projects GRE3N-SYST (TEC2011-29006-C03-03) and COMONSENS (CSD2008-00010), and SENESCYT (Ecuador).Publicad

Energy Efficient Peak Power Reduction in OFDM with Amplitude Predistortion Aided by Orthogonal Pilots

The high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) is a main drawback of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems. We propose a two-step technique to reduce the PAPR consisting of a metric-based constellation extension method, such as Simple Amplitude Predistortion (SAP) algorithm, aided by Orthogonal Pilot Sequences (OPS) in a previous step, where we also provide a low-complex implementation of OPS scheme. We show that our proposal, named OP-SAP, outperforms previous approaches in terms of PAPR reduction, due to joining the benefits of Orthogonal Pilots with SAP algorithm. Moreover, it is energy efficient within two aspects: transmitted energy and implementation energy. OP-SAP saves up to 57% of transmitted energy per predistorted symbol compared to SAP. Regarding implementation energy, PAPR reduction techniques introduce some additional computational complexity, which requires extra cycles in the processor that demand energy consumption. We present an exhaustive analysis on computational power cost that shows the low power consumption of OP-SAP compared to other methods as SeLected Mapping (SLM), what yields a remarkable energy saving in its practical implementation.This work was supported in part by the Spanish National Projects GRE3N-SYST (TEC2011-29006-C03-03) and COMONSENS (CSD2008-00010), Fundación Carolina (Spain), and SENESCYT (Ecuador).Publicad

Estandarización micrográfica de especies de Baccharis L. (Asteraceae)

Controversies still exist regarding the differentiation of some Baccharis sect. Caulopterae species known as “carqueja”. In the present work we studied anatomically five of these species: Baccharis articulata (Ba), Baccharis crispa (Bc), Baccharis gaudichaudiana (Bg), Baccharis microcephala (Bm) and Baccharis trimera (Bt). Ba and Bc are considered official in Argentinean Pharmacopeia and Bt in the Brazilian Pharmacopeia. Bg and Bm are considering possible substitutes. The qualitative and quantitative variables for each one were determined, emphasizing the importance of anatomic characters as taxonomically useful. Analytical micrographs of the studied species were elaborated as reference standards for quality control of the raw drug.Aún existen controversias con respecto a la correcta diferenciación de las especies de Baccharis de la sección Caulopterae conocidas como “carqueja”. En este trabajo se estudió anatómicamente a cinco de estas especies: Baccharis articulata (Ba), Baccharis crispa (Bc), Baccharis gaudichaudiana (Bg), Baccharis microcephala (Bm) y Baccharis trimera (Bt). Las especies Ba y Bc son consideradas oficiales en la Farmacopea Argentina y Bt en la Farmacopea Brasileña. Bg y Bm son consideradas posibles sustituyentes de las anteriores. Se determinaron las variables cualitativas y cuantitativas para cada una, resaltando la importancia de la anatomía en la obtención de caracteres taxonómicos para poder diferenciarlas. Con los datos obtenidos se elaboraron las micrografias analíticas de las especies estudiadas, para que puedan ser utilizadas como patrones de referencia para el control de calidad de la droga cruda.Fil: Rodriguez, María Victoria. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Gattuso, Susana Julia. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas; ArgentinaFil: Gattuso, Martha Ana. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas; Argentin