Reconnecting Schools and Neighborhoods: A proposal for School Centered Community Revitalization in Baltimore Maryland

This project explores the concept of school-centered community as a key aspect in assisting urban renewal through architecture. It employs this concept through the architectural design of a middle school in Baltimore, Maryland that has a focus on music. The existing context of an urban site in the Oldtown area is analyzed to generate a solution to the area’s educational problems as well as to provide an urban renewal plan. In order to develop a project that has great potential to succeed, the projects site was specifically chosen based on its context

Outsourcing Strategies in Software Engineering

Over the last several years, software has become a vital component of almost every business. Success increasingly depends on using software as a competitive weapon [1]. In today’s software industry, many organizations are realizing that outsourcing is becoming an imperative, strategic step to growing their business, and as a way to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. The focus of this article, will be a literature review of current literature on outsourcing, and its strategies in the Software Engineering domain. As a software engineer at Intel, I have seen an increased need for outsourcing within our business group, and the entire software domain as a whole. This has become a necessity, in order to stay competitive, in an increasingly competitive, and challenging environment. Globalization, and the growth of communication technologies, has allowed the Globalization, and the growth of communication technologies, has allowed the world to become a place where companies are not limited to work in local areas, they can look for expertise throughout the world. Unlike physical goods, software components, if required, can be transferred to the place where required expertise is available, and the cost is also less. To stay competitive in this ever-changing environment, managers must be able to know when the right time to outsource is, and when is not a good time to pursue this strategy. Additionally, they need to be able to identify what business functions to outsource, and what not to. Outsourcing, can be an immense source of competitive advantage for a company, if leveraged correctly, accordingly, it can be a weakness, if not deployed correctly

Technological Evolution in Software Engineering

In all software development processes, the software must evolve in response to its environment or user needs to maintain satisfactory performance. If software doesn’t support change, it gradually becomes useless. With many organizations today, being software-centric organizations, this has huge implications for their business: evolve your software, or risk your software becoming gradually useless, and therefore, your entire business. Technology Evolution is a highly relevant subject, Intel’s business model for the last 50 years, has been that of Moore’s Law, a hardware centric Technology Evolution model. As a Software Engineer at Intel, our business group faces a similar issue, we must continually adapt, and evolve our software, in response to our customer’s needs, and current technology trends, if we don’t evolve our software, our competitors will evolve theirs faster, and our business group, will gradually cease to exist, without competitive, and evolving software. The software evolution phenomenon was first identified in the late 60s though not termed as such till 1974. The goal of this article, is to explore the current literature on software evolution, and its impacts on software development activities, and software organizations. As a manager, and practicing Software Engineer, software evolvability, the ability, inter alia, for responsiveness and timely implementation of needed changes, will play an ever increasing more critical role in ensuring the survival of a society ever more dependent on computers

Learning from Literature and Legality: Supreme Court Cases and Young Adult Literature in a Social Foundations of Education Course

In this article, I detail how I revised a social foundations of education course to center major Supreme Court cases relating to K–12 public schools. Scholars in social foundations of education have articulated a vision for the field that fosters and promotes democracy and democratic dispositions. Focusing on the Supreme Court in a social foundations of education course is the result of two factors. First is the Supreme Court’s storied role in shaping K–12 public education. Second is the Supreme Court’s increasingly steep lurch toward antidemocratic jurisprudence, which many legal scholars and journalists covering the judicial branch are raising alarm over. Specifically, I paired 10 consequential Supreme Court cases relating to K–12 education identified by education lawyer Robert Kim with young adult literature. I demonstrate how and why I used young adult literature to illuminate how the law impacts the “lives of ordinary people,” especially people within schools

Literacy Becomes “Popular” for a Male Student

Literacy Becomes “Popular” for a Male Student assesses the multitude of obstacles that a struggling male student faces in regard to literacy based instruction. Many of the struggles that this student faces are directly related to his intrapersonal viewpoint on reading and writing, based upon prior encounters throughout his educational experience. This study focuses on the impact that the inclusion of popular culture and text choice have upon the engagement and interest level of one fourth grade male student. The study utilizes interviews, structured observations and work samples as sources of data. The findings of this study indicate that the struggling male student’s literacy instruction benefits from the use of choice to promote accountability, the inclusion of popular culture within instruction to improve engagement, an emphasis on notable success to positively impact attitude, and the use of technology to promote engagement. The conclusions of this study indicate that strategic feedback and success promote a growth mindset and that the inclusion of elements from popular culture improve engagement

‘The Farmer’s Family Must Find Compensation in Something Less Tangible, Less Material’: Culture and Agriculture in Maine and New England, 1870-1905”

Following the Civil War, American agriculture changed dramatically, and New England was no exception. With new railroad systems, specialized crop markets, and chemical fertilizers, Maine and other New England farmers found themselves as part of an increasingly commercialized agricultural system. Farmers, urban pundits, and agricultural reformers all stressed the need to abandon small, mixed husbandry farming and instead they urged farmers to start treating agriculture like a business. In order to “progress,” one needed to increase acreage and adopt specialized cropping. While many farmers accepted this mantra, others resisted it and argued that there was a moral quality to agriculture that could not be found in increased profits; these farmers were content on making a living, working outside every day, and providing for their family. The two sides took to the Grange halls and the farm press, engaging in an intense debate about what it meant to be farmer. While it is certainly important to study the economic aspects of commercial agriculture, we also need to better understand its cultural aspects as well. The commercialization of agriculture played an important role in shaping farmers’ agricultural identity in the late nineteenth century. The heated debate over agricultural identity suggests that the transition to commercial agriculture in Maine and New England was not an easy one, and by the early twentieth century, what it meant to be a farmer was still up for debate. Cody P. Miller is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Maine where he studies agricultural history and environmental history. He received his B.A. from Virginia Tech in 2010 and his M.A. from the University of Maine in 2012

Boudreaux v. Cummings: Time to Interrupt an Erroneous Approach to Acquisitive Prescription

The article offers information on Louisiana Supreme Court case Boudreaux v. Cummings, focusing on problems that arise from the Court\u27s failure in distinguishing between a servitude and the underlying land and incompetency of Court\u27s application of civilian interpretation of the Civil Code

“We Can Position Ourselves as Experts”: Teachers Learning to Write and Publish on National Blogs

This article focuses on a collective case study of two teachers attending a professional development workshop focused on writing for publication via educational blogs. Through a qualitative study, we sought to understand how attending the workshop and publishing on a national organization\u27s blog shaped the two teachers\u27 own identities as teachers and shifted their thinking about blogs as a genre. We argue the two teachers had a shift in conceptualizing what counted as scholarship as well as problematizing who counted as a scholar. In an era of increased attacks on teachers\u27 intellectualism and autonomy, we believe publishing on national blogs is one way teachers can reclaim their professional knowledge in our current socio-political landscape. Our work has implications for the fields of teacher education, teacher leadership, and professional development

Examining a Transition from Supramolecular Halogen Bonding to Covalent Bonds: Topological Analysis of Electron Densities and Energies in the Complexes of Bromosubstituted Electrophiles.

The transition from weak (noncovalent) interactions to fully developed covalent bonds is examined using the quantum theory of atoms in molecules in a series of halogen-bonded (XB) complexes of bromosubstituted electrophiles, RBr, with 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) and Cl- and Br- anions. The gradual decrease in the XB lengths in these associations, d Br···Y (where Y = Cl-, Br-, or N), was accompanied by the exponential increase in the binding energies and charge transfer, as well as electron densities and magnitudes of the kinetic and potential energy densities at the bond critical points (BCPs) on the Br···Y bond path. These indices, as well as characteristics of the adjacent bonds in the XB donor, followed remarkably close trend lines when plotted against the normalized XB length R BrY = d Br···Y/(r Br + r Y) (where r Br and r Y are the van der Waals radii) regardless of the methods [MP2/6-311+G(d,p) or M062X/6-311+G(d,p)], media (gas phase or dichloromethane), and nucleophiles (Cl-, Br-, or DABCO). In the systems with an R BrY higher than about 0.78, the energy densities H(r) at BCPs at the Br···Y bond path were small and positive, and XBs did not substantially affect the characteristics of the adjacent R-Br covalent bond in the XB donor. Accordingly, the XB can be identified as noncovalent in this range. In the complexes with R BrY values between about 0.67 and 0.78, energy densities H(r) at Br···Y BCPs were negative, and their magnitudes increased with the decrease in the Br···Y separation. In this range, formation of XBs was accompanied by the increase in the R-Br bond length in the XB donor and the decrease in the magnitude of the (negative) H(r) values at the BCPs of the R-Br bonds. XBs can be classified as partially covalent in this R BrY range. At an R BrY less than about 0.67, electron densities were larger, and energy densities were more negative at BCPs of the Br···Y bond than those at BCPs of the R-Br bond in the XB donor. This indicates that Br···Y bonds were stronger than R-Br bonds, and these (Br···Y) XBs can be regarded as essentially covalent. The synchronous change of a variety of (R-Br and Br···Y) bonding characteristics with R BrY suggests that the normalized XB bond length can be used as a basic parameter in the identification of the type of intermolecular interaction. A continuity of these characteristics suggests an inherent relationship between limiting (covalent and noncovalent) types of XBs and thus an onset of molecular-orbital interactions in the weaker bonds

Moving from Inaction to Action: Challenging Homo- and Transphobia in Middle School English Language Arts

What happens when teachers have opportunities to engage in LGBTQ-affirming practices but choose not to? In the following paper, the authors present a vignette from a middle school context and consider ways to challenge silences to support LGBTQ students in middle school English classrooms. The authors provide discussion and resources to help teachers engage in LGBTQ affirming practices with middle school students