New TESOL graduates’ employment experiences and views of teacher education: Report to the Wintec Research Committee following poster presentation at the 9th Community Languages and ESOL (CLESOL) conference, 24—27 September, 2004, Christchurch

In 2003 a new 12-week full time Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) programme called Certificate in English Language Teaching (Cert ELT) was offered by the Department of Education at the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) for the first time. While other TESOL programmes offered by Wintec are for trained teachers and teacher-aides, the new Cert ELT programme is for those with little or no previous teaching experience. The curriculum development and delivery of Wintec’s TESOL programmes are informed by a constructivist view of learning which has held a prominent focus in educational literature since the late 1980s. This theory of learning sees learners as active participants in the processes of incorporating, synthesising and constructing knowledge within their previous experience (Arlidge, 2000; Zepke, Nugent & Leach 2003). Of particular relevance within TESOL literature is the social constructivist view which claims that a key element in the learning process is that knowledge is socially constructed through dialogue and interaction with others (Randall & Thornton, 2001; Malderez & Bodoczky, 1999; James, 2001). Also relevant is the reflective model of TESOL teacher education as outlined by Wallace (1993) in which trainees participate in a continuous cycle of teaching, observation, reflection and discussion in order to become reflective practitioners. A lack of information concerning what happens to the Cert ELT students once they graduate from the programme motivated the research discussed in this paper. Data collection included a questionnaire and individual interviews. The questionnaire gathered information concerning the graduates' employment destinations, and the interviews focussed on the graduates' retrospective views of those components of the programme associated with a social constructivist view of learning. These components included experiential learning, reflective practice and collaborative practice. It is expected that insights gained from this project will be of interest to other TESOL professionals and teacher educators

Pre-industrial Production in the Countryside: the Breton Building Industries in the Late Seventeenth and in the Eighteenth Centuries

The relationship between town and country has been a major focus of historical debate, especially with respect to the early decades of the industrial revolution. By studying the Breton building industries, this paper calls into question many of the standard ideas about crafts in pre-industrial France and provides insight into the neglected world of the rural artisan. The first part of this article examines the structure and organization of the rural domestic construction trades in Brittany during the last century of the Old Regime. Subsequently, the paper describes growth and change within the industry, including differences which emerged between the hinterland around Nantes and the rest of the province.Les rapports entre la ville et la campagne ont suscité d'importants débats historiques, surtout en ce qui a trait aux premières décennies de la révolution industrielle. En étudiant l'industrie de la construction en Bretagne, cet article met en question nombre d'idées reçues sur les métiers qui se pratiquaient dans la France pré-industrielle et permet de mieux comprendre l'univers des artisans ruraux trop souvent ignoré. Dans sa première partie, l'article traite des structures et de l'organisation des métiers de la construction au sein des familles rurales bretonnes au cours du dernier siècle de l'Ancien Régime. La suite du texte fait état de l'essor et des changements qui sont survenus dans l'industrie, notamment des écarts qui se sont manifestés entre l'arrière pays nantais et le reste de la province

An Analysis of Age, Gender, Education, and Race/Ethnicity as Performance Indicators on Tests of Perceptual Speed, Accuracy and Spatial Skills

To ascertain the effect of age, gender, educational level and race/ethnicity on test performance, a battery of three tests measuring perceptual speed, accuracy, spatial orientation, and visualization was administered to a sample of 362 applicants in the Odessa, Texas, Job Training Partnership Act, an agency which retrains displaced workers. The sample was stratified into five age groups: 17-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and over 60. Further definition placed each person in one of five educational levels ranging from General Equivalency Diploma to Bachelors degree. Multiple regression analyses determined the effect of the independent demographic variables. ANOVAS determined ethnic performance variations. As predicted, significant effect indicated that performance tended to decline with age; gender performance was task-related; and each increasing educational level raised mean scores. The performance level of each ethnic group-Blacks, Hispanics, and Anglos-varied based on the skill, indicating some significant differences between groups

A Comparison of the Academic Achievement and Social Adjustment of Mentally Retarded Students

The purpose of this study was to compare the academic achievement and social adjustment of mentally retarded students who have had five years of special education with mentally retarded students who have had no special education. This comparison was made to determine if there is a significant difference between the two groups. The present study was not undertaken to defend or attack special education classes. The study was designed to determine to what extent academic and social differences existed between the two groups. It is hoped the results of this study can be used in planning programs for the educable mentally retarded children in the Weber County Schools. The writer proposes the following hypotheses: 1. There will be no significant difference between the two groups in reading. 2. There will be no significant difference between the two groups in arithmetic. 3. There will be no significant difference between the two groups in language. 4. There will be no significant difference between the two groups in attitude toward school. 5. There will be no significant difference between the two groups as evaluated by their teachers. Data concerning these problems were collected from standardized tests from teacher-appraised school adjustment rating scale, and from school records

ANOMALY DETECTION FOR THE NAVAL SMART GRID SYSTEM USING AUTOENCODER NEURAL NETWORKS

In 2019, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) deployed its first smart grid infrastructure in Norfolk, VA, enabling shore commands to meet energy goals set by the secretary of the Navy. However, with increased functionality and control comes increased vulnerability to malicious cyber activity. This research aims to address anomaly detection using an autoencoder neural network as an intrusion detection mechanism on the NAVFAC smart grid. We built and experimented with multiple autoencoder structures to identify an optimal model that provides the best results in terms of precision, recall, and accuracy for the data sets used. We trained our autoencoder on NAVFAC-provided advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) data. We used the NAVFAC smart grid data set to simulate 14 different false data injection attacks (FDIA). Our experiments, performed with Python and TensorFlow, showed that an autoencoder is an effective instruction detection system (IDS) when the threshold is tuned correctly. Moreover, our results show that the activation function and optimizer used may affect performance. Thus, the “best” autoencoder depends on the customer’s needs and the threat environment.ONR-ESTEP (Arlington, VA 22203)Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Integrated health monitoring and controls for rocket engines

Current research in intelligent control systems at the Lewis Research Center is described in the context of a functional framework. The framework is applicable to a variety of reusable space propulsion systems for existing and future launch vehicles. It provides a 'road map' technology development to enable enhanced engine performance with increased reliability, durability, and maintainability. The framework hierarchy consists of a mission coordination level, a propulsion system coordination level, and an engine control level. Each level is described in the context of the Space Shuttle Main Engine. The concept of integrating diagnostics with control is discussed within the context of the functional framework. A distributed real time simulation testbed is used to realize and evaluate the functionalities in closed loop

Identifying the challenges and facilitators of implementing a COPD care bundle.

BACKGROUND: Care bundles have been shown to improve outcomes, reduce hospital readmissions and reduce length of hospital stay; therefore increasing the speed of uptake and delivery of care bundles should be a priority in order to deliver more timely improvements and consistent high-quality care. Previous studies have detailed the difficulties of obtaining full compliance to bundle elements but few have described the underlying reasons for this. In order to improve future implementation this paper investigates the challenges encountered by clinical teams implementing a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care bundle and describes actions taken to overcome these challenges. METHODS: An initial retrospective documentary analysis of data from seven clinical implementation teams was undertaken to review the challenges faced by the clinical teams. Three focus groups with healthcare professionals and managers explored solutions to these challenges developed during the project. RESULTS: Documentary analysis identified 28 challenges which directly impacted implementation of the COPD care bundle within five themes; staffing, infrastructure, process, use of improvement methodology and patient and public involvement. Focus groups revealed that the five most significant challenges for all groups were: staff too busy, staff shortages, lack of staff engagement, added workload of the bundle and patient coding issues. The participants shared facilitating factors used to overcome issues including: shifting perceptions to improve engagement, further education sessions to increase staff participation and gaining buy-in from managers through payment frameworks. CONCLUSIONS: Maximising the impact of a care bundle relies on its successful and timely implementation. Teams implementing the COPD care bundle encountered challenges that were common to all teams and sites. Understanding and learning from the challenges faced by previous endeavours and identifying the facilitators to overcoming these barriers provides an opportunity to mitigate issues that waste time and resources, and ensures that training can be tailored to the anticipated challenges