Modelos epistémicos de la lectura en estudiantes universitarios mexicanos

Este estudio explora el empleo de tres modelos epistémicos de lectura (transaccional, transmisión, translación (Schraw y Bruning, 1996; Peredo Merlo, 2003) y su relación con la asiduidad lectora de 15 estudiantes universitarios mexicanos. Se categorizó a los sujetos con base en la información proporcionada mediante entrevistas semiestructuradas y reportes verbales. Los resultados sitúan a la mayoría de los informantes en el modelo transaccional, el cual favorece la comprensión del texto. El surgimiento de esquemas mixtos indica la emergencia de etapas de transición entre los modelos. Un análisis posterior reveló que otras características de acercamiento al texto como frecuencia de lectura, variación en estrategias, personalización y crítica del texto compartidos por los sujetos, se relacionan con los modelos y confirmarían la existencia de las epistemologías. Finalmente, se analizan las implicaciones didácticas

El concepto de la utilidad en el diseño de una prueba de comprensión de lectura en la lengua extranjera

Este artículo representa un diagnóstico completo de la fase de diseño de la prueba de comprensión de lectura para ingreso a estudios de posgrado de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. Para realizar el diagnóstico se determinó medir el alcance del instrumento en relación a las cualidades de utilidad de Bachman y Palmer (1996) siendo éstas: confiabilidad, validez de constructo, autenticidad, interactividad, impacto y practicidad. Como la valoración implícita en la medición de utilidad hace referencia al contexto de la evaluación se describió de manera detallada dicho contexto empleando el modelo de Alderson (2000). La conclusión principal que emana de dicho análisis es que la prueba es adecuada para su contexto en cuanto al diseño pero que la operatividad de la misma se beneficiaría del desarrollo de algunas medidas de difusión.Este artículo representa un diagnóstico completo de la fase de diseño de la prueba de comprensión de lectura para ingreso a estudios de posgrado de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. Para realizar el diagnóstico se determinó medir el alcance del instrumento en relación a las cualidades de utilidad de Bachman y Palmer (1996) siendo éstas: confiabilidad, validez de constructo, autenticidad, interactividad, impacto y practicidad. Como la valoración implícita en la medición de utilidad hace referencia al contexto de la evaluación se describió de manera detallada dicho contexto empleando el modelo de Alderson (2000). La conclusión principal que emana de dicho análisis es que la prueba es adecuada para su contexto en cuanto al diseño pero que la operatividad de la misma se beneficiaría del desarrollo de algunas medidas de difusión

When Do Ties Bind? Foreign Fighters, Social Embeddedness, and Combatant Repertoires of Behavior During Civil War

How does the extent to which rebel organizations are embedded into local conflict contexts - i.e. the extent to which they fit in or stand out from local populations - affect their behavior on and off the battlefield during civil war? This dissertation examines why rebel group propensities to engage in governance and violence during war vary at the macro and microlevels of analysis and uses as its point of departure the presence of foreign fighters in the ranks of rebel groups engaged in civil war. I employ a cross-national analysis of insurgencies from 1989-2011, and also conduct a theory-testing comparison of the experiences of local and foreign armed actors within one conflict: soldiers in the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian War from 1992-1995. Responding to limitations in explanations of rebel behavior ranging from governance to civilian victimization, I argue that combatants\u27 interactions that occur on and off the battlefield are contingent on actors\u27 embeddedness into local conflict conflicts. Using existing data on foreign fighters in civil wars, data from interviews with 50 subjects in Bosnia, combatant memoirs, as well as archival and secondary sources, I find that when soldiers are structurally and culturally embedded into a local context, they are most likely to experience war through fluid civilian-soldier identities that open doors to a range of nonviolent interaction. By contrast, soldiers who lack social ties into civilian communities and who do not share a common understanding of a war with local populations are more likely to resort to coercion and violence to meet their battlefield needs. The theory and findings suggest that understanding the broad scope of armed group behavior requires examining the social origins of rank and file fighters, and how combatants\u27 integration and assimilation into local contexts incentivizes violent versus nonviolent interaction with the local populace

"Lessons will be learned"?: an investigation into the representation of 'asylum seekers'/refugees in British and Scottish television and impacts on beliefs and behaviours in local communities

This thesis examines media representations and audience reception processes through a detailed study of media reporting and public understandings of asylum and refugee issues. It is based on sixty interviews in which refugees seeking asylum, professionals working with them and members of the general public were invited to comment on their own memories and beliefs using pictures from the TV coverage. The pictures used are included in a detailed thematic content analysis of national and regional broadcast news. Public understandings are systematically compared to the content of media reporting. In particular it explore people’s memories and beliefs of national and regional broadcast news. The content analysis revealed that the national news represents asylum in unsubstantiated and problematic ways whilst the regional news has a more balanced approach to representation of the issue. The thesis explores the diversity of audience reactions and the different ways in which people may accept or reject the media representations. However it also draws attention to the themes which recurred in all of the interviews and argues that there is strong evidence of media effects. The thesis highlights factors in media coverage which are particularly influential. It demonstrates how language, structures, and images may influence audience responses and examines how media representations may structure patterns of misinformation. The audience were poorly informed on asylum and refugee issues. In addition attention is drawn to viewers’ everyday relations and experiences. Some interviewees use specific knowledge to reject news reports. The research provides comprehensive and fruitful insights of cultural differentiation linked to ‘race’/ethnicity, gender, class and geographical location. The thesis concludes by arguing for a media studies schema which connects questions about audience reception with questions about media production and content as well as the construction of broader relations within society enabling researchers to contribute to current debates about power, control and social conditions

IDENTIFICACIÓN DE PROBLEMAS QUE EXISTEN AL CALCULAR LAS MEDIDAS DE COMPLEJIDAD LÉXICA EN EL IDIOMA ESPAÑOL

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and there are some linguists who have developed measures to discover how difficult a text is according to its content for example Type-token Ratio, Lexical Variation and Lexical Density. These measures have been used only in English and they are helpful in English teaching to assess students and as a tool to produce materials to improve reading comprehension and teach English in general. Even though there is a way to determine the complexity of a text in English, lack of studies in Spanish has not given the possibility to measure in this language. As a consequence measures like Type-token Ratio, Lexical Variation and Lexical Density do not have a specific range to indicate the level of complexity in Spanish. As it was mentioned before these measures are used only in English so it was essential to use these measures in two texts in English and its translations in Spanish. The purpose was to compare the texts in English and Spanish because the content is similar in both languages and the results of the measures in English could be adapted in Spanish

Brief communication: landslide motion from cross correlation of UAV-derived morphological attributes

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide observations of high spatio-temporal resolution to enable operational landslide monitoring. In this research, the construction of digital elevation models (DEMs) and orthomosaics from UAV imagery is achieved using structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetric procedures. The study examines the additional value that the morphological attribute of "openness", amongst others, can provide to surface deformation analysis. Image-cross-correlation functions and DEM subtraction techniques are applied to the SfM outputs. Through the proposed integrated analysis, the automated quantification of a landslide's motion over time is demonstrated, with implications for the wider interpretation of landslide kinematics via UAV surveys

Estudio contrastivo del género discursivo del ensayo argumentativo

Discourse genres can vary from one culture to another (Connor, 2003) and studies suggest that second language users tend to transfer patterns from one language to the other (Upton and Connor, 2001; Woolever, 2001). However, we know relatively little about how the highly valued genre of the academic essay is learned. In order to identify generic models used by Mexican university students in argumentative essays, we analyzed 36 exemplar texts produced by 18 students in Spanish and English as a second language. We analyzed the essay thesis and reiteration using appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005; Martin and Rose, 2007) to classify these segments into the categories open and closed with reference to the language of appraisal used in these textual segments. In appraisal theory, argumentation patterns in which monoglossic language choices predominate close down the possibilities for argument, whereas heteroglossic patterns open up the opportunity for disagreement and, hence, argumentation. This resulted in us being able to assign the category of closed or open to the thesis and reiteration. We used these categories to characterize five generic structures: 1) closed thesis, reiteration in conclusion; 2) open thesis, closed reiteration; 3) closed thesis, open reiteration; 4) open thesis, no position assumed; 5) closed thesis in conclusion. We found a preference for the generic structure 2, ‘open thesis, closed reiteration’, which occurred in seven of the essays in Spanish and six in English. Notably, we observed a high degree of variability in the patterns used indicating a lack of agreement in this community with regard to the norm for generic structure.Los géneros discursivos pueden variar de una cultura a otra (Connor, 2003) y estudios sugieren que los usuarios de una segunda lengua transfieren los patrones de una lengua hacia la otra (Upton and Connor, 2001; Woolever, 2001). Sin embargo, sabemos relativamente poco sobre el proceso de aprendizaje de la estructura genérica del género discursivo valorado de la argumentación por medio de ensayo. Para identificar los modelos utilizados por estudiantes universitarios mexicanos en este género, se analizaron 36 ensayos producidos por dieciocho estudiantes en español y en inglés como segunda lengua. Se analizaron las tesis y reiteración de tesis con referencia al uso del lenguaje de valoración en las mismas (Martin and White, 2005; Martin and Rose, 2007). El marco teórico de la valoración sirvió para identificar usos que cerraban la argumentación (monoglosia) y usos que abrían la argumentación (heteroglosia), a fin de clasificar después las tesis y reiteraciones en cerradas y abiertas. Esta clasificación sirvió para caracterizar cinco estructuras genéricas; 1) tesis cerrada, reiteración en conclusiones; 2) tesis abierta, reiteración cerrada; 3) tesis cerrada, reiteración abierta; 4) tesis abierta, sin postura; 5) tesis cerrada al final, sin reiteración. Se encontró una preferencia para el patrón 2, ‘tesis abierta/reiteración cerrada’, utilizado en siete ensayos en español y seis en inglés. Además, se observó una variación considerable en los patrones utilizados, indicando una falta de acuerdo en esta comunidad discursiva acerca de la norma en cuanto a la estructura genérica

Jesse Egbert, Douglas Biber, and Bethany Gray, Designing and Evaluating Language Corpora: A Practical Framework for Corpus Representativeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Book revie

Geohazard Survey from Air (GEOSFAIR) - Report from field test at Fonnbu March 2022

I mars/april 2022 gjennomførte Statens vegvesen, Norges geotekniske institutt og SINTEF en felttest med UAS med ulike instrumenter på forskningsstasjonen Fonnbu i Stryn. Formålet med testen var å evaluere bruken av instrumenterte droner til overvåking og vurdering av snøskredfare. Instrumentene som ble testet inkluderte optisk og termisk avbildning, laserskanning og georadar. Resulterende datasett inkluderte 3D-modeller (punktskyer og høydekart), multispektrale og radiometriske, termiske bilder og radargrammer.In March/April 2022, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and SINTEF performed a field test with UAS carrying different instruments at the research station Fonnbu in Stryn, Norway. The overall purpose was to evaluate the practical performance of UAS and sensors in field conditions towards the goal of assessing and monitoring snow avalanche hazard. The devices tested included optical and thermal imaging, laser scanning, and ground penetrating radar. Resulting geospatial datasets included 3D models (point clouds and elevation maps), multispectral and radiometric thermal images, and radargrams