Quality Measures for Agent-Oriented Software

The popularity of software agents and multiagent systems has increased, and this is now one of the most active areas in informatics research and development. Agent-oriented software engineering is a new paradigm. But no paradigm would be complete without a means for measuring its quality. This work is the result of an investigation in order to evaluate characteristics of a software agent, measuring its most relevant characteristics. For this, we consider the three most important characteristics of a software agent: its social ability, autonomy and proactivity. Measurable attributes are defined for each feature and then are defined measures to evaluate each attribute, and from these values obtain the value of the characteristics considered are proposed. To validate these measures are applied to a case study

Teachers and Staff\u27s Perceptions of an Antiracist and Dual Language Bilingual Program at an Urban School

This study was conducted in an urban school in the Midwestern region of the United States that implements a two-way bilingual (English- Spanish) and an antiracist program. The focus of the study was to learn about the teachers and staff\u27s perceptions of these two programs. While the study revealed challenges in both programs that can weaken their implementation; most teachers and staff at the school shared a common understanding about antiracist principles. However the school\u27s dual language program was subtractive to minority students (Valenzuela, 1999) since the quality of the Spanish language and culture offered at the school was limited. Highlighting the majority language over the minority language and depriving minority students from developing their language and culture, resulted in the school\u27s perpetration of linguistic racism, contradicting the antiracist values they aim to promote through their antiracist program.   These findings based on the school\u27s teachers and staff insight cam help analyze and improve both programs in the school, as well as antiracist and dual language programs in general

Educación contra el racismo: educación que reconoce la existencia del racismo y lo combate dentro y fuera del aula

Antiracist education aims to promote among teachers and students a critical examination of the historical, political and economic roots of racism in order to provide understanding of current practices, social barriers and new approaches to collective existence of diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups in today’s society.La educación contra el racismo pretende promover entre profesorado y alumnado un examen crítico de las raíces históricas, políticas y económicas del racismo. El objetivo consiste en facilitar la comprensión de prácticas habituales, barreras sociales y nuevos enfoques de la existencia colectiva de diversos grupos culturales, étnicos y lingüísticos en nuestra sociedad actual.Facultad de Educación y Humanidades - Campus de Melilla (Universidad de Granada

\u3cem\u3eGirls\u3c/em\u3e will be Girls: Discourse, Poststructuralist Feminism, and Media Presentations of Women

This study examines presentations of women in the media through Foucauldian critical discourse analysis in order to explore dominant ideas of gender and femininity embedded within D/discourses that constrain the lived experiences of women. Specifically, this study explores the television show Girls as a text presenting particular knowledge of femininity. By engaging in an interpretive analysis of the ways femininity is presented in both public and private presentations of gender in Girls, I reveal how women make sense of past and negotiate future public performances of femininity in private. Further, I deconstruct a specific scene of Girls to reveal hidden meanings of femininity and expose how performing docility conforms with normalized expectations of being a woman. This study uses a poststructural feminist lens to critically inspect the suppressed meanings of gender within the text of Girls and offers hope for opening up multiple meanings of femininity within the D/discourses of gender and media

The evolution, structure and market for birding tourism in South Africa.

The aim of this study was to define the structure, size and evolution and growth of one of the contributing markets to recent tourism growth in South Africa, bird watching tourism. Regarded as one of the fastest growing niche ecotourism markets both internationally and in South Africa, this report traces the growth patterns and outlines the organisation and structure of the sub-sector in South Africa. The report also provides an estimate of the market’s potential contribution to the tourism economy in South Africa. The findings presented in this report are based on original interviews with 12 individuals in the birding, conservation and government sector. A wide variety of documentary sources including the 2009 Kaiser Associates report on Bird watching in South Africa and the recently published report on the South African birding watching tourism industry report by the Department of Trade and Industry have also informed the findings and content of this report. Again, findings on the demand and supply elements of birding in South Africa were analysed from 68 individually collected and an online based survey conducted amongst birders and specialised birding tour operators. Amongst the major findings of the study is the fact the growth of birding tourism in South Africa is largely run by BirdLife South Africa through its 80 year old nationwide network of more than 50 community clubs or branches which mobilise and induct new birders and volunteers into bird watching. Most critical about the bird clubs are the several day, weekend and bird monitoring events and outings that are organised by the each of the clubs. It has been shown that local birders attend approximately 31 birding events and outings and spend R1415 per annum per trip excluding spend on, birding services and equipment per annum. There are between 13000 to 24000 bird watchers in South Africa and that between 8000 and 16000 international birders visit South Africa per annum (the dti, 2010). Based on these numbers, this study has shown that birding tourism industry contributes between R 809 million to R 1.668 billion per annum to South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product

A Split Second

Is graduation really the beginning? Kelvin discusses his attitude towards the seemingly brief experience that is high school and college commencement

Teacher Alienation: Reconceptualizing the Educational Work Environment

The following dissertation examined the relationship between dissatisfaction found within teacher working conditions and Melvin Seeman\u27s theory of alienation. More specifically, it showed that all forms of teacher dissatisfaction engender feelings of alienation and that the oppressive nature of alienation is the root cause of all the negative consequences associated with teacher dissatisfaction. After an introduction, the literature review presents detailed descriptions of Seeman\u27s theory of alienation, Paulo Freire\u27s theory of empowerment, and the latest information surrounding the issue of teacher dissatisfaction. Next, qualitative narratives from interviews with six teachers about their experiences with dissatisfaction are presented. The researcher then shows how the participants\u27 answers matched the information from the literature surrounding dissatisfaction. The alienation framework is then applied to the data to show its presence within the teachers\u27 experiences. Once the narratives are shown to be connected to both the dissatisfaction and alienation literature, the researcher discusses how alienation is an inextricable part of dissatisfying working conditions. An analysis is then presented to explain how alienation plays a foundational role in creating detrimental educational environments. Finally, possible solutions and further research possibilities are detailed