Efficacy of teachers in a number of selected schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa

No Abstract Available South African Journal of Education Vol.25(1) 2005: 38-4

Violence as an impediment to a culture of teaching and learning in some South African schools

School violence in South Africa has a long history. Despite the introduction of a new democratic political dispensation in 1994, it appears that violence in schools has not abated. School violence unfortunately impacts negatively on a culture of learning and teaching. In this project, the nature and extent of violence in schools among a sample of learners was investigated. It was found inter alia that school violence has indeed remained a serious problem among these learners and has impacted deleteriously on the culture of teaching and learning in their schools. Two solutions for the eradication of the problem are suggested. South African Journal of Education Vol.24(2) 2004: 170-17

Die uitdagings van MIV/VIGS-opvoeding vir die 'gewone' klas- en vakonderwyser: ’n prinsipiële besinning

The challenges of HIV/AIDS education for the 'ordinary' class and subject teacher: A principial reflection HIV/AIDS has become a wide-spread epidemic. It has already claimed thousands of lives and many others are infected daily. HIV/AIDS education forms an important facet in the struggle against the disease, also in schools where ‘ordinary’ teachers (i.e. not professional AIDS practitioners) find themselves having to deal with classes of students in which learners infected by HIV or suffering from full-blown AIDS might be present. HIV/AIDS education confronts these teachers with several challenges. Feedback from an empirical survey in a province of South Africa where HIV/AIDS has assumed rampant proportions revealed that, while these ‘ordinary’ teachers were quite prepared to become involved in the struggle against HIV/AIDS, they did not see themselves as adequately equipped and prepared for the task. A number of recommendations are made to deal with this shortcoming in their training

New development: Directly elected mayors in Italy: creating a strong leader doesn’t mean creating strong leadership

More than 20 years after their introduction, directly elected mayors are key players in Italian urban governance. This article explains the main effects of this reform on local government systems and provides lessons for other countries considering directly elected mayors

Marvels and Pitfalls of the Langevin Algorithm in Noisy High-Dimensional Inference

Gradient-descent-based algorithms and their stochastic versions have widespread applications in machine learning and statistical inference. In this work, we carry out an analytic study of the performance of the algorithm most commonly considered in physics, the Langevin algorithm, in the context of noisy high-dimensional inference. We employ the Langevin algorithm to sample the posterior probability measure for the spiked mixed matrix-tensor model. The typical behavior of this algorithm is described by a system of integrodifferential equations that we call the Langevin state evolution, whose solution is compared with the one of the state evolution of approximate message passing (AMP). Our results show that, remarkably, the algorithmic threshold of the Langevin algorithm is suboptimal with respect to the one given by AMP. This phenomenon is due to the residual glassiness present in that region of parameters. We also present a simple heuristic expression of the transition line, which appears to be in agreement with the numerical results

What influences prescribing in General Practice? : an ethnographic exploration

Prescribing accounts for 11% of the total NHS budget. In the UK, there is an aging population who receive nearly half of all prescriptions, with the increasing age of the population, the prevalence of long-term conditions, cost and complexity of prescribing is likely to rise. Prescribing is influenced by numerous factors such as new drugs; aging populations; polypharmacy; and increased concern about adverse reactions. Although numerous initiatives are targeted at general practitioners to encourage application of research evidence the significant variation in prescribing quality and cost is difficult to explain. Previous studies have explored the influences of type of drug, focused clinical area, guidelines and the doctor/patient relationship. No study was found which has explored the details of the prescribing process using the ethnographic approach. This ethnographic study of three different general practices, involved participant observation, documentary review and semi-structured interviews. Analysis was an iterative process conducted in Atlas.ti by borrowing on grounded theory techniques and interpretative description. Practices were selected using prescribing quality indicators developed by Audit Scotland via PRISMS (Prescribing Information System for Scotland), which collects prescribing data for all practices in Scotland. Two practices which were ranked highly and one practice which was ranked low were observed. Practices made two different kinds of prescribing decision; macro and micro. Macro prescribing decisions are strategic, influenced by EBM and practice data, and consider the „average patient?. Micro prescribing decisions are made with an individual patient, considering their unique biology, context and perspectives. Practice pharmacists were instrumental in leading prescribing quality improvement in the larger practices and had an important role interpreting practice level data in light of the changing evidence. In the high ranking practices these changes were formulated into macro prescribing policy to rationalise and standardise their prescribing. The lower ranking practice suggested practices had to value collective decision-making and consistency in their prescribing behaviour to formulate a macro prescribing policy. Consistency in prescribing behaviour was facilitated by effective communication, which was important for shared values and practice identity. Practice identity influenced practice values, communication and organisation thus had a direct impact on their macro prescribing policy formulation and implementation. GPs used mindlines when making prescribing decisions at the micro prescribing level. GPs did not refer to explicit sources when seeking information but used personal prescribing formularies. These mindlines were iteratively developed from social networks with colleagues, secondary care and patient specific information from the practice pharmacist and from past experience. Through effective communication with colleagues these mindlines were shared.In conclusion, practices made two different kinds of prescribing decision; macro and micro. Both types of prescribing were dependent on effective communication channels, organisation, values and practice identity, illustrating the importance of communication for shared values, collective behaviour and prescribing decision-making.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceChief Scientisits OfficeGBUnited Kingdo

On the high-density expansion for Euclidean Random Matrices

Diagrammatic techniques to compute perturbatively the spectral properties of Euclidean Random Matrices in the high-density regime are introduced and discussed in detail. Such techniques are developed in two alternative and very different formulations of the mathematical problem and are shown to give identical results up to second order in the perturbative expansion. One method, based on writing the so-called resolvent function as a Taylor series, allows to group the diagrams in a small number of topological classes, providing a simple way to determine the infrared (small momenta) behavior of the theory up to third order, which is of interest for the comparison with experiments. The other method, which reformulates the problem as a field theory, can instead be used to study the infrared behaviour at any perturbative order.Comment: 29 page

Glioblastoma cusa fluid protein profiling: A comparative investigation of the core and peripheral tumor zones

The present investigation aimed to characterize the protein profile of cavitating ultrasound aspirator fluid of newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma comparing diverse zones of collection, i.e., tumor core and tumor periphery, with the aid of 5\u2010aminolevulinic acid fluorescence. The samples were pooled and analyzed in triplicate by LC\u2010MS following the shotgun proteomic approach. The identified proteins were then grouped to disclose elements exclusive and common to the tumor state or tumor zones and submitted to gene ontology classification and pathway overrepresentation analysis. The proteins common to the distinct zones were further investigated by relative quantitation, following a label free approach, to disclose possible differences of expression. Nine proteins, i.e., tubulin 2B chain, CD59, far upstream element\u2010binding, CD44, histone H1.4, caldesmon, osteopontin, tropomyosin chain and metallothionein\u20102, marked the core of newly diagnosed glioblastoma with respect to tumor periphery. Considering the tumor zone, including the core and the fluorescence positive periphery, the serine glycine biosynthesis, pentose phosphate, 5\u2010 hydroxytryptamine degredation, de novo purine biosynthesis and huntington disease pathways resulted statistically significantly overrepresented with respect to the human genome of reference. The fluorescence negative zone shared several protein elements with the tumor zone, possibly indicating the presence of pathological aspects of glioblastoma rather than of normal brain parenchyma. On the other hand, its exclusive protein elements were considered to represent the healthy zone and, accordingly, exhibiting no pathways overrepresentation. On the contrary to newly diagnosed glioblastoma, pathway overrepresentation was recognized only in the healthy zone of recurrent glioblastoma. The TGF\u3b2 signaling pathway, exclusively classified in the fluorescence negative periphery in newly diagnosed glioblastoma, was instead the exclusive pathway classified in the tumor core of recurrent glioblastoma. These results, preliminary obtained on sample pools, demonstrated the potential of cavitron ultrasonic sur gical aspirate fluid for proteomic profiling of glioblastoma able to distinguish molecular features specific of the diverse tumor zones and tumor states, possibly contributing to the understanding of the highly infiltrative capability and recurrent rate of this aggressive brain tumor and opening to potential clinical applications to be further investigated