The extent and practice of inclusion in independent schools in South Africa

In line with international trends in education, South Africa has embraced inclusive education as the means by which learners who experience barriers to learning will be educated. As inclusion is beginning to be realised in South African schools, a gap in the emerging research base on inclusive education is that of inclusion in the independent sector. A study was undertaken to establish the extent to which learners who experience barriers to learning are included in independent schools belonging to ISASA (the largest independent schools association in South Africa) and the practices that facilitate inclusion. The results of a survey administered to principals were analysed quantitatively and reveal that most ISASA schools include learners who experience various barriers to learning and employ inclusive practices that are described in the international literature. We report on salient aspects emerging from the study and focus on the diversity of learners found in ISASA schools, as well as the inclusive practices found at school-wide, classroom, and individual levels. The practices described are the provision of on-site specialist personnel, support for teachers, building modifications to ensure access by persons using wheelchairs and various instructional practices and assessment adaptations. Recommendations arising from the study may give direction to South African schools pursuing inclusivity. South African Journal of Education Vol. 29 (1) 2009: pp. 105-12

The 1997 Clark Landfill Failure at Indiana Harbor Works LTV Steel Company, East Chicago, Indiana

A rapid failure of approximately 900,000 cubic yards of fill and lake bed foundation soil occurred sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., on August 6, 1997. The 45-acre landfill was approximately 100 feet higher than Lake Michigan and slid on a layer of weak silty clay located 55 to 60 feet below the water surface of Lake Michigan. The horizontally-translating slide mass nearly blocked the operating intake flume to the No. 2 Intake Pump House for the steel mill cooling water. Figure 1 shows the plan location of the slide mass and scarp location. The slide mass extended approximately 1,000 feet from the southwest fill area to a location east of the cofferdam that holds an oil boom along the south side of the landfill next to the intake flume. Pre-failure and failure conditions with estimated slide plane location and scarp geometry for failure sections A-A, B-B and C-C are shown on Figures 2 through 4. The slide extended 200 to 300 feet north from the flume up to a 30- to 40-foot high scarp. The slide mass moved approximately a a 30- to 40-foot high scarp. The slide mass moved approximately 30 feet into the canal and moved the cofferdam structure at least 10 feet south. In fact, the slide mass filled more than 400 feet of the 25-foot-deep, by 140-foot-wide flume and nearly blocked the flume with only 3 to 4 feet of water flowing when the channel was 20 to 25 feet deep

Satellite photography as a geographic tool for land use mapping of the southwestern United States Technical report, 1 Jul. 1968 - 31 Jan. 1970

Photointerpretation of satellite-borne photography for mapping and land use studie

Probing the Local Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function with Gaia

The Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function (PNLF) remains an important extragalactic distance indicator despite a still limited understanding of its most important feature - the bright cut-off. External galaxies benefit from consistent distance and extinction, which makes determining the PNLF easier but detailed study of individual objects much more difficult. Now, the advent of parallaxes from the Gaia mission has dramatically improved distance estimates to planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Milky Way. We have acquired ground-based narrowband imagery and measured the [OIII] fluxes for a volume-limited sample of hundreds of PNe whose best distance estimates from Gaia parallaxes and statistical methods place them within 3 kpc of the Sun. We present the first results of our study, comparing the local PNLF to other galaxies with different formation histories, and discussing how the brightness of the PNe relates to the evolutionary state of their central stars and the properties of the nebula.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium 384: Planetary Nebulae: a Universal Toolbox in the Era of Precision Astrophysic

Proportional green time scheduling for traffic lights

We consider the decentralized scheduling of a large number of urban traffic lights. We investigate factors determining system performance, in particular, the length of the traffic light cycle and the proportion of green time allocated to each junction. We study the effect of the length of the traffic cycle on the stability region a urban traffic network. We derive a simple square-root cycle length rule which is optimal for certain road traffic junctions. We prove the maximal stability of a road network under a proportional fair or P0 control scheme. Further, we support of analysis through a simulation analysis of our policy on the Melbourne CBD urban road network

High-z radio starbursts host obscured X-ray AGN

We use Virtual Observatory methods to investigate the association between radio and X-ray emission at high redshifts. Fifty-five of the 92 HDF(N) sources resolved by combining MERLIN+VLA data were detected by Chandra, of which 18 are hard enough and bright enough to be obscured AGN. The high-z population of microJy radio sources is dominated by starbursts an order of magnitude more active and more extended than any found at z<1 and at least a quarter of these simultaneously host highly X-ray-luminous obscured AGN.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, To appear in the proceedings of 'At the Edge of the Universe' (9-13 October 2006, Sintra, Portugal

One dimensional drift-diffusion between two absorbing boundaries: application to granular segregation

Motivated by a novel method for granular segregation, we analyze the one dimensional drift-diffusion between two absorbing boundaries. The time evolution of the probability distribution and the rate of absorption are given by explicit formulae, the splitting probability and the mean first passage time are also calculated. Applying the results we find optimal parameters for segregating binary granular mixtures.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 6 figure