The application of the principle of complementarity in situations referred to the international criminal court by the United Nations Security Council and in self-referred situations

Magister Legum - LL

The Unicity of a Blow-down.

In algebraic geometry, projective varieties are classified up to isomorphism. This involves classifying the varieties up to birational equivalence and classifying nonsingular varieties in each equivalence class up to isomorphism. Singular projective varieties are modified to less singular or nonsingular ones by blowing up the singularities. A blow up map contracts or blows down an exceptional divisor to a curve or a point. In surfaces, such maps (blow-downs) exist and are unique up to isomorphism and by the Castelnuovo contraction criterion, any curve that can be blown down is a -1 curve. In higher dimensional varieties, contraction morphisms/blow-downs are uniquely determined by the extremal rays which they contract. In this thesis, we present a result due to Lascu [1] on the uniqueness of a blow-down. Precisely, Lascu shows that any birational morphism f : X −→S that contracts a divisor D ⊂ X to a subvariety Y ⊂ S is a blow-down if and only if S is a nonsingular variety, D is a closed nonsingular divisor

The Development and Design of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

As one of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, I begin by explaining what the standards are, what they are not, and how they were developed. Then I detail some ways in which the standards differ from previous state standards. Finally, I describe some of the developments I have seen in the implementation of the standards and the key developments I would like to see in the future

N-qubit states as points on the Bloch sphere

We show how the Majorana representation can be used to express the pure states of an N-qubit system as points on the Bloch sphere. We compare this geometrical representation of N-qubit states with an alternative one, proposed recently by the present authors.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, contribution to CEWQO 2009 proceedings. v2: Minor changes, published versio

Analysis of students’ perception of good mathematics teachers and teaching using informal conversations from Twitter and Quora

The growing use of the social media in recent years has opened up the possibility of using social media data like Twitter and Q&S online discussion forum Quora for educational research purposes. While other disciplines -specially in health sciences- have used social media data successfully in obtaining valuable results the question still remains as to whether Twitter and Quora can provide significant results even for mathematics educational research, especially in terms of the perspectives of students with regard to good mathematics teachers and teaching. The objective of this research study was to analyse students’ understanding, thoughts, feelings and opinions about good mathematics teacher and teaching. This research study used two distinct already available data from social media platforms: Twitter and Quora. According to this research study, mathematics teachers are regarded as good when he or she is a good motivator who cares and concern about students, has good sound of mathematics and passionate about teaching and their students, being supportive and encouraging.El uso creciente de las redes sociales en los últimos años ha abierto la posibilidad de utilizar datos de redes sociales como Twitter y el foro de discusión en línea de preguntas y respuestas Quora con fines de investigación educativa. Mientras que otras disciplinas, especialmente en Ciencias de la Salud, han utilizado con éxito los datos de las redes sociales para obtener valiosos resultados, la pregunta sigue siendo si Twitter y Quora pueden proporcionar resultados también relevantes para la investigación educativa en matemáticas, especialmente en términos de las perspectivas de los estudiantes con respecto a la buena docencia en matemáticas y a los buenos docentes de matemáticas. El objetivo de este estudio de investigación fue el de analizar la comprensión, los pensamientos, los sentimientos y las opiniones de los estudiantes sobre lo que significa ser un buen profesor de matemáticas y lo que es una buena docencia en matemáticas. Este estudio de investigación utilizó datos ya disponibles de dos plataformas sociales: Twitter y Quora. Los resultados muestran que los docentes de matemáticas son considerados buenos docentes cuando motivan, se preocupan por los estudiantes, tienen una buena comprensión de la disciplina y muestran pasión por la enseñanza y por sus estudiantes, apoyándolos y alentándolos.Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales y ExperimentalesMáster en Investigación Aplicada a la Educació

How I see addition facts

At a Saturday School, work with flashcards is customized to a student’s current state of mastery

A pilot study on the development and testing of an instrument for assessment of dependency needs of older persons in South Africa

Bibliographical references.With the advent of the new government and the end of the apartheid era, the Department of Welfare investigated methods whereby the demand for equitable access to state subsidised homes for the aged might be met. It was decided to develop an instrument to assess dependency needs of older persons that might warrant admission to homes for the aged. Financial constraints dictated that only 2% of those over the age of 65 years could be institutionalised in state subsidised homes. An instrument with high specificity and sensitivity and good face and construct validity was required in order not to exclude the needy or include the undeserving in subsidised institutional care. The instrument formerly used in South Africa was designed to assess dependency needs of urban-living individuals and assumed relative affluence in contrast to the reality of the situation of the bulk of the South African population. The instrument was deficient in that it assessed only mental and physical disabilities. It did not take into account the wide disparities relating to primary needs (such as water, food, sanitation and security) that exist among communities with widely disparate socio-economic status. Since South Africa is a developing country, a significant component of the elderly population live in extreme poverty, often in rural subsistence-economy conditions. Instruments used in other countries, which assume a certain level affluence, are thus not applicable to the majority of the South African population

High precision GPS data processing for the survey of South African tide gauges

Bibliography: leaves 72-78

Effects of Water Quality on Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico

In many aquatic systems, incidences of low oxygen (hypoxia) waters have been causally linked to increased nutrient concentrations. The Mississippi River accounts for approximately 80-90% of the freshwater inflow to the Gulf of Mexico; water quality in the Mississippi River should serve as a indicator of conditions in the Gulf. Near its mouth, the Mississippi River splits, with approximately one-third of its discharge diverted into the Atchafalaya River. A review of the literature (primarily peer reviewed journals and technical publications) suggests that the Mississippi River waters enriches the Gulf of Mexico and this enrichment has increased in recent years. However, 21 years of data collected and published by the United States Geological Survey indicates no change in total phosphorus. Nitrogen values for the Mississippi River have increased (concomitantly with a decline in nitrogen values in the Atchafalaya River). There is good evidence that hypoxic areas in the Gulf of Mexico have increased following the 1993 flooding of the central midwestern United States. The timing and intensity of river discharge into the Mississippi River apparently controls the duration and extent of hypoxia within the Gulf of Mexico

The Association of Perceived, Internalized, and Enacted HIV Stigma With Medication Adherence, Barriers to Adherence, and Mental Health Among Young People Living With HIV in Zambia

Few studies have examined the independent effects of different manifestations of HIV stigma experiences on health outcomes among youth living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries. We examined the association of internalized, enacted, and perceived HIV stigmas with medication adherence, self-esteem, depression, and barriers to adherence. Young people living with HIV aged 18-21 years (N = 120) were purposively sampled from two health facilities in Eastern Province, Zambia, and completed self-report measures. Results indicated heterogeneous associations. Internalized HIV stigma was positively associated with depression and negatively associated with adherence, adherence motivation, behavioral adherence skills, and self-esteem. Perceived stigma was negatively associated with self-esteem. No significant association was observed between enacted stigma and health outcomes. The complexity of HIV stigma requires a precise explication of the associations among different HIV stigma experiences and outcomes, which can inform the development of stigma reduction interventions targeting one or more stigma experiences