The state of the art of english language teaching in three public schools in Pereira

El presente proyecto de investigación tiene como objetivo principal explorar las realidades de la enseñanza y aprendizaje del inglés en tres colegios públicos de la ciudad de Pereira. De igual forma, el estudio busca contribuir en un diagnóstico acerca de los métodos que los docentes de inglés utilizan dentro del aula de clase y cómo sus prácticas se relacionan con los principios establecidos por el Ministerio de Educación Nacional sobre la enseñanza del inglés en Colombia. Finalmente el estudio pretende identificar los factores que influyen en el proceso de aprendizaje de una segunda lengua. El proyecto se llevó a cabo con la participación de estudiantes de sexto a once grado elegidos aleatoriamente y seis profesores del área de inglés de tres colegios públicos de Pereira, entre ellos uno perteneciente a la zona rural. Para la recolección de información se utilizaron observaciones, notas de campo, cuestionarios y entrevistas. Los resultados de la presente investigación demuestran que algunas técnicas asociadas con el Método de Gramática y Traducción son utilizadas por los profesores de inglés participantes de este proyecto ya que las clases se enfocan en el estudio de estructuras gramaticales y en la traducción de textos de la lengua de estudio a la lengua materna. Igualmente se observó que la lengua extranjera no se utiliza para propósitos comunicativos sino en situaciones puntuales tales como: el uso de comandos cortos, presentación de reglas gramaticales, y en la pronunciación de palabras aisladas lo que limita la oportunidad de que los estudiantes desarrollen habilidades tanto receptivas como productivas en la segunda lengua. En las clases observadas y en las entrevistas a profesores y alumnos se hizo evidente que la carencia de un enfoque comunicativo en el que se practique la lengua en situaciones de la vida real afectó la motivación y el interés de los estudiantes por la clase de inglés. Los estudiantes expresaron el deseo de implementar clases más comunicativas con trabajo en equipo, juegos de rol y recursos didácticos. Por otra parte, los comentarios dados por los profesores de inglés revelaron que la falta de clases más comunicativas se debe a la escasez de recursos pedagógicos en las instituciones. La cantidad de estudiantes por salón es más alta a los recursos que se les facilita a los profesores.The present research project is intended to explore the realities of teaching and learning English in three public schools of Pereira city. The project also seeks to contribute to a diagnosis of the methods that English teachers use in class and the way in which their teaching practices correspond to the principles established by the National Ministry of Education with respect to the teaching of English in Colombia; and finally, to identify factors that influence the English learning process. The study was conducted with the participation of students from sixth to eleventh grade chosen randomly and six language teachers of three public schools in Pereira, one of them belonging to a rural zone. The instruments used to gather information were observations, field notes, interviews and questionnaires. The outcomes of the research indicate that some techniques associated with the Grammar Translation Method were used by the English teachers we observed since their classes were focused on the study of grammatical rules and the translation of texts from the target language to the mother tongue. Also, it was observed that the English language was not employed for communicative purposes but was only used in specific situations such as the practice of short commands, presentation of grammatical rules, and the pronunciation of isolated words which give few opportunities for students to develop receptive as well as productive skills. During the classroom observations and interviews of teachers and learners, it was evidenced that the need of a communicative approach to practice the target language based on real situations affected the students’ motivation for the English class. Learners expressed their desire to include more communicative activities with group work, role plays and didactic resources. On the other hand, the comments made by English teachers suggested that the lack of communicative activities was due to a shortage of pedagogical resources. Teachers said that the resources of the schools are not enough to the amount of students per class

Scope and Predictive Genetic/Phenotypic Signatures of Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) Responsiveness and β-Lactam Sensitization in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Addition of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to standard antimicrobial susceptibility testing medium reveals certain methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains to be highly susceptible to β-lactams. We investigated the prevalence of this phenotype (NaHCO3 responsiveness) to two β-lactams among 58 clinical MRSA bloodstream isolates. Of note, ∼75% and ∼36% of isolates displayed the NaHCO3 responsiveness phenotype to cefazolin (CFZ) and oxacillin (OXA), respectively. Neither intrinsic β-lactam MICs in standard Mueller-Hinton broth (MHB) nor population analysis profiles were predictive of this phenotype. Several genotypic markers (clonal complex 8 [CC8]; agr I and spa t008) were associated with NaHCO3 responsiveness for OXA

AS DIMENSÕES DOS PRODUTOS INTELIGENTES: UM ESTUDO EXPLORATÓRIO A PARTIR DA PERCEPÇÃO DOS USUÁRIOS DE SMARTPHONES

RESUMOO presente trabalho teve como objetivo explorar a percepção das dimensões-chave percebidas pelos usuários de produtos inteligentes que são: autonomia, capacidade de aprender, reatividade, capacidade de cooperação, interação humana e personalidade. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa, por meio de 15 entrevistas em profundidade utilizando questionário semiestruturado. Para análise de conteúdo das entrevistas em profundidade foi utilizado software Nvivo Plus. A análise de cluster revelou a relação entre as dimensões habilidade para cooperar e interação humana, bem como a dimensão autonomia com habilidade para aprender. Como principais resultados, pode-se afirmar que este trabalho resultou em maior entendimento da percepção das seis dimensões-chave bem como sua relação, frequência e importância para os usuários. Além disso, identificou-se três dimensões adicionais: segurança, desempenho e status, sendo a dimensão status um resultado da percepção integrada de todas as outras dimensões.Palavras-chave: Produtos Inteligentes. Smartphone. iPhone. Dimensões-chave dos produtos inteligentes.ABSTRACTThe present work aimed to explore the perception of key dimensions perceived by users of smart products that are: autonomy, ability to learn, reactivity, capacity for cooperation, human interaction and personality. For that, a qualitative research was carried out, through 15 interviews in depth using semi-structured questionnaire. NVivo® software was used for in-depth interview content analysis. Cluster analysis revealed the relationship between the dimensions of ability to cooperate and human interaction, as well as the dimension of autonomy with ability to learn. As main results, it can be affirmed that this work resulted in a greater understanding of the perception of the six key dimensions as well as their relation, frequency and importance for the users. In addition, three additional dimensions were identified: security, performance, and status; the status dimension being a result of the integrated perception of all other dimensions.Keywords: Smart products. Smartphone. iPhone. Smart products key-dimensions

Chromospheric heating due to cancellation of quiet Sun internetwork fields

The heating of the solar chromosphere remains one of the most important questions in solar physics. Our current understanding is that small-scale internetwork (IN) magnetic fields play an important role as a heating agent. Indeed, cancellations of IN magnetic elements in the photosphere can produce transient brightenings in the chromosphere and transition region. These bright structures might be the signature of energy release and plasma heating, probably driven by magnetic reconnection of IN field lines. Although single events are not expected to release large amounts of energy, their global contribution to the chromosphere may be significant due to their ubiquitous presence in quiet Sun regions. In this paper we study cancellations of IN elements and analyze their impact on the energetics and dynamics of the quiet Sun atmosphere. We use high resolution, multiwavelength, coordinated observations obtained with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) to identify cancellations of IN magnetic flux patches and follow their evolution. We find that, on average, these events live for ~3 minutes in the photosphere and ~12 minutes in the chromosphere and/or transition region. Employing multi-line inversions of the Mg II h & k lines we show that cancellations produce clear signatures of heating in the upper atmospheric layers. However, at the resolution and sensitivity accessible to the SST, their number density still seems to be one order of magnitude too low to explain the global chromospheric heating.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Animations of Figures 5, 9 and 11 are available at http://www.lmsal.com/~mgosic/download/animations_fig_5_9_11.ta

ASL Citizen: A Community-Sourced Dataset for Advancing Isolated Sign Language Recognition

Sign languages are used as a primary language by approximately 70 million D/deaf people world-wide. However, most communication technologies operate in spoken and written languages, creating inequities in access. To help tackle this problem, we release ASL Citizen, the first crowdsourced Isolated Sign Language Recognition (ISLR) dataset, collected with consent and containing 83,399 videos for 2,731 distinct signs filmed by 52 signers in a variety of environments. We propose that this dataset be used for sign language dictionary retrieval for American Sign Language (ASL), where a user demonstrates a sign to their webcam to retrieve matching signs from a dictionary. We show that training supervised machine learning classifiers with our dataset advances the state-of-the-art on metrics relevant for dictionary retrieval, achieving 63% accuracy and a recall-at-10 of 91%, evaluated entirely on videos of users who are not present in the training or validation sets. An accessible PDF of this article is available at the following link: https://aashakadesai.github.io/research/ASLCitizen_arxiv_updated.pd

Challenges of public education in Brazil: Notes on school, the family and the community

This paper proposed to delimit as an object of study the “Challenges faced by Public Education in Brazil”, without the purpose of verifying the quality of education in the national territory. We understand that it is necessary for the school, the family and the community to walk together, so that socio-educational quality can be achieved. Therefore, an analysis of the main productions available on the subject is necessary. Although access to Elementary Education is practically universal, Brazil still faces the great problem of the precarious quality of education offered in its schools. Thus, the general objective of this work is to analyze the strategies that can be used by the school, the family and the community to implement the qualification of public education, specifically in Paraíba. Thus, subsidies to exercise and studies on the subject arise. This work is bibliographic and documental, under a qualitative approach, since it is understood as a social quality strategy and legal regulations through documents and bibliographic materials related to the strategies can be used by the school, family and community, to carry out the qualification of the public education, in Paraíba

Background choice and immobility as context dependent tadpole responses to perceived predation risk

The association of immobility and camouflage is widespread as a defensive mechanism in prey from varied taxa. However, many experiments assessing the reaction of prey to predator cues are conducted under artificial laboratory conditions. In a previous experiment we observed the tadpoles of Ololygon machadoi (Hylidae) to respond to predator visual and/or chemical cues by choosing backgrounds that improve their disruptive properties, but detected no associated reduction of movement. Here we experimentally demonstrate this response in the species’ natural habitat, on backgrounds where the tadpoles are likely to achieve their best camouflage. We also tested whether previous experiences could influence both background choice and immobility in O. machadoi tadpoles. These novel experimental results suggest that a defensive behavior—i.e., reduction of movement—in these tadpoles is more strongly expressed under the natural conditions where they evolved, compared to laboratory conditions where prey and predator were brought into closer contact. Besides, previous experiences are likely to play an important role in expressed defensive responses

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London