Autonomy, participation, and learning in Argentine schools - findings andtheir implications for decentralization

According to a theoretical model, school autonomy and parental participation in schools, can increase student learning through separate channels. Greater school autonomy increases the rent that can be distributed among stakeholders in the school, while institutions for parental participation (such as school board) empower parents to command a larger share of this surplus - for example, through student learning. Using a rich cross-sectional data set from Argentine schools (sixth and seventh grades), the authors find that autonomy, and participation raise student test scores for a given level of inputs, in a multiplicative way, consistent with the model. Autonomy has a direct effect on learning (but not for very low levels of participation), while participation affects learning only through the mediation of the effect of autonomy. The results are robust to a variety of robustness checks, and for sub-samples of children from poor households, children of uneducated mothers, schools with low mean family wealth, and public schools. It is possible that autonomy, and participation are endogenously determined, and that this biases the results - the data available do not allow this to be ruled out with certainty. Plausible predicators of autonomy, and participation are also plausible predicators of test scores, and they fail tests for the over-identifying restrictions. Heuristically argued, however, the potential for correlation with unobserved variables may be limited: the data set is rich in observed variables, and autonomy and participation show very low correlation with observed variables. Subject to these caveats, the results may be relevant to decentralization in two ways. First, as decentralization moves responsibility from the central, toward the provincial or local government, the results should be directly relevant if the decentralization increases autonomy, and participation in schools. Second, if the results are interpreted as representing a more general effect of moving decision-making toward users, and the local community, the results are relevant even if little happens to autonomy, and participation in schools. More important, perhaps, the authors illustrate empirically the importance of knowing who is empowered when higher levels of government loosen control.Politics and Government,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Decentralization,Economic Theory&Research,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Politics and Government,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Updated calculations related to the additional closed season.

The length of the additional closed season which would need to be applied to the squid jig commercial sector to keep effort within the TAE has been re-calculated taking into account that the TAE recommendation for the 2019/20 fishing season by the Squid Scientific Working Group is 295 000 person-days, and further information about effort levels applied in the fishery over recent years. These calculations suggest that the additional closed season should remain of three months duration

Bridge-building between the 2017 and 2018 hake RC assessment models

A step-by-step set of results is given to indicate the various impacts of various changes made to the hake assessment Reference Case model over the past 12 months

Fairness as comparative desert

One prominent theory of fairness is John Broome's. This article identifies several problems with Broome's theory but defends Broome's claim that fairness requires the proportionate satisfaction of claims. This article also shows how Broome's conception of fairness is compatible with fairness as comparative desert

N2O emissions due to nitrogen fertilizer applications in two regions of sugarcane cultivation in Brazil.

Among the main greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4 and N2O), N2O has the highest global warming potential. N2O emission is mainly connected to agricultural activities, increasing as nitrogen concentrations increase in the soil with nitrogen fertilizer application. We evaluated N2O emissions due to application of increasing doses of ammonium nitrate and urea in two sugarcane fields in the mid-southern region of Brazil: Piracicaba (São Paulo state) and Goianésia (Goiás state). In Piracicaba, N2O emissions exponentially increased with increasing N doses and were similar for urea and ammonium nitrate up to a dose of 107.9 kg ha-1 of N. From there on, emissions nexponentially increased for ammonium nitrate, whereas for urea they stabilized. In Goianésia, N2O emissions nwere lower, although the behavior was similar to that at the Piracicaba site. Ammonium nitrate emissions increased linearly with N dose and urea emissions were adjusted to a quadratic equation with a maximum amount of 113.9 kg N ha-1. This first effort to measure fertilizer induced emissions in Brazilian sugarcane production not only helps to elucidate the behavior of N2O emissions promoted by different N sources frequently used in Brazilian sugarcane fields but also can be useful for future Brazilian ethanol carbon footprint studies

Estudos preliminares sobre o efeito da cafeína na duplicação cromossômica em plantas haplóides de cevada (Hordeum vulgare L.).

bitstream/CNPT-2010/40768/1/p-do109.pd

Bounce Conditions in f(R) Cosmologies

We investigate the conditions for a bounce to occur in Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmologies for the class of fourth order gravity theories. The general bounce criterion is determined and constraints on the parameters of three specific models are given in order to obtain bounces solutions. It is found that unlike the case of General Relativity, a bounce appears to be possible in open and flat cosmologies.Comment: 11 pages LaTe

Evidence of dysbiosis in the intestinal microbial ecosystem of children and adolescents with primary hyperlipidemia and the potential role of regular hazelnut intake

Hyperlipidemia starts at a pediatric age and represents an unquestionable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Modulation of the intestinal microbial ecosystem (IME), in principle, can ameliorate lipid profiles. In this study, we characterized the IME of children and adolescents with primary hyperlipidemia by analyzing fecal samples through 16S rRNA gene profiling (n\ua0=\ua015) and short chain fatty acid (SCFA) quantification (n\ua0=\ua032). The same analyses were also carried out on age-matched normolipidemic controls (n\ua0=\ua015). Moreover, we evaluated the modulatory effect of regular hazelnut intake (approximately 0.43 g of hazelnuts with skin per kg of body weight) on the IME of 15 children and adolescents with hyperlipidemia for eight weeks. We found alterations of numerous operational taxonomic units potentially associated with SCFA-producing bacteria and reductions in the fecal levels of acetate, butyrate and propionate in hyperlipidemic subjects. Furthermore, we observed that an eight-week hazelnut intervention may induce limited changes in fecal microbiota composition but can significantly modulate the fecal levels of predominant intestinal SCFAs, such as acetate. Finally, correlation analyses indicated that changes in lipidemic parameters are linked to modifications of the abundance of specific bacterial taxa, such as the families Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae and the genera Akkermansia, Bacteroides, Roseburia, and Faecalibacterium. This study suggests that children and adolescents with primary hyperlipidemia possess an altered IME. The promising results presented here support the need for future dietary interventions aimed at positively modulating the IME of hyperlipidemic subjects