MINORITY PARENTS AS RESEARCHERS: BEYOND A DICHOTOMY IN PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLING

This article documents the work of parent-driven research teams in two school boards in the Greater Toronto Area. Motivated by a desire to move beyond a school-centred/family-centred dichotomy, this parent-lead project explores a middle space for collective learning among multiple stakeholders in publiclyfunded schooling. Drawing on participatory action research and social capital theory, I outline a generic research approach and then provide a more detailed sketch of one full research cycle focused on the theme of discipline. I evaluate the relative successes of the project and conclude by prioritizing the quality of relationships within the research

Migrant Adult Language Learning in a Transnational Context

This presentation reports on the preliminary stages of a multi-year adult literacy project. The project is motivated by the intensity of contemporary global migration, where unprecedented numbers of adult migrants are forced into linguistically alien terrains and are often isolated and disadvantaged by language barriers preventing full participation in host societies. The project responds to this challenge with a comparative analysis of the formal and informal language learning experiences of adult migrants in three transit or destination countries characterized by an influx of newcomers: York Region, Ontario, Canada; Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States; and Agrigento, Sicily, Italy. Using a hybrid theoretical framework linking transnationalism (Glick Schiller, Basch & Szanton Blanc, 1995) and translanguaging (Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015), the project undertakes a fluid and multidirectional study of migration and conducts an analysis directed at the first-person experiences of language use in linguistically diverse contexts. Drawing on surveys and interviews, the project assesses migrants’ priorities for language learning, their agency in choosing language-learning opportunities and how language learning serves their needs. Supplementary perspectives from adult education providers and academics in migration-related fields inform evidence-based pedagogical and policy recommendations for how language-learning opportunities can support the social integration of adult migrants

The Frequency of Fire in East Texas Forests

The debate over the use of fire by Native Americans has been a lively one for many years. Did they or did they not set fires? If they did, how frequently and for what purpose? If not, did they take advantage of naturally occurring fires for the same purposes? If so, how frequently and to what intensity did those natural fires occur? These seem like relatively simple questions that should elicit focused, directed research that would, in tum, produce straightforward answers. In some parts of North America, this has indeed been the case. Ethnographic documentation, corroborated by archaeological research, has produced unequivocal evidence that the first Americans used fire extensively to manipulate the environment in which they lived. This article examines early historic accounts of Native American use of fire in Texas, and the frequency of natural fires. These data are important not only to our understanding of the extent to which humans altered the landscape, but also how plant communities adapted to fires. Often, we interpret paleoenvironmental data to reflect climatic changes. However, we must also understand the factors that may have contributed to these changes in pollen sequences and soil formation processes

Preliminary Assessment of Optimal Longitudinal-Mode Control for Drag Reduction through Distributed Aeroelastic Shaping

The emergence of advanced lightweight materials is resulting in a new generation of lighter, flexible, more-efficient airframes that are enabling concepts for active aeroelastic wing-shape control to achieve greater flight efficiency and increased safety margins. These elastically shaped aircraft concepts require non-traditional methods for large-scale multi-objective flight control that simultaneously seek to gain aerodynamic efficiency in terms of drag reduction while performing traditional command-tracking tasks as part of a complete guidance and navigation solution. This paper presents results from a preliminary study of a notional multi-objective control law for an aeroelastic flexible-wing aircraft controlled through distributed continuous leading and trailing edge control surface actuators. This preliminary study develops and analyzes a multi-objective control law derived from optimal linear quadratic methods on a longitudinal vehicle dynamics model with coupled aeroelastic dynamics. The controller tracks commanded attack-angle while minimizing drag and controlling wing twist and bend. This paper presents an overview of the elastic aircraft concept, outlines the coupled vehicle model, presents the preliminary control law formulation and implementation, presents results from simulation, provides analysis, and concludes by identifying possible future areas for researc

Payload-Directed Control of Geophysical Magnetic Surveys

Using non-navigational (e.g. imagers, scientific) sensor information in control loops is a difficult problem to which no general solution exists. Whether the task can be successfully achieved in a particular case depends highly on problem specifics, such as application domain and sensors of interest. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using magnetometer data for control feedback in the context of geophysical magnetic surveys. An experimental system was created and deployed to (a) assess sensor integration with autonomous vehicles, (b) investigate how magnetometer data can be used for feedback control, and (c) evaluate the feasibility of using such a system for geophysical magnetic surveys. Finally, we report the results of our experiments and show that payload-directed control of geophysical magnetic surveys is indeed feasible

Modeling Ka-band low elevation angle propagation statistics

The statistical variability of the secondary atmospheric propagation effects on satellite communications cannot be ignored at frequencies of 20 GHz or higher, particularly if the propagation margin allocation is such that link availability falls below 99 percent. The secondary effects considered in this paper are gaseous absorption, cloud absorption, and tropospheric scintillation; rain attenuation is the primary effect. Techniques and example results are presented for estimation of the overall combined impact of the atmosphere on satellite communications reliability. Statistical methods are employed throughout and the most widely accepted models for the individual effects are used wherever possible. The degree of correlation between the effects is addressed and some bounds on the expected variability in the combined effects statistics are derived from the expected variability in correlation. Example estimates are presented of combined effects statistics in the Washington D.C. area of 20 GHz and 5 deg elevation angle. The statistics of water vapor are shown to be sufficient for estimation of the statistics of gaseous absorption at 20 GHz. A computer model based on monthly surface weather is described and tested. Significant improvement in prediction of absorption extremes is demonstrated with the use of path weather data instead of surface data

Diversity Is an Important Classroom Resource

After-school programs, focused on immigrant students and their parents, can improve the performance of students and also get parents more involved in their children’s schooling. It is important to use diversity as a resource in the classroom.York's Knowledge Mobilization Unit provides services and funding for faculty, graduate students, and community organizations seeking to maximize the impact of academic research and expertise on public policy, social programming, and professional practice. It is supported by SSHRC and CIHR grants, and by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. [email protected] www.researchimpact.c

Opening Spaces of Possibility: The Enactive as a Qualitative Research Approach

In this jointly written article, reflexivity and subjectivity in qualitative research are addressed through an enactive view/approach incorporating embodied knowing. Inspired by MERLEAU-PONTY's (1962) concepts of embodied action, this approach implies that knowing emerges collectively through engagement in shared action. Embodied action brings forth an awareness of inquiry which is not attached to any one event or concept but is, rather, an un-grounding, as knowing is shaped by our actions with/in the world. Groundlessness is an exciting "space" where possibility arises for how we think about knowledge, cognition, and experience. If knowledge and learning are not located in a body, but in the shifting movement of experiencing, new possibilities emerge for how researchers perceive, interpret, research, and interact within the world. We cannot imagine ourselves just "operating in" research settings, and then leaving the cultures of which we are part. Nor can we ignore the ethics of research, since research is also the site of an ongoing ethical event implicating all those involved. Research informed by and respectful of complex worlds are instances of complicity where our research unfolds with/in communities-in-the-making. Opportunities for shared, relational, and embodied interpretation practices open as we share our research in situated contexts—the outdoors, within drama workshops, and in second language learning environments. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020314

Prevention, control, and elimination of neglected diseases in the Americas: Pathways to integrated, inter-programmatic, inter-sectoral action for health and development

BACKGROUND: In the Latin America and Caribbean region over 210 million people live below the poverty line. These impoverished and marginalized populations are heavily burdened with neglected communicable diseases. These diseases continue to enact a toll, not only on families and communities, but on the economically constrained countries themselves. DISCUSSION: As national public health priorities, neglected communicable diseases typically maintain a low profile and are often left out when public health agendas are formulated. While many of the neglected diseases do not directly cause high rates of mortality, they contribute to an enormous rate of morbidity and a drastic reduction in income for the most poverty-stricken families and communities. The persistence of this "vicious cycle" between poverty and poor health demonstrates the importance of linking the activities of the health sector with those of other sectors such as education, housing, water and sanitation, labor, public works, transportation, agriculture, industry, and economic development. SUMMARY: The purpose of this paper is three fold. First, it focuses on a need for integrated "pro-poor" approaches and policies to be developed in order to more adequately address the multi-faceted nature of neglected diseases. This represents a move away from traditional disease-centered approaches to a holistic approach that looks at the overarching causes and mechanisms that influence the health and well being of communities. The second objective of the paper outlines the need for a specific strategy for addressing these diseases and offers several programmatic entry points in the context of broad public health measures involving multiple sectors. Finally, the paper presents several current Pan American Health Organization and other institutional initiatives that already document the importance of integrated, inter-programmatic, and inter-sectoral approaches. They provide the framework for a renewed effort toward the efficient use of resources and the development of a comprehensive integrated solution to neglected communicable diseases found in the context of poverty, and tailored to the needs of local communities

Search for Resonant Diboson Production in the ℓℓQq¯ Final State in Pp Collisions at S√=8 TeV With the ATLAS Detector

This paper reports on a search for narrow resonances in diboson production in the ℓℓqq¯ final state using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1 collected at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess of data events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are set on the production cross section times branching ratio for Kaluza--Klein gravitons predicted by the Randall--Sundrum model and for Extended Gauge Model W' bosons. These results lead to the exclusion of mass values below 740 GeV and 1590 GeV for the graviton and W' boson respectively.Physic