Assistive Technology at Work

[Excerpt] Although an immediate transition into an institution of higher learning is ideal for some students who relied on assistive technology in high school, many make the decision to enter the workforce after graduation. It is estimated that about 85 percent of students with learning disabilities (LD) transition directly from school to work.1 Furthermore, statistics addressing employment among people with disabilities indicate that the workplace consists of approximately 18.6 million people with disabilities, ranging in age from 16 to 64. This represents about 56% of all people with disabilities in this age category.2 Given the vast number people with disabilities in the workplace, the potential for assistive technology (AT) to increase productivity is great

Accommodations and Compliance Series: Employees with Learning Disabilities

[Excerpt] The Accommodation and Compliance Series is a starting point in the accommodation process and may not address every situation. Accommodations should be made on a case by case basis, considering each employee\u27s individual limitations and accommodation needs. Employers are encouraged to contact JAN to discuss specific situations in more detail

Camada prototípica de um conceito: O tipo de cultura inglesa "detetive particular"

The theory of culture types has been developing within the cultural studies for the past decade.  Сonsiderable scholarship has been developed regarding the concept of “culture type” which is understood as a generalized recognizable representative of society, whose behavior reflects his attitudes and values of a particular group of people or society. Сulture types emerge on the basis of real or fictional individuals. In English language consciousness the analyzed type PRIVATE DETECTIVE is represented by masculine and feminine characters. The given research explores the prototypical layer of the masculine culture type PRIVATE DETECTIVE on the material of the English detective novels by Conan Doyle. Materials and Methods: methodological base of the research comprises theory of prototype according to which the prototype is considered as the best representative of the category corresponds to the model personality which possesses a set of unique characteristics inherent in this culture. Applying such investigation methods as contextual, conceptual and cognitive analysis we have determined the  professionally marked cognitive features of masculine prototypes of the mentioned culture type represented by the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes and its real models – Joseph Bell and Conan Doyle. Results: considering the culture type as a fieldeffect structured concept the research resulted in description of the nuclear and perinuclear zone. The nuclear contains prototypical features of the culture type PRIVATE DETECTIVE that are typical to its real models. Perinuclear covers fictional characteristics related to Sherlock Holmes as the basic model. Conclusions: the analyses of 98 fragments from English detective novels and social essays has revealed that the culture type PRIVATE DETECTIVE is mainly formed on the basis of Sherlock Holmes (80 - 82%), Joseph Bell (8 –8%) and Conan Doyle (10 – 10%). The area of convergence of prototypical and fictional characters amounted up to 66% considered as prototypical cognitive framework reflecting the embodiment of cognitive features of counterparts in the culture type PRIVATE DETECTIVE. The results of the done investigation can be included to the course on cultural studies, conceptology, personology.La teoría de los tipos de cultura se ha estado desarrollando dentro de los estudios culturales durante la última década. Se ha desarrollado una beca considerable sobre el concepto de "tipo de cultura" que se entiende como un representante reconocible generalizado de la sociedad, cuyo comportamiento refleja sus actitudes y valores de un grupo particular de personas o sociedad.Los tipos de cultura surgen a partir de individuos reales o ficticios. En la conciencia de la lengua inglesa, el tipo analizado DETECTIVE PRIVADO está representado por caracteres masculinos y femeninos. La investigación dada explora la capa prototípica del tipo de cultura masculina DETECTIVE PRIVADO en el material de las novelas de detectives inglesas de Conan Doyle.Materiales y Métodos: la base metodológica de la investigación comprende la teoría del prototipo según la cual el prototipo considerado como el mejor representante de la categoría corresponde a la personalidad modelo que posee un conjunto de características únicas inherentes a esta cultura. Aplicando tales métodos de investigación como análisis contextual, conceptual y cognitivo, hemos determinado las características cognitivas marcadas profesionalmente de los prototipos masculinos del tipo de cultura mencionado representado por el personaje ficticio de Sherlock Holmes y sus modelos reales: Joseph Bell y Conan Doyle.Resultados: considerando el tipo de cultivo como un concepto estructurado de efecto de campo, la investigación resultó en la descripción de la zona nuclear y perinuclear. La nuclear contiene características prototípicas del tipo de cultivo DETECTIVE PRIVADO que son típicas de sus modelos reales. Perinuclear cubre características ficticias relacionadas con Sherlock Holmes como el modelo básico.Conclusiones: el análisis de 98 fragmentos de novelas de detectives inglesas y ensayos sociales ha revelado que el tipo de cultura DETECTIVE PRIVADO se forma principalmente sobre la base de Sherlock Holmes (80 - 82%), Joseph Bell (8 -8%) y Conan Doyle ( 10 - 10%). El área de convergencia de personajes prototípicos y de ficción ascendió hasta un 66% considerado como un marco cognitivo prototípico que refleja la incorporación de las características cognitivas de las contrapartes en el tipo de cultura DETECTIVE PRIVADO. Los resultados de la investigación realizada pueden incluirse en el curso de estudios culturales, conceptología, personología.A teoria dos tipos de cultura foi desenvolvida nos estudos culturais durante a última década. Uma bolsa deestudos considerável foi desenvolvida sobre o conceito de "tipo de cultura" que é entendido como umrepresentante reconhecível generalizado da sociedade, cujo comportamento reflete as atitudes e valoresde um determinado grupo de pessoas ou da sociedade. Os tipos de cultura surgem de indivíduos reais oufictícios. Na consciência da língua inglesa, o tipo analisado DETETIVE PRIVADO é representado porpersonagens masculinos e femininos. Esta pesquisa explora a camada prototípica da cultura masculinaDETETIVE PRIVADO no material dos romances policiais ingleses de Conan Doyle.Materiais e Métodos: A base metodológica da pesquisa inclui a teoria protótipo segundo a qual o protótipoconsiderado o melhor representante da categoria corresponde à personalidade modelo que tem umconjunto de inerente a esta cultura características únicas. Aplicação de métodos de pesquisa, comocontextual, análise conceitual e cognitiva, nós determinamos profissionalmente características cognitivasmarcados de protótipos masculinos tipo de cultura representado pelo personagem fictício SherlockHolmes e modelos reais mencionados: Joseph Bell e Conan Doyle.Resultados: considerando o tipo de cultura como um conceito estruturado de efeito de campo, ainvestigação resultou na descrição da zona nuclear e perinuclear. Nuclear contém característicasprototípicas do tipo de cultura PRIVATE DETECTIVE que são típicas de seus modelos reais. Perinuclearaborda características fictícias relacionadas a Sherlock Holmes como modelo básico.Conclusões: análise de 98 fragmentos de romances de detetives britânicos e estudos sociais revelou que otipo de DETETIVE cultura privado é formado principalmente com base em Sherlock Holmes (80-82%),Joseph Bell (8-8%) e Conan Doyle (10 - 10%). A área de convergência de personagens fictícios protótipose atingiu 66% consideraram a estrutura cognitiva prototípica que reflete a incorporação de características cognitivas do tipo de contrapartes cultura DETETIVE PARTICULAR. Os resultados da pesquisa realizadapodem ser incluídos no curso de estudos culturais, conceptologia, personologia

Citizenship, democracy and social justice: A conversation with Maria Olson

Maria Olson is a researcher and lecturer in Education at Stockholm University and the University of Skövde, Sweden. Her areas of interest include democracy and citizenship in relation to education. Her major fields are educational theory and educational philosophy. Her current publications include most recently a series of papers that develop themes of citizenship, democracy and social justice, including: “Citizenship Education without Citizenship? The Migrant in EU Policy on Participatory Citizenship – Toward the Margin through ‘Strangification,’” in R. Hedke and T. Zimenkova (eds.), Education for Civic and Political Participation: A Critical Approach (pp. 155–170). London: Routledge, 2012; “Citizenship ‘in Between’: The Local and the Global Scope of European Citizenship in Swedish Educational Policy,” in S. Goncales and M. A. Carpenter (eds.), Intercultural Policies and Education (pp. 193–203). New York: Peter Lang, 2012; “The European ‘We’: From Citizenship Policy to the Role of Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 31(1), 77–89, 2012; “Opening Discourses of Citizenship Education: Theorizing with Foucault” (with Nicoll, K., Fejes, A., Dahlstedt, M. & Biesta, G. J. J.), Journal of Education Policy, 2013 (forthcoming); “Democracy Lessons in Market-oriented Schools: The Case of Swedish Upper Secondary Education,” Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, online first, Doi: 10.1177/17461979134836842013 (with Lundahl, Lisbeth), 2013; “What Counts as Young People’s Civic Engagement in Times of Accountability? On the Importance of Maintaining Openness about Young People’s Civic Engagement in Education,” in M. Olson (ed.), Theme: Citizenship Education under Liberal Democracy. Utbildning & Demokrati [Education & Democracy] 21(1), 29–55, 2012

Managerialism and the neoliberal university: Prospects for new forms of "open management" in higher education

The restructuring of state education systems in many OECD countries during the last two decades has involved a significant shift away from an emphasis on administration and policy to an emphasis on management. The "new managerialism" has drawn theoretically, on the one hand, on the model of corporate managerialism and private sector management styles, and, on public choice theory and new institutional economics (NIE), most notably, agency theory and transaction cost analysis, on the other. A specific constellation of these theories is sometimes called "New Public Management," which has been very influential in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These theories and models have been used both as the legitimation for policies that redesigning state educational bureaucracies, educational institutions and even the public policy process. Most importantly, there has been a decentralization of management control away from the center to the individual institution through a "new contractualism" - often referred to as the "doctrine of self-management" - coupled with new accountability and competitive funding regimes. This shift has often been accompanied by a disaggregation of large state bureaucracies into autonomous agencies, a clarification of organizational objectives, and a separation between policy advice and policy implementation functions, together with a privatization of service and support functions through "contracting out". The "new managerialism" has also involved a shift from input controls to quantifiable output measures and performance targets, along with an emphasis on short-term performance contracts, especially for CEOs and senior managers. In the interests of so-called "productive efficiency," the provision of educational serviceshas been made contestable; and, in the interests of so-called allocative efficiency state education has been progressively marketized and privatized. In this paper I analyze the main underlying elements of this theoretical development that led to the establishment of the neoliberal university in the 1980s and 1990s before entertaining and reviewing claims that new public management is dead. At the end of the paper I focus on proposals for new forms of "the public" in higher education as a means of promoting "radical openness" consonant with the development of Web 2.0 technologies and new research infrastructures in the global knowledge economy

Online Matrix Completion and Online Robust PCA

This work studies two interrelated problems - online robust PCA (RPCA) and online low-rank matrix completion (MC). In recent work by Cand\`{e}s et al., RPCA has been defined as a problem of separating a low-rank matrix (true data), $L:=[\ell_1, \ell_2, \dots \ell_{t}, \dots , \ell_{t_{\max}}]$ and a sparse matrix (outliers), $S:=[x_1, x_2, \dots x_{t}, \dots, x_{t_{\max}}]$ from their sum, $M:=L+S$. Our work uses this definition of RPCA. An important application where both these problems occur is in video analytics in trying to separate sparse foregrounds (e.g., moving objects) and slowly changing backgrounds. While there has been a large amount of recent work on both developing and analyzing batch RPCA and batch MC algorithms, the online problem is largely open. In this work, we develop a practical modification of our recently proposed algorithm to solve both the online RPCA and online MC problems. The main contribution of this work is that we obtain correctness results for the proposed algorithms under mild assumptions. The assumptions that we need are: (a) a good estimate of the initial subspace is available (easy to obtain using a short sequence of background-only frames in video surveillance); (b) the $\ell_t$'s obey a `slow subspace change' assumption; (c) the basis vectors for the subspace from which $\ell_t$ is generated are dense (non-sparse); (d) the support of $x_t$ changes by at least a certain amount at least every so often; and (e) algorithm parameters are appropriately setComment: Presented at ISIT (IEEE Intnl. Symp. on Information Theory), 2015. Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. This version: changes are in blue; the main changes are just to explain the model assumptions better (added based on ISIT reviewers' comments