SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS’ FAMILY–SCHOOL PARTNERING EXPERIENCES WITH LATINOS

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to identify the beliefs, perceptions, and actions of school psychologists toward family–school partnering (FSP) with Latino families in the public school system. Existing research in this area is extremely limited; therefore, the present study has significant implications for pre‐ and in‐service training to achieve effective FSP with Latino families. Five school psychologists working in school districts with greater than 40% Latino student enrollment participated in this study. Five major themes emerged from data analysis: Attitudes toward FSP, Knowledge and Skills Needed, Expectations for Engagement, Perceived Barriers to FSP, and Engagement Activities. The results of this study will help researchers and educators develop an awareness of the challenges school psychologists face and the actions they take to enhance relationships with Latino families.     

Gender differential in self-assessment: a fact neglected in higher education peer and self-assessment techniques

This paper analyses student cross-assessment with a gender perspective in three different courses along several academic years in an engineering school in Spain. The aim of this study is to contribute to a wider understanding of the hidden effect of gender in higher education by testing if gender has any effect on the way students assess others and themselves. Previous research has demonstrated sex differences in self-image and self-confidence, which are both closely related to self-esteem and same- and other-sex esteem. It follows that gender effects might be expected in investigations on peer and self-assessment (PSA), as both techniques are closely linked to self-image and self-confidence. But a critical review of the literature on PSA with a gender perspective reveals that findings on this field are inconclusive, thus more research is needed. The analysis of the results of our study reveals that women judge themselves too harshly. As the literature on PSA does not show great concern for gender issues, some tentative suggestions are proposed to support PSA with gender-awareness sessions.     

Teachers negotiating discourses of gender (in) equality: the case of equal opportunities reform in Andalusia

This article is focused on the analysis of the narratives produced by a group of teachers, experts in coeducation, while they were discussing their everyday activities. They are responsible for the implementation of a Plan for Gender Equality in public secondary schools in Andalusia (Spain). This study is based on contributions about doing gender view, according to which gender is not an attribute of individuals, but a way of making sense of interactions and practising a complex system as functioning on three levels: sociocultural, interactional, and individual. We use these levels to understand gender culture in schools through teachers’ discourse. Our interest lies particularly in the meanings, contradictions, difficulties, and conflicts experienced by expert teachers in co-education. Our study was based on group discussions with teachers in charge of the plan for equal opportunities between women and men in school settings. Results show teachers’ conflicts about meanings and how they are supposed to apply the Equality Plan. We observed interactional levels during these conflicts and analysed how teachers construct and validate their discourse.     

Ten years of preanalytical monitoring and control: Synthetic Balanced Score Card Indicator

Introduction

Preanalytical control and monitoring continue to be an important issue for clinical laboratory professionals. The aim of the study was to evaluate a monitoring system of preanalytical errors regarding not suitable samples for analysis, based on different indicators; to compare such indicators in different phlebotomy centres; and finally to evaluate a single synthetic preanalytical indicator that may be included in the balanced scorecard management system (BSC).

Materials and methods

We collected individual and global preanalytical errors in haematology, coagulation, chemistry, and urine samples analysis. We also analyzed a synthetic indicator that represents the sum of all types of preanalytical errors, expressed in a sigma level. We studied the evolution of those indicators over time and compared indicator results by way of the comparison of proportions and Chi-square.

Results

There was a decrease in the number of errors along the years (P < 0.001). This pattern was confirmed in primary care patients, inpatients and outpatients. In blood samples, fewer errors occurred in outpatients, followed by inpatients.

Conclusion

We present a practical and effective methodology to monitor unsuitable sample preanalytical errors. The synthetic indicator results summarize overall preanalytical sample errors, and can be used as part of BSC management system.Key words: Preanalytical phase, errors in laboratory medicine, balanced scorecard, patient safety     

Mapping air pollution effects on atmospheric degradation of cultural heritage

The costs for deterioration and soiling of different materials due to air pollution are huge and the damage to culture targets endangers seriously the rich European cultural heritage. Within the sixth Framework Programme of the EU, the overall aim of the CULT-STRAT project has been to assess and predict the effects of different pollutants on materials and objects of cultural heritage in a multipollutant scenario and to identify indicators and thresholds levels of pollutants. In particular, the present paper reports one of the studies carried out in the CULT-STRAT project at city level and focused on the town of Madrid (Spain). Different maps are shown for the past, present and possible future scenarios: inventory of stock of cultural heritage for each selected material, concentration of selected pollutants (SO₂, NO₂, O₃ and PM₁₀), corrosion (cast bronze) and recession (Portland limestone), exceedance of tolerable degradation thresholds for each material and corrosion-cultural heritage overlapped maps. The model and the methodology developed could be useful if apply it to towns, regions or countries in order to quantify the percentage of Cultural Heritage at risk or to quantify the percentage of the area where corrosion/recession exceeds the established tolerable levels.     

Introducing structure management in automatic reference resolution: An XML-based approach

References to parts of structured documents use their structure to locate the piece of document which is the reference target. On the other hand, XML has become an increasingly important language for structured documents. One of its most important related languages is XPath, the language that permits fragments of XML documents to be selected. In this article we present a methodology, and an application case, to automatically extract and solve references to fragments of structured documents. This approach combines structure manipulation and information extraction, to enhance reference extraction tools by improving the precision of the references extracted. We take advantage of XML markup to locate the position within the structure in which the references are found. The use of XPath, one of the most important XML related languages, for reference resolution is original: the resolution tool automatically builds XPath expressions. This proposal is inspired (and implemented) from our work with legislative documents.     

CHARACTERIZING THEMATIZED DERIVATIVE SCHEMA BY THE UNDERLYING EMERGENT STRUCTURES

This paper reports on different underlying structures of the derivative schema of three undergraduate students that were considered to be at the trans level of development of the derivative schema (action–process–object–schema). The derivative schema is characterized in terms of the students’ ability to explicitly transfer the relationship between a function and its first derivative to the derivative function and the second derivative. This conscious shift of properties of derivatives is differently manifested by the students in the trans level of development of the derivative schema and can be considered evidence of the different characteristics of the thematization of derivative schema. From here we suggest that there are different underlying structures in the constructed schema due to the consciousness in which students use the relations between a function and its derivative.     

Clusters,convergence, and economic performance

This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in regional industry performance. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry within a region may be declining in the level of economic activity of that industry. At the same time, positive spillovers across complementary economic activities can provide an impetus for agglomeration: the growth rate of an industry within a region may be increasing in the “strength” (i.e., relative presence) of related industries. Building on Porter (1998, 2003), we develop a systematic empirical framework to analyze the role of regional clusters – groups of closely related industries operating within a particular region – in the growth of regional industries. We exploit data from the US Cluster Mapping Project to examine the effects of agglomeration within regional clusters after controlling for convergence at the region-industry level. Our findings suggest that industries located in a strong cluster register higher employment and patenting growth. Regional industry growth also increases with the strength of related clusters in the region and with the strength of similar clusters in adjacent regions. We also find evidence of the complementarity between employment and innovation performance in regional clusters: both the initial employment and patenting strength of a cluster have a separate positive effect on the employment and patenting growth of the constituent industries. Finally, we find that new regional industries emerge where there is a strong cluster. These findings are consistent with multiple types of externalities arising in clusters, including knowledge, skills, and input–output linkages.     

Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: The question of its construct validity

Some cognitive dimensions are internationally considered by psychologists to describe and to assess creativity. For example, (Guilford, P. (1976). Creatividad y Educación. Buenos Aires. Ed. Paidos) and (Torrance, E. P. (1977). Discovery and nurturance of giftedness in the culturally different. Reston, VA: Council on Exceptional Children) suggested fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration are the main cognitive processes used to define and assess creativity. However, data from several empirical studies did not confirm a factor structure in accordance with such cognitive functions, despite of the wide use of TTCT (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) in different countries. In this paper, we present new data collected in Spain and Portugal with TTCT. According to our data, those cognitive functions supposedly present on a subject's performance are not so strong as to explain the variance in scores. Elaboration factors assume some variance explanation, but the main factors are identified with the products in each subtest, suggesting the importance of format, content and demand on TTCT specific tasks. Consequently, we suggest some reflections to amplify the debate concerning the definition of creativity and its evaluation in psychology.