An Environmental Education Program for Teacher Trainers in Finland

Abstract

Finland's Ministry of Education sponsored the development of an environmental education (EE) course for practicing educators of teachers. One to 3 persons from each teacher training unit at various universities and training schools attended a tutor training session, during which a course for other teacher trainers was developed. The course focused on personal development and curriculum development. Tutors used distance education with some locally arranged contact teaching to teach the course. Tutors also led local study groups. Teacher trainers who attended the course learned and applied new teaching practices and produced new model lessons. They also reflected on their personal environmental philosophy and gained in environmental knowledge. Preliminary evaluation of the program indicated that high-quality learning experiences occurred. This 2-step distance education model could be used for large-scale implementation of EE for in-service teacher training.     

Preventing boys' problems in schools through psychoeducational programming: A call to action

Controversy currently exists on whether boys are in crises and, if so, what to do about it. Research is reviewed that indicates that boys have problems that affect their emotional and interpersonal functioning. Psychoeducational and preventive programs for boys are recommended as a call to action in schools. Thematic areas for boys' programming are enumerated including life skills and issues with masculinity ideology and gender role conflict. An example of a program that promotes positive and affirmative masculinity is given. Some of the barriers and strategies to implement programs for boys are discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Comparative study of the evaluation of professional competencies by experienced and trainee Spanish primary teachers

Taking as reference the proposals of the European Higher Education Area, the aim of this study is to identify the competencies which a wide sample of teachers in Spanish primary schools (6–12 age group) consider to be important for their professional performance and which they use in their everyday teaching, and to what extent their university training prepared them for their practising professional development. To do this, an ad hoc instrument was devised and applied to experienced practising teachers and to teacher trainees who were on teacher training placements during the last semester of their course. The results of the study show that initial teacher training should deal in depth with the competencies related to the organisation and management of teaching–learning, the use of new technologies in the primary classroom, the involvement of the families, education in values, social skills and skills for working in professional groups. Finally, proposals are made for training based on the articulation between theory and practice, to allow the professional competencies mentioned to be developed and used in practice, as well as encouraging close collaboration between teacher trainers and experienced practising teachers.     

The role of contextual,conceptual and procedural knowledge in activating mathematical competencies (PISA)

This paper analyses the difficulties which Spanish student teachers have in solving the PISA 2003 released items. It studies the role played by the type and organisation of mathematical knowledge in the activation of competencies identified by PISA with particular attention to the function of contextual knowledge. The results of the research lead us to conclude that the assessment of the participant’s mathematical competencies must include an assessment of the extent to which they have school mathematical knowledge (contextual, conceptual and procedural) that can be productively applied to problem situations. In this way, the school knowledge variable becomes a variable associated with the PISA competence variable. This paper is based on a research project funded by a grant awarded in 2003 by the General Directorate for Research of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (BSO-2003-7133).     

Information retrieval with geographical references. Relevant documents filtering vs. query expansion

This is a thorough analysis of two techniques applied to Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR). Previous studies have researched the application of query expansion to improve the selection process of information retrieval systems. This paper emphasizes the effectiveness of the filtering of relevant documents applied to a GIR system, instead of query expansion. Based on the CLEF (Cross Language Evaluation Forum) framework available, several experiments have been run. Some based on query expansion, some on the filtering of relevant documents. The results show that filtering works better in a GIR environment, because relevant documents are not reordered in the final list.     

Online partitioning method for decentralized control of linear switching large-scale systems

A novel partitioning approach for linear switching large-scale systems is presented. We assume that the modes of the switching system are unknown a priori but can be detected. We propose an online partitioning scheme that can partition the system when the mode switches, thus adapting the partition to the mode. Moreover, after the system has been partitioned, we apply a decentralized state-feedback control scheme to stabilize the system. We also apply a dwell time stability scheme to prove that the closed-loop system remains stable even after both the mode and partition changes. The proposed approach is illustrated by means of an automatic generation control problem related to frequency deviation regulation in a large-scale power network.     

Detection of replay attacks in cyber-physical systems using a frequency-based signature

This paper proposes a frequency-based approach for the detection of replay attacks affecting cyber-physical systems (CPS). In particular, the method employs a sinusoidal signal with a time-varying frequency (authentication signal) into the closed-loop system and checks whether the time profile of the frequency components in the output signal are compatible with the authentication signal or not. In order to carry out this target, the couplings between inputs and outputs are eliminated using a dynamic decoupling technique based on vector fitting. In this way, a signature introduced on a specific input channel will affect only the output that is selected to be associated with that input, which is a property that can be exploited to determine which channels are being affected. A bank of band-pass filters is used to generate signals whose energies can be compared to reconstruct an estimation of the time-varying frequency profile. By matching the known frequency profile with its estimation, the detector can provide the information about whether a replay attack is being carried out or not. The design of the signal generator and the detector are thoroughly discussed, and an example based on a quadruple-tank process is used to show the application and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Knowledge-intensive consumer services. Understanding KICS in the innovative global health-care sector

This paper explores a case of knowledge-intensive consumer services (KICS). Services have become less neglected in the economics of technical change and innovation studies in general; nevertheless, the advance of this agenda has been uneven. A significant emphasis has been on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Despite their direct impact on social needs and individual desires, innovation in consumer-oriented services continues to be relatively under-theorized and under-researched. This paper brings into focus the sources and patterns of innovation in those innovative services that target human satisfaction and well-being as a final goal. We show evidence from a little-explored health industry, oral care. We address Malo Clinic, a company specialized in the most complex patient situations and a rare instance of an internationalized firm in the health services business. On the basis of a 20-year thread of corporate history, we find that a wide array of qualitative (interviews, newspaper coverage, marketing material) and quantitative evidence (papers, patents, trademarks) illuminates some of the features that may characterize a particular class of dynamic activities tending to consumers’ needs, expectations and quality of life. We argue that these key characteristics may be on course to become more general as the learning economy spreads to fully embrace the realm of the service sphere. One conclusion is that both the technological and non-technological capabilities underpinning more types of innovation are increasingly becoming coupled in consumer-relevant services.     

Rotary inverted pendulum with magnetically external perturbations as a source of the pendulum’s base navigation commands

The main objective of this paper is to drive a rotary inverted pendulum by following a desired navigation instruction. This navigation is commanded by the user through a new electromagnetic device which is allowed to perturb the pendulum from its upright position. This apparatus consists of an electronic magnetic driving circuit to introduce commands and realized via two operated magnetic coils. So, the external programmed magnetic perturbation can be seen as external commandments. Therefore, the control problem statement is solved via a modified regulation control implementation, to maintain the pendulum on its upright position and giving free manipulation of the base of the rotary inverted pendulum. Hence, by using the corresponding H_∞-linear matrix inequality technique, a static state controller is designed and tested experimentally so supporting our findings.     

A numerically robust blind equalization scheme applied to MIMO communication systems

In this paper, we propose a numerically robust blind equalization scheme to mitigate cochannel and intersymbol interferences and separate signals from a convolutive mixture in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems. The robustness of the proposed scheme is achieved through a particular dual-mode operation applied to a constant-modulus-based space-time algorithm that corrects phase rotations. In the first mode of operation, the consistency in the nonlinear estimates of the transmitted signals is ensured. In the second mode, the Euclidean norms of the equalizer coefficient vectors decrease along the iterations, which allows the algorithm to return to the first mode of operation, where the estimation of the transmitted signals really occurs. In particular, we apply this scheme to a multimodulus version of the multiuser Shalvi-Weinstein algorithm (MU-SWA). By means of a deterministic stability analysis assuming the persistence of excitation condition, we show that the dual-mode MU-SWA does not diverge.