English or Nothing: The Impact of Rigid Language Policies on the Inclusion of Humanizing Practices in a High School ESL Program

This article discusses the results of a qualitative case study that examined how school district language policies impact humanizing practices in a high school ESL program. The theoretical framework builds on Paulo Freire's concept of humanizing pedagogy to explore policy and instruction in a secondary ESL program. Participants of this study include school district officials and high school ESL teachers. Findings indicate that when ESL teachers adhere to rigid language policies, they fail to create humanizing practices in their classrooms. In contrast, when teachers do not hold themselves strictly accountable to the institutionalized discourse of ESL, they are able to enact humanizing practices where students' linguistic and cultural resources are validated as essential for the development of academic resiliency. Paradoxically, even teachers who enact humanizing practices fail to question district language policies that render students cultural and linguistic resources invalid.     

The Role of Community College First-Year Experience Programs in Promoting Transfer Among Latino Male Students

ABSTRACT

A qualitative case study approach was used to examine Latino male students and First-Year Experience (FYE) programs aimed at promoting student transfer. Two FYE programs at two community colleges in California were studied: Bridgetown Community College and Portlake Community College (pseudonyms). Study participants included four groups: Latino male FYE students, Latino male FYE alumni, FYE counselors, and FYE coordinators. Data collection strategies included semi-structured interviews, site observations, and document analysis. Analysis of data involved both deductive and inductive approaches, and resulted in identification of four findings critical to the success of FYE programs and their work with Latino males: (a) the need to support help-seeking behaviors, (b) the need to address the “long journey” to transfer, (c) the need to support students’ work burden and financial constraints, and (d) the need to incorporate approachable and culturally responsive practices. Overall, the study offers insights into how community colleges might strengthen transfer support for Latino males through FYE programs.     

Early Childhood Teachers Reconstruct Beliefs and Practices Through Reflexive Action

Professional development, which results in sustained transformative change, requires that teachers engage in critical reflection regarding teaching practices. In this study, a group of five bilingual and generalist early childhood teachers engaged in a journey in which they elected to try to reconstruct their beliefs and practices about teaching and learning. In response to a school district's needs, these teachers were enrolled as a cohort in an early childhood graduate program that served as part of their professional development endeavor. The teachers used reflection and ongoing dialogue that bridged theory and practice as they raised questions about their daily practices in relation to theoretical perspectives. We provide a glimpse of these teachers' ongoing transformative journeys and provide suggestions for early childhood teachers to engage in sustained professional development.     

Agents control in intelligent learning systems: The case of reactive characteristics

Intelligent learning systems (ILSs) have evolved in the last few years basically because of influences received from multi-agent architectures (MAs). Conflict resolution among agents has been a very important problem for multi-agent systems, with specific features in the case of ILSs. The literature shows that ILSs with cognitive or pedagogical agents are prone to arbitration methods, where as ILSs with reactive agents are much in favor of control mechanisms. For these kind of systems, different control types are proposed based on the different stimuli that these agents will receive. These stimuli are aspects to be evaluated during the teaching/learning process such as: (1) error analysis, (2) learning styles, (3) analogies, (4) social aspects, etc.

The paper reviews several ILSs, related to our work; different control mechanisms are proposed to solve the agents' intervention conflicts. Finally, the use of several mechanisms is exemplified by the results of a specific ILS.     

新型锂离子正极材料Li_2Ru_(0.5)Co_(0.5)O_3的结构及其电化学性能

利用高温固相反应法制备了新型锂离子电池正极材料Li2Ru0.5Co0.5O3.通过X射线衍射技术和电化学性能测试对Li_2Ru_(0.5)Co_(0.5)O_3的微观结构及其电化学性能进行了表征.研究结果表明,该新材料为六方层状结构,空间群为R-3M;电化学性能测试表明,该材料具有良好的比容量和循环性能,在电压范围2.5V～4.8V内,以16mA/g的电流密度,其初始充电比容量达240mAh/g,初始放电比容量为175mAh/g,40次循环后容量保持率为78%.     

Determinants of cultural and popular celebration attendance: the case study of Seville Spring Fiestas

The Spring Fiestas in Seville (Spain) (SFS) are the most important cultural events in the city each year. The present paper pursues two aims. The first is to characterize the SFS as a new prototype of a complex cultural good that expresses the link between the people and the place in which they live based on material and immaterial cultural heritage represented through popular celebrations. The second goal is to conduct an empirical analysis of the determinants that shape attendance intensity by estimating a zero-truncated count data model using a unique dataset of attendees at the SFS in 2009. Findings indicate that attendance is strongly associated with variables reflecting knowledge, institutional links, past experiences, and the perceived external benefits generated by the existence of the SFS. The article contributes to the literature by exploring participation in popular celebrations, a field of inquiry that to date is extremely limited in cultural economics.     

Key block theory application for rock slope stability analysis in the foundations of medieval castles in Slovakia

This research investigates the stability of rock slopes in the foundations of selected medieval castles in Slovakia. In the first phase, static analysis of the 45 selected medieval castle rock slopes was performed, where more than 12,000 potentially unstable blocks were analyzed and the factor of safety in static condition was calculated using the key block theory implemented in the Kbslope module of PTworkshop software. Based on results of the static stability analysis, a pseudo-static analysis was performed adopting the seismic acceleration in accordance with Slovak Technical Standards – Seismic actions on structures. This was implemented by calculating the vectors of horizontal force acting upon shear failure in the direction of the slope face with a zero vertical component. When non-finite and tapered blocks were ignored, the results proved that 14% of the 12,217 blocks investigated under static conditions could be considered unstable. This number increased to 23% under pseudo-static conditions, when seismic acceleration was implemented in the stability calculations. A detailed stability assessment of the Gymes Castle located in western Slovakia was carried out with delineation of blocks prone to rock sliding and proper stabilization methods, based on joint sets orientation measurements performed on the 3D point cloud generated by laser scanner.     

Granite desalination using electromigration. Influence of type of granite and saline contaminant

We describe the results of electromigration desalination of two soluble salt-contaminated Galician granites. The efficacy of electromigration, which had not been previously applied to granite, was assessed for two types of granite contaminated with a 20% NaCl solution and seawater. Desalination effectiveness was evaluated as follows: (1) analysis of anode and cathode ion content during testing; (2) analysis of ions at different distances from the electrodes after testing; (3) pH assessment of the stone surfaces; and (4) evaluation of colour changes. Results were very satisfactory; by the end of testing, chloride was reduced by almost 100% in both the NaCl and seawater contaminated samples. Sulfate reduction was also significant, despite this ion's lower mobility. The granite pH values remained close to neutral and colour changes were minimal. The difference in effectiveness of the process for the two types of stone was associated with their dissimilar pore structure.