Applied genre analysis: the case of introductions in spanish teacher trainees curricular design documents

A host of studies over the years have been published on introductions to research articles across a variety of fields. However, much less attention has been paid to professional or workplace introductions as well as student written introductions. This study aims to redress this imbalance by studying the writing samples of four primary English teacher trainees’ introductions to curricular design i.e. the document candidates must present to an examination board in Spain. This genre can be considered occluded in that exemplars are private and confidential and not readily available to the aspiring candidate. Three recurrent moves were identified, namely, explaining the importance of curricular design, providing background and defining concepts. Instances of self-glorification (Bhatia 1996) were revealed. The implications of the findings can have a positive effect on students’ future writing. RESUMEN. Se han publicado varios estudios en los últimos años sobre las introducciones de los artículos de investigación en varios campos. Sin embargo, se ha prestado mucha menor atención a las introducciones en los ámbitos profesionales o las introducciones en el lugar de trabajo, así como a las introducciones escritas por estudiantes. Este estudio tiene por objeto corregir este desequilibrio mediante el análisis de cuatro introducciones redactadas por candidatos para las oposiciones públicas de profesores de inglés de primaria. Este género se puede considerar oculto puesto que las muestras de dichas introducciones no están publicadas. El análisis de estas introducciones muestra que hay tres movimientos recurrentes: una explicación de la importancia del diseño curricular, definición del contexto educativo y, por último, definición de conceptos. Hay ejemplos en este estudio empírico de auto-promoción (Bhatia 1996). Las implicaciones de los resultados pueden tener un efecto positivo en la escritura de estos estudiantes en el futuro.

Análisis de sistemas dinámicos y complejos en la Liga Profesional de Balonmano de España = Complex and dynamical systems analysis in Spanish Professional Handball League

El propósito de esta tesis fue estudiar el rendimiento ofensivo de los equipos de balonmano de élite cuando se considera el balonmano como un sistema dinámico complejo no lineal. La perspectiva de análisis dinámica dependiente del tiempo fue adoptada para evaluar el rendimiento de los equipos durante el partido. La muestra general comprendió los 240 partidos jugados en la temporada 2011-2012 de la liga profesional masculina de balonmano de España (Liga ASOBAL). En el análisis posterior solo se consideraron los partidos ajustados (diferencia final de goles ≤ 5; n = 142). El estado del marcador, la localización del partido, el nivel de los oponentes y el periodo de juego fueron incorporados al análisis como variables situacionales. Tres estudios compusieron el núcleo de la tesis. En el primer estudio, analizamos la coordinación entre las series temporales que representan el proceso goleador a lo largo del partido de cada uno de los dos equipos que se enfrentan. Autocorrelaciones, correlaciones cruzadas, doble media móvil y transformada de Hilbert fueron usadas para el análisis. El proceso goleador de los equipos presentó una alta consistencia a lo largo de todos los partidos, así como fuertes modos de coordinación en fase en todos los contextos de juego. Las únicas diferencias se encontraron en relación al periodo de juego. La coordinación en los procesos goleadores de los equipos fue significativamente menor en el 1er y 2º periodo (0–10 min y 10–20 min), mostrando una clara coordinación creciente a medida que el partido avanzaba. Esto sugiere que son los 20 primeros minutos aquellos que rompen los partidos. En el segundo estudio, analizamos los efectos temporales (efecto inmediato, a corto y a medio plazo) de los tiempos muertos en el rendimiento goleador de los equipos. Modelos de regresión lineal múltiple fueron empleados para el análisis. Los resultados mostraron incrementos de 0.59, 1.40 y 1.85 goles para los periodos que comprenden la primera, tercera y quinta posesión de los equipos que pidieron el tiempo muerto. Inversamente, se encontraron efectos significativamente negativos para los equipos rivales, con decrementos de 0.50, 1.43 y 2.05 goles en los mismos periodos respectivamente. La influencia de las variables situacionales solo se registró en ciertos periodos de juego. Finalmente, en el tercer estudio, analizamos los efectos temporales de las exclusiones de los jugadores sobre el rendimiento goleador de los equipos, tanto para los equipos que sufren la exclusión (inferioridad numérica) como para los rivales (superioridad numérica). Se emplearon modelos de regresión lineal múltiple para el análisis. Los resultados mostraron efectos negativos significativos en el número de goles marcados por los equipos con un jugador menos, con decrementos de 0.25, 0.40, 0.61, 0.62 y 0.57 goles para los periodos que comprenden el primer, segundo, tercer, cuarto y quinto minutos previos y posteriores a la exclusión. Para los rivales, los resultados mostraron efectos positivos significativos, con incrementos de la misma magnitud en los mismos periodos. Esta tendencia no se vio afectada por el estado del marcador, localización del partido, nivel de los oponentes o periodo de juego. Los incrementos goleadores fueron menores de lo que se podría esperar de una superioridad numérica de 2 minutos. Diferentes teorías psicológicas como la paralización ante situaciones de presión donde se espera un gran rendimiento pueden ayudar a explicar este hecho. Los últimos capítulos de la tesis enumeran las conclusiones principales y presentan diferentes aplicaciones prácticas que surgen de los tres estudios. Por último, se presentan las limitaciones y futuras líneas de investigación. ABSTRACT The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the offensive performance of elite handball teams when considering handball as a complex non-linear dynamical system. The time-dependent dynamic approach was adopted to assess teams’ performance during the game. The overall sample comprised the 240 games played in the season 2011-2012 of men’s Spanish Professional Handball League (ASOBAL League). In the subsequent analyses, only close games (final goal-difference ≤ 5; n = 142) were considered. Match status, game location, quality of opposition, and game period situational variables were incorporated into the analysis. Three studies composed the core of the thesis. In the first study, we analyzed the game-scoring coordination between the time series representing the scoring processes of the two opposing teams throughout the game. Autocorrelation, cross-correlation, double moving average, and Hilbert transform were used for analysis. The scoring processes of the teams presented a high consistency across all the games as well as strong in-phase modes of coordination in all the game contexts. The only differences were found when controlling for the game period. The coordination in the scoring processes of the teams was significantly lower for the 1st and 2nd period (0–10 min and 10–20 min), showing a clear increasing coordination behavior as the game progressed. This suggests that the first 20 minutes are those that break the game-scoring. In the second study, we analyzed the temporal effects (immediate effect, short-term effect, and medium-term effect) of team timeouts on teams’ scoring performance. Multiple linear regression models were used for the analysis. The results showed increments of 0.59, 1.40 and 1.85 goals for the periods within the first, third and fifth timeout ball possessions for the teams that requested the timeout. Conversely, significant negative effects on goals scored were found for the opponent teams, with decrements of 0.59, 1.43 and 2.04 goals for the same periods, respectively. The influence of situational variables on the scoring performance was only registered in certain game periods. Finally, in the third study, we analyzed the players’ exclusions temporal effects on teams’ scoring performance, for the teams that suffer the exclusion (numerical inferiority) and for the opponents (numerical superiority). Multiple linear regression models were used for the analysis. The results showed significant negative effects on the number of goals scored for the teams with one less player, with decrements of 0.25, 0.40, 0.61, 0.62, and 0.57 goals for the periods within the previous and post one, two, three, four and five minutes of play. For the opponent teams, the results showed positive effects, with increments of the same magnitude in the same game periods. This trend was not affected by match status, game location, quality of opposition, or game period. The scoring increments were smaller than might be expected from a 2-minute numerical playing superiority. Psychological theories such as choking under pressure situations where good performance is expected could contribute to explain this finding. The final chapters of the thesis enumerate the main conclusions and underline the main practical applications that arise from the three studies. Lastly, limitations and future research directions are described.

UER technique: conceptualisation for agent oriented development

The problem of conceptualisation is the first step towards the identication of the functional requirements of a system. This article proposes two extensions of well-known object oriented techniques: UER (User-Environment-Responsibility) technique and enhanced CRC (Class-ResponsibilityCollaboration) cards. UER technique consists of (a) looking for the users of systems and describing the ways the system is used; (b) looking for the objects of the environment and describing the possible interactions; and (c) looking for the general requirements or goals of the system, the actions that it should carry out without explicit interaction. The enhanced CRC cards together with the internal use cases technique is used for dening collaborations between agents. These techniques can be easily integrated in UML (Unied Modelling Language) [2], dening the new notation symbols as stereotypes.

Project management competence analysis in rural communities through territorial representation: application to Aymara women communities in Puno (Peru)

The acquisition of technical, contextual and behavioral competences is a prerequisite for sustainable development and strengthening of rural communities. Territorial display of the status of these skills helps to design the necessary learning, so its inclusion in planning processes is useful for decision making. The article discusses the application of visual representation of competences in a rural development project with Aymara women communities in Peru. The results show an improvement of transparency and dialogue, resulting in a more successful project management and strengthening of social organization.

Membrane Dissolution in Distributed Architectures of P-Systems

The goal of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to survey in a systematic and uniform way the main results regarding the way membranes can be placed on processors in order to get a software/hardware simulation of P-Systems in a distributed environment. Secondly, we improve some results about the membrane dissolution problem, prove that it is connected, and discuss the possibility of simulating this property in the distributed model. All this yields an improvement in the system parallelism implementation since it gets an increment of the parallelism of the external communication among processors. Also, the number of processors grows in such a way that is notorious the increment of the parallelism in the application of the evolution rules and the internal communica-tionsstudy because it gets an increment of the parallelism in the application of the evolution rules and the internal communications. Proposed ideas improve previous architectures to tackle the communication bottleneck problem, such as reduction of the total time of an evolution step, increase of the number of membranes that could run on a processor and reduction of the number of processors

Simulation model for the study of overhead rail current collector systems dynamics, focused on the design of a new conductor rail

Overhead rigid conductor arrangements for current collection for railway traction have some advantages compared to other, more conventional, energy supply systems. They are simple, robust and easily maintained, not to mention their flexibility as to the required height for installation, which makes them particularly suitable for use in subway infrastructures. Nevertheless, due to the increasing speeds of new vehicles running on modern subway lines, a more efficient design is required for this kind of system. In this paper, the authors present a dynamic analysis of overhead conductor rail systems focused on the design of a new conductor profile with a dynamic behaviour superior to that of the system currently in use. This means that either an increase in running speed can be attained, which at present does not exceed 110 km/h, or an increase in the distance between the rigid catenary supports with the ensuing saving in installation costs. This study has been carried out using simulation techniques. The ANSYS programme has been used for the finite element modelling and the SIMPACK programme for the elastic multibody systems analysis.

Functional modeling applied to HAZOP automation

In this paper we present a new tool to perform guided HAZOP analyses. This tool uses a functional model of the process that merges its functional and its structural information in a natural way. The functional modeling technique used is called D-higraphs. This tool solves some of the problems and drawbacks of other existing methodologies for the automation of HAZOPs. The applicability and easy understanding of the proposed methodology is shown in an industrial case.

Analysis and Modelling of the Structural Components of the Elbow Joint

A recent application of computer simulation is its use for the human body, which resembles a mechanism that is complemented by torques in the joints that are caused by the action of muscles and tendons. Among others, the application can be used to provide training in surgical procedures or to learn how the body works. Some of the other applications are to make a biped walk upright, to build robots that are designed on the human body or to make prostheses or robot arms to perform specific tasks. One of the uses of simulation is to optimise the movement of the human body by examining which muscles are activated and which should or should not be activated in order to improve a person?s movements. This work presents a model of the elbow joint, and by analysing the constraint equations using classic methods we go on to model the bones, muscles and tendons as well as the logic linked to the force developed by them when faced with a specific movement. To do this, we analyse the reference bibliography and the software available to perform the validation.

Showing the Past: Integrating Cartographic Collections through Virtual Map Rooms

Spatial Data Infrastructures have become a methodological and technological benchmark enabling distributed access to historical-cartographic archives. However, it is essential to offer enhanced virtual tools that imitate the current processes and methodologies that are carried out by librarians, historians and academics in the existing map libraries around the world. These virtual processes must be supported by a generic framework for managing, querying, and accessing distributed georeferenced resources and other content types such as scientific data or information. The authors have designed and developed support tools to provide enriched browsing, measurement and geometrical analysis capabilities, and dynamical querying methods, based on SDI foundations. The DIGMAP engine and the IBERCARTO collection enable access to georeferenced historical-cartographical archives. Based on lessons learned from the CartoVIRTUAL and DynCoopNet projects, a generic service architecture scheme is proposed. This way, it is possible to achieve the integration of virtual map rooms and SDI technologies bringing support to researchers within the historical and social domains.

The state of semantic technology today - overview of the first SEALS evaluation campaigns

This paper describes the first five SEALS Evaluation Campaigns over the semantic technologies covered by the SEALS project (ontology engineering tools, ontology reasoning tools, ontology matching tools, semantic search tools, and semantic web service tools). It presents the evaluations and test data used in these campaigns and the tools that participated in them along with a comparative analysis of their results. It also presents some lessons learnt after the execution of the evaluation campaigns and draws some final conclusions.

Leadership and project management competences in executive women: different styles from the agents' perceptions

The exercise of management and leadership are key aspects to achieve objectives, goals and relationships in the current knowledge society marked by increasingly competitive environments in which cognitive factors, creativity, knowledge and information determine the success of organizations. Both concepts have been historically associated with the male domain because of the underrepresentation of women in managerial positions. However, the increasing participation of women in the workplace has led to the development of an extensive literature on the possible existence of differences between the styles of male and female leadership, although it has not been addressed from the analysis of competences associated with each sex. Through a participatory process the abilities and skills related to women managers are analyzed and the differences in leadership styles. The results indicate that women particularly value the skills associated with human relationships, and that female leadership style tends to be transformational.

Benchmarking for stability evaluation of computer systems

In this paper we propose a new benchmark to drive making decisions in maintenance of computer systems. This benchmark is made from load average sample data. The main goal is to improve reliability and performance of a set of devices or components. In particular, the stability of the system is measured in terms of variability of the load. A forecast of the behavior of this stability is also proposal as part of the reporting benchmark. At the final stage, a more stable system is obtained and its global reliability and performance can be then evaluated by means of appropriate specifications.

Reliability and quality in the area of statistical thinking in Engineering

There is remarkable growing concern about the quality control at the time, which has led to the search for methods capable of addressing effectively the reliability analysis as part of the Statistic. Managers, researchers and Engineers must understand that 'statistical thinking' is not just a set of statistical tools. They should start considering 'statistical thinking' from a 'system', which means, developing systems that meet specific statistical tools and other methodologies for an activity. The aim of this article is to encourage them (engineers, researchers and managers) to develop a new way of thinking.

Impedance of foundations using the Boundary Integral Equation Method

Dynamic soil-structure interaction has been for a long time one of the most fascinating areas for the engineering profession. The building of large alternating machines and their effects on surrounding structures as well as on their own functional behavior, provided the initial impetus; a large amount of experimental research was done,and the results of the Russian and German groups were especially worthwhile. Analytical results by Reissner and Sehkter were reexamined by Quinlan, Sung, et. al., and finally Veletsos presented the first set of reliable results. Since then, the modeling of the homogeneous, elastic halfspace as a equivalent set of springs and dashpots has become an everyday tool in soil engineering practice, especially after the appearance of the fast Fourier transportation algorithm, which makes possible the treatment of the frequency-dependent characteristics of the equivalent elements in a unified fashion with the general method of analysis of the structure. Extensions to the viscoelastic case, as well as to embedded foundations and complicated geometries, have been presented by various authors. In general, they used the finite element method with the well known problems of geometric truncations and the subsequent use of absorbing boundaries. The properties of boundary integral equation methods are, in our opinion, specially well suited to this problem, and several of the previous results have confirmed our opinion. In what follows we present the general features related to steady-state elastodynamics and a series of results showing the splendid results that the BIEM provided. Especially interesting are the outputs obtained through the use of the so-called singular elements, whose description is incorporated at the end of the paper. The reduction in time spent by the computer and the small number of elements needed to simulate realistically the global properties of the halfspace make this procedure one of the most interesting applications of the BIEM.

Systems in Engineering Education: account of an experience

Systems Engineering (SE in the following) has not received much attention as a subject matter in engineering curricula. There are several dozens of universities around the world offering programs (most of them at the graduate level) on systems science and engineering. However, SE is, per se, rarely found among the courses offered by engineering schools. This observation does not strictly mean that systems concepts be left apart. For example, it is usual to find specialized courses for systems of some particular classes (e.g., courses on software systems engineering for computing curricula) or for particular phases of the system life cycle (e.g., courses on systems analysis). Even so, these kinds of courses tend to over-emphasize the importance of specific methodologies and, in consequence, to deviate the attention from the realm of systernness