Requirements for the use of virtual worlds in corporate training : perspectives from the post-mortem of a corporate e-learning provider approach of Second Life and OpenSimulator

Between 2009 and 2011, a joint academia-industry effort took place to integrate Second Life and OpenSimulator platforms into a corporate elearning provider’s learning management platform. The process involved managers and lead developers at the provider and an academic engineering research team. We performed content analysis on the documents produced in this process, seeking data on the corporate perspective of requirements for virtual world platforms to be usable in everyday practice. In this paper, we present the requirements found in the documents, and detail how they emerged and evolved throughout the process.

Home and group-based implementation of the "Growing Up Happily in the Family" program in at-risk psychosocial contexts

"Growing Up Happily in the Family" is a program to prevent child maltreatment targeted at parents of children aged 0-5 years old in at-risk psychosocial contexts. The program is delivered via either a group-based or a home-visit format. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of various implementation components in the home and group versions on changes in parental attitudes about child development and education. At-risk and non at-risk parents participated in the group-based (196 participants in 26 groups) and home-visit (95 participants) versions of the program delivered through local social services. We analyzed program adherence, adaptations, participant responsiveness, quality of delivery, and implementation barriers as predictors of changes in parental attitudes. The results showed that greater program adherence, better quality of delivery and participant responsiveness, and positive climate predicted changes in parental attitudes in both formats. Therefore, it is important to take into account the quality of the implementation process when testing the effectiveness of early group-based and home-visit interventions in at-risk families.

Living Adolescence in Family" parenting program: adaptation and implementation in social and school contexts

Adolescence is a developmental period that implies a series of rapid changes that might complicate the role of parents. This study evaluates changes in parental monitoring and the strategies to solve family conflicts reported by parents who participated in the "Living Adolescence in Family" program in local social services and school centers. In addition, the study analyses the moderating role of family and facilitator variables that may affect the final results. The participants were 697 parents attending the social services (438 in the intervention group and 259 in the control group) and 1283 parents from school centers (880 in the intervention group and 403 in the control group). The results showed that families from local social services decreased the amount of control and improved monitoring in education and leisure spheres as well as self-disclosure whereas the families coming from school centers improved supervision in leisure and in self-disclosure. In addition, both groups of families improved their strategies for solving family conflicts, increasing the use of integrative strategies and decreasing the use of dominant strategies. There were differences across contexts: the results of the program in the social services context differed according to the participant and professional profiles whereas program results were more homogeneous in the school context. In sum, the program appears to be an efficient work tool, both for the professionals who work with at-risk families with adolescents and for the teachers who make use of the program for families with children at risk of early school dropout.

Job satisfaction among primary school personnel in Madagascar

This article analyzes the job satisfaction of primary school teachers in Madagascar. Based on the estimation of multilevel models, low wages and problems getting paid, job insecurity, lack of in-service training, high pupil-teacher ratios, and lack of basic infrastructure and teaching materials are identified as the main reasons for dissatisfaction. Principals’ control of teachers’ activities also adversely affects satisfaction, suggesting that, in Malagasy schools, neither school directors nor teachers have succeeded in adopting organizational cultures based on cooperation among their members. These results are likely to stimulate debates on educational policy, both in Madagascar and in many other developing countries.

The interaction of economic and pedagogical ideals in the context of workplace learning in Germany: a framework for empirical research – inspired by business ethics

As an effect of marketisation, the importance of workplace learning in Germany has increased. The article follows up on the long-standing discourse around the question of how economic and pedagogical ideals interact in this context. In order to develop a theoretical framework for empirical research, three major positions of the discipline of business ethics are introduced. Business ethics in more abstract ways deals with the very same question, namely how do ideas such as profit orientation interact with other norms and values? The new perspectives show that the discourse has been hitherto based on a specific understanding of economy. In order to derive an empirical answer to the research question, the question is re-formulated as follows: Which values are inherent in the decisions taken? Consequently, it suggests using the concept of ‘rationalities of justification’ for empirical research. The article shows how this concept can be applied by conducting a test run. (DIPF/Orig.)

Experiences of health professionals with nutritional support of critically ill patients in tertiary hospitals in Malawi

Background Nutritional support is a recognized determinant of outcome in critically ill patients. Development of critical care services in low-income countries has not been accompanied by certain appropriate ancillary services and interventions, such as adequate nutritional support. This study was designed to investigate the experiences of health professionals who have provided nutritional supportive care to critically ill patients admitted to two major central hospitals in Malawi, with the aim of identifying the common practices in nutritional support in these settings. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional study in which 50 health professionals working in intensive care and high dependency units, admitting both adult and pediatric patients, were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data were coded and then analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Responses between the two hospitals were compared using Fisher’s exact test. Results There was no difference in the composition of respondents from the two hospitals. About 60% of respondents had had experience with nutritional supplementation in their patients—mainly enteral. The most commonly used formulations were the “ready-to-use therapeutic feeds,” followed by modified milk. A high percentage of respondents (40%) reported having used dextrose solution as the sole nutritional supplement. Lack of in-service training, nonexistent nutrition protocols pertaining to acutely and critically ill patients, and a lack of clinical nutritionists were the major challenges identified. Conclusion Knowledge of nutrient supplementation was poor among the respondents. The use of ready-to-use therapeutic feeds was quite common, although there is no evidence of its effectiveness in care of acutely critically ill patients. There is a need to establish nutritional support teams in these tertiary hospitals. Clinical nutritionists would ideally help train and play leadership roles in such teams, who would be responsible for assessing patients for their nutritional needs, and ensuring that the feeds provided to patients are appropriate and adequate for their needs.

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER CHOICES IN SERVICE OUTSOURCING AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT

This dissertation investigates customer behavior modeling in service outsourcing and revenue management in the service sector (i.e., airline and hotel industries). In particular, it focuses on a common theme of improving firms’ strategic decisions through the understanding of customer preferences. Decisions concerning degrees of outsourcing, such as firms’ capacity choices, are important to performance outcomes. These choices are especially important in high-customer-contact services (e.g., airline industry) because of the characteristics of services: simultaneity of consumption and production, and intangibility and perishability of the offering. Essay 1 estimates how outsourcing affects customer choices and market share in the airline industry, and consequently the revenue implications from outsourcing. However, outsourcing decisions are typically endogenous. A firm may choose whether to outsource or not based on what a firm expects to be the best outcome. Essay 2 contributes to the literature by proposing a structural model which could capture a firm’s profit-maximizing decision-making behavior in a market. This makes possible the prediction of consequences (i.e., performance outcomes) of future strategic moves. Another emerging area in service operations management is revenue management. Choice-based revenue systems incorporate discrete choice models into traditional revenue management algorithms. To successfully implement a choice-based revenue system, it is necessary to estimate customer preferences as a valid input to optimization algorithms. The third essay investigates how to estimate customer preferences when part of the market is consistently unobserved. This issue is especially prominent in choice-based revenue management systems. Normally a firm only has its own observed purchases, while those customers who purchase from competitors or do not make purchases are unobserved. Most current estimation procedures depend on unrealistic assumptions about customer arriving. This study proposes a new estimation methodology, which does not require any prior knowledge about the customer arrival process and allows for arbitrary demand distributions. Compared with previous methods, this model performs superior when the true demand is highly variable.

Intellectual and Developmental Status in Children With Hyperphenylalaninemia and PKU Who Were Screened in a National Program

Background: Hyperphenylalaninemia (HPA) and Phenylkeonuria (PKU) are metabolic errors caused by deficiency of phenylalanine hydroxylase enzyme, which results in increased level of phenylalanine. This increase is toxic to the growing brain. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the intellectual and developmental status in HPA and PKU children with normal population in national screening program. Patients and Methods: In a historical cohort study, 41 PKU patients who had the inclusion criteria and 41 healthy children were evaluated. Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence-3rd edition (WPPI-3) was used in order to assess the intellectual status of children 4 years and older and Ages and stages questionnaire (ASQ) was used to assess the developmental status of children 5 years and younger. Results: In intellectual test comparison, the two groups showed significant difference in Wechsler’s performance intelligence score and some performance subscales (P-value < 0.01). In comparison of developmental status, no significant difference was observed between the two groups (P-value > 0.05). Conclusions: Even with early diagnosis and treatment of PKU patients, these children show some deficiencies intellectually compared to normal children. This study emphasizes on necessity for screening intellectual and developmental status of PKU patients so that effective medical or educational measures can taken in case of deficiencies.

Microsatellite analysis of pacu broodstocks used in the stocking program of Paranapanema River, Brazil

O monitoramento da diversidade genética é fundamental em um programa de repovoamento. Avaliouse a diversidade genética de pacu Piaractus mesopotamicus (Holmberg, 1887) em duas estações de piscicultura em Andirá -Paraná, Brasil, utilizadas no programa de repovoamento do Rio Paranapanema. Foram amplificados seis loci microssatélite para avaliar 60 amostras de nadadeira. O estoque de reprodutores B apresentou maior número de alelos e heterozigose (alelos: 22 e H O: 0,628) que o estoque de reprodutores A (alelos: 21 e H O: 0,600). Alelos com baixos níveis de frequência foram observados nos dois estoques. Os coeficientes positivos de endogamia no locus Pme2 (estoque A: F IS = 0,30 e estoque B: F IS = 0,20), Pme5 (estoque B: F IS = 0,15), Pme14 (estoque A: F IS = 0,07) e Pme28 (estoque A: F IS = 0,24 e estoque B: F IS = 0,20), indicaram deficiência de heterozigotos. Foi detectada a presença de um alelo nulo no lócus Pme2. As estimativas negativas nos loci Pme4 (estoque A: F IS = -0,43 e estoque B: F IS= -0,37), Pme5 (estoque A: F IS = - 0,11), Pme14 (estoque B: F IS = - 0,15) e Pme32 (estoque A: F IS = - 0,93 e estoque B: F IS = - 0,60) foram indicativas de excesso de heterozigotos. Foi evidenciado desequilíbrio de ligação e riqueza alélica baixa só no estoque A. A diversidade genética de Nei foi alta nos dois estoques. A distância (0,085) e identidade (0,918) genética mostraram similaridade entre os estoques, o qual reflete uma possível origem comum. 6,05% da variância genética total foi devida a diferenças entre os estoques. Foi observado um recente efeito gargalo nos dois estoques. Os resultados indicaram uma alta diversidade genética nos estoques de reprodutores e baixa diferenciação genética entre eles, o que foi causado pelo manejo reprodutivo das pisciculturas, redução do tamanho populacional e intercâmbio genético entre as pisciculturas.

Pedagogical Mediation for the Autonomy of Future Professionals in Teacher Training

This article studies the importance of pedagogical mediation in helping first-year students in the Teacher Training area to advance from intellectual heteronomy to intellectual autonomy. It explains some strategies and experiences implemented by the authors. It focuses on the need of paying attention to students in order to understand their expectations, opinions and previous experiences as a basis for developing different topics and concepts, to favor an actual free participation in the pedagogical mediation dynamics and, consequently, opportunities for students to express themselves with autonomy. The aforementioned strategies allow for the transition from a pedagogy centered on teaching to a pedagogy centered on learning, in such a way that the future educator becomes a protagonist in his/her formation and constructs his/her own intellectual identity, based on the concept of action-reflection-action. The authors of this article consider that the first year in higher education is a privileged opportunity to develop the autonomy of future teachers, and, as stated by Freire (2004), the respect for autonomy is an ethical imperative.

Avaliações autonômicas e cardiovasculares em pessoas com lesão da medula espinhal nas situações de repouso, em um teste de estresse mental e durante exercício físico

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Controle autonomico da frequencia cardiaca de adolescentes em treinamento

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Treinamento de escolares de 7 a 10 anos para o preenchimento de um Diário Alimentar

INTRODUÇÃO: É reconhecida a efetividade de um treinamento para melhorar a qualidade no relato do consumo alimentar em adultos, porém poucos estudos avaliam esta efetividade em crianças. OBJETIVO: Investigar o efeito da realização de um treinamento para o desenvolvimento de habilidades para um correto preenchimento de um Diário Alimentar, por escolares de 7 a 10 anos. METODOLOGIA: O estudo foi conduzido em uma escola pública da cidade de São Paulo e envolveu a realização de 3 sessões de treinamento de 30 minutos cada, direcionadas a 40 escolares de ambos os sexos. Para verificação do efeito do treinamento, 3 examinadores avaliaram o preenchimento dos dados antes e após o mesmo. Foram atribuídos escores de 0 a 5 para aspectos relativos à identificação, detalhamento e quantificação do alimento consumido, e calculado o escore médio a partir dos escores de cada examinador para cada aspecto. Utilizou-se o teste de Wilcoxon para comparação de amostras dependentes. RESULTADOS: Foi constatada evidência estatística de diferença entre os escores antes e após o treinamento para os três aspectos: identificação (p < 0,001), detalhamento (p = 0,003) e quantificação do alimento (p < 0,001), sendo grande parte dos valores após o treinamento maiores que os iniciais. CONCLUSÃO: É possível aumentar a habilidade de escolares de 7 a 10 anos no preenchimento de um Diário Alimentar a partir da realização de um treinamento nos moldes apresentados neste artigo

Planificação de um sistema de informação para a unidade de formação contínua e avançada da Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico do Porto

Projecto apresentado ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Assessoria de Administração

Formação contínua e supervisão pedagógica: o impacto do Programa Nacional do Ensino do Português no desenvolvimento profissional de professores do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Este estudo pretende descrever e compreender o processo formativo dos professores do 1º ciclo do Ensino Básico, no contexto do Programa Nacional de Ensino do Português (PNEP), as suas dimensões mais relevantes e como é percecionada a supervisão nesse processo de formação contínua. A metodologia adotada nesta investigação foi de natureza qualitativa e baseou-se num conjunto de entrevistas semi-diretivas realizadas a formandos que frequentaram o PNEP entre 2008/2010. Dos resultados obtidos foi possível verificar o impacto positivo que esta modalidade de formação contínua teve no desenvolvimento profissional dos professores preparando-os para a implementação do novo programa de português e permitindo-lhes desmistificar o papel do supervisor através da participação numa experiência de supervisão. O trabalho colaborativo entre professores emergiu durante este processo formativo fomentando a construção de saber em colaboração. A prática pedagógica dos professores apresentou mudanças que pretenderam repercutir-se no aproveitamento dos alunos na área da língua portuguesa. - Abstract This study aims to comprehend and describe the formative process and practice of teachers in Basic education (1st Cycle), in the context of the National Programme for the Teaching of Portuguese Language (PNEP), its most relevant dimensions, the factors which affected it and how supervision was perceived by the teachers involved. A qualitative approach was used, based on semi-directed interviews done to teachers that attended the PNEP, from 2008 to 2010. The impact of this type of continuing training on teachers‟ professional development was positive. They felt prepared for the implementation of the new Portuguese Language Programme. They also demystified the role of the supervisor through the participation in an experience of supervision. The teachers‟ collaborative work emerged during this formative process, promoting the construction of knowledge among teachers. Added to this, teachers‟ pedagogical practice also improved reflected on the students‟ proficiency in the Portuguese language.