Sleep and school education

Sleep has emerged in the past decades as a key process for memory consolidation and restructuring. Given the universality of sleep across cultures, the need to reduce educational inequality, the low implementation cost of a sleep-based pedagogy, and its global scalability, it is surprising that the potential of improved sleep as a means of enhancing school education has remained largely unexploited. Students of various socio-economic status often suffer from sleep deficits. In principle, the optimization of sleep schedules both before and after classes should produce large positive benefits for learning. Here we review the biological and psychological phenomena underlying the cognitive role of sleep, present the few published studies on sleep and learning that have been performed in schools, and discuss potential applications of sleep to the school setting. Translational research on sleep and learning has never seemed more appropriate.

Mathematics education and democracy

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between mathematics education and the notions of education for all/democracy. In order to proceed with our analysis, we present Marx's concept of commodity and Jean Baudrillard's concept of sign value as a theoretical reference in the discussion of how knowledge has become a universal need in today's society and ideology. After, we engage in showing mathematics education's historical and epistemological grip to this ideology. We claim that mathematics education appears in the time period that English becomes an international language and the notion of international seems to be a key constructor in the constitution of that ideology. Here, we draw from Derrida's famous saying that there is nothing beyond the text. We conclude that a critique to modern society and education has been developed from an idealistic concept of democracy. © FIZ Karlsruhe 2009.

Nurse-patient communication while performing home dialysis: The patients' perceptions

This study aimed at describing patients' perception of their communication with nurses when performing home dialysis. Data were collected from interviews guided by the question: What is communication like, between you and nurses, during home dialysis treatment? Results show participants' perception of treatment during home peritoneal dialysis [Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD)]; relationship with nurses and family and the effects of treatment on one's existence. Patients can be self-caring and they learn to value the autonomy in their own care. However, some are unable to assume the responsibility for self-care. It was discovered that the connotation of inspection that some participants attributed to the nurse's visits, led to an alienation from the education process in the CAPD education. Findings suggest that effective communication and the development of the relationship of a working partnership with patients is crucial. Improvement in the nurses' communication, aiming at adapting it to the characteristics, limitations and specific needs of each patient, is significant for achieving better outcomes. © 2010 European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association/European Renal Care Association.

Education and the labour market in Latin America: why measurement is important and what it tells us about policies, reforms and performance

Includes bibliography

The University and its libraries: Reactions and resistance to scientific publishers

This paper addresses the relationship of copyright and the right of universities on scientific production. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are causing many changes in the system of scientific communication, such as the creation of Institutional Repositories that aim to gather scientific production in digital format. The University needs quicker ways of spreading academic production and many questions are emerging due to contexts such as the Open Access movement. Thus, this paper questions the positioning of Universities, especially Public Universities, which despite having policies related to intellectual property to protect the transferring forms of research results to society; many times do not have a positioning or a mechanism that regulates the self-deposit of scientific production in these Institutional Repositories. In order to develop this paper, the following issues are addressed: lack of interest of the University in storing scientific production; reports on the relationship of the library with scientific publishing houses; the participation of faculty members and students in supporting the Free Access movement; and initiatives aimed at greater flexibility of copyright to the context of scientific production. In order to follow the development of these issues at international level, it was opted for qualitative research with non-participating direct observation to carry out the identification and description of copyright policy of important publishers from the ROMEO SHERPA site; therefore, it can be observed that there are changes regarding the publishers' flexibility before self-archiving of authors in open access institutional repositories in their universities. Given this scenario, we presente reflections and considerations that involve the progress and mainly the integration of the University and its faculty members; the institution should recommend and guide its faculty members not to transfer their copyrights, but to defend their right of copy to Institutional Repositories along with Publishing Houses.

Education and income distribution in urban Brazil, 1976-1996

Includes bibliography

The digital economy for structural change and equality

Includes bibliography.

Prenatal zinc prevents communication impairments and BDNF disturbance in a rat model of autism induced by prenatal lipopolysaccharide exposure

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The affective-emotional communication in shoppingscapes: case study

Shoppingscapes on urban roads, such as streets and avenues, require study and more specific attention. You must be aware of the emotional communication, an important factor with regard to the influence on the perception and acquisition process by the observer. Reaching the consumer cognitively, arousing emotion and desire to want to have the observed object is one of the goals of emotional communication, and that only happens with the proper use of elements of perception. This paper aims to highlight the need for interdisciplinary design and architecture, especially in the case of shoppingscapes in open spaces that sell fashion items. The case study raises a reflection on the elements of perception in the windows as to whether they are being clearly communicated. It also discusses how the same are interfering or being interfered by the shoppingscapes of Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon.

Effects of Systematic Social Skill Training on the Social-Communication Behaviors of Young Children with Autism During Play Activities

A systematic social skills training intervention to teach reciprocal sharing was designed and implemented with triads of preschool-age children, including one child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and two untrained classroom peers who had no delays or disabilities. A multiple-baseline research design was used to evaluate effects of the social skills training intervention on social-communication and sharing behaviors exhibited by the participants with ASD during interactive play activities with peers. Social-communication behaviors measured included contact and distal gestures, touching peers and speaking. Four sharing behaviors were also measured, including sharing toys and objects, receiving toys and objects, asking others to share, and giving requested items. Results indicated considerable gains in overall social-communication behaviors. The greatest improvements were observed in the participants’ use of contact gestures and speaking. Slightly increasing trends were noted and suggested that participants with ASD made modest gains in learning the sharing skills taught during social skills training lessons. Social validity data indicate that participants with ASD and peer participants found the intervention appropriate and acceptable, and staff perception ratings indicated significant changes in the social skills of participants with ASD. Study outcomes have practical implications for educational practitioners related to enhancing social-communication and social interactions of young children with ASD. Study limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

Design and control techniques of optical networks

The world of communication has changed quickly in the last decade resulting in the the rapid increase in the pace of peoples’ lives. This is due to the explosion of mobile communication and the internet which has now reached all levels of society. With such pressure for access to communication there is increased demand for bandwidth. Photonic technology is the right solution for high speed networks that have to supply wide bandwidth to new communication service providers. In particular this Ph.D. dissertation deals with DWDM optical packet-switched networks. The issue introduces a huge quantity of problems from physical layer up to transport layer. Here this subject is tackled from the network level perspective. The long term solution represented by optical packet switching has been fully explored in this years together with the Network Research Group at the department of Electronics, Computer Science and System of the University of Bologna. Some national as well as international projects supported this research like the Network of Excellence (NoE) e-Photon/ONe, funded by the European Commission in the Sixth Framework Programme and INTREPIDO project (End-to-end Traffic Engineering and Protection for IP over DWDM Optical Networks) funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Scientific Research. Optical packet switching for DWDM networks is studied at single node level as well as at network level. In particular the techniques discussed are thought to be implemented for a long-haul transport network that connects local and metropolitan networks around the world. The main issues faced are contention resolution in a asynchronous variable packet length environment, adaptive routing, wavelength conversion and node architecture. Characteristics that a network must assure as quality of service and resilience are also explored at both node and network level. Results are mainly evaluated via simulation and through analysis.

Rural development and communication: a community media project in Uttar Pradesh (India)

Loaded with 16% of the world’s population, India is a challenged country. More than a third of its citizens live below the poverty line - on less than a dollar a day. These people have no proper electricity, no proper drinking water supply, no proper sanitary facilities and well over 40% are illiterates. More than 65% live in rural areas and 60% earn their livelihood from agriculture. Only a meagre 3.63% have access to telephone and less than 1% have access to a computer. Therefore, providing access to timely information on agriculture, weather, social, health care, employment, fishing, is of utmost importance to improve the conditions of rural poor. After some introductive chapters, whose function is to provide a comprehensive framework – both theoretical and practical – of the current rural development policies and of the media situation in India and Uttar Pradesh, my dissertation presents the findings of the pilot project entitled “Enhancing development support to rural masses through community media activity”, launched in 2005 by the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lucknow (U.P.) and by the local NGO Bharosa. The project scope was to involve rural people and farmers from two villages of the district of Lucknow (namely Kumhrava and Barhi Gaghi) in a three-year participatory community media project, based on the creation, implementation and use of a rural community newspaper and a rural community internet centre. Community media projects like this one have been rarely carried out in India because the country has no proper community media tradition: therefore the development of the project has been a challenge for the all stakeholders involved.

Il ruolo della Narrative in Medical Ethics, Medical Practice e Medical Education. Elementi di ricerca

La mia tesi di dottorato ha ad oggetto lo studio e l’analisi del ruolo della Narrative all’interno di tre ambiti, quali Medical Ethics, Clinical Practice e Medical Education. La tesi è strutturata in 4 capitoli: i primi tre vanno a comporre la parte teorica mentre nel quarto capitolo viene riportata una ricerca sul campo da me svolta negli Stati Uniti. Nel primo capitolo, analizzo il ruolo della narrative all’interno della Medical Ethics specificando che cosa si intenda con etica narrativa, quali sono le motivazione alla base del suo sviluppo e chi sono i suoi principali esponenti. In questo capitolo, inoltre, esamino i problemi che l’etica narrativa solleva suggerendo un nuovo modo in cui essa si integra alla riflessione bioetica. Il secondo capitolo è dedicato al contributo della narrative nella Medical Practice investigando sia le modalità attraverso le quali il paziente può avvalersi della narrazione per analizzare la sua esperienza di malattia sia la cosiddetta Medicina Narrativa. Il terzo capitolo è dedicato all'analisi delle Medical Humanities, ossia di quelle discipline che all’interno della Medical Education si stanno rivelando strumenti efficaci per una formazione più equilibrata e completa dei professionisti della salute. Il quarto capitolo, invece, è dedicato alla descrizione di una ricerca svolta presso l’University of California – Irvine . Durante questa esperienza ho frequentato i corsi del Program in Medical Humanities and Arts diretto dalla Prof.ssa J. Shapiro, (programma in vigore da 13 anni e implementato allo scopo di migliorare alcune competenze nei futuri medici quali: l'empatia, l’altruismo, la compassione e la predisposizione alla cura verso i pazienti, oltre che per affinare le comunicazione clinica e la capacità di osservazione) e intervistato gli studenti che hanno preso parte a queste lezioni.

Coping With a Family Member's Death: Parenting, Religiosity, and Parent-Child Communication

The present study had three major aims. First, this study was a basic descriptive exploration of the frequency and nature of parent-child communication about death. Second, this study conducted a quantitative analysis to identify predictors of communication and bereaved children¿s emotional and behavioral problems. Third, this study was also a qualitative analysis of parents¿ descriptions of how religious views shape conversations about death and how conversations are beneficial. Based on prior research, it was predicted that positive child outcomes would be associated with parental warmth, religiosity, adaptive coping, positive religious coping, and frequent parent-child communication about death. Conversely, it was predicted that negative child outcomes would be associated with parental psychological control, maladaptive coping, negative religious coping, and less frequent parent-child communication about death. Additionally, it was hypothesized that parents¿ religious and spiritual views would shape parent-child communication about death, and parents would describe numerous benefits of discussing death with children. Parents completed a series of survey measures assessing their religiosity, coping strategies, parent-child communication about death, and their children¿s emotional and behavioral symptoms. Almost 80% of parent-child dyads discussed death at least once a week, and children initiated approximately half of these conversations. Parent-child communication about death was predicted by parents¿ warmth toward and acceptance of their children and inversely predicted by children¿s hyperactivity and social problem solving. Higher levels of children¿s social problem solving could predict lower frequency of parent-child communication about death if children were holding frequent, meaningful, and comforting conversations with friends and other adults. Higher levels of parents¿ psychological control predicted more emotional and behavioral problems in the child. Parents¿ adaptive coping had significant relationships with all of the dimensions of parent-child communication about death. Qualitative analyses revealed that parents perceived their religious beliefs as shaping conversations about death and grief as an individualized journey. A majority of parents described the emotional, social, and intellectual benefits of holding parent-child conversations about death. This study contributes to the literature by further describing parent-child communication about death, identifying its predictors, and investigating parents¿ religiosity and coping strategies in relation to child well-being. Overall, this study revealed the importance of assessing global parenting characteristics (i.e., warmth/acceptance and psychological control) when examining parent-child relationships and communication about death. Furthermore, this unique study illustrates the value of qualitative data when examining parent-child communication about death and religiosity.

Multimembership and Identity in Writing Centers and in Industry: Examining the Work of Reconciliation in the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and at Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Writing center scholarship and practice have approached how issues of identity influence communication but have not fully considered ways of making identity a key feature of writing center research or practice. This dissertation suggests a new way to view identity -- through an experience of "multimembership" or the consideration that each identity is constructed based on the numerous community memberships that make up that identity. Etienne Wenger (1998) proposes that a fully formed identity is ultimately impossible, but it is through the work of reconciling memberships that important individual and community transformations can occur. Since Wenger also argues that reconciliation "is the most significant challenge" for those moving into new communities of practice (or, "engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor" (4)), yet this challenge often remains tacit, this dissertation examines and makes explicit how this important work is done at two different research sites - a university writing center (the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center) and at a multinational corporation (Kimberly-Clark Corporation). Drawing extensively on qualitative ethnographic methods including interview transcriptions, observations, and case studies, as well as work from scholars in writing center studies (Grimm, Denney, Severino), literacy studies (New London Group, Street, Gee), composition (Horner and Trimbur, Canagarajah, Lu), rhetoric (Crowley), and identity studies (Anzaldua, Pratt), I argue that, based on evidence from the two sites, writing centers need to educate tutors to not only take identity into consideration, but to also make individuals' reconciliation work more visible, as it will continue once students and tutors leave the university. Further, as my research at the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and Kimberly-Clark will show, communities can (and should) change their practices in ways that account for reconciliation work as identity, communication, and learning are inextricably bound up with one another.