Diseño de un programa de enriquecimiento cognitivo.

Comprobar la hipótesis de trabajo siguiente: el programa de enriquecimiento instrumental FIE produce un efecto de mejora en los procesos de razonamiento en los sujetos que han seguido una intervención con las tareas y problemas de dicho programa y existe una diferencia significativa con respecto al grupo control que no ha seguido dicha intervención. 47 alumnos de dos escuelas rurales de Murcia que al comienzo de la investigación cursaban tercero de EGB. El estudio duró dos cursos escolares. La muestra se dividió en un grupo experimental con 11 niños y 14 niñas y un grupo control con 14 niños y 8 niñas. El proceso de trabajo siguió los pasos siguientes: A) Evaluación inicial mediante pasación del Raven y ANOVA multivariada con la prueba Wisc; B) Implantación del programa de enriquecimiento instrumental de R. Feuerstein al grupo experimental; C) Pasación de las pruebas iniciales, evaluación de contrastes de las puntuaciones medias obtenidas en ambos grupos. Wisc como escala psicométrica y medida del CI y prueba de matrices progresivas coloreadas de Raven para evaluar el nivel de razonamiento a traves de analogías figurativas. Se utiliza el análisis factorial con el método test-retest y mediante el estudio de contrastes de T de Student para los resultados de las pruebas: Wisc y Raven en los dos grupos, y ANOVA multivariada pretest postest para los resultados de la prueba Wisc en ambos grupos. La media en los resultados de razonamiento (Raven) aumento significativamente en el grupo experimental al finalizar la implantación del programa, así como la media global de las subescalas del Wisc, resaltando la subescala verbal (comprensión, semejanzas y vocabulario). A) Se ha obtenido una mejora en el grupo experimental. B) La hipótesis queda confirmada. C) Se demuestra un fuerte incremento de los procesos de razonamiento y acceso a las operaciones mentales. D) El desarrollo de vocabulario y adquisición de conceptos también es significativo. E) Se ha producido un aumento del CI total con aumentos parciales del CI verbal. Se propone la inclusión del programa de EI en el currículum ordinario escolar y sobre todo en poblaciones más desfavorecidas.

Desarrollo de estrategias de pensamiento.

Mejorar una serie de habilidades de pensamiento y por tanto conseguir un mayor logro en los aprendizajes escolares de aquellos sujetos que presentan diversos tipos de deficiencia. Hacer una evaluación dinámica del funcionamiento cognitivo; evaluar los resultados tras un programa de intervención; fomentar la evaluación de prerrequisitos de pensamiento. La muestra es de 18 sujetos (8 niñas y 10 niños) entre 10-13 años que cursan ciclo medio en el Colegio Público 'Azorín' de Los Molinos Marfagones de Cartagena. La investigación se dividió en tres fases: 1. Evaluación del potencial de aprendizaje. 2. Aplicación del programa de enriquecimiento instrumental. 3. Valoración de los resultados. Hipótesis: los sujetos con bajo rendimiento intelectual obtienen una mejora de su nivel después de un modelo de enriquecimiento cognitivo. Como variable independiente se considera la situación de privación cultural de los sujetos de la muestra y como variable dependiente el 'programa de enriquecimiento instrumental' de R. Feuerstein. Matrices progresivas de Raven, cuyo objetivo es: A) Evaluar la capacidad para comprender un principio fundamental y aplicarlo a la solución de un problema, B) Evaluar las preferencias de los sujetos por un modelo diferente al dado, C) Evaluar los efectos diferenciales de distintas estrategias de aprendizaje. Figura compleja de rey con el objetivo de evaluar: A) Capacidad de estructurar un campo complejo. B) Precisión en la reproducción de los elementos componentes. C) Proceso por el que el sujeto reestructura el campo complejo a través de Feed-Back continuo. Análisis cuantitativo de comparación de resultados entre una fase de pretest y otra de posttest.. Mejoras en las tres fases del acto mental: imput-elaboración-output. Esto supone una mejora general debido a que todas la funciones cognitivas de cada una de las fases están interrelacionadas. Los mayores avances se han producido en los sujetos de más alto rendimiento cognitivo de la muestra. La alta modificabilidad cognitiva anima a hacer extensiva esta experiencia, muy idónea, por otra parte, para el municipio de Cartagena.

Legal outlier, again? U.S. felon suffrage: comparative and international human rights perspectives

The judiciousness of American felon suffrage policies has long been the subject of scholarly debate, not least due to the large number of affected Americans: an estimated 5.3 million citizens are ineligible to vote as a result of a criminal conviction. This article offers comparative law and international human rights perspectives and aims to make two main contributions to the American and global discourse. After an introduction in Part I, Part II offers comparative law perspectives on challenges to disenfranchisement legislation, juxtaposing U.S. case law against recent judgments rendered by courts in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and by the European Court of Human Rights. The article submits that owing to its unique constitutional stipulations, as well as to a general reluctance to engage foreign legal sources, U.S. jurisprudence lags behind an emerging global jurisprudential trend that increasingly views convicts’ disenfranchisement as a suspect practice and subjects it to judicial review. This transnational judicial discourse follows a democratic paradigm and adopts a “residual liberty” approach to criminal justice that considers convicts to be rights-holders. The discourse rejects regulatory justifications for convicts’ disenfranchisement, and instead sees disenfranchisement as a penal measure. In order to determine its suitability as a punishment, the adverse effects of disenfranchisement are weighed against its purported social benefits, using balancing or proportionality review. Part III analyzes the international human rights treaty regime. It assesses, in particular, Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), which proclaims that “every citizen” has a right to vote without “unreasonable restrictions.” The analysis concludes that the phrase “unreasonable restrictions” is generally interpreted in a manner which tolerates certain forms of disenfranchisement, whereas other forms (such as life disenfranchisement) may be incompatible with treaty obligations. This article submits that disenfranchisement is a normatively flawed punishment. It fails to treat convicts as politically-equal community members, degrades them, and causes them grave harms both as individuals and as members of social groups. These adverse effects outweigh the purported social benefits of disenfranchisement. Furthermore, as a core component of the right to vote, voter eligibility should cease to be subjected to balancing or proportionality review. The presumed facilitative nature of the right to vote makes suffrage less susceptible to deference-based objections regarding the judicial review of legislation, as well as to cultural relativity objections to further the international standardization of human rights obligations. In view of this, this article proposes the adoption of a new optional protocol to the ICCPR proscribing convicts’ disenfranchisement. The article draws analogies between the proposed protocol and the ICCPR’s “Optional Protocol Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty.” If adopted, the proposed protocol would strengthen the current trajectory towards expanding convicts’ suffrage that emanates from the invigorated transnational judicial discourse.

Do soldiers' lives matter? A view from proportionality

A military operation is about to take place during an ongoing international armed conflict; it can be carried out either by aerial attack, which is expected to cause the deaths of enemy civilians, or by using ground troops, which is expected to cause the deaths of fewer enemy civilians but is expected to result in more deaths of compatriot soldiers. Does the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law impose a duty on an attacker to expose its soldiers to life-threatening risks in order to minimise or avert risks of incidental damage to enemy civilians? If such a duty exists, is it absolute or qualified? And if it is a qualified duty, what considerations may be taken into account in determining its character and scope? This article presents an analytic framework under the current international humanitarian law (IHL) legal structure, following a proportionality analysis. The proposed framework identifies five main positions for addressing the above queries. The five positions are arranged along two ‘axes’: a value ‘axis’, which identifies the value assigned to the lives of compatriot soldiers in relation to lives of enemy civilians; and a justification ‘axis’, which outlines the justificatory bases for assigning certain values to lives of compatriot soldiers and enemy civilians: intrinsic, instrumental or a combination thereof. The article critically assesses these positions, and favours a position which attributes a value to compatriot soldiers’ lives, premised on a justificatory basis which marries intrinsic considerations with circumscribed instrumental considerations, avoiding the indeterminacy and normative questionability entailed by more expansive instrumental considerations.

Random primordial magnetic fields and the gas content of dark matter haloes

We recently predicted the existence of random primordial magnetic fields (RPMFs) in the form of randomly oriented cells with dipole-like structure with a cell size L(0) and an average magnetic field B(0). Here, we investigate models for primordial magnetic field with a similar web-like structure, and other geometries, differing perhaps in L(0) and B(0). The effect of RPMF on the formation of the first galaxies is investigated. The filtering mass, M(F), is the halo mass below which baryon accretion is severely depressed. We show that these RPMF could influence the formation of galaxies by altering the filtering mass and the baryon gas fraction of a halo, f(g). The effect is particularly strong in small galaxies. We find, for example, for a comoving B(0) = 0.1 mu G, and a reionization epoch that starts at z(s) = 11 and ends at z(e) = 8, for L(0) = 100 pc at z = 12, the f(g) becomes severely depressed for M < 10(7) M(circle dot), whereas for B(0) = 0 the f(g) becomes severely depressed only for much smaller masses, M < 10(5) M(circle dot). We suggest that the observation of M(F) and f(g) at high redshifts can give information on the intensity and structure of primordial magnetic fields.

Are the magnetic fields of millisecond pulsars similar to 10(8) G?

It is generally assumed that the magnetic fields of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are similar to 10(8) G. We argue that this may not be true and the fields may be appreciably greater. We present six evidences for this: (1) The similar to 10(8)G field estimate is based on magnetic dipole emission losses which is shown to be questionable; (2) The MSPs in low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are claimed to have < 10(11) G on the basis of a Rayleygh-Taylor instability accretion argument. We show that the accretion argument is questionable and the upper limit 10(11) G may be much higher; (3) Low magnetic field neutron stars have difficulty being produced in LMXBs; (4) MSPs may still be accreting indicating a much higher magnetic field; (5) The data that predict similar to 10(8) G for MSPs also predict ages on the order of, and greater than, ten billion years, which is much greater than normal pulsars. If the predicted ages are wrong, most likely the predicted similar to 10(8) G fields of MSPs are wrong; (6) When magnetic fields are measured directly with cyclotron lines in X-ray binaries, fields a parts per thousand << 10(8) G are indicated. Other scenarios should be investigated. One such scenario is the following. Over 85% of MSPs are confirmed members of a binary. It is possible that all MSPs are in large separation binaries having magnetic fields > 10(8) G with their magnetic dipole emission being balanced by low level accretion from their companions.

Suppression of small baryonic structures due to a primordial magnetic field

We investigate the impact of the existence of a primordial magnetic field on the filter mass, characterizing the minimum baryonic mass that can form in dark matter (DM) haloes. For masses below the filter mass, the baryon content of DM haloes are severely depressed. The filter mass is the mass when the baryon to DM mass ratio in a halo is equal to half the baryon to DM ratio of the Universe. The filter mass has previously been used in semi-analytic calculations of galaxy formation, without taking into account the possible existence of a primordial magnetic field. We examine here its effect on the filter mass. For homogeneous comoving primordial magnetic fields of B(0) similar to 1 or 2 nG and a re-ionization epoch that starts at a redshift z(s) = 11 and is completed at z(r) = 8, the filter mass is increased at redshift 8, for example, by factors of 4.1 and 19.8, respectively. The dependence of the filter mass on the parameters describing the re-ionization epoch is investigated. Our results are particularly important for the formation of low-mass galaxies in the presence of a homogeneous primordial magnetic field. For example, for B(0) similar to 1 nG and a re-ionization epoch of z(s) similar to 11 and z(r) similar to 7, our results indicate that galaxies of total mass M similar to 5 x 108 M(circle dot) need to form at redshifts z(F) greater than or similar to 2.0, and galaxies of total mass M similar to 108 M(circle dot) at redshifts z(F) greater than or similar to 7.7.

Origin of 10(15)-10(16) G magnetic fields in the central engine of gamma ray bursts

Various authors have suggested that the gamma-ray burst (GRB) central engine is a rapidly rotating, strongly magnetized, (similar to 10(15)-10(16) G) compact object. The strong magnetic field can accelerate and collimate the relativistic flow and the rotation of the compact object can be the energy source of the GRB. The major problem in this scenario is the difficulty of finding an astrophysical mechanism for obtaining such intense fields. Whereas, in principle, a neutron star could maintain such strong fields, it is difficult to justify a scenario for their creation. If the compact object is a black hole, the problem is more difficult since, according to general relativity it has ""no hair"" (i.e., no magnetic field). Schuster, Blackett, Pauli, and others have suggested that a rotating neutral body can create a magnetic field by non-minimal gravitational-electromagnetic coupling (NMGEC). The Schuster-Blackett form of NMGEC was obtained from the Mikhail and Wanas`s tetrad theory of gravitation (MW). We call the general theory NMGEC-MW. We investigate here the possible origin of the intense magnetic fields similar to 10(15)-10(16) G in GRBs by NMGEC-MW. Whereas these fields are difficult to explain astrophysically, we find that they are easily explained by NMGEC-MW. It not only explains the origin of the similar to 10(15)-10(16) G fields when the compact object is a neutron star, but also when it is a black hole.

The Schenberg spherical gravitational wave detector: the first commissioning runs

Here we present a status report of the first spherical antenna project equipped with a set of parametric transducers for gravitational detection. The Mario Schenberg, as it is called, started its commissioning phase at the Physics Institute of the University of Sao Paulo, in September 2006, under the full support of FAPESP. We have been testing the three preliminary parametric transducer systems in order to prepare the detector for the next cryogenic run, when it will be calibrated. We are also developing sapphire oscillators that will replace the current ones thereby providing better performance. We also plan to install eight transducers in the near future, six of which are of the two-mode type and arranged according to the truncated icosahedron configuration. The other two, which will be placed close to the sphere equator, will be mechanically non-resonant. In doing so, we want to verify that if the Schenberg antenna can become a wideband gravitational wave detector through the use of an ultra-high sensitivity non-resonant transducer constructed using the recent achievements of nanotechnology.

Globalización y competencia tributaria: implicaciones para los países en desarrollo

Incluye Bibliografía

Globalization and tax competition: implications for developing countries

Includes bibliography

Globalization and tax competition: implications for developing countries

Includes bibliography

Mediação em fóruns educacionais de curso online de língua estrangeira (espanhol)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)