IT Education News, January-February 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, March-April 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, May-June 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, July-August 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, November-December 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

IT Education News, September-October 2006

Bimonthly newsletter detailing the current computer classes offered by DAS-ITE.

Major: Electronics and Communication Engineering

Today, information technology is strategically important to the goals and aspirations of the business enterprises, government and high-level education institutions – university. Universities are facing new challenges with the emerging global economy characterized by the importance of providing faster communication services and improving the productivity and effectiveness of individuals. New challenges such as provides an information network that supports the demands and diversification of university issues. A new network architecture, which is a set of design principles for build a network, is one of the pillar bases. It is the cornerstone that enables the university’s faculty, researchers, students, administrators, and staff to discover, learn, reach out, and serve society. This thesis focuses on the network architecture definitions and fundamental components. Three most important characteristics of high-quality architecture are that: it’s open network architecture; it’s service-oriented characteristics and is an IP network based on packets. There are four important components in the architecture, which are: Services and Network Management, Network Control, Core Switching and Edge Access. The theoretical contribution of this study is a reference model Architecture of University Campus Network that can be followed or adapted to build a robust yet flexible network that respond next generation requirements. The results found are relevant to provide an important complete reference guide to the process of building campus network which nowadays play a very important role. Respectively, the research gives university networks a structured modular model that is reliable, robust and can easily grow.

An ASsessment of Relationship between Students' Perception of Social Studies and their Academic Performance in Colleges of Education in Kaduna State

The objective of this study was to find out the relationship between students’ perception of Social Studies and their academic performance in the subject in Colleges of Education in Kaduna State. The respondents of the study comprised NCE 2 and NCE 3 students of Social Studies at the Federal College of Education in Zaria and the Kaduna State College of Education in Gidan Waya. The data for the study was collected using a questionnaire with reliability coefficient of 0.87. The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to test the hypotheses formulated for the study. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance with df = 232. The findings were as follows: 1. The Social Studies students in colleges of education in Kaduna State do not record high academic performance in the subject. 2. Students’ perception of the Social Studies curriculum does affect their academic performance in the subject 3. Students’ perception of relevance of Social Studies education has no bearing on their academic performance in the subject. 4. Students’ perception of public attitude towards Social Studies has no impact on their academic performance in the subject. 5. Students’ general perception of Social Studies does not affect their academic performance in the subject. Based on these findings the following recommendations were proffered for Social Studies researchers and policy makers. a. There is need for further research in order to determine the actual cause of students’ failure to display high performance in Social Studies. b. The NCE Social Studies curriculum should be reviewed in terms of volume and difficulty.

Audit report on the Iowa Federal Family Education Loan Program Division, a Division of the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the Iowa Federal Family Education Loan Program Division, a Division of the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, for the year ended June 30, 2007

Girls’ Education: Keeping Girls in School. ( A Literature Review with Implications for Girls’ School Attendence in Cape Verde)

Education plays a very important role in society’s development in order to promote good citizenship and individual rights and freedom. To this end, it is fundamental that girls be included in the education process. Inmost developed and developing countries, theoretically, both males and females have access to education. Cape Verde is no exception; however, the reality is that even in Cape Verde, promoting girls’ education and creating conditions to motivate girls to stay in school remains a challenge. Whereas girls have access to education many girls drop out for gender-related reasons. This paper will investigate girls’ education initiatives in general, and Cape Verde specific to offer recommendations and strategies to keep girls in school.

Education, disease prevalence and health service utilization in the Swiss National Health Survey "SOMIPOPS".

The relation among education, disease prevalence, and frequency of health service utilization was analyzed using data from the Swiss National Health Survey SOMIPOPS, conducted in 1981-1983 on a randomly selected sample of 4,255 individuals, representative of the entire Swiss population. The prevalence of several important cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, osteoarticular, and psychiatric disorders was higher among less educated individuals; only allergic conditions were directly associated with indicators of social class. More educated individuals reported lower frequencies of general practitioner visits, but higher frequencies of specialized consultations. These findings confirm that education is an important determinant not only of mortality but also of morbidity and health-care utilization and require careful consideration in terms of the planning and evaluation of health services.

Relationships between host plant architecture and gall abundance and survival

The plant architecture hypothesis predicts that variation in host plant architecture influences insect herbivore community structure, dynamics and performance. In this study we evaluated the effects of Macairea radula (Melastomataceae) architecture on the abundance of galls induced by a moth (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). Plant architecture and gall abundance were directly recorded on 58 arbitrarily chosen M. radula host plants in the rainy season of 2006 in an area of Cerrado vegetation, southeastern Brazil. Plant height, dry biomass, number of branches, number of shoots and leaf abundance were used as predicting variables of gall abundance and larval survival. Gall abundance correlated positively with host plant biomass and branch number. Otherwise, no correlation (p > 0.05) was found between gall abundance with shoot number or with the number of leaves/plant. From a total of 124 galls analyzed, 67.7% survived, 14.5% were attacked by parasitoids, while 17.7% died due to unknown causes. Larvae that survived or were parasitized were not influenced by architectural complexity of the host plant. Our results partially corroborate the plant architecture hypothesis, but since parasitism was not related to plant architecture it is argued that bottom-up effects may be more important than top-down effects in controlling the population dynamics of the galling lepidopteran. Because galling insects often decrease plant fitness, the potential of galling insects in selecting for less architectural complex plants is discussed.

KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES IN THE REGULAR CLASSROOM IN WUHAN, CHINA

After the international trends towards inclusive education, Chinese legislations mandate the inclusion of students with disabilities into the regular education classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate the kindergarten teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education of children with disabilities in the regular classroom, in Wuhan, China, as well their sense of responsibility to include children with disabilities in regular classroom. Ninety kindergarten teachers from public and private kindergartens in Wuhan participated in this study. Descriptive analysis demonstrated that, in general, kindergarten teachers we studied have negative or contradictory attitudes towards inclusive education of children with disabilities in regular classroom. Statistically non-significant differences were found between teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion and teachers’ demographic variables (age, education degree, teaching experience, experience teaching children with disabilities, time experience with children with disabilities and training in special education). Significant correlation was found between teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education and their sense of responsibility to include children with disabilities in regular classroom. The results allowed the identification of some crucial aspects necessary to achieve the inclusive education