Development of allocentric spatial memory abilities in children from 18 months to 5 years of age.

Episodic memories for autobiographical events that happen in unique spatiotemporal contexts are central to defining who we are. Yet, before 2 years of age, children are unable to form or store episodic memories for recall later in life, a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia. Here, we studied the development of allocentric spatial memory, a fundamental component of episodic memory, in two versions of a real-world memory task requiring 18 month- to 5-year-old children to search for rewards hidden beneath cups distributed in an open-field arena. Whereas children 25-42-months-old were not capable of discriminating three reward locations among 18 possible locations in absence of local cues marking these locations, children older than 43 months found the reward locations reliably. These results support previous findings suggesting that allocentric spatial memory, if present, is only rudimentary in children under 3.5 years of age. However, when tested with only one reward location among four possible locations, children 25-39-months-old found the reward reliably in absence of local cues, whereas 18-23-month-olds did not. Our findings thus show that the ability to form a basic allocentric representation of the environment is present by 2 years of age, and its emergence coincides temporally with the offset of infantile amnesia. However, the ability of children to distinguish and remember closely related spatial locations improves from 2 to 3.5 years of age, a developmental period marked by persistent deficits in long-term episodic memory known as childhood amnesia. These findings support the hypothesis that the differential maturation of distinct hippocampal circuits contributes to the emergence of specific memory processes during early childhood.

Aplicació web per a la gestió de comandes amb J2EE

La present memòria descriu els passos necessaris per fer l'anàlisi, el disseny i la implementació de un gestor de comandes per un empresa mitjançant l'entorn web. El projecte ha estat realitzat en llenguatge Java, ja que és un llenguatge orientat a l'objecte molt reutilitzable i que té una plataforma que és la J2EE, que la fa ideal per l'unió de pàgines web amb bases de dades.

Application by Waterford Institute of Technology for Designation as a University (Port Report)

This report provides our advice to the Minister for Education and Science on the application for designation as a university made by Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). WIT submitted an application for designation in February 2006. There is a statutory procedure for the creation of a new university under Section 9 of the Universities Act 1997. We were asked to advise the Minister on the merits of the submission in order for her to provide guidance to Government on whether such a formal statutory review should be initiated. It is not a straightforward task to advise on this case for several reasons. These include the facts that: the regulatory environment for Institutes of Technology has changed significantly since WIT made their application; and the designation of any IoT would potentially challenge the government’s current higher education policy. So our report has to range more widely than the merits of the WIT application, taken at face value.

Estudi de la plataforma Moodle : Implantació de metedologies de treball en grup

Es pretén realitzar un estudi exhaustiu de l'arquitectura i funcionalitats principals que ofereix Moodle com a entorn d'aprenentatge orientat al treball en grup i desenvolupament d'aplicacions web a mida, donant a conèixer els principis pedagògics constructivistes que promou en un entorn de treball col·laboratiu

Task Force on the Physical Sciences Report and Recommendation

Ireland has positioned itself to take advantage of technological change by encouraging the inward investment of high-tech industries and by providing a highly-educated workforce to sustain and enlarge them. Employment of science, engineering and technology graduates at all levels has been a hallmark of the modern Irish economy, as the educational sector responded to the mix of skills demanded by industry. An outstanding record of graduate output has contributed to the phenomenal growth in Irish-based technology. In an era of rapid technological change, the goal of "scientific literacy for all" has become a primary objective of a general education. Science is one of three literacy domains, along with reading and mathematics, that is included in measures of educational achievement by the OECD.

Struggles for meaning and struggles for control: the diffusion of bandwagon technology in two institutional environments

In this thesis, I examine the diffusion process for a complex medical technology, the PET scanner, in two different health care systems, one of which is more market-oriented (Switzerland) and the other more centrally managed by a public agency (Quebec). The research draws on institutional and socio-political theories of the diffusion of innovations to examine how institutional contexts affect processes of diffusion. I find that diffusion proceeds more rapidly in Switzerland than in Quebec, but that processes in both jurisdictions are characterized by intense struggles among providers and between providers and public agencies. I show that the institutional environment influences these processes by determining the patterns of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to strategically control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources or institutional logics on which actors may legitimately draw in their struggles to give meaning to the technology in line with their interests and values. This thesis illustrates how institutional structures and meanings manifest themselves in the context of specific decisions within an organizational field, and reveals the ways in which governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests that are legitimized by dominant institutional logics. It is argued that this form of contestation and readjustment at the margins constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined.

Regional Guidelines for the Search of Patients, their Belongings and the Environment of Care within Adult Mental Health and Learning Disability Inpatient Settings

The overarching purpose of these guidelines is to ensure the safety and promote the protection of patients, staff and visitors by ensuring that dangerous items or hazardous substances are not brought into the in-patient setting, including illicit substances, prescribed / over the counter medications, dangerous items and alcohol or any other hazardous or potentially hazardous item or substance.

Diseño integral de plataforma de virtualización

L'objectiu d'aquest projecte és el disseny, raonat i recolzat en dades objectives, d'una plataforma de virtualització basada en VMWARE ESXi (versió gratuïta de VMWARE), orientada al segment d'empreses i organitzacions que per la seva grandària podrien beneficiar-se d'un entorn de servidors virtualizados però que pel seu pressupost no poden accedir a tecnologies capdavanteres d'implantació.

El Pla d'Acollida de Centre : una proposta intercultural del tractament a la diversitat

El projecte recull un treball d'assessorament en centres de primària pel que fa a l'elaboració del pla d'acollida. L'assessorament tenia una doble finalitat: dotar el centre d'una eina que el permetés sistematitzar-la i dotar de coherència i continuïtat els dubtes o angoixes que aquesta situació provocava. La base teòrica és doble: l'enfocament constructivista de l'assessorament psicopedagògic i la perspectiva de l'interculturalisme, atès el vessant socialitzador, interactiu i harmonitzador del PdA i la consideració social i sistèmica dels dos referents. La metodologia utilitzada ha estat qualitativa: la investigació-acció, ja que és un assessorament orientat cap a l'acció i basat en la pràctica, amb la finalitat de capacitar els docents en la millora d'aquesta pràctica. Recull aspectes organitzatius -matriculació, adscripció al curs, acollida i relació entre la família i el centre, llengua, recursos interns i suports externs- i coordinacions i estratègies d'aula -acollida, organització i funcionament de la classe, planificació de l'escolarització i activitats. Van quedar pendents de realitzar els aspectes referents al currículum i a la cooperació amb l'entorn.

Open to the users' needs : combining user-centered design, standards and open source software

This case study introduces our continuous work to enhance the virtual classroom in order to provide faculty and students with an environment open to their needs, compliant with learning standards and, therefore compatible with other e-learning environments, and based on open source software. The result is a modulable, sustainable and interoperable learning environment that can be adapted to different teaching and learning situations by incorporating the LMS integrated tools as well as wikis, blogs, forums and Moodle activities among others.

What should a virtual University Library environment look like?

Over the past year, the Open University of Catalonia library has been designing its new website with this question in mind. Our main concern has been how to integrate the library in the student day to day study routine to not to be only a satellite tool. We present the design of the website that, in a virtual library like ours, it is not only a website but the whole library itself. The central point of the web is my library, a space that associates the library resources with the student's curriculum and their course subjects. There the students can save the resources as favourites, comment or share them. They have also access to all the services the library offers them. The resources are imported from multiple tools such as Millennium, SFX, Metalib and Dspace to the Drupal CMS. Then the resources' metadata can be enriched with other contextual information from other sources, for example the course subjects. And finally they can be exported in standard, open data formats making them available for linked data applications.

The influence of individual, social and physical environment factors on physical activity in the adult population in Andalusia, Spain

A person’s physical and social environment is considered as an influencing factor in terms of rates of engagement in physical activity. This study analyses the influence of socio-demographic, physical and social environmental factors on physical activity reported in the adult population in Andalusia. This is a cross-sectional study using data collected in the Andalusia Health Survey in 1999 and 2003. In addition to the influence of the individual’s characteristics, if there are no green spaces in the neighbourhood it is less likely that men and women will take exercise (OR = 1.26; 95% CI = 1.13, 1.41). Likewise, a higher local illiteracy rate also has a negative influence on exercise habits in men (OR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.21, 1.59) and in women (OR = 1.22; 95% CI = 1.07, 1.40). Physical activity is influenced by individuals’ characteristics as well as by their social and physical environment, the most disadvantaged groups are less likely to engage in physical activity