An overview of the ciao multiparadigm language and program development environment and its design philosophy

We describe some of the novel aspects and motivations behind the design and implementation of the Ciao multiparadigm programming system. An important aspect of Ciao is that it provides the programmer with a large number of useful features from different programming paradigms and styles, and that the use of each of these features can be turned on and off at will for each program module. Thus, a given module may be using e.g. higher order functions and constraints, while another module may be using objects, predicates, and concurrency. Furthermore, the language is designed to be extensible in a simple and modular way. Another important aspect of Ciao is its programming environment, which provides a powerful preprocessor (with an associated assertion language) capable of statically finding non-trivial bugs, verifying that programs comply with specifications, and performing many types of program optimizations. Such optimizations produce code that is highly competitive with other dynamic languages or, when the highest levéis of optimization are used, even that of static languages, all while retaining the interactive development environment of a dynamic language. The environment also includes a powerful auto-documenter. The paper provides an informal overview of the language and program development environment. It aims at illustrating the design philosophy rather than at being exhaustive, which would be impossible in the format of a paper, pointing instead to the existing literature on the system.

A language exchange program: sustainability innovation in language and culture engagement

The Language Exchange Program between the UPM and UBCO acts as a model for sustainability innovation in language and culture engagement as the students can interact with native speakers in communication tasks. This interdisciplinary initiative supports the latest methodological principles observed in the Common European Framework for Languages [1], such as autonomous and lifelong learning, self-assessment and peer-assessment as well as the incorporation of new technologies to the learning process

Examining the Complex Relationships of Early Intervention on Language and Psychosocial Development in Families Facing Multiple Risks with a Focus on Children of Hispanic Immigrants

Abundant research has shown that poverty has negative influences on young child academic and psychosocial development, and unfortunately, disparities in school readiness between low and high income children can be seen as early the first year of life. The largest federal early care and education intervention for these vulnerable children is Early Head Start (EHS). To diminish these disparate child outcomes, EHS seeks to provide community based flexible programming for infants and toddlers and their families. Given how relatively recent these programs have been offered, little is known about the nuances of how EHS impacts infant and toddler language and psychosocial development. Using a framework of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) this paper had 5 goals: 1) to characterize the associations between domain specific and cumulative risk and child outcomes 2) to validate and explore these risk-outcome associations separately for Children of Hispanic immigrants (COHIs), 3) to explore relationships among family characteristics, multiple environmental factors, and dosage patterns in different EHS program types, 4) to examine the relationship between EHS dosage and child outcomes, and 5) to examine how EHS compliance impacts child internalizing and externalizing behaviors and emerging language abilities. Results of the current study showed that risks were differentially related to child outcomes. Poor maternal mental health was related to child internalizing and externalizing behaviors, but not related to emerging child language skills. Although child language skills were not related to maternal mental health, they were related to economic hardship. Additionally, parent level Spanish use and heritage orientation were associated with positive child outcomes. Results also showed that these relationships differed when COHIs and children with native-born parents were examined separately. Further, unique patterns emerged for EHS program use, for example families who participated in home-based care were less likely to comply with EHS attendance requirements. These findings provide tangible suggestions for EHS stakeholders: namely, the need to develop effective programming that targets engagement for diverse families enrolled in EHS programs.

A structural model of cognitive-motivational variables as explanatory factors of academic achievement in Spanish Language and Mathematics

In recent years, several explanatory models have been developed which attempt to analyse the predictive worth of various factors in relation to academic achievement, as well as the direct and indirect effects that they produce. The aim of this study was to examine a structural model incorporating various cognitive and motivational variables which influence student achievement in the two basic core skills in the Spanish curriculum: Spanish Language and Mathematics. These variables included differential aptitudes, specific self-concept, goal orientations, effort and learning strategies. The sample comprised 341 Spanish students in their first year of Compulsory Secondary Education. Various tests and questionnaires were used to assess each student, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to study the relationships in the initial model. The proposed model obtained a satisfactory fit for the two subjects studied, and all the relationships hypothesised were significant. The variable with the most explanatory power regarding academic achievement was mathematical and verbal aptitude. Also notable was the direct influence of specific self-concept on achievement, goal-orientation and effort, as was the mediatory effect that effort and learning strategies had between academic goals and final achievement.

The Influence of Space Layout, Technology and Teaching Approach on Student Learning: An Architectural Technology Perspective

Some would argue that there is a need for the traditional lecture format to be rethought in favour of a more active approach. However, this must form part of a bipartite strategy, considered in conjunction with the layout of any new space to facilitate alternative learning and teaching methods. With this in mind, this paper begins to examine the impact of the learning environment on the student learning experience, specifically focusing on students studying on the Architectural Technology and Management programme at Ulster University. The aim of this study is two-fold: to increase understanding of the impact of learning space layout, by taking a student centered approach; and to gain an appreciation of how technology can impact upon the learning space. The study forms part of a wider project being undertaken at Ulster University known as the Learning Landscape Transition Project, exploring the relationship between learning, teaching and space layout. Data collection was both qualitative and quantitative, with use of a case study supported by a questionnaire based on attitudinal scaling. A focus group was also used to further analyse the key trends resulting from the questionnaire. The initial results suggest that the learning environment, and the technology within it, can not only play an important part in the overall learning experience of the student, but also assist with preparation for the working environment to be experienced in professional life.

Technology Language and Frankenstein Strategy

Teaching architecture is experiencing a moment of opportunity. New methods, like constructivist pedagogy, based on complexity and integration are yet to be explored. In this context of opportunity teaching architecture has a duty to integrate complexity in their curriculum. Teaching methods should also assume inherent indeterminacy and contingency of all complex process. If we accept this condition as part of any teaching method, the notion of truth or falsehood it becomes irrelevant. In this regard it could focus on teaching to contingency of language. Traditionally, technology is defined as the language of science. If we assume contingency as one of the characteristics of language, we could say that technology is also contingent. Therefore we could focus technology teaching to redefine its own vocabulary. So, redefining technological vocabulary could be an area of opportunity for education in architecture. The student could redefine their own tools, technology, to later innovate with them. First redefine the vocabulary, the technology, and then construct the new language, the technique. In the case of Building Technology subjects, it should also incorporate a more holistic approach for enhancing interdisciplinary transfer. Technical transfer, either from nature or other technologies to the field of architecture, is considered as a field of great educational possibilities. Evenmore, student get much broader technical approach that transgresses the boundaries of architectural discipline.

Resources for language and area studies; a report on an inventory of the language and area centers supported by the National Defense Education Act of 1958

Bibliographical footnotes.

Illinois studies in language and literature.

Vol.1, v.16, no.3-v.23, no.2. issued as University of Illinois bulletin.

Three lectures on the science of language and its place in education,/

Mode of access: Internet.

The development of an observation tool for use with parents with psychiatric disability and their preschool children

Community-based treatment and care of people with psychiatric disabilities has meant that they are now more likely to engage in the parenting role. This has led to the development of programs designed to enhance the parenting skills of people with psychiatric disabilities. Evaluation of these programs has been hampered by a paucity of evaluation tools. This study's aim was to develop and trial a tool that examined the parent-child interaction within a group setting, was functional and easy to use, required minimum training and equipment, and had acceptable levels of reliability and validity. The revised tool yielded a single scale with acceptable reliability. It had discriminative validity and concurrent validity with non-independent global ratings of parenting. Sensitivity to change was not investigated. The findings suggest that this method of evaluating parenting is likely to have both clinical and research utility and further investigation of the psychometric properties of the tool is warranted.

The commentariat and discourse failure: language and atrocity in Cool Britannia

Recent terrorist events in the UK, such as the security alerts at British airports in August 2006 and the London bombings of July 2005 gained extensive media and academic analysis. This study contends, however, that much of the commentary demonstrated a wide degree of failure among government agencies, academic and analytic experts and the wider media, about the nature of the threat and continues to distort comprehension of the extant danger. The principal failure, this argument maintains, was, and continues to be, one of an asymmetry of comprehension that mistakes the still relatively limited means of violent jihadist radicals with limited political ends. The misapprehension often stems from the language that surrounds the idea of 'terrorism', which increasingly restricts debate to an intellectually redundant search for the 'root causes' that give rise to the politics of complacency. In recent times this outlook has consistently underestimated the level of the threat to the security of the UK. This article argues that a more realistic appreciation of the current security condition requires abandoning the prevailing view that the domestic threat is best prosecuted as a criminal conspiracy. It demands instead a total strategy to deal with a totalizing threat. The empirical evidence demonstrates the existence of a physical threat, not merely the political fear of threat. The implementation of a coherent set of social policies for confronting the threat at home recognizes that securing state borders and maintaining internal stability are the first tasks of government. Fundamentally, this requires a return to an understanding of the Hobbesian conditions for sovereignty, which, despite the delusions of post-Cold War cosmopolitan multiculturalism, never went away.

Good practice guide in learning and teaching

Once again this publication is produced to celebrate and promote good teaching and learning support and to offer encouragement to those imaginative and innovative staff who continue to wish to challenge students to learn to maximum effect. It is hoped that others will pick up some good ideas from the articles contained in this volume. We have again changed our approach for this 2007/08 edition (our fifth) of the Aston Business School Good Practice Guide. As before, some contributions were selected from those identifying interesting best practice on their Annual Module Reflection Forms in 2006/2007. Brookes? contribution this year is directly from her annual reflection. Other contributors received HELM (Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management) small research grants in 2006/2007. Part of the conditions were for them to write an article for this publication. We have also been less tight on the length of the articles this year. Some contributions are, therefore, on the way to being journal articles. HELM will be working with these authors to help develop these for publication. Looking back over the last five years it is brilliant to see how many different people have contributed over the years and, therefore, how much innovative learning and teaching work has been taking place in ABS over this time. In the first edition we were just pleased for people to write a few pages on their teaching. Now things have changed dramatically. The majority of the articles are grounded in empirical research (some funded by HELM small research grants) and Palmer?s article was produced as part of the University?s Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching. Most encouraging of all, four of this year?s articles have since been developed further and submitted to refereed journals. We await news of publication as we go to press. It is not surprising that how to manage large groups still remains a central theme of the articles, ABS has a large and still growing student body. Essex and Simpson have looked at trying to encourage students to attend taught sessions, on the basis that there is a strong correlation between attendance and higher performance. Their findings are forming the platform of a further study currently being carried out in the Undergraduate Programme. A number of the other articles concentrate on trying to encourage students to engage with study in an innovative way. This is particularly obvious in Shaw?s work. Everyone who has been around campus lately has had evidence that the students on Duncan?s modules have clearly been inspired. I found myself, for example, playing golf in the student dining room as part of this initiative! The articles by Jarzabkowski & Guilietti and Ho involved much larger surveys. This is another first for the Good Practice Guide and marks the first step on what will clearly be larger research efforts for these authors in this area. We look forward to the journal publications which will result from this work. The last articles are the result of HELM?s hosting of the national conference of the Higher Education Academy?s Business, Management, Accounting and Finance (BMAF) Subject Centre Conference in May 2007. Belal and Foster have written about their impressions of the Conference and Andrews has included the paper she gave. The papers on employability and widening participation are the centre of HELM?s current work. In the second volume we mentioned the launch of the School?s Research Centre in Higher Education Learning and Management (HELM). Since then HELM has stimulated a lot of activity across the School (and University) particularly linking research and teaching. A list of the HELM seminars for 2007/2008 is listed as Appendix 1 of this publication. Further details can be obtained from Catherine Foster (c.s.foster@aston.ac.uk), who coordinates the HELM seminars. We have also been working on a list of target journals to guide ABS staff who wish to publish in this area. These are included as Appendix 2 of this publication. May I thank the contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write the articles and to Julie Green, the Quality Manager, for putting the varying diverse approaches into a coherent and publishable form and for agreeing to fund the printing of this volume.

Learning and teaching through context: a data-driven approach

A word may have many potential meanings, but its actual meaning in any authentic written or spoken text is determined by its context: its collocations, structural patterns, and pragmatic functions. Large language corpora offer access to words in a wide range of natural contexts, which can improve and enrich both language learning and teaching.

Language and peace

This study seeks to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis can elucidate the relationship between language and peace. It provides a view on the notion of peace put forward by peace researchers, namely that peace includes not only the absence of war or physical violence, but also the absence of structural violence. Approaching the topic from various perspectives, the volume argues that language is a factor to be considered together with social and economic factors in any examination of the social conditions and institutions that prevent the achievement of a comprehensive peace. It illustrates a framework of concepts and methodologies that offer to help guide future linguistic research in this area, and also calls for foreign language, second language and peace educators to include critical linguistic education into their curricula and describes an approach for doing so.