COMMUNICATION AND GREEK ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANISATIONS: MEANS OF COMMUNICATION AND INFLUENCING FACTORS

A basic operational objective of any environmental organisation is to raise awareness among the public on issues of environmental protection, through the dissemination of knowledge and experience to local communities, so that the conservation and ecologically sound management of natural resources can acquire a local dimension. This can be achieved either through interventions directed at the State, mainly in relation to its legislative function, or by encouraging citizens to change or improve their attitude regarding environmental matters. In order to ensure a successful outcome and the efficient functioning of any organisation, a feeling of mutual trust and understanding should exist between the latter and its various audiences, i.e. the State and society. A basic ingredient of this balance between the organisation, the broader public and the State is effective communication and activity planning. As a way of contributing to the exploration of this process, this paper describes the means of communication used by Greek environmental organisations, and presents, through a non-linear model, the differentiation amongst them, in conjunction with aspects of the profile of those running each organisation and other indicators, such as the years in operation and the membership figures in each sampled organisation. The paper concludes by arguing that the diversification of communication means is related to the head person's years as a member of the organisation and the extent of its total membership. Another important finding is that the more the involvement in activities within the organisation, the less differentiation we observe amongst the employed means of communication.

South Brazil; physical features, natural resources, means of communication, manufactures and industrial.

Mode of access: Internet.

Semiotics of Communication: From Semiosis of Nature to Culture

Communication Studies currently undergoes a crisis of paradigms that requires an ontological review that must begin with a debate about the conditions of possibility of every communicational phenomena. In this article we argue that semiosis offers a conceptual framework that allows for the study of communication as qualitative action. Semiosis, or the action of the sign, is here defined as a fundamental process based on perception that models the world of species, creating cognition and culture. At the core of semiosis are dynamic structures that the authors have defined as 'ontological diagrams'. The first purpose of Semiotics of Communication is to understand how these modeling systems evolve ontologically and phylogenically, producing, in the case of human culture, means of communication ever more varied and technologically advanced.

Projecte col-laboratiu en l'àmbit de la sordesa i les llengües de signes

El treball que presentem descriu l'experiència de treball col-laboratiu entre professorat -alumnat i alumne-alumne en l'àmbit de la sordesa i les llengües de signes en una assignatura del màster "Comunitat Sorda, Educació i Llengües de Signes", impartit en la Facultat de Formació del Professorat de la Universitat de Barcelona. El projecte consisteix en l'elaboració d'entrades relatives a l'àmbit de les llengües de signes per a ser incorporades en un diccionari de termes lingüístics. Describim les característiques del projecte i les eines tecnològiques per al treball col-laboratiu emprades al llarg del procés

Introdução à libras: língua, história e cultura

Reading the book Introduction to Libras: Language, History and Culture enables enter the world of the deaf, increasing thus the own existential universe by contact with the richness of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and the history and culture of deaf people. This work is proposed by the subject of knowledge, raise awareness of the need to build a society in which vigore the principle of social justice for all; promote the revision of prejudice suffered by the deaf that impose discriminatory compactuando with the lack of social equity; and awaken the desire for a full communication with deaf people through Pounds learning, valuing differences.

Detecting quantum entanglement by means of local operations and classical communication

Based on the positive maps separability criterion, we present a method for the detection of quantum entanglement of a shared bipartite quantum state, within the "distant labs" paradigm, using only local operations and classical communication.

Making it in the Modern Job Market: A Study of Communication among the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Population

Gemstone Team AUDIO (Assessing and Understanding Deaf Individuals' Occupations)

Funding special education provision by means of discriminant function analysis

This thesis is concerned with the development of a funding mechanism, the Student Resource Index, which has been designed to resolve a number of difficulties which emerged following the introduction of integration or inclusion as an alternative means of providing educational support to students with disabilities in the Australian State of Victoria. Prior to 1984, the year in which the major integration or inclusion initiatives were introduced, the great majority of students with disabilities were educated in segregated special schools, however, by 1992 the integration initiatives had been successful in including within regular classes approximately half of the students in receipt of additional educational assistance on the basis of disability. The success of the integration program brought with it a number of administrative and financial problems which were the subject of three government enquiries. Central to these difficulties was the development of a dual system of special education provision. On one hand, additional resources were provided for the students attending segregated special schools by means of weighted student ratios, with one teacher being provided for each six students attending a special school. On the other hand, the requirements of individual students integrated into regular schools were assessed by school-based committees on the basis of their perceived extra educational needs. The major criticism of this dual system of special education funding was that it created inequities in the distribution of resources both between the systems and also within the systems. For example, three students with equivalent needs, one of whom attended a special school and two of whom attended different regular schools could each be funded at substantially differing levels. The solution to these inequities of funding was seen to be in the development of a needs based funding device which encompassed all students in receipt of additional disability related educational support. The Student Resource Index developed in this thesis is a set of behavioural descriptors designed to assess degree of additional educational need across a number of disability domains. These domains include hearing, vision, communication, health, co-ordination (manual and mobility), intellectual capacity and behaviour. The completed Student Resource Index provides a profile of the students’ needs across all of these domains and as such addresses the multiple nature of many disabling conditions. The Student Resource Index was validated in terms of its capacity to predict the ‘known’ membership or the type of special school which some 1200 students in the sample currently attended. The decision to use the existing special school populations as the criterion against which the Student Resource Index was validated was based on the premise that the differing resource levels of these schools had been historically determined by expert opinion, industrial negotiation and reference to other special education systems as the most reliable estimate of the enrolled students’ needs. When discriminant function analysis was applied to some 178 students attending one school for students with mild intellectual disability and one facility for students with moderate to severe intellectual disability the Student Resource Index was successful in predicting the student's known school in 92 percent of cases. An analysis of those students (8 percent) which the Student Resource Index had failed to predict their known school enrolment revealed that 13 students had, for a variety of reasons, been inappropriately placed in these settings. When these students were removed from the sample the predictive accuracy of the Student Resource Index was raised to 96 percent of the sample. By comparison the domains of the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale accurately predicted known enrolments of 76 percent of the sample. By way of replication discriminant function analysis was then applied to the Student Resource Index profiles of 518 students attending Day Special Schools (Mild Intellectual Disability) and 287 students attending Special Developmental Schools (Moderate to Severe Intellectual Disability). In this case, the Student Resource Index profiles were successful in predicting the known enrolments of 85 percent of students. When a third group was added, 147 students attending Day Special Schools for students with physical disabilities, the Student Resource Index predicted known enrolments in 80 percent of cases. The addition of a fourth group of 116 students attending Day Special Schools (Hearing Impaired) to the discriminant analysis led to a small reduction in predictive accuracy from 80 percent to 78 percent of the sample. A final analysis which included students attending a School for the Deaf-Blind, a Hospital School and a Social and Behavioural Unit was successful in predicting known enrolments in 71 percent of the 1114 students in the sample. For reasons which are expanded upon within the thesis it was concluded that the Student Resource Index when used in conjunction with discriminant function analysis was capable of isolating four distinct groups on the basis of their additional educational needs. If the historically determined and varied funding levels provided to these groups, inherent in the cash equivalent of the staffing ratios of Day Special Schools (Mild Intellectual Disability), Special Development Schools (Moderate to Severe Intellectual Disability), Day Special Schools (Physical Disability) and Day Special Schools (Hearing Impairment) are accepted as reasonable reflections of these students’ needs these funding levels can be translated into funding bands. These funding bands can then be applied to students in segregated or inclusive placements. The thesis demonstrates that a new applicant for funding can be introduced into the existing data base and by the use of discriminant function analysis be allocated to one of the four groups. The analysis is in effect saying that this new student’s profile of educational needs has more in common with Group A than with the members of Groups B, C, or D. The student would then be funded at Group A level. It is immaterial from a funding point of view whether the student decides to attend a segregated or inclusive setting. The thesis then examines the impact of the introduction of Student Resource Index based funding upon the current funding of the special schools in one of the major metropolitan regions. Overall, such an initiative would lead to a reduction of 1.54 percent of the total funding accruing to the region’s special schools.