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Most American colleges and universities assimilate students into highly competitive undergraduate experiences. By placing achievement for personal and material gain as the bedrock of a college education, these institutions fail to educate students to become collaborative learners: people who are committed and prepared to join with others in developing promising solutions to problems that they share with others. Drawing on a three-year study of student persistence and learning at Minority-Serving Institutions, Clifton Conrad and Todd Lundberg argue that student success in college should be redefined by focusing on the importance of collaborative learning over individual achievement. Engaging students in shared, real-world problem-solving, Conrad and Lundberg assert, will encourage them to embrace interdependence and to value and draw on diverse perspectives. "Learning with Others" presents a set of core practices to empower students to enter, nourish, and sustain collaborative learning and outlines how to blend the roles and responsibilities of faculty, staff, and students; how to adopt best practices for receiving and giving feedback on problem-solving; and how to anchor a curriculum in shared problem-solving. Bringing together lessons learned from more than 300 interviews, along with notes from 14 campus visits, 3 national convenings, and examples from across our nation's colleges and universities, Conrad and Lundberg explore ways in which successful antiracist networks of problem-solvers are learning to contribute to the flourishing of their communities on campus and far beyond. Outlining strategies for identifying and dismantling barriers to participation, "Learning with Others" will pique interest among faculty, students, and administrators in higher education and a wide range of external stakeholders--from families and communities to policymakers and funders.

The 51 lessons in the full curriculum show how children can be brought step-by-step to understand the architecture of their language through phonemic awareness and how this understanding prepares them for reading and writing. Activities, some of which are presented, are developed for kindergarten but can be used in first grade or special education. (SLD)

Containing adaptable activities and games, this book presents a supplemental language and reading curriculum that complements any prereading program. Preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade teachers can use these activities in any classroom--general, bilingual, inclusive, or special education. The curriculum accommodates individualized learning and teaching styles. The developmental sequence follows a school year calendar, building on simple listening games and gradually moving on to more advanced sound manipulation exercises like rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation. Assessment activities help educators evaluate language and listening skills, and the assessment forms can be photocopied for frequent use with large groups of children. The book includes: teaching objectives; lesson plans and sample scripts; activity adaptations; troubleshooting guidelines; informal, large group screening tests (up to 15 children at a time); guidelines for interpreting screening test results; and recommendations for assessment. (Contains 7 appendices featuring classroom materials and schedules, and an index.) (RS)

This book considers critically the many issues surrounding competency-based education and training (CBE/T) and provides practical advice on its appropriateness and application to educational and training programs. Part A places the whole issue of CBE/T in its appropriate contexts. Chapters 1-3 examine the concept of competence and its articulation in CBE/T, historical and international contexts, and the Australian approach to CBE/T and its critics. Part B deals with the major issues relating to competency. Chapters 4-9 address the issues raised by CBE/T categorized into six main groupings: reform in a federal system, competency standards, curriculum, learners and learning, assessment, and fair access. Part C takes the reader step-by-step through workable applications of CBE/T. Chapters 10-13 address, respectively, the following key phases in the implementation process: planning the introduction of CBE/T, designing a CBE/T program, developing procedures for managing CBE/T, and facilitating and assessing learning in CBE/T. Following a conclusion, the book contains 400 references and an index. (YLB)

There is a high degree of likelihood that impaired cognitive functions affect traffic safety and traffic behaviour. The risk of crash involvement may increase due to the cognitively impaired driver's own mistakes or his/her diminished ability to parry the mistakes of other road users. Therefore, it is important, when assessing memory impairment or dementia, also to consider the issue of automobile driving, operating trains or aircraft etc. The ability to take in and correctly process visual input is also an important ability for hunters, which raises the issue of the possession and use of firearms. Psychotic symptoms in a demented person entail a clear risk of shooting at imaginary pursuers, or a depressed person may use the firearm to commit suicide. Impaired cognitive functions do not increase the crash risk only of drivers of automobiles, trains and aircraft, but, probably also for drivers of mopeds and bicycles. Increased instability when riding a bicycle is not seldom reported by patients at our memory clinic (KJ, personal experience), but has not been systematically investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Chronic muscle inflammation in polymyositis or dermatomyositis causes muscle weakness and fatigue. • The chronic inflammation could lead to a catabolic state and additional loss of muscle mass. • The chronic muscle inflammation could induce a metabolic myopathy. • Body weight may not be reliable to measure muscle loss, rather measurement of body composition is recommended. •For patients with polymyositis or dermatomyositis it is important to provide the body with the right amount of macronutrients and trace elements for maintenance and improvement of body functions. • One recommendation is supplementation with calcium and vitamin D. • Another recommendation is regular physical exercise that during limited periods can be combined with supplements such as creatine, if done under the care of a physician. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high resolution isotope profile (142 points in 75 mm) from LP-6, a corroded flowstone slab from Lapphullet cave at Mo i Rana, Norway, close to the Arctic Circle, is dated by nine TIMS U-series dates to isotope stages 13 and 11. The dates are in perfect stratigraphic order, putting the main growth periods of the speleothem at 502 ka, and 380- 420 ka. Termination V occurred shortly before 421 ±10 ka, probably between 423 and 430 ka, an estimate that coincides with the orbitally tuned SPECMAP date. The duration of isotope stage 11 interglacial is at least 27 to 45.5 kyrs (depending on the growth model used) supporting the longer of the published estimates of ~30-40 kyrs (McManus et al., 1999). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforst to extend the terrestrail vertebrate record of the West Indies have resulted in the discovery of distinctive last-interglacial (Sangamonian) cave deposits on the islands of Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Anguilla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cave calcites from Oregan Caves National Monument (OCNM), a dissolutinal Cave system located in the Klamath Mountains of southwest Oregan, are shown to reflect golobal paleoclimates. Given the high cost of obtaining numerous U-series dates and that many record lie beyond the range of the U-Th dating method (~500 ka), we have explored a technique for modelling the growth of speleothems both between dates and beyond 500 ka using theoretical and empirical growth data applied to OCNM speleothems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of some form of cement as an alternative to direct mechanical fixation (press-fit, screws etc) dates back to the earliest period of joint replacement surgery. The first void-filling agent to be tried by Gluck in 1890 was a combination of plaster, pumice and resin. At this time there were no antibiotics, and the experiments failed for this and other obvious reasons [13]. When methyl methacrylate as a bone cement was made popular in the field of implant fixation in the 1960's, antibiotics were available and the first documented use of antibiotic loaded bone cement occurred within this decade [4]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter addresses the complexities of inference-based decision making and the challenge of supporting such processes. People are often unaware of the cognitive framework that facilitates and biases complex decisions. Inference-based decision making is described as bidirectional reasoning. We show how the decision maker gradually makes sense of and simplifies the decision task, how decision criteria can be modeled, and how criteria change as the decision-maker's experience increases. It is claimed that the prime way to aid inference-based decision making is to make the process of generating sense explicit, and that experiments constitute an important tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change of change applications to suit the needs of users in different places and facilitate development over time has long been a major challenge for software maintenance experts. In this chapter we take up tailoring as a means of making software flexible. Starting with two case studies— one taking up tailoring for different users and the other addressing changes over time—the article discusses problems related to both the use and development of a tailorable application. Developing tailorable software presents newchallenges: howdo you create a user-friendly tailoring interface? How do you decide what should be tailorable, and how do you create a software architecture that permits this? How do you ensure that the tailorable system gives acceptable performance? Our experience shows that the borders between maintenance and use become blurred since tailorability can replace maintenance by professional software engineers by tailoring by advanced users. Using our experience of the two selected cases, we identify and discuss five important issues to consider when designing and implementing tailorable systems in industrial settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Stockholm during the years 1999–2002 some residential housing units provided with advanced IT-based functions were developed, also called smart homes systems. The purpose was to offer the residents an augmented living environment mainly regarding security and comfort. Only the IT company that originally developed the basic system fully knows it in depth, a fact which has shown to become very unfavourable for the residents. The running cost, also for minor changes of the functionality of the system, has turned out to be high and prohibiting. Also the contracted regular maintenance requires access to unique competence, which also has become costly. Recently the company has indicated a replacement of the smart homes system with a simpler one based on the Internet. Business models for viable home systems should include the occupancy phase, which to date have been neglected. A crucial issue is who will and can assume long-term responsibility for surveillance, maintenance, and added functionalities over time. This paper will discuss some principal questions and prerequisites regarding business viability in relationship to smart home systems, and its significance for business modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth of the Internet and the popularity of e-mail have simplified and facilitated physicians' lifelong learning and their communication with colleagues and patients. Continuing medical education courses no longer need to be attended in person, but can be completed on the computer. Medical journals and textbooks are also available online. Daily reports on recent medical advances may be reviewed at the click of a mouse. Authoritative essays on a broad range of current medical concepts are readily accessible. The reality of pertinent information at the point-of-care is approaching. Major changes in medical library services are evolving. Most medical schools (and even high schools and colleges) provide instruction on use of the Internet, ensuring that graduates will be prepared to use this source to enhance their lifelong learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful software process improvement depends on the ability to analyze past projects and determine which parts of the process that could become more efficient. One typical data source is the faults that are reported during product development. From an industrial need, this paper provides a solution based on a measure called faults-slip-through, i.e. the measure tells which faults that should have been found in earlier phases. From the measure, the improvement potential of different parts of the development process is estimated by calculating the cost of the faults that slipped through the phase where they should have been found. The usefulness of the method was demonstrated by applying it on two completed development projects at Ericsson AB. The results show that the implementation phase had the largest improvement potential since it caused the largest faults-slip-through cost to later phases, i.e. 81 and 84 percent of the total improvement potential in the two studied projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct in vivo gene transfer to the central nervous system (CNS) using recombinant lentiviral vectors (rLV) has emerged as a powerful technique to overexpress various genes of interest in different neuronal populations. This interest is exemplified by the increasing number of studies using rLV vectors to evaluate therapeutic proteins to correct disorders of the nervous system (1-3) or to explore a protein's involvement in normal function or pathological processes (4). Compared to conventional trangenic techniques for overexpression, rLVs have several attractive features. For example, the level of transgene expression in cells transduced with a rLV is typically higher than obtained with knock-in techniques and is present already at 3-4 d after injection in vivo (5). Second, the expression may be directed to specific regions or cell populations depending on the anatomical location of the rLV injections as well as the design of the vector system. This may be advantageous for the study design since it allows unilateral overexpression, thereby creating an internal control in functional and morphological studies. Finally, it is considerably less time consuming than creating transgenic mouse lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the development of recombinant DNA technology, the promise of these methods for dramatically improving medicinal therapy has been vigorously championed. The possibility to interfere with gene expression in dysfunctioning cells, and thus ameliorate symptoms of disease, offers great expectations for definite cure of many devastating conditions. Suggested applications for the central nervous system (CNS) range from inborn errors of metabolism, such as Gaucher's disease (see e.g., Krall et al., 1994), brain tumors, stroke, and neurodegenerative disorders (for reviews, see Fisher and Ray, 1994; Snyder and Senut, 1997). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time systems often consist of a number of independent processes which operate under an age constraint. In such systems, the maximum time from the start process Li in cycle k to the end in cycle k+1 must not exceed the age constraint Ai for that process. The age constraint can be met by using fixed priority scheduling and periods equal to Ai/2. However, this approach restricts the number of process sets which are schedulable. In this paper, we define a method for obtaining process periods other than Ai/2. The periods are calculated in such a way that the age constraints are met. Our approach is better in the sense that a larger number of process sets can be scheduled compared to using periods equal to Ai/2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the dynamic organizational contexts of executive succession. Executive roles that provide guidance for executive assessment and development; Conclusion.