No es cuestión de datos. La evolución de un currículo de supervisión clínica y la pedagogía

En los últimos años, tras las investigaciones llevadas a cabo, la noción de multitareas ha pasado a ser un mito. Se ha constatado que las personas no tienen capacidades o aptitudes para desempeñar varias tareas con simultaneidad con la misma efectividad. Por ese motivo, si se le suprime al supervisor las tareas de observación y documentación, se le permite centrarse en los momentos de interacción. Del mismo modo ocurre en las clases. Así, se fomenta el diálogo entre pares; cada uno procurando entender la perspectiva del otro. Por consiguiente, ¿es una panacea la técnica nula? La respuesta es no pero si se utiliza con juicio se puede pasar lo mejor de la observación de supervisión con los objetivos de las conferencias de supervisión. Es decir, desarrollo autodirigido del docente, sin impedimentos por la agenda del supervisorEn els darrers anys, després de les investigacions portades a terme, la noció de multitasques ha passat a ser un mite. S'ha constatat que les persones no tenen capacitats o aptituds per a desenvolupar diverses tasques simultàniament i amb la mateixa efectivitat. Per aquesta raó, si al supervisor se li suprimeixen les tasques d'observació i documentació, se li permet centrar-se en els moments d'interacció. Igualment passa en les classes. Així, es fomenta el diàleg entre parells; cadascú procurant entendre la perspectiva de l'altre. Per tant, és una panacea la tècnica nul·la? La resposta és no, però si s'utilitza amb judici es pot combinar el millor de l'observació de supervisió amb els objectius de les conferències de supervisió. És a dir, desenvolupament autodirigit del docent, sense impediments per a l'agenda del supervisorIn recent years, after the numerous studies carried out, the conception of multi-tasking has become a myth. It has been shown that people are incapable of performing multiple simultaneous tasks equally well. That is the reason why relieving the supervisor from the task of simultaneously observing and documenting can permit him or her to better focus on interactional processes. Just as happens in lectures. Thus, the dialogue has more of a chance of being one between equals; attempting to understand the other's perspective. Therefore, is the null technique a panacea? The answer is no, but if used judiciously, it can wed the best of supervisory observation to the goals of supervisory conferences. In other words, self-directed teacher growth, unimpeded by the supervisor's agenda

The dynamism of the current global (and globalized) moments: implications for teachers, administrators, and other educational leaders

This article deals with the current conditions that have an impact upon teachers and their teaching. These global conditions are influenced by corporatist, corporativist, and neo-liberal forces, which are also discussed here. These global and increasingly globalizing trends make teaching difficult, even dangerous work, especially for the conscientious teacher, who must mediate helping the student in his/her becoming and doing the state’s work. Doing the state’s work generally involves disciplining the student and others, or policing the distribution of the sensible, and mediating these competing interests is difficult. Instructional supervision, educational leadership and educational administration are taken up, informed, especially, by Hazony’s discussion of the shepherd and the farmer

Education and social cohesion for economic growth

Relevant theoretical underpinnings suggest that higher education, continuous professional development and training provide numerous opportunities for societal advancement. This contribution posits that interventions in the realms of education can play a significant role in shaping key performance indicators for laudable social outcomes. It suggests that education leadership may contribute to create a fair, just and equitable society for all. This article discusses how education fosters social cohesion. This paper sheds light on Malta’s National Reform Programme in order to meet the European Union’s (EU’s) 2020 strategy. It presents an assessment of the economic, social and environmental situation in Malta. The smallest EU state is pursuing its policy efforts to reduce early school leaving. At the same time, it is striving to address skills gaps (and mismatches) in its domestic labour market. This case study indicates that with better education leadership, there may be implications for economic growth, job creation and competitiveness. It shows that family-friendly measures including better access to childcare, more flexible working schemes and employer incentives can help individuals to return to work. In conclusion, this contribution maintains that the pursuit towards continuous improvements in education leadership and social progress can create a virtuous cycle of productivity outcomes and economic growth.peer-reviewe

The emergence and evolution of City Deals in Scotland

There is a resurgent policy emphasis on the role of city-regions as drivers of economic growth. Officials and leaders in such metropolitan areas, however, are confronted with challenges relating to administrative fragmentation, achieving alignment with national policy objectives, and demonstrating the capabilities to plan, finance and deliver effective policy interventions and investments. As a response to these challenges, policymakers are fashioning new governance arrangements, attached to experimental policy mechanisms, to develop urban policy. Of note, City Deals have recently emerged in the UK, and this paper charts their evolution across the UK, with a focus on the devolved administrations in particular. The paper ends with some reflections and questions about their roll out in Scotland

Una revisión del liderazgo educativo

Los equipos directivos están sometidos a fuertes presiones políticas y contextuales que dificultan el ejercicio de un liderazgo instructivo y los abocan, por el contrario, a un desarrollo burocrático, gerencialista y perpetuador de su función. Se revisa la situación a partir de fuentes y expertos significativos de ámbitos tan dispares como Estados Unidos, Finlandia, Rusia o Sudáfrica. El trabajo deja también en evidencia el papel que están jugando las principales revistas internacionales de este campo, una de las cuales dirige uno de los autores de este artículo

Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of the Vela-X Pulsar Wind Nebula

We report on gamma-ray observations in the off-pulse window of the Vela pulsar PSR B0833-45, using 11 months of survey data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). This pulsar is located in the 8 degree diameter Vela supernova remnant, which contains several regions of non-thermal emission detected in the radio, X-ray and gamma-ray bands. The gamma-ray emission detected by the LAT lies within one of these regions, the 2*3 degrees area south of the pulsar known as Vela-X. The LAT flux is signicantly spatially extended with a best-fit radius of 0.88 +/- 0.12 degrees for an assumed radially symmetric uniform disk. The 200 MeV to 20 GeV LAT spectrum of this source is well described by a power-law with a spectral index of 2.41 +/- 0.09 +/- 0.15 and integral flux above 100 MeV of (4.73 +/- 0.63 +/- 1.32) * 10^{-7} cm^{-2} s^{-1}. The first errors represent the statistical error on the fit parameters, while the second ones are the systematic uncertainties. Detailed morphological and spectral analyses give strong constraints on the energetics and magnetic field of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) system and favor a scenario with two distinct electron populations.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Mechanical properties of sand, silt, and clay containing tetrahydrofuran hydrate

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007): B04106, doi:10.1029/2006JB004484.The mechanical behavior of hydrate-bearing sediments subjected to large strains has relevance for the stability of the seafloor and submarine slopes, drilling and coring operations, and the analysis of certain small-strain properties of these sediments (for example, seismic velocities). This study reports on the results of comprehensive axial compression triaxial tests conducted at up to 1 MPa confining pressure on sand, crushed silt, precipitated silt, and clay specimens with closely controlled concentrations of synthetic hydrate. The results show that the stress-strain behavior of hydrate-bearing sediments is a complex function of particle size, confining pressure, and hydrate concentration. The mechanical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments at low hydrate concentration (probably 50% of pore space), the behavior becomes more independent of stress because the hydrates control both stiffness and strength and possibly the dilative tendency of sediments by effectively increasing interparticle coordination, cementing particles together, and filling the pore space. The cementation contribution to the shear strength of hydrate-bearing sediments decreases with increasing specific surface of soil minerals. The lower the effective confining stress, the greater the impact of hydrate formation on normalized strength.This research was sponsored by a contract to C.R. and J.C.S. from the Joint Industry Project for Methane Hydrate, administered by ChevronTexaco with funding from award DE-FC26- 01NT41330 from DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. The Goizueta Foundation at Georgia Tech also provided support for this work. The research was completed while C.R. was on assignment at and wholly supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Shear wave splitting at the Hawaiian hot spot from the PLUME land and ocean bottom seismometer deployments

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 13 (2012): Q02007, doi:10.1029/2011GC003881.We examine upper mantle anisotropy across the Hawaiian Swell by analyzing shear wave splitting of teleseismic SKS waves recorded by the PLUME broadband land and ocean bottom seismometer deployments. Mantle anisotropy beneath the oceans is often attributed to flow-induced lattice-preferred orientation of olivine. Splitting observations may reflect a combination of both fossil lithospheric anisotropy and anisotropy due to present-day asthenospheric flow, and here we address the question whether splitting provides diagnostic information on possible asthenospheric plume flow at Hawaii. We find that the splitting fast directions are coherent and predominantly parallel to the fossil spreading direction, suggesting that shear wave splitting dominantly reflects fossil lithospheric anisotropy. The signature of anisotropy from asthenospheric flow is more subtle, although it could add some perturbation to lithospheric splitting. The measured delay times are typically 1 s or less, although a few stations display larger splitting delays of 1–2 s. The variability in the delay times across the different stations indicates differences in the degree of anisotropy or in the thickness of the anisotropic layer or in the effect of multilayer anisotropy. Regions with smaller splitting times may have experienced processes that modified the lithosphere and partially erased the fossil anisotropy; alternatively, asthenospheric splitting may either constructively add to or destructively subtract from lithospheric splitting to produce the observed variability in delay times.The PLUME project was supported by NSF.2012-08-1