Detecção e extração de lineamentos locais (sujeitos ao controle estrutural regional) de imagens de relevo, derivadas de dados da SRTM

Neste trabalho, introduzimos um novo metodo para a identificacao e extracao de lineamentos locais, controlados por lineamentos estruturais regionais, derivados dos dados de radar do satelite SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission ) e baseados em uma parametrizacao de classes azimutais. Esta nova proposicao introduz uma reducao textural (diminuicao de classes para analise) e um incremento da continuidade dos lineamentos nas suas porcoes curvas, o que melhora a resolucao e delimitacao desses lineamentos, simplificando significativamente sua extracao.

Leadership Effect on the Retention of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) Employees in Thailand

This study examines the affect of leadership on the retention of employees in NGOs. Four Thai NGOs representing a variety of organizational types were selected as a case study: the Paveenahongsakul Foundation, the Duang Prateep Foundation, the Potektueng Foundation, and the Chaipattana Foundation. They all work largely in the field of social and community development, with specific interests varying from: literacy, education, health, child and women welfare, environment, advocacy, animal welfare, volunteer promotion, etc. All of these NGOs are large enough to require skilled employees and an executive staff that is concerned about retaining these employees. This research aims to understand and critique the success factors for employee retention and examine if these factors hold true against the broad diversity of NGOs. In particular this study focuses on how leadership, which maintains the mission and vision of the NGO, impacts employee retention and what effect employee changeover has on maintaining mission and vision.

The reception of west European music in Belgrade between world wars: On the examples of “Muzicki glasnik” and “Muzika” magazines

The very first music magazines started in Belgrade between World Wars were “Muzički glasnik” (issued monthly from January to December 1922) and “Muzika” (also issued monthly in the period January 1928 - March 1929). These magazines used to publish music essays, researches, debates, notes, news and other kind of articles. This paper brings an analysis of texts on West European music in these two journals. “Muzički glasnik” published only few articles on European music. Those were on bibliographical news concerning editions on musicology in England and on French music magazines. There was a report on the concert held in Leipzig in1922 in honour of late Arthur Nikisch. “Glasnik” also published an obituary to Camille Saint-Saëns containing, by contemporary standards, excessively complimentary evaluation of his music. West European music was far more present on the pages of “Muzika” magazine. The editorial board used to publish thematic issues dedicated to jubilees of great European composers (such as Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven). One issue was dedicated to English music and this magazine also wrote about Puccini. Essays on European music were translated from foreign languages and the authors of some were coming from Yugoslavia. “Muzika” magazine was addressing wide, educated audience, not only musicians. Therefore the texts giving biographical and psychological portraits of composers used to prevail over musicological analyses of their works. Serbian music community was not highly developed thus “Muzika” moderately used expert terminology. Essays, as dominant forms in Serbian musicography up to 1941, were often written in a literary manner. This is evident in “Muzika” as well. “Muzika” and “Muzički glasnik” adopted different aesthetics and ideology. The fact that the reception of West European music in “Glasnik” was minimal was not only due to the insufficient number of associates. The editorial board of “Glasnik” was more concerned with domestic music and problems of music institutions. Besides, the editors of this magazine were of opinion that the Serbian music should not solely look up to West European composers but even more to the Slav and domestic music exemplars. The editors of “Muzika” were, however, strongly adhering to West European tradition. They thought that only high culture and knowledge could bring the Serbian music to a serious level, both technique and art wise. The editors of this magazine did not desire our composers to be epigones of Western musicians, but wanted to provide domestic musicians and readers with information on European art. In this regard, “Muzika” used to have an enlightening mission in our country

Corrected μβ for stars of Hipparcos catalogue from independent latitude observations over many decades

During the last century, there were many so-called independent latitude (IL) stations with the observations which were included into data of a few international organizations (like Bureau International de l'Heure - BIH, International Polar Motion Service - IPMS) and the Earth rotation programmes for determining the Earth Orientation Parameters - EOP. Because of this, nowadays, there are numerous astrometric ground-based observations (made over many decades) of some stars included in the Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA 1997). We used these latitude data for the inverse investigations - to improve the proper motions in declination μβ of the mentioned Hipparcos stars. We determined the corrections Δμβ and investigated agreement of our μβ and those from the catalogues Hipparcos and new Hipparcos (van Leeuwen 2007). To do this we used the latitude variations of 7 stations (Belgrade, Blagoveschtschensk, Irkutsk, Poltava, Pulkovo, Warsaw and Mizusawa), covering different intervals in the period 1904.7 - 1992.0, obtained with 6 visual and 1 floating zenith telescopes (Mizusawa). On the other hand, with regard that about two decades have elapsed since the Hipparcos ESA mission observations (the epoch of Hipparcos catalogue is 1991.25), the error of apparent places of Hipparcos stars has increased by nearly 20 mas because of proper motion errors. Also, the mission lasted less than four years which was not enough for a sufficient accuracy of proper motions of some stars (such as double or multiple ones). Our method of calculation, and the calculated μβ for the common IL/Hipparcos stars are presented here. We constructed an IL catalogue of 1200 stars: there are 707 stars in the first part (with at least 20 years of IL observations) and 493 stars in the second one (less than 20 years). In the case of μβ of IL stars observed at some stations (Blagoveschtschensk, Irkutsk, Mizusawa, Poltava and Pulkovo) we find the formal errors less than the corresponding Hipparcos ones and for some of them (stations Blagoveschtschensk and Irkutsk) even less than the new Hipparcos ones

Moravian Mission Education in the Nineteenth Century: Global Patterns and Local Manifestations at New Fairfield, Upper Canada

Images of the North, Sublime Nature, and a Pioneering Icelandic Nation

This article sheds light on the issue of national identity as related to the Tourist Association of Iceland, which was founded near the end of the 1920s. Written Association sources illustrate how the leading participants interpreted their work ideologically, with nationalistic connotations. Not only did they see themselves as heirs of Iceland’s celebrated first settler, Ingolfur Arnarson, but they applied this picture of themselves to the nation as a whole. While engaged in opening up the country—in particular its uninhabited highlands—and in building up a modern travel infrastructure, they interpreted these undertakings as parallel to Iceland’s initial settlement. They therefore viewed themselves as pioneers who had taken on the mission of pacifying the still frightening Icelandic environment and providing access to its resources. In this way, they would not merely contribute to modernizing their country, but also to cultivating a positive national self-image. This self-image was based to a large degree on self-assertion over nature, as well as on portraying the nation as the most northerly preserver of culture within European civilization. Curiously, this meant assigning attributes to Iceland’s own interior that depicted it as a “Far North,” a North that ought to be challenged and wherever possible conquered.

Christian Mission Among Other Faiths

Emotional Intelligence Meets Virtue Ethics: Implications for Educators

Preamble The notion that there is more than one kind of intelligence for human beings, and that social and emotional intelligence (EI) is just as critical as cognitive intelligence for success in the world is by now fairly well-received and well-established in North American educational contexts. The main proponents of social and EI are Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002) who are noted for advancing the notion that social and emotional intelligence is important for effective leadership in any organizations, including teacher education and teaching in schools. Convinced that this notion is applicable to all educational contexts, Goleman with others founded the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in 1994 with the mission "to establish social and emotional learning as an essential part of education" (CASEL, 2009). (1) His work has been enormously influential in various education and leadership contexts, ranging from business leadership education to classroom management. But the more we--the authors of this article--are impressed by the magnitude of salutary influence that the Goleman et al. (2002) EI work spreads in diverse educational domains, the more we see its limitations as an educational project that can actually and practically augment people's EI and ethics. We have chosen to consider EI in this article not only because of its far-reaching influence in the field of education as abovementioned but also because of the claim that it was inspired by Aristotle's virtue ethics (Goleman, 1995) and its association with ethical development. (2) Our own research and practice interest has been fostering ethical development in people via virtue ethics, and if EI is, as Goleman et al. (2002) claimed, such a singularly important ingredient, we would like to investigate their conceptualization of EI and consider the possibility of further developing and fortifying it. Given the acceptance of EI, its claimed value and roots in virtue ethics has prompted us to research the limitations of the EI work by Goleman et al. (2002), and to search for works that would address these limitations. (3) The Goleman et al. (2002) EI project has attracted a healthy debate regarding its philosophic and practical foundations. (4) This discussion suggests that there is empirical evidence that EI has a positive impact on student's behaviour; however, we believe instructive philosophic concerns remain. We are particularly concerned about the educator's EI impacting students' learning and emotional intelligence, a concern also identified by others (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Our paper advances the thesis that the cultivation of educators' EI requires the practice of virtue ethics. We establish this thesis by first examining the limitations of the Golemanian EI, and then by showing how these limitations can be addressed by MacIntyre's (1984, 1988) virtue ethics, which is a contemporary version of Aristotelian ethics. In the process, we also address what we see as MacIntyre's (1984, 1988) theoretical limitations that are in the way of extending virtue ethics to become the cornerstone of school teaching and learning. We also bring in Vokey's (2001) work to support our thesis. We present our work on the marriage of EI and virtue ethics as a challenge to the conventional and hegemonic conception and practice of education that marginalizes the education of the heart. (5) Educators' Emotions Are No Private Matter Goleman et al. (2002) held that the leader acts as the group's emotional guide and "has maximal power to sway everyone's emotions" (Goleman, et al., 2002, p. 5). The emotions of the leader are important because, for example, if people's emotions are pushed toward enthusiasm, performance can soar. He refers to this effect as resonance. That is, those under the influence and guidance of the leader/educator come into emotional resonance with her or him: "Whether an organization fails or flourishes depends to a remarkable extent on the leaders' effectiveness in this primal emotional dimension" (Goleman et al. …

Design, Development and Operation of a Laboratory Pulsed Plasma Thruster for the First Time in West Asia

Although the pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) was first utilized on a space mission in 1964, after more than four decades, it is still a space-rated technology which has performed various propulsion tasks, from station-keeping to three-axis attitude control for a variety of former missions. With respect to the rapid growth in the small satellite community and the growing interest for smaller satellites in recent years, the PPT is one of the promising electric propulsion devices for small satellites (e.g., CubeSats) due to the following advantages: simplicity, lightweight, robustness, low power consumption, low production cost and small dimensions. Therefore, a laboratory benchmark rectangular breech-fed pulsed plasma thruster using a self-inductor as a coupling element was designed, developed and successfully tested in a bell-type vacuum chamber at 10-4 Pa for the first time in west Asia (Iran). The PPT has been tested using a 35 μF, 2.5 kV oil-filled capacitor, producing an impulse bit varying from 300 μN-s to 1.3 mN-s at a maximum specific impulse of 1100 s. As a result a research program in Iran was initiated for working on PPTs and the miniaturization of PPTs while increasing the performance parameters. The present paper briefly reviews the PPT design and development.

Response to Comment on: Atkinson. It's Time to Consider Changing the Rules: The Rationale for Rethinking Control Groups in Clinical Trials Aimed at Reversing Type 1 Diabetes. Diabetes 2011;60:361–363

In 2003, the President of the United States introduced a now often used phrase into the American lexicon, “Mission accomplished” (1). While history has not judged, to the greatest of degrees, his proclamation with favor in terms of its accuracy, the idiom does seem a fitting response to the letter by Sanda and Greenbaum (2), written in reaction to my editorial (3). This claim can effectively be made as their action is exactly what I hoped would occur: an open discourse…a debate, on how trials to reverse type 1 diabetes are designed and …