EVALUACIÓN INSTITUCIONAL BASADA EN LOS SISTEMAS SUAVES Los niveles de desarrollo y crecimiento de una nación, están sustentados en gran medida por la calidad de su educación. Sin educación de calidad, un país no podrá progresar de manera sustantiva y sostenida. Así, la educación es reconocida como palanca de desarrollo, como factor de innovación, como ventaja estratégica para la producción y como medio insustituible para asegurar la identidad nacional. Por consiguiente, para que un país se desempeñe satisfactoriamente en un mundo globalizado requiere estar preparado, y para ello, la calidad en la educación juega un rol determinante. De esta manera, calidad educativa significa excelencia. Así, el tema de la evaluación y acreditación de la educación es un factor relevante que ha propiciado que las instituciones educativas establezcan estrategias para mejorar la calidad educativa de sus programas, lo cual ha conducido a una gran cantidad de cambios en los modelos educativos, en la formación docente y en los recursos empleados a fin de obtener mejores resultados. Con base en lo anterior, surge el presente libro que tiene como propósito ofrecer los fundamentos de la evaluación institucional basada en la perspectiva de los sistemas suaves como una alternativa metodológica que permita analizar los diversos ámbitos de una organización educativa a partir de los criterios de eficacia, eficiencia, pertinencia, trascendencia y equidad. Específicamente aborda temas relevantes como la calidad y evaluación de los programas educativos; la teoría general de sistemas aplicada al ámbito de la educación; los sistemas suaves en el ámbito de la evaluación educativa así como estudios de caso a nivel licenciatura y posgrado

Fully updated and revised by authors T. Heather Herdman, PhD, RN, FNI, and Shigemi Kamitsuru, PhD, RN, FNI, Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classification 2018-2020, Eleventh Edition is the definitive guide to nursing diagnoses, as reviewed and approved by NANDA International (NANDA-I). In this new edition of a seminal text, the authors have written all introductory chapters at an undergraduate nursing level, providing the critical information needed for nurses to understand assessment, its link to diagnosis and clinical reasoning, and the purpose and use of taxonomic structure for the nurse at the bedside. Other changes include: 18 new nursing diagnoses and 72 revised diagnoses Updates to 11 nursing diagnosis labels, ensuring they are consistent with current literature and reflect a human response Modifications to the vast majority of the nursing diagnosis definitions, including especially Risk Diagnoses Standardization of diagnostic indicator terms (defining characteristics, related factors, risk factors, associated conditions, and at-risk populations) to further aid clarity for readers and clinicians Coding of all diagnostic indicator terms for those using electronic versions of the terminology Web-based resources include chapter and reference lists for new diagnoses Rigorously updated and revised, Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classification 2018-2020, Eleventh Edition is a must-have resource for all nursing students, professional nurses, nurse educators, nurse informaticists, and nurse administrators.

Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are being considered worldwide with great interest and expectation. Proposals to create agreements in which beneficiaries of environmental services pay landowners directly for the provision or protection of these services are innovative and promising. But what real PES experiences are actually out there? This work assesses a range of PES or PES-type experiences in one country, Bolivia, in the fields of carbon sequestration, protection of watershed services, biodiversity and aesthetic landscape values. The report concludes that while none of the generally young initiatives adhere fully to the principle of PES as developed in the theoretical literature, many experiment with some of the relevant PES mechanisms. Protection of watersheds and landscape values are the most common types, though the implementing intermediaries often have underlying biodiversity-protection goals. Main obstacles to PES implementation include ideological resistance against the PES concept, the difficulty of building trust between buyers and sellers, and limited willingness to pay on behalf of service users. During their relatively short lifetime, basically all initiatives had been successful in making service sellers (PES recipients) better off in economic terms, while the effectiveness in achieving environmental objectives and securing positive social impacts so far remained more variable. In some cases, redesigning these initiatives to bring them closer to the full PES principles could also enable them to more effectively achieve positive environmental and livelihood outcomes.

Dennis Dalton's classic account of Gandhi's political and intellectual development focuses on the leader's two signal triumphs: the civil disobedience movement (or salt satyagraha) of 1930 and the Calcutta fast of 1947. Dalton clearly demonstrates how Gandhi's lifelong career in national politics gave him the opportunity to develop and refine his ideals. He then concludes with a comparison of Gandhi's methods and the strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, drawing a fascinating juxtaposition that enriches the biography of all three figures and asserts Gandhi's relevance to the study of race and political leadership in America. Dalton situates Gandhi within the "clash of civilizations" debate, identifying the implications of his work on continuing nonviolent protests. He also extensively reviews Gandhian studies and adds a detailed chronology of events in Gandhi's life.

Thirteen papers by archaeologists from North and South America on the archaeology of coastal Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. The authors have all emphasized comparative approaches to prehispanic societies along the Pacific coast. They give preference neither to high theory nor to case-specific empirical details, but rather attempt to answer theoretically important research questions with appropriate methodologies and empirical datasets--ones that are amenable to a broad comparative view.