Computer assisted formative assessment: supporting students to become more reflective learners

e-Assessment is being advocated in the UK as our way of introducing a more personalised learning agenda throughout the Higher Education sector. This paper discusses the findings from two projects where formative e-assessment has contributed to students taking more control of their own learning. One study set out to provide further insights into the role of electronic formative assessment and to point the way forward to new assessment practices, capitalising on a range of open source tools. The guiding vision was to pilot a series of formative assessments which have the potential to help shape learners as independent thinkers, making their own judgements and decisions about their learning in partnership with their peers and tutors. Other work consisted of evaluating a series of formative assessments given to Philosophy students. Lessons have been learned about the type of feedback that instructors and students think will be most useful and how using theis type of application promotes self reflection. The research reported here starts to illustrate how technology can be adapted to become more 'fit for pedagogical purpose?. The feedback offered by these systems encourages learner metacognition and aims to empower students to reflect and become independent thinkers. This approach sits well within a constructivist paradigm which has often been less well served in the past through formal summative assessment which is not an integral part of the knowledge construction process

A construction of hyperbolic Coxeter groups

We give a simple construction of Gromov hyperbolic Coxeter groups of arbitrarily large virtual cohomological dimension. Our construction provides new examples of such groups. Using this one can construct e.g. new groups having some interesting asphericity properties.Comment: 14 page

March into Oblivion: A Footnote

In the above-titled work in 2006, this writer briefly discussed the possibility that President George Washington traversed present Adams County in October 1794, during his return from Bedford to Philadelphia, a belief long and widely held locally. No credible assertion of the President\u27s presence here in 1794 was possible at that time. Recently however, a forgotten narrative was rediscovered ; its author, Jacob Eyster, gives some substance to the previous mere speculation. After extensive research, this writer was graciously requested to produce a sequel to his prior speculative writing. [excerpt

Book Review: Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789-1794

Dr. Wayne Wentzel\u27s review of Mark Darlow, Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789-1794. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xi + 421 pp. Tables, illustrations, graphs, musical examples, bibliography and index. $ 65.00 (hb). ISBN 978-0-19-977372-5

Definition and stability of Lorentzian manifolds with distributional curvature

Following Geroch, Traschen, Mars and Senovilla, we consider Lorentzian manifolds with distributional curvature tensor. Such manifolds represent spacetimes of general relativity that possibly contain gravitational waves, shock waves, and other singular patterns. We aim here at providing a comprehensive and geometric (i.e., coordinate-free) framework. First, we determine the minimal assumptions required on the metric tensor in order to give a rigorous meaning to the spacetime curvature within the framework of distribution theory. This leads us to a direct derivation of the jump relations associated with singular parts of connection and curvature operators. Second, we investigate the induced geometry on a hypersurface with general signature, and we determine the minimal assumptions required to define, in the sense of distributions, the curvature tensors and the second fundamental form of the hypersurface and to establish the Gauss-Codazzi equations.Comment: 28 page

Methods for treating bone deficit conditions with benzothiazole

" Compounds containing two aromatic systems covalently linked through a linker containing one or more atoms, or ""linker"" defined as including a covalent bond per se so as to space the aromatic systems at a distance 1.5-15 .ANG., are effective in treating conditions associated with bone deficits. The compounds can be administered to vertebrate subjects alone or in combination with additional agents that promote bone growth or that inhibit bone resorption. They can be screened for activity prior to administration by assessing their ability to effect the transcription of a reporter gene coupled to a promoter associated with a bone morphogenetic protein and/or their ability to stimulate calvarial growth in model animal systems. "Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Graphs with prescribed the trace of the Levi form

We prove existence and uniqueness of a viscosity solution of the Dirichlet problem related to the prescribed Levi mean curvature equation, under suitable assumptions on the boundary data and on the Levi curvature of the domain. We also show that such a solution is Lipschitz continuous by proving that it is the uniform limit of a sequence of classical solutions of elliptic problems and by building Lipschitz continuous barriers

The Effect of Body Position and Mattress Type on Interface Pressure in Quadriplegic Adults-a Pilot Study

Dental morbidity is a chronic problem that affects a child\u27s ability to attend school, to learn, and to enjoy good health. Of all childhood diseases, oral disease ranks as one of the highest and is considered one of the most common and the least treated. The prevalence of dental caries is high among children and adolescents in school populations. This study explored the prevalence of dental caries in a California Central Coast middle school during the 2002-03 school year (N=526). Findings indicated that severe dental caries existed in both boys and girls and in students of various ethnic groups. Approximately 5.7% of adolescents were shown to have visible and severe dental caries with significant ethnic variation. Twice as many Hispanic teens had visible dental caries as the white and other non-white teens. School nurses should routinely screen for dental disease in all school grades and provide resources and referrals for dental treatment

FAIR3-CT96-1794 Organic and in-conversion land area, holdings, livestock and crop production in Europe

The objective of this report is to provide an up-to-date overview of the organic and inconversion land area, number of holdings, livestock and crop production in all EU member states plus the Czech Republic, Norway and Switzerland from 1993 to 1998. The report traces the growth and development of organic farming in general and as part of policy measures to support organic farming and updates the data presented in Foster and Lampkin (1999). This report is one of several aiming to assess ex post the impact of EU and other policy measures on organic farming as part of the project ”Effects of the CAP Reform and possible further developments on organic farming in the EU” (FAIR 3-CT96 1794). The general objective of the project is to provide an assessment of the impact of the 1992 CAP Reform on organic farming and thus contribute to a better understanding of the effects that current EU policies have on this sub-sector. 1993 was chosen as the starting point from which to present the data as it represents the year in which most EU member states implemented Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91 defining organic crop production in statutory terms. It was also the first year in which the CAP Reform of 1992 began to have an impact on organic farming, in particular through support under the agri-environment programme (Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2078/92)