Influences on students’ attainment and progress in Key Stage 3: academic outcomes in English, Maths and Science in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Research Brief focuses on the relationships between a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school characteristics and students\u27 academic attainment in English, maths and science in Year 9 at secondary school (age 14). It compares the latest findings with those found for students\u27 attainment at younger ages. It also highlights the influences of secondary school on students\u27 attainment in the core curriculum areas and studies their academic progress across Key Stage 3 between the ages of 11 and 14

Effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project (EPPSE 3-14): students’ reports of their experiences of school in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has inves tigated the academic and social behavioural (+ in the later stages the affective) development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This report presents the results of analyses related to student’s experiences in Year 9 (age 14), with the purpose of creating measures of both school and classroom life as experienced by students. These measures have been used in the analysis of academic and social-behavioural outcomes as well as dispositions to investigate whether a student’s reported experience of school can significantly predict outcomes in other areas. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provide an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

Hadron spectroscopy from canonical partition functions

A spectroscopic method for staggered fermions based on thermodynamical considerations is proposed. The canonical partition functions corresponding to the different quark number sectors are expressed in the low temperature limit as polynomials of the eigenvalues of the reduced fermion matrix. Taking the zero temperature limit yields the masses of the lowest states. The method is successfully applied to the Goldstone pion and both dynamical and quenched results are presented showing good agreement with that of standard spectroscopy. Though in principle the method can be used to obtain the baryon and dibaryon masses, due to their high computational costs such calculations are practically unreachable.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. Spelling and grammatical errors are correcte

Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education 3-14 Project (EPPSE 3-14): influences on students’ dispositions in Key Stage 3: exploring enjoyment of school, popularity, anxiety, citizenship values and academic self-concept in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Report and Research Brief reports on students’ dispositions when they were age 14 (Year 9) in six main areas: ‘enjoyment of school’, ‘academic self concept’ (English and maths), ‘popularity’, ‘citizenship values’ and ‘anxiety’. It examines how these dispositions have changed during Key Stage 3 (KS3) and the relationships between dispositions and a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school measures. It shows how school experiences help to shape dispositions, and also explores the relationships between dispositions to school and students’ academic and social-behavioural outcomes. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provides an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education 3-14 Project (EPPSE 3-14): influences on students’ dispositions in Key Stage 3: exploring enjoyment of school, popularity, anxiety, citizenship values and academic self-concept in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Report and Research Brief reports on students’ dispositions when they were age 14 (Year 9) in six main areas: ‘enjoyment of school’, ‘academic self concept’ (English and maths), ‘popularity’, ‘citizenship values’ and ‘anxiety’. It examines how these dispositions have changed during Key Stage 3 (KS3) and the relationships between dispositions and a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school measures. It shows how school experiences help to shape dispositions, and also explores the relationships between dispositions to school and students’ academic and social-behavioural outcomes. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provides an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

Magnetic soft modes in the locally distorted triangular antiferromagnet alpha-CaCr2O4

In this paper we explore the phase diagram and excitations of a distorted triangular lattice antiferromagnet. The unique two-dimensional distortion considered here is very different from the 'isosceles'-type distortion that has been extensively investigated. We show that it is able to stabilize a 120{\deg} spin structure for a large range of exchange interaction values, while new structures are found for extreme distortions. A physical realization of this model is \alpha-CaCr2O4 which has 120{\deg} structure but lies very close to the phase boundary. This is verified by inelastic neutron scattering which reveals unusual roton-like minima at reciprocal space points different from those corresponding to the magnetic order.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and lots of spin-wave

Spa47 is an oligomerization-activated type three secretion system (T3SS) ATPase from \u3cem\u3eShigella flexneri\u3c/em\u3e

Gram-negative pathogens often use conserved type three secretion systems (T3SS) for virulence. The Shigella type three secretion apparatus (T3SA) penetrates the host cell membrane and provides a unidirectional conduit for injection of effectors into host cells. The protein Spa47 localizes to the base of the apparatus and is speculated to be an ATPase that provides the energy for T3SA formation and secretion. Here, we developed an expression and purification protocol, producing active Spa47 and providing the first direct evidence that Spa47 is a bona fide ATPase. Additionally, size exclusion chromatography and analytical ultracentrifugation identified multiple oligomeric species of Spa47 with the largest greater than 8 fold more active for ATP hydrolysis than the monomer. An ATPase inactive Spa47 point mutant was then engineered by targeting a conserved Lysine within the predicted Walker A motif of Spa47. Interestingly, the mutant maintained a similar oligomerization pattern as active Spa47, but was unable to restore invasion phenotype when used to complement a spa47 null S. flexneri strain. Together, these results identify Spa47 as a Shigella T3SS ATPase and suggest that its activity is linked to oligomerization, perhaps as a regulatory mechanism as seen in some related pathogens. Additionally, Spa47 catalyzed ATP hydrolysis appears to be essential for host cell invasion, providing a strong platform for additional studies dissecting its role in virulence and providing an attractive target for anti-infective agents

Hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the anomalous magnetic moments of leptons from first principles

We compute the leading, strong-interaction contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, muon and tau using lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) simulations. Calculations include the effects of $u$, $d$, $s$ and $c$ quarks and are performed directly at the physical values of the quark masses and in volumes of linear extent larger than $6\,\mathrm{fm}$. All connected and disconnected Wick contractions are calculated. Continuum limits are carried out using six lattice spacings. We obtain $a_e^\mathrm{LO-HVP}=189.3(2.6)(5.6)\times 10^{-14}$, $a_\mu^\mathrm{LO-HVP}=711.1(7.5)(17.4)\times 10^{-10}$ and $a_\tau^\mathrm{LO-HVP}=341.0(0.8)(3.2)\times 10^{-8}$, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures (in 13 PDF files), RevTeX 4.1. Minor changes to results and to text. References updated. Matches version published in Physical Review Letter

The Puzzle of the Flyby Anomaly

Close planetary flybys are frequently employed as a technique to place spacecraft on extreme solar system trajectories that would otherwise require much larger booster vehicles or may not even be feasible when relying solely on chemical propulsion. The theoretical description of the flybys, referred to as gravity assists, is well established. However, there seems to be a lack of understanding of the physical processes occurring during these dynamical events. Radio-metric tracking data received from a number of spacecraft that experienced an Earth gravity assist indicate the presence of an unexpected energy change that happened during the flyby and cannot be explained by the standard methods of modern astrodynamics. This puzzling behavior of several spacecraft has become known as the flyby anomaly. We present the summary of the recent anomalous observations and discuss possible ways to resolve this puzzle.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication by Space Science Review