Competition and market-forces exert a downward pressure on the breadth and rigour of 16-plus education

Market forces and consumer-power may drive up the quality of some commodities, but not school examinations. John Butterworth gives an authors’ perspective on the problematic relationship between awarding bodies and educational publisher

The Standard Model: How far can it go and how can we tell?

The Standard Model of particle physics encapsulates our current best understanding of physics at the smallest distances and highest energies. It incorporates Quantum Electrodynamics (the quantised version of Maxwell's electromagnetism) and the weak and strong interactions, and has survived unmodified for decades, save for the inclusion of non-zero neutrino masses after the observation of neutrino oscillations in the late 1990s. It describes a vast array of data over a wide range of energy scales. I review a selection of these successes, including the remarkably successful prediction of a new scalar boson, a qualitatively new kind of object observed in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider. New calculational techniques and experimental advances challenge the Standard Model across an ever-wider range of phenomena, now extending significantly above the electroweak symmetry breaking scale. I will outline some of the consequences of these new challenges, and briefly discuss what is still to be found.Comment: Write up of a talk given at "Unifying physics and technology in light of Maxwell's equations", a Royal Society meeting organised by A. Zayats, J. Ellis, R. Pike on the 150th anniversary of Maxwell's equation

Why frequencies are natural

Research in mathematical cognition has shown that rates, and other interpretations of x/y, are hard to learn and understand. On the other hand, there is extensive evidence that the brain is endowed with a specialized mechanism for representing and manipulating the numerosities of sets – that is, frequencies. Hence, base-rates are neglected precisely because they are rates, whereas frequencies are indeed natural

Mahi whakatieke: Increasing exercise compliance with Māori students

The aim of the study was to implement an intervention package based on Shelton and Levy’s propositions with Māori students to increase their compliance to an exercise programme that used walking. Three out of four participants walked more regularly when the intervention package was implemented, compared to previous stages of the research. Only two participants continued to walk for exercise regularly in Follow Up. This was consistent with previous exercise literature that has found that only 50% of people will still be exercising 3-6 months after starting. However, all participants reported that they had incorporated more regular physical activity into their lifestyles Post Follow Up. These findings indicate that this multifaceted approach to increasing exercise compliance holds promise in terms of making changes to achieve a more active lifestyle that will last in the long term

State-of-Science review: learning difficulties: SR-D4: Dyscalculia

Low numeracy skills in general and developmental dyscalculia (DD) in particular constitute a severe handicap. This review examines the causes and behavioural manifestations of numeracy deficits, their neuropsychological correlates and the limits to our understanding of these conditions. It then goes on to describe a validated test for diagnosing DD – a specific impairment in the capacity to learn arithmetic. The challenges in educating DD children and analysing their particular intervention needs are described. Reference is also made to the impact of dyscalculia on mental health (and ill-health) and individual wellbeing

Photon Structure, as seen at HERA

At HERA, the electron-proton collider at DESY, Hamburg, the large flux of almost on-shell photons accompanying the lepton beam is being used to shed new light on the structure of the photon. Recent results are reviewed and discussed, with emphasis on those aspects of the photon's nature which should be understandable using perturbative QCD.Comment: 20 pages, latex, 10 figures appended as uuencoded file. Full postscript version including figures available at http://zow00.desy.de:8000/~butterwo/pubs.html#ke

JetWeb: A WWW Interface and Database for Monte Carlo Tuning and Validation

A World Wide Web interface to a Monte Carlo validation and tuning facility is described. The aim of the package is to allow rapid and reproducible comparisons to be made between detailed measurements at high-energy physics colliders and general physics simulation packages. The package includes a relational database, a Java servlet query and display facility, and clean interfaces to simulation packages and their parameters.Comment: See http://jetweb.hep.ucl.ac.uk for further informatio