National Curriculum Review in Design and Technology for the Year 2000

To those of us involved in design and technology reviewing the National Curriculum appears to be such a regular event that there is real danger that teachers will become disinterested and therefore not participate in the review process. In the past teachers have not had time to reflect on and discuss the curriculum before the review takes place. It is for this reason that in November 1997 DATA produced a consultation document on the National Curriculum Review as it relates to design and technology. This paper will place that document in context, summarise the responses and consider the likely outcome for the new National Curriculum in the Year 2000

DfEE/DATA CAD/CAM in Schools Initiative - A Success Story so Far

This paper explains the structure and early development of the government's major initiative to develop CAD/CAM in schools as part of an overall strategy to update and enhance design and technology. It looks at the origins of the project and then sets out the structure of the programme and the rationale behind the structure. The paper then goes on to describe the role of pilot schools and CAD/CAM hubs and this is followed by the analysis of the effectiveness of such programmes.There is a brief analysis of what the project has currently achieved, with examples of work and the challenges that are emerging and where the work is leading in the future

Marconi ECT Project: phase 1 evaluation

Imagine a world without the use and application of electronics, and then consider a compulsory education system that does not offer courses in more than 18 percent of our secondary schools. This major shortfall in our education systems lies at the heart of much of the work carried out over the past four years related to finding training models for teachers in this very demanding area of work. This paper reflects the work carried out in theacademic year 2000/200 I in piloting a revised training model from the original 'Marconi Days' training programme. The original twoyeartrial programme used a 10-day training model. Sadly, this was considered too expensive, so this evaluation focused on two models, a 2-day course and a 4-day course, with support from a comprehensive web site and advisory support in school on the 2-day model. As the pilot has been established, much work has taken place to c

Toward a common language for the psychology of physical activity: A review of Physical activity and psychological well-being and psychology of physical activity: Determinants, well-being and interventions

First paragraph: The potential role of physical activity as an alternative and accompanying form of prevention and management of psychological well-being is the focus of Physical Activity and Psychological Well-Being. The increasing prevalence and public health costs associated with mental health conditions are highlighted in this book's opening chapter. The authors also present a sound case for exercise in the promotion of mental health by outlining that exercise is often inexpensive, carries negligible deleterious side effects, and can be self-sustaining in that it can be maintained by the individual once basic skills have been learnt

Determinants and strategies for physical activity maintenance in chronic health conditions: a qualitative study

Background: Physical activity is promoted to help adults manage chronic health conditions, but evidence suggests that individuals relapse after intervention cessation. The objective of this study was to explore the determinants and strategies for successful and unsuccessful physical activity maintenance. Methods: A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with 32 participants. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 20 successful and 12 unsuccessful maintainers. Adults with chronic health conditions were recruited having completed a physical activity referral scheme six months before study commencement. The IPAQ and SPAQ were used to categorize participants according to physical activity status. Data were analyzed using framework analysis. Results: Eleven main themes emerged: 1) outcome expectations, 2) experiences, 3) core values, 4) trial and error, 5) social and practical support, 6) attitudes towards physical activity, 7) environmental barriers, 8) psychological barriers, 9) physical barriers, 10) Cognitive-behavioral strategies for physical activity self-management (e.g., self-monitoring), and, 11) condition management (e.g., pacing). Conclusions: The findings identified determinants and strategies for successful maintenance and highlighted the processes involved in physical activity disengagement. Such findings can guide the development of physical activity maintenance interventions and increase activity engagement over the long-term in adults with chronic health conditions

Improved Depth Recovery In Consumer Depth Cameras via Disparity Space Fusion within Cross-spectral Stereo

We address the issue of improving depth coverage in consumer depth cameras based on the combined use of cross-spectral stereo and near infra-red structured light sensing. Specifically we show that fusion of disparity over these modalities, within the disparity space image, prior to disparity optimization facilitates the recovery of scene depth information in regions where structured light sensing fails. We show that this joint approach, leveraging disparity information from both structured light and cross-spectral sensing, facilitates the joint recovery of global scene depth comprising both texture-less object depth, where conventional stereo otherwise fails, and highly reflective object depth, where structured light (and similar) active sensing commonly fails. The proposed solution is illustrated using dense gradient feature matching and shown to outperform prior approaches that use late-stage fused cross-spectral stereo depth as a facet of improved sensing for consumer depth cameras

On the Use of Neural Text Generation for the Task of Optical Character Recognition

Optical Character Recognition (OCR), is extraction of textual data from scanned text documents to facilitate their indexing, searching, editing and to reduce storage space. Although OCR systems have improved significantly in recent years, they still suffer in situations where the OCR output does not match the text in the original document. Deep learning models have contributed positively to many problems but their full potential to many other problems are yet to be explored. In this paper we propose a post-processing approach based on the application deep learning to improve the accuracy of OCR system (minimizing the error rate).We report on the use of neural network language models to accomplish the task of correcting incorrectly predicted characters/words by OCR systems. We applied our approach to the IAM handwriting database. Our proposed approach delivers significant accuracy improvement of 20:41% in F-score, 10:86% in character level comparison using Levenshtein distance and 20:69% in document level comparison over previously reported context based OCR empirical results of IAM handwriting database

A randomised controlled trial and cost-effectiveness evaluation of 'booster' interventions to sustain increases in physical activity in middle-aged adults in deprived urban neighbourhoods

Background: More evidence is needed on the potential role of 'booster' interventions in the maintenance of increases in physical activity levels after a brief intervention in relatively sedentary populations. Objectives: To determine whether objectively measured physical activity, 6 months after a brief intervention, is increased in those receiving physical activity 'booster' consultations delivered in a motivational interviewing (MI) style, either face to face or by telephone. Design: Three-arm, parallel-group, pragmatic, superiority randomised controlled trial with nested qualitative research fidelity and geographical information systems and health economic substudies. Treatment allocation was carried out using a web-based simple randomisation procedure with equal allocation probabilities. Principal investigators and study statisticians were blinded to treatment allocation until after the final analysis only. Setting: Deprived areas of Sheffield, UK. Participants: Previously sedentary people, aged 40-64 years, living in deprived areas of Sheffield, UK, who had increased their physical activity levels after receiving a brief intervention. Interventions: Participants were randomised to the control group (no further intervention) or to two sessions of MI, either face to face ('full booster') or by telephone ('mini booster'). Sessions were delivered 1 and 2 months post-randomisation. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was total energy expenditure (TEE) per day in kcal from 7-day accelerometry, measured using an Actiheart device (CamNtech Ltd, Cambridge, UK). Independent evaluation of practitioner competence was carried out using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity assessment. An estimate of the per-participant intervention costs, resource use data collected by questionnaire and health-related quality of life data were analysed to produce a range of economic models from a short-term NHS perspective. An additional series of models were developed that used TEE values to estimate the long-term cost-effectiveness. Results: In total, 282 people were randomised (control = 96; mini booster = 92, full booster = 94) of whom 160 had a minimum of 4 out of 7 days' accelerometry data at 3 months (control = 61, mini booster = 47, full booster = 52). The mean difference in TEE per day between baseline and 3 months favoured the control arm over the combined booster arm but this was not statistically significant (-39 kcal, 95% confidence interval -173 to 95, p = 0.57). The autonomy-enabled MI communication style was generally acceptable, although some participants wanted a more paternalistic approach and most expressed enthusiasm for monitoring and feedback components of the intervention and research. Full boosters were more popular than mini boosters. Practitioners achieved and maintained a consistent level of MI competence. Walking distance to the nearest municipal green space or leisure facilities was not associated with physical activity levels. Two alternative modelling approaches both suggested that neither intervention was likely to be cost-effective. Conclusions: Although some individuals do find a community-based, brief MI 'booster' intervention supportive, the low levels of recruitment and retention and the lack of impact on objectively measured physical activity levels in those with adequate outcome data suggest that it is unlikely to represent a clinically effective or cost-effective intervention for the maintenance of recently acquired physical activity increases in deprived middle-aged urban populations. Future research with middle-aged and relatively deprived populations should explore interventions to promote physical activity that require less proactive engagement from individuals, including environmental interventions

Exploring the barriers and facilitators to making healthy physical activity lifestyle choices among UK BAME adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: asystematic review of qualitative study

Physical activity (PA) is widely recognised as being integral to physical and mental wellbeing. The World Health Organisation recommends around 150–300minutes of moderately intense PA per week for adults aged 18–64years. Physical inactivity costs the UK £7.4 billion per year and is associated with one out of every six deaths that occur in the country. The review aims at exploring the barriers and facilitators to making healthy PA lifestyle choices among UK BAME adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Database searches were conducted in CINAHL, AMED, Medline, SCOPUS, COCHRANE, EMBASE, and Web of Science. There are 53 records that were identified. After removing three duplicates, the titles and abstracts of 50 papers were screened. Of these, all but 50 studies were excluded after reviewing the title and abstracts, resulting in no studies eligible for inclusion. Data extraction using the JBI-QARI data extraction template was performed, followed by a narrative synthesis of the resulting data; however, no eligible studies were identified. This empty systematic review without meta-analysis, highlighted major research gaps and indicated the state of the evidence between 2019–2021. The review has, through the application of theoretical models (COM-B and TTM), highlighted themes that need to be addressed