Improving subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge in employment based secondary initial teacher training in England

Each year in England about 6,000 trainee teachers qualify by undertaking an employment-based initial teacher training route (EBITT), where training is mainly school based. Government inspectors have found that trainees on this route are weaker in subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge compared to trainees following the more traditional one year training course (PGCE) of which about a third of course time is University based. EBITT providers are currently seeking to improve the subject knowledge aspect of training. To support this work the TDA have published a model for developing trainees' subject knowledge for teaching and suggest that providers review their provision against the model. In addition EBITT providers must also meet a new requirement that the total training time should be a minimum of 60 days. This new requirement presents a challenge to EBITT providers as most of the subject knowledge enhancement will have to be school-based. This paper seeks to find out: - how trainee teachers acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge while based in a school and - whether teaching staff in schools have the required subject and subject pedagogic knowledge and skills for this enhanced role. Data have been collected from trainees, school-based mentors, school-based Initial Teacher Training Coordinators and University assessors over a one year period. Data about the way trainees acquire subject knowledge was interpreted against the TDA model. The study finds that: - trainees acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge in a variety of highly individualistic ways that suggests that the TDA model only partially explains what is happening in practice and - there is a significant training need to ensure schools are well equipped to deliver high quality subject focussed training.</p

The Transcriptome of Compatible and Incompatible Interactions of Potato (Solanum tuberosum) with Phytophthora infestans Revealed by DeepSAGE Analysis

Late blight, caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, is the most important disease of potato (Solanum tuberosum). Understanding the molecular basis of resistance and susceptibility to late blight is therefore highly relevant for developing resistant cultivars, either by marker-assissted selection or by transgenic approaches. Specific P. infestans races having the Avr1 effector gene trigger a hypersensitive resistance response in potato plants carrying the R1 resistance gene (incompatible interaction) and cause disease in plants lacking R1 (compatible interaction). The transcriptomes of the compatible and incompatible interaction were captured by DeepSAGE analysis of 44 biological samples comprising five genotypes, differing only by the presence or absence of the R1 transgene, three infection time points and three biological replicates. 30.859 unique 21 base pair sequence tags were obtained, one third of which did not match any known potato transcript sequence. Two third of the tags were expressed at low frequency (<10 tag counts/million). 20.470 unitags matched to approximately twelve thousand potato transcribed genes. Tag frequencies were compared between compatible and incompatible interactions over the infection time course and between compatible and incompatible genotypes. Transcriptional changes were more numerous in compatible than in incompatible interactions. In contrast to incompatible interactions, transcriptional changes in the compatible interaction were observed predominantly for multigene families encoding defense response genes and genes functional in photosynthesis and CO2 fixation. Numerous transcriptional differences were also observed between near isogenic genotypes prior to infection with P. infestans. Our DeepSAGE transcriptome analysis uncovered novel candidate genes for plant host pathogen interactions, examples of which are discussed with respect to possible function

Minimum energy control of passive tracers advection in point vortices flow

International audienceIn this work we are interested in controlling the displacement of particles in interaction with N point vortices, in a two-dimensional fluid and neglecting the viscous diffusion. We want to drive a passive particle from an initial point to a final point, both given a priori, in a given finite time, the control being due to the possibility of impulsion in any direction of the plane. For the energy cost, the candidates as minimizers are given by the normal extremals of the Pontryagin Maximum Principle (PMP). The transcription of the PMP gives us a set of nonlinear equations to solve, the so-called shooting equations. We introduce these shooting equations and present numerical computations in the cases of N = 1, 2, 3 and 4 point vortices. In the integrable case N = 1, we give complete quadratures of the normal extremals

Cloning of a rat gene encoding the histo-blood group A enzyme. Tissue expression of the gene and of the A and B antigens

The complete coding sequence of a BDIX rat gene homologous to the human ABO gene was determined. Identification of the exon-intron boundaries, obtained by comparison of the coding sequence with rat genomic sequences from data banks, revealed that the rat gene structure is identical to that of the human ABO gene. It localizes to rat chromosome 3 (q11-q12), a region homologous to human 9q34. Phylogenetic analysis of a set of sequences available for the various members of the same gene family confirmed that the rat sequence belongs to the ABO gene cluster. The cDNA was transfected in CHO cells already stably transfected with an alpha1,2fucosyltransferase in order to express H oligosaccharide acceptors. Analysis of the transfectants by flow cytometry indicated that A but not B epitopes were synthesized. Direct assay of the enzyme activity using 2' fucosyllactose as acceptor confirmed the strong UDP-GalNAc:Fucalpha1,2GalalphaGalNAc transferase (Atransferase) activity of the enzyme product and allowed detection of a small UDP-Gal:Fucalpha1,2GalalphaGal transferase (B transferase) activity. The presence of the mRNA and of the A and B antigens was searched in various BDIX rat tissues. There was a general good concordance between the presence of the mRNA and that of the A antigen. Tissue distributions of the A and B antigens in the homozygous BDIX rat strain were largely different, indicating that these antigens cannot be synthesized by alleles of the same gene in this rat inbred strain.Comparative StudyJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Geometric and numerical techniques to compute conjugate and cut loci on Riemannian surfaces

International audienceWe combine geometric and numerical techniques - the Hampath code - to compute conjugate and cut loci on Riemannian surfaces using three test bed examples: ellipsoids of revolution, general ellipsoids, and metrics with singularities on S2 associated to spin dynamics

Geometric and numerical methods in the contrast imaging problem in nuclear magnetic resonance

International audienceIn this article, the contrast imaging problem in nuclear magnetic resonance is modeled as a Mayer problem in optimal control. The optimal solution can be found as an extremal, solution of the Maximum Principle and analyzed with the techniques of geometric control. This leads to a numerical investigation based on so-called indirect methods using the HamPath software. The results are then compared with a direct method implemented within the Bocop toolbox. Finally lmi techniques are used to estimate a global optimum