The Apprenticeship Agenda

What are the latest developments in apprenticeships? Dr Jacqueline Carter looks at policy and research

Social Media Strategies in Small Businesses

An exploratory project has been carried out with a number of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to investigate the use of social media by SMEs. Previous research has highlighted the need for more investigations into the strategies used by businesses in implementing and using social media and in finding out how firms monitor the impact of social media on their business. The objectives of the research were: • To review the literature and existing survey data to develop a framework for understanding strategic approaches to social media use in small businesses, from the perspective of the business owner-manager; • To gain further insights through interviews into social media strategies developed by small businesses; • To examine the extent to which small businesses using social media are monitoring the impacts of social media use on their business; • To investigate the evolution of attitudes and strategic approaches to social media in the new digital economy. The project used mixed methods by first analysing secondary data on social media use in SMEs in the West Midlands, obtained in 2003. This was used to generate questions for semi-structured interviews. Six semi-structured interviews were carried out with SMEs, based in the North West of England. The interviews took place in small businesses with less than 50 staff and were taken from a range of business sectors. The interviews explored four subject areas: • Use of Social Media • Social Media Strategy • Champions of Social Media • Impacts of Social Medi

Public health ethics: informing better public health practice (peer reviewed editorial)

Public health ethics has emerged and grown as an independent discipline over the last decade. It involves using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health. In this paper, we distinguish public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics. We then discuss issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions. We conclude that the explicit and systematic consideration of ethical issues will, and should, become central to every public health worker’s daily practice

Public health ethics: informing better public health practice (peer reviewed editorial)

Public health ethics has emerged and grown as an independent discipline over the last decade. It involves using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health. In this paper, we distinguish public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics. We then discuss issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions. We conclude that the explicit and systematic consideration of ethical issues will, and should, become central to every public health worker’s daily practice

Partnered innovation in the design and implementation of UK management education - new Management Degree Apprenticeships

This paper explores curriculum innovation via the development of new management education at a UK university, in the form of a Degree Apprenticeship. Curriculum development is rarely a smooth process where different departments or faculties are involved (Murray & Nallaya, 2016) given the nature of interpersonal relationships (Six & Skinner, 2010; Dickinson & Glasby, 2010; Lupton et al, 2001). This new curriculum is the result of innovative new partnerships, both internally across different faculties and externally with a professional body and a range of employers. In exploring this new development, the study presents a view of an under-researched topic - the development of the UK's new hybrid qualifications, which offer a full undergraduate degree plus an Apprenticeship / Professional Award. Offering a fresh approach to workintegrated learning, the apprenticeship involves both theory and practice based around the apprentice’s workplace –encompassing “all and any learning that is situated in the workplace or arising directly out of workplace concerns” (Lester and Costley, 2010). Universities UK report numbers growing at a positive rate, "with an estimated 1,500-2,000 due to start in 2016 across 40 universities." (O'Malley, 2016)

Partnered innovation in the design and implementation of UK management education - new Management Degree Apprenticeships

This paper explores curriculum innovation via the development of new management education at a UK university, in the form of a Degree Apprenticeship. Curriculum development is rarely a smooth process where different departments or faculties are involved (Murray & Nallaya, 2016) given the nature of interpersonal relationships (Six & Skinner, 2010; Dickinson & Glasby, 2010; Lupton et al, 2001). This new curriculum is the result of innovative new partnerships, both internally across different faculties and externally with a professional body and a range of employers. In exploring this new development, the study presents a view of an under-researched topic - the development of the UK's new hybrid qualifications, which offer a full undergraduate degree plus an Apprenticeship / Professional Award. Offering a fresh approach to workintegrated learning, the apprenticeship involves both theory and practice based around the apprentice’s workplace –encompassing “all and any learning that is situated in the workplace or arising directly out of workplace concerns” (Lester and Costley, 2010). Universities UK report numbers growing at a positive rate, "with an estimated 1,500-2,000 due to start in 2016 across 40 universities." (O'Malley, 2016)

Ground-Based Transmission Spectroscopy with FORS2: A featureless optical transmission spectrum and detection of H2O for the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-103b

We report ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the highly irradiated and ultra-short period hot-Jupiter WASP-103b covering the wavelength range ≈ 400 – 600 nm using the FORS2 instrument on the Very Large Telescope. The light curves show significant time-correlated noise which is mainly invariant in wavelength and which we model using a Gaussian process. The precision of our transmission spectrum is improved by applying a common-mode correction derived from the white light curve, reaching typical uncertainties in transit depth of ≈ 2 × 10−4 in wavelength bins of 15 nm. After correction for flux contamination from a blended companion star, our observations reveal a featureless spectrum across the full range of the FORS2 observations and we are unable to confirm the Na absorption previously inferred using Gemini/GMOS or the strong Rayleigh scattering observed using broad-band light curves. We performed a Bayesian atmospheric retrieval on the full optical-infrared transmission spectrum using the additional data from Gemini/GMOS, HST/WFC3 and Spitzer observations and recover evidence for H2O absorption at the 4.0 σ level. However, our observations are not able to completely rule out the presence of Na, which is found at 2.0 σ in our retrievals. This may in part be explained by patchy/inhomogeneous clouds or hazes damping any absorption features in our FORS2 spectrum, but an inherently small scale height also makes this feature challenging to probe from the ground. Our results nonetheless demonstrate the continuing potential of ground-based observations for investigating exoplanet atmospheres and emphasise the need for the application of consistent and robust statistical techniques to low-resolution spectra in the presence of instrumental systematics

Population genomics of domestic and wild yeasts

The natural genetics of an organism is determined by the distribution of sequences of its genome. Here we present one- to four-fold, with some deeper, coverage of the genome sequences of over seventy isolates of the domesticated baker's yeast, _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_, and its closest relative, the wild _S. paradoxus_, which has never been associated with human activity. These were collected from numerous geographic locations and sources (including wild, clinical, baking, wine, laboratory and food spoilage). These sequences provide an unprecedented view of the population structure, natural (and artificial) selection and genome evolution in these species. Variation in gene content, SNPs, indels, copy numbers and transposable elements provide insights into the evolution of different lineages. Phenotypic variation broadly correlates with global genome-wide phylogenetic relationships however there is no correlation with source. _S. paradoxus_ populations are well delineated along geographic boundaries while the variation among worldwide _S. cerevisiae_ isolates show less differentiation and is comparable to a single _S. paradoxus_ population. Rather than one or two domestication events leading to the extant baker's yeasts, the population structure of _S. cerevisiae_ shows a few well defined geographically isolated lineages and many different mosaics of these lineages, supporting the notion that human influence provided the opportunity for outbreeding and production of new combinations of pre-existing variation

Abundance measurements of H₂O and carbon-bearing species in the atmosphere of WASP-127b confirm its super-solar metallicity

The chemical abundances of exoplanet atmospheres may provide valuable information about the bulk compositions, formation pathways, and evolutionary histories of planets. Exoplanets with large, relatively cloud-free atmospheres, and which orbit bright stars provide the best opportunities for accurate abundance measurements. For this reason, we measured the transmission spectrum of the bright (V∼10.2), large (1.37 RJ), sub-Saturn mass (0.19 MJ) exoplanet WASP-127b across the near-UV to near-infrared wavelength range (0.3–5 μm), using the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Our results show a feature-rich transmission spectrum, with absorption from Na, H2O, and CO2, and wavelength-dependent scattering from small-particle condensates. We ran two types of atmospheric retrieval models: one enforcing chemical equilibrium, and the other which fit the abundances freely. Our retrieved abundances at chemical equilibrium for Na, O and C are all super-solar, with abundances relative to solar values of 9+15−6⁠, 16+7−5⁠, and 26+12−9 respectively. Despite giving conflicting C/O ratios, both retrievals gave super-solar CO2 volume mixing ratios, which adds to the likelihood that WASP-127b’s bulk metallicity is super-solar, since CO2 abundance is highly sensitive to atmospheric metallicity. We detect water at a significance of 13.7 σ. Our detection of Na is in agreement with previous ground-based detections, though we find a much lower abundance, and we also do not find evidence for Li or K despite increased sensitivity. In the future, spectroscopy with JWST will be able to constrain WASP-127b’s C/O ratio, and may reveal the formation history of this metal-enriched, highly observable exoplanet