E-maturity and school performance: a secondary analysis of COL evaluation data. Analysis report.

This publication focuses on a secondary analysis of the Curriculum Online evaluation data to examine the relationships between school performance, e-maturity and pupil attainment in both primary and secondary schools

Risky behaviour and social activities

The aim of the study was to explore whether risky behaviour is reinforced or counterbalanced by various types of social and individual activities and the impacts on educational outcomes at age 16. The analysis is based on four waves of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England together with National Pupil Database data. The data did not allow identification of the type of ‘structured and supervised’ positive activities promoted by policy to reduce risky behaviour and therefore could not (and was not intended to) test the effectiveness of this policy focus.Andreas Cebulla and Wojtek Tomaszewsk

Responses to an Ageing Workforce: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom

Background: An ageing workforce is a challenge for businesses that are increasingly expected to adapt workplaces to enable employees to remain in work longer. Emerging evidence highlights employer practices to attract or retain older workers. This paper explores employers’ motivations for introducing measures to accommodate an older workforce in three European case study countries. Objectives: The objective is to illustrate and understand different approaches to, and stages in, adjusting workplaces to accommodate an ageing workforce. Methods/Approach: The study combines case studies, including site visits and interviews, with expert consultations. Results: The research finds marked between-country differences, with United Kingdom case studies highlighting a strong emphasis on age-neutral practices shaped by legislation; age-confident practices in Germany resulting from collaborative arrangement between employers and trades unions (with legislation permissive towards age discrimination); business in Spain remaining relatively inactive, despite evidence of people expecting to work longer in life. Conclusions: Diverging employer motivations and responses to the challenge of an ageing workforce risk a multi-speed Europe in age-confident workplace innovation. A concerted effort that draws on the multiple factors that motivate initiative would be required to achieve good working conditions for older workers across Europe

Perceptions of labour market risks: shifts and continuities across generations

In the risk society thesis, most notably forwarded by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, the labour market plays a key role in individualization processes. While for previous generations, family and personal networks, and also government institutions, were important in providing access to and mobility within the labour market, cohorts entering the labour market since the 1970s and onwards are perceived to be living in a modern 'risk regime', requiring each individual to make choices and decisions in relation to a market that no longer accommodates employment based on kinship and friendship. Based on data from 58 qualitative interviews with parents and their adult children, this article examines more closely these purported changes. The study's main observation is that important changes towards increased perceived individualization have taken place from one generation to the next. While affirming the disjuncture posited by Beck between a 'collectivized past' and an 'individualized present', this study's empirical evidence from two generations of individuals indicates that the disjuncture is muddier and more complex than previously understood. © The Author(s) 2011

Public perceptions of the police: effects of police investigation and police resources

Since the 1980s, successive UK governments have sought to increase efficiency in, and effectiveness of, policing through what has been described as “cycles of reform” (Reiner, 2000, p. 204). The reforms typically involved exerting greater central control over regional police forces. Many of the early initiatives met with resistance from within the police and, as a result, were not fully implemented (McLaughlin and Murji, 1995). By the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, more effective and direct control over police performance was finally established. This took the form of a centralisation of police management, which resulted in the introduction of more uniform measures of monitoring police performance, including the regular recording of crime and crime detection rates among police forces. Performance targets were set and the public’s satisfaction with the work of the police in their local area became one of several performance indicators. Performance targets and measures to generate greater cost efficiency in service provision, however, can have unexpected, sometimes perverse side effects. Two of these are focus of this paper. First, it explores how shifts in the police’s focus on specific types of crime in response to the introduction of performance targets affected the public’s reporting of crime. Second, it asks whether, in the light of efforts to achieve efficiency savings in the police, public spending on police forces has had any bearing on the public’s perception of the quality of local policing

Drug and alcohol use as barriers to employment : a review of the literature

This report contains the findings of a literature review commissioned as part of a larger research project concerned with estimating the number of drug and alcohol users in private households in Britain and with identifying their barriers to work. The literature and programme review found few examples of employment service programmes for substance users and even fewer, which had been evaluated. All support programmes combined employment with treatment services, either through external linkages or internal provision. Successful programmes were found to have established a high level of inter-agency co-ordination, collaboration and communication, thus generating a climate of trust between support service providers as well as between providers and substance users. Employment service providers had in-depth knowledge of drug- or alcohol-related issues (health, behaviour etc.), as well as close links with the local labour market. Support for substance users involved one-to-one case management, continuity of support after placement, relapse prevention and referrals to other support services (e.g. benefits/financial; childcare; transport). Successful support dealt with a range of personal and perceptual problems that substance users articulated, including the risk of a profound distrust between users and support workers. Support work benefited from workers skilled in developing users’ social and communication skills as well as their confidence and assertiveness. Flexibility and diversity of support (e.g. financial advice) and the development of realistic short- and medium-term goals were critical to successful intervention. Organisational and spatially integrated provision of treatment and employment services appeared to increase the effectiveness of interventions providing they improved mutual understanding and the referral of substance users between task groups. Such integration enabled greater continuity of one-to-one support and thus improved the rapport between clients and service providers

Young people from ethnic minority backgrounds : evidence from the Education Maintenance Allowance Pilots Database

This report uses quantitative data collected as part of the evaluation of the Education Maintenance Allowance Pilots to explore comparatively the destinations and achievements of young people from different ethnic minority backgrounds. The report covers two cohorts of young people who finished compulsory education in the summer of 1999 and 2000 respectively and who were interviewed three times at one year intervals, that is, when they were approximately 16, 17 and 18 years of age. It combines data from a random sample of young people in ten EMA pilot areas and 11 control areas Part A of the report focuses on 14,700 young people at the time of their first interview which took place shortly after the end of compulsory education. It compares young people’s school experiences during Years 10 and 11, their qualifications at the end of Year 11, their destinations immediately after compulsory education, the advice they received during Year 11 about these destinations and the reasons they gave for their choice of destination. The final section reflects on the role of EMA on decisions to remain in post-16 education. Data in Part A have been weighted to be representative of all young people in the pilot and control areas. Part B of the report concentrates on 8,300 young people who had taken part in the first three survey interviews. It compares the destinations at ages 17 and 18 of those who initially remained in full-time education at age 16 and then considers the destinations at age 18 of all young people, irrespective of whether they initially remained in education, and explores the relationship between destination, ethnicity and other characteristics known to be associated with remaining in education. The final piece of the analysis explores the relationships between ethnicity, destinations at ages 16, 17 and 18 controlling for certain of these characteristics. Data in Part B have been weighted to be representative of all young people in the pilot and control areas and to take account of differential attrition from the sample between survey interviews

Policies for an Ageing Workforce Work-life balance, working conditions and equal opportunities 2019

At a time of rapid population ageing, a key means of sustaining current welfare states is to extend the length of working lives. In 2050, the share of people over the age of 75 years will be the same as the share over 65 years today. And just as not all are able to work to the age of 65 now, not everyone will be able to work to the age of 75 in 2050; even if future older workers will in all likelihood be healthier and have better working aids at their disposal. Extending average working lives by 10 years, and at the same time ensuring an adequate social safety net for those unable to work into their late 60s and 70s, is a major social policy challenge for the coming decades. And because people are much more likely to work late in life if they had stable careers before reaching 60, tackling this policy challenge means pulling on many more social policy levers than just pension policy. While being keenly aware of these issues and how they relate to the overall agenda of active ageing, Commissioner Thyssen also reminds us in her Foreword that marked increases in life expectancy – both past and in the future – represent enormous social progress. The Commissioner makes the point that older people too contribute to society. And more so with lifelong learning and investment in skills

Acute partial Budd-Chiari syndrome and portal vein thrombosis in cytomegalovirus primary infection: a case report

BACKGROUND: Splanchnic vein thrombosis may complicate inherited thrombotic disorders. Acute cytomegalovirus infection is a rare cause of acquired venous thrombosis in the portal or mesenteric territory, but has never been described extending into a main hepatic vein. CASE PRESENTATION: A 36-year-old immunocompetent woman presented with acute primary cytomegalovirus infection in association with extensive thrombosis in the portal and splenic vein. In addition, a fresh thrombus was evident in the right hepatic vein. A thorough evaluation for a hypercoagulable state was negative. The clinical course, biological evolution, radiological and histological findings were consistent with cytomegalovirus hepatitis complicated by a partial acute Budd-Chiari syndrome and portal thrombosis. Therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with a slow clinical improvement and partial vascular recanalization. CONCLUSION: We described in details a new association between cytomegalovirus infection and acute venous thrombosis both in the portal vein and in the right hepatic vein, realizing a partial Budd-Chiari syndrome. One should be aware that this rare thrombotic event may be complicated by partial venous outflow block

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts