Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education 3-14 Project (EPPSE 3-14): influences on students’ dispositions in Key Stage 3: exploring enjoyment of school, popularity, anxiety, citizenship values and academic self-concept in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Report and Research Brief reports on students’ dispositions when they were age 14 (Year 9) in six main areas: ‘enjoyment of school’, ‘academic self concept’ (English and maths), ‘popularity’, ‘citizenship values’ and ‘anxiety’. It examines how these dispositions have changed during Key Stage 3 (KS3) and the relationships between dispositions and a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school measures. It shows how school experiences help to shape dispositions, and also explores the relationships between dispositions to school and students’ academic and social-behavioural outcomes. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provides an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education 3-14 Project (EPPSE 3-14): influences on students’ dispositions in Key Stage 3: exploring enjoyment of school, popularity, anxiety, citizenship values and academic self-concept in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Report and Research Brief reports on students’ dispositions when they were age 14 (Year 9) in six main areas: ‘enjoyment of school’, ‘academic self concept’ (English and maths), ‘popularity’, ‘citizenship values’ and ‘anxiety’. It examines how these dispositions have changed during Key Stage 3 (KS3) and the relationships between dispositions and a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school measures. It shows how school experiences help to shape dispositions, and also explores the relationships between dispositions to school and students’ academic and social-behavioural outcomes. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provides an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

Influences on students’ attainment and progress in Key Stage 3: academic outcomes in English, Maths and Science in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has investigated the academic and social-behavioural development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This Research Brief focuses on the relationships between a range of individual student, family, home, pre-, primary and secondary school characteristics and students\u27 academic attainment in English, maths and science in Year 9 at secondary school (age 14). It compares the latest findings with those found for students\u27 attainment at younger ages. It also highlights the influences of secondary school on students\u27 attainment in the core curriculum areas and studies their academic progress across Key Stage 3 between the ages of 11 and 14

Effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project (EPPSE 3-14): students’ reports of their experiences of school in Year 9

The Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project (EPPSE) has inves tigated the academic and social behavioural (+ in the later stages the affective) development of approximately 3,000 children from the age of 3+ years since 1997. This report presents the results of analyses related to student’s experiences in Year 9 (age 14), with the purpose of creating measures of both school and classroom life as experienced by students. These measures have been used in the analysis of academic and social-behavioural outcomes as well as dispositions to investigate whether a student’s reported experience of school can significantly predict outcomes in other areas. The findings highlight the importance of the ‘student voice’ and provide an insight into the experiences of teenagers in the first decade of the 21st Century

An efficient hardware architecture for a neural network activation function generator

This paper proposes an efficient hardware architecture for a function generator suitable for an artificial neural network (ANN). A spline-based approximation function is designed that provides a good trade-off between accuracy and silicon area, whilst also being inherently scalable and adaptable for numerous activation functions. This has been achieved by using a minimax polynomial and through optimal placement of the approximating polynomials based on the results of a genetic algorithm. The approximation error of the proposed method compares favourably to all related research in this field. Efficient hardware multiplication circuitry is used in the implementation, which reduces the area overhead and increases the throughput

Two-dimensional enrichment analysis for mining high-level imaging genetic associations

Enrichment analysis has been widely applied in the genome-wide association studies (GWAS), where gene sets corresponding to biological pathways are examined for significant associations with a phenotype to help increase statistical power and improve biological interpretation. In this work, we expand the scope of enrichment analysis into brain imaging genetics, an emerging field that studies how genetic variation influences brain structure and function measured by neuroimaging quantitative traits (QT). Given the high dimensionality of both imaging and genetic data, we propose to study Imaging Genetic Enrichment Analysis (IGEA), a new enrichment analysis paradigm that jointly considers meaningful gene sets (GS) and brain circuits (BC) and examines whether any given GS-BC pair is enriched in a list of gene-QT findings. Using gene expression data from Allen Human Brain Atlas and imaging genetics data from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative as test beds, we present an IGEA framework and conduct a proof-of-concept study. This empirical study identifies 12 significant high level two dimensional imaging genetics modules. Many of these modules are relevant to a variety of neurobiological pathways or neurodegenerative diseases, showing the promise of the proposal framework for providing insight into the mechanism of complex diseases

Interpreting microarray experiments via co-expressed gene groups analysis

International audienceMicroarray technology produces vast amounts of data by measuring simultaneously the expression levels of thousands of genes under hundreds of biological conditions. Nowadays, one of the principal challenges in bioinformatics is the interpretation of huge data using different sources of information. We propose a novel data analysis method named CGGA (Co-expressed Gene Groups Analysis) that automatically finds groups of genes that are functionally enriched, i.e. have the same functional annotations, and are co- expressed. CGGA automatically integrates the information of microarrays, i.e. gene expression profiles, with the functional annotations of the genes obtained by the genome-wide information sources such as Gene Ontology (GO)1. By applying CGGA to well-known microarray experiments, we have identified the principal functionally enriched and co-expressed gene groups, and we have shown that this approach enhances and accelerates the interpretation of DNA microarray experiments

The general form of supersymmetric solutions of N=(1,0) U(1) and SU(2) gauged supergravities in six dimensions

We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for a supersymmetric field configuration in the N=(1,0) U(1) or SU(2) gauged supergravities in six dimensions, and impose the field equations on this general ansatz. It is found that any supersymmetric solution is associated to an $SU(2)\ltimes \mathbb{R}^4$ structure. The structure is characterized by a null Killing vector which induces a natural 2+4 split of the six dimensional spacetime. A suitable combination of the field equations implies that the scalar curvature of the four dimensional Riemannian part, referred to as the base, obeys a second order differential equation. Bosonic fluxes introduce torsion terms that deform the $SU(2)\ltimes\mathbb{R}^4$ structure away from a covariantly constant one. The most general structure can be classified in terms of its intrinsic torsion. For a large class of solutions the gauge field strengths admit a simple geometrical interpretation: in the U(1) theory the base is K\"{a}hler, and the gauge field strength is the Ricci form; in the SU(2) theory, the gauge field strengths are identified with the curvatures of the left hand spin bundle of the base. We employ our general ansatz to construct new supersymmetric solutions; we show that the U(1) theory admits a symmetric Cahen-Wallach$_4\times S^2$ solution together with a compactifying pp-wave. The SU(2) theory admits a black string, whose near horizon limit is $AdS_3\times S_3$. We also obtain the Yang-Mills analogue of the Salam-Sezgin solution of the U(1) theory, namely $R^{1,2}\times S^3$, where the $S^3$ is supported by a sphaleron. Finally we obtain the additional constraints implied by enhanced supersymmetry, and discuss Penrose limits in the theories.Comment: 1+29 pages, late

Short-term effects of very low dose cadmium feeding on copper, manganese and iron homeostasis:A gastropod perspective

The available information on the interplay between low-dose cadmium intake and copper, manganese, and iron homeostasis in invertebrates is limited. We have currently studied the accumulation of these trace metals in the hepatopancreas of adult snails, Cantareus aspersus, following 14 and 28 days of exposure to low doses of dietary cadmium, up to 1 mg/kg dw (dry weight). The cadmium dose, but not the duration of exposure, had a significant effect on hepatopancreas copper deposition, the values being significantly elevated compared to controls. A significant peak in manganese levels at 14 days was found in snails administered the lowest cadmium dose. These increases occurred even in the absence of cadmium increase in the hepatopancreas. Our data suggest that low dose cadmium feeding can produce a transient disturbance in hepatopancreas copper and manganese homeostasis. Such responses may serve as early biomarkers of physiological changes occurring during the initial stages of cadmium intoxication