Pupil mobility, attainment and progress in secondary school

This paper is the second of two articles arising from a study of the association between pupil mobility and attainment in national tests and examinations in an inner London borough. The first article (Strand & Demie, 2006) examined the association of pupil mobility with attainment and progress during primary school. It concluded that pupil mobility had little impact on performance in national tests at age 11, once pupils’ prior attainment at age 7 and other pupil background factors such as age, sex, special educational needs, stage of fluency in English and socio-economic disadvantage were taken into account. The present article reports the results for secondary schools (age 11-16). The results indicate that pupil mobility continues to have a significant negative association with performance in public examinations at age 16, even after including statistical controls for prior attainment at age 11 and other pupil background factors. Possible reasons for the contrasting results across school phases are explored. The implications for policy and further research are discussed

Answering Complex Questions as We Make Headway on Annual Grasses and Fire

Annual grasses challenge our ability to meet forage production and plant community conservation objectives. Direct competition, potential mutualism, and shortened fire return interval interplay resulting in complexity of how to meet challenges we face. Bromus tectorum presents challenges to sagebrush dominated plant communities with shortened fire return intervals and the advancing invasion of Ventenata dubia poses threats to forage production through competitive interactions that may involve mutualism to enhance V. dubia’s invasion of annual and perennial grass dominated plant communities. Use of fuel breaks can reduce the extent of fires and their proper function hinges on their reduced plant biomass in contrast to surrounding vegetation to improve fire fighting ability. Reducing annual grass biomass within fuel breaks reduces fuel continuity and shortens the duration of dry vegetation. Indaziflam and imazapic are two herbicide active ingredients that allow control of annual grasses within fuel breaks and sagebrush plant communities. Aerial application of these herbicides allows us to match control actions to the scope of the problem. These herbicides can also reduce competition from annual grasses, allowing increased cover and diversity of native plant communities. Removal or reduction of annual grasses has improved plant species diversity and forage production

Next-generation metrics for monitoring genetic erosion within populations of conservation concern

This work was conducted as a part of the Next-generation Genetic Monitoring Working Group at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, sponsored by the National Science Foundation through NSF Award #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Emma Carrol was supported by a Marie Slodowska Curie Fellowship, (Behaviour-Connect) funded by the EU Horizon2020 program. MWB was supported by a Royal Society Wolfson research merit award. LW was supported by the University of Idaho. This research was supported in part by NSF awards 1355106 and 1357386 to AES.Genetic erosion is a major threat to biodiversity because it can reduce fitness and ultimately contribute to the extinction of populations. Here, we explore the use of quantitative metrics to detect and monitor genetic erosion. Monitoring systems should not only characterize the mechanisms and drivers of genetic erosion (inbreeding, genetic drift, demographic instability, population fragmentation, introgressive hybridization, selection) but also its consequences (inbreeding and outbreeding depression, emergence of large effect detrimental alleles, maladaptation and loss of adaptability). Technological advances in genomics now allow the production of data the can be measured by new metrics with improved precision, increased efficiency and the potential to discriminate between neutral diversity (shaped mainly by population size and gene-flow) and functional/adaptive diversity (shaped mainly by selection), allowing the assessment of management-relevant genetic markers. The requirements of such studies in terms of sample size and marker density largely depend on the kind of population monitored, the questions to be answered and the metrics employed. We discuss prospects for the integration of this new information and metrics into conservation monitoring programmes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The limits of social class in explaining ethnic gaps in educational attainment

This paper reports an analysis of the educational attainment and progress between age 11 and age 14 of over 14,500 students from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). The mean attainment gap in national tests at age 14 between White British and several ethnic minority groups were large, more than three times the size of the gender gap, but at the same time only about one-third of the size of the social class gap. Socio-economic variables could account for the attainment gaps for Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students, but not for Black Caribbean students. Further controls for parental and student attitudes, expectations and behaviours indicated minority ethnic groups were on average more advantaged on these measures than White British students, but this was not reflected proportionately in their levels of attainment. Black Caribbean students were distinctive as the only group making less progress than White British students between age 11 and 14 and this could not be accounted for by any of the measured contextual variables. Possible explanations for the White British-Black Caribbean gap are considered

Substance Misuse Education for Physicians: Why Older People are Important.

This perspective article focuses on the need for training and education for undergraduate medical students on substance-related disorders, and describes initiatives undertaken in the United Kingdom (UK), Netherlands, United States (US), and Norway to develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed by future doctors to treat patients adequately. In addition, we stress that in postgraduate training, further steps should be taken to develop Addiction Medicine as a specialized and transverse medical domain. Alcohol use disorder is a growing public health problem in the geriatric population, and one that is likely to continue to increase as the baby boomer generation ages. Prescription drug misuse is a major concern, and nicotine misuse remains problematic in a substantial minority. Thus, Addiction Medicine training should address the problems for this specific population. In recent years, several countries have started an Addiction Medicine specialty. Although addiction psychiatry has been a subspecialty in the UK and US for more than 20 years, in most countries it has been a more recent development. Additional courses on addiction should be integrated into the curriculum at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as form part of the continuous training of other medical specialists. It is recommended that further research and mapping of what is currently taught in medical programs be undertaken, so as to enhance medical education in addiction and improve treatment services

ACCUMULATION AND RETENTION OF TRITIUM (TRITIATED WATER) IN EMBRYONIC AND LARVAL FISH, AND RADIATION EFFECT.

This report addresses the accumulation and retention of tritium in embryonic and larval fish, and radiation effec

Time-Dependent and Steady-State Gutzwiller approach for nonequilibrium transport in nanostructures

We extend the time-dependent Gutzwiller variational approach, recently introduced by Schir\`o and Fabrizio, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 076401 (2010), to impurity problems. Furthermore, we derive a consistent theory for the steady state, and show its equivalence with the previously introduced nonequilibrium steady-state extension of the Gutzwiller approach. The method is shown to be able to capture dissipation in the leads, so that a steady state is reached after a sufficiently long relaxation time. The time-dependent method is applied to the single orbital Anderson impurity model at half-filling, modeling a quantum dot coupled to two leads. In these first exploratory calculations the Gutzwiller projector is limited to act only on the impurity. The strengths and the limitations of this approximation are assessed via comparison with state of the art continuous time quantum Monte Carlo results. Finally, we discuss how the method can be systematically improved by extending the region of action of the Gutzwiller projector.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Electron Spin Dynamics and Hyperfine Interactions in Fe/Al_0.1Ga_0.9As/GaAs Spin Injection Heterostructures

We have studied hyperfine interactions between spin-polarized electrons and lattice nuclei in Al_0.1Ga_0.9As/GaAs quantum well (QW) heterostructures. The spin-polarized electrons are electrically injected into the semiconductor heterostructure from a metallic ferromagnet across a Schottky tunnel barrier. The spin-polarized electron current dynamically polarizes the nuclei in the QW, and the polarized nuclei in turn alter the electron spin dynamics. The steady-state electron spin is detected via the circular polarization of the emitted electroluminescence. The nuclear polarization and electron spin dynamics are accurately modeled using the formalism of optical orientation in GaAs. The nuclear spin polarization in the QW is found to depend strongly on the electron spin polarization in the QW, but only weakly on the electron density in the QW. We are able to observe nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) at low applied magnetic fields on the order of a few hundred Oe by electrically modulating the spin injected into the QW. The electrically driven NMR demonstrates explicitly the existence of a Knight field felt by the nuclei due to the electron spin.Comment: 19 Figures - submitted to PR

Influence of the radio frequency ponderomotive force on anomalous impurity transport in tokamaks

Trace impurity transport in tokamaks is studied using an electrostatic, collisionless fluid model for ion-temperature-gradient and trapped-electron mode driven turbulence in the presence of radio frequency (rf) fields, and the results are compared with neoclassical predictions. It is shown that the inward impurity convective velocity (pinch) that is usually obtained can be reduced by the rf fields, in particular close to the wave resonance location where the rf ponderomotive force may be significant. However, the impurity diffusivity and convective velocity are usually similarly affected by the ponderomotive force, and hence the steady-state impurity density peaking factor -∇nz/nz is only moderately affected by the rf fields

"Open Innovation" and "Triple Helix" Models of Innovation: Can Synergy in Innovation Systems Be Measured?

The model of "Open Innovations" (OI) can be compared with the "Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations" (TH) as attempts to find surplus value in bringing industrial innovation closer to public R&D. Whereas the firm is central in the model of OI, the TH adds multi-centeredness: in addition to firms, universities and (e.g., regional) governments can take leading roles in innovation eco-systems. In addition to the (transversal) technology transfer at each moment of time, one can focus on the dynamics in the feedback loops. Under specifiable conditions, feedback loops can be turned into feedforward ones that drive innovation eco-systems towards self-organization and the auto-catalytic generation of new options. The generation of options can be more important than historical realizations ("best practices") for the longer-term viability of knowledge-based innovation systems. A system without sufficient options, for example, is locked-in. The generation of redundancy -- the Triple Helix indicator -- can be used as a measure of unrealized but technologically feasible options given a historical configuration. Different coordination mechanisms (markets, policies, knowledge) provide different perspectives on the same information and thus generate redundancy. Increased redundancy not only stimulates innovation in an eco-system by reducing the prevailing uncertainty; it also enhances the synergy in and innovativeness of an innovation system.Comment: Journal of Open Innovations: Technology, Market and Complexity, 2(1) (2016) 1-12; doi:10.1186/s40852-016-0039-