The influence of randomly allocated group membership when developing student task work and team work capabilities

This study explores whether randomly assigning group membership enhances the student learning experience. The paper starts with a critical analysis of the approaches to student learning within Higher Education and how these approaches conflict with findings from applied psychology on group behaviour. The study adopts a serendipitous qualitative methodology to explore how changes to assessment requirements can result in a more holistic learning experience. The findings suggest that students perceive the adoption of randomly allocated as an unnecessary risk to their performance within assessment as opposed to an opportunity to enhance their learning. This raises questions regarding the conflict that can exist within education between assessment and learning. The results suggest students operate in a ‘comfort zone’ which can be detrimental to their overall learning experience. Getting students to leave the comfort zone is a particularly stressful situation for both student and educator. Once students leave the comfort zone competencies that have been dormant surface and they are able to utilise and acquire a wider range of skills. Leaving the comfort zone also results in the creation of a critical incidence which can assist the student in developing their reflective capabilities. The results suggest that randomly allocated groups enhance both an individual’s task capabilities and their teamwork capabilities. The paper concludes that the findings have significant implications for those involved in the design of assessment. The paper also provides an interesting commentary on the issues educators face when undertaking education research within a higher educational context

Exact synthesis of multiqubit Clifford+T circuits

We prove that a unitary matrix has an exact representation over the Clifford+T gate set with local ancillas if and only if its entries are in the ring Z[1/sqrt(2),i]. Moreover, we show that one ancilla always suffices. These facts were conjectured by Kliuchnikov, Maslov, and Mosca. We obtain an algorithm for synthesizing a exact Clifford+T circuit from any such n-qubit operator. We also characterize the Clifford+T operators that can be represented without ancillas.Comment: 7 page

An Analysis of the Success of a High School Athletic Program on Student Achievement

The decisions on how to spend money in the public school system will continue to remain throughout the years, but how that money best impacts student achievement should always remain at the forefront of every decision. Often in today’s tough economic times school systems will cut expenditures in athletics without the full knowledge of how a high school athletic program impacts student achievement and the climate and culture within the school. The researcher investigated the success of an overall high school athletic program and the correlation with standardized test scores in English and math. Additionally, the success of a high school athletic program on the school climate and culture was examined. The findings of this study were statistically significant in both the effects of a high school athletic program on student achievement and the school climate and culture. This finding supports that the success of a high school athletic program has a significant positive impact on student achievement and that the success of a high school athletic program has a significant positive impact on the student’s perception of the climate and culture in the building. As a result of this study, it may be used to assist central office personnel and local high school administration to be equipped with the knowledge on how the quality of coaches affects a school culture and climate through success in the athletic arena, which may affect student achievement

Windsor Group (Late Mississippian) stratigraphy, Magdalen Islands, Quebec: a rare eastern Canadian record of late Visean basaltic volcanism

The Magdalen Islands archipelago is the single site in the north-central Gulf of St. Lawrence where surface exposures of the Windsor Group, an important Mississippian (Visean) marine marker interval within the thick Late Devonian-Early Permian fill of the Maritimes Basin, permit stratigraphic comparison with the type Windsor Group and the correlative Codroy Group of western Newfoundland. The presence of volcanic rocks associated with regionally more typical marine carbonate rocks, evaporites, and fine-grained redbeds make this local Windsor Group succession unique in eastern Canada. The volcanic rocks, including vesicular and amygdaloidal basalts with minor pyroclastic rocks, are interstratified in surface exposures with middle Windsor Group gypsum, limestone, and siltstone of late Asbian age. Similar sedimentary suites higher in the Windsor Group, assigned biostratigraphically to the Brigantian and questionably the earliest Pendleian substages, lack any associated volcanic rocks (Île Boudreau) or are in tectonic contact with volcanic-bearing middle Windsor Group successions (Île d’Entreé). The Cap au Diable Formation, erected as a volcanic-dominated rock unit of the upper Windsor Group on the Magdalen Islands, is here abandoned. Thick salt deposits lacking intercalated carbonate rocks, which underlie and are presumed to have diapirically intruded middle and upper Windsor Group strata, are believed to represent the product of the first major cycle of Mississippian marine sedimentation in the region. The Magdalen Islands Windsor Group succession, except for its regionally unique volcanic component, is most comparable to that of south-central and eastern Nova Scotia in its overall character. This tectonically dismembered remnant of an apparently complete succession contrasts with rocks of similar age in southeastern New Brunswick and northwestern Nova Scotia which lack upper Windsor Group marine carbonate members and contain only a limited number of middle Windsor Group marine carbonate bands. RÉSUMÉ L’archipel des îles de la Madeleine constitue le seul emplacement dans le Centre-Nord du golfe du Saint-Laurent où des affleurements en surface du groupe de Windsor, intervalle de référence marin déterminant du Mississippien (Viséen) à l’intérieur de l’épaisse couche de remplissage du Dévonien tardif-Permien précoce du bassin des Maritimes, permettent une comparaison stratigraphique avec le groupe type de Windsor et le groupe corrélatif de Codroy de l’Ouest de Terre-Neuve. La présence de roches volcaniques associées à des couches rouges à grains fins, des évaporites et des roches carbonatées marines plus typiques à l’échelle régionale rendent cette succession locale du groupe de Windsor unique dans l’Est du Canada. Les roches volcaniques, notamment des basaltes vésiculaires et amygdaloïdes accompagnés d’une quantité modeste de roches pyroclastiques, sont interstratifiées avec de la siltite, du calcaire et du gypse de la partie médiane du groupe de Windsor dans des affleurements en surface remontant à l’Asbien tardif. Des séquences sédimentaires similaires de niveaux supérieurs du groupe de Windsor, rattachées biostratigraphiquement au Brigantien et de façon discutable aux sous-étages les plus précoces du Pendleien, sont dépourvues de roches volcaniques connexes (île Boudreau) ou se trouvent en contact tectonique avec des successions de roches volcaniques de la section médiane du groupe de Windsor (île d’Entrée). On abandonne dans les présentes la Formation de Cap au Diable, créée à titre d’unité lithologique à prédominance de roches volcaniques de la tranche supérieure du groupe de Windsor dans les îles de la Madeleine. Les dépôts épais de sel dépourvus de roches carbonatées intercalées, sous-jacents, qu’on suppose avoir pénétré diapiriquement les strates médianes et supérieures du groupe de Windsor, représenteraient le produit du premier cycle important de sédimentation marine mississippienne dans la région. La succession du groupe de Windsor et des îles de la Madeleine a, mis à part sa composante volcanique unique à l’échelle régionale, un caractère général très comparable à celle du Centre-Sud et de l’Est de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Ce vestige tectonique-ment démembré d’une succession apparemment complète contraste avec les roches d’âge semblable dans le Sud-Est du Nouveau-Brunswick et le Nord-Ouest de la Nouvelle-Écosse d’où sont absents les membres carbonatés marins de la partie supérieure du groupe de Windsor et qui renferment seulement un nombre limité de bandes carbonatées marines de la partie médiane du groupe de Windsor. [Traduit par la redaction

Green infrastructure and biophilic urbanism as tools for integrating resource efficient and ecological cities

In recent decades, the concept of resource efficient cities has emerged as an urban planning paradigm that seeks to achieve sustainable urban environments. This focus is upon compact urban environments that optimise energy, water and waste systems to create cities that help solve climate change and other resource-based sustainability issues. In parallel, there has been a long-standing tradition of ecological approaches to the design of cities that can be traced from Howard, Geddes, McHarg and Lyle. Rather than resource efficiency, the ecological approach has focused upon the retention and repair of natural landscape features and the creation of green infrastructure (GI) to manage urban water, soil and plants in a more ecologically sensitive way. There is some conflict with the resource efficient cities and ecological cities paradigms, as one is pro-density, while the other is anti-density. This article focusses upon how to integrate the two paradigms through new biophilic urbanism (BU) tools that allow the integration of nature into dense urban areas, to supplement more traditional GI tools in less dense areas. We suggest that the theory of urban fabrics can aid with regard to which tools to use where, for the integration of GI and BU into different parts of the city to achieve both resource efficient and ecological outcomes, that optimise energy water and waste systems, and increase urban nature

Bovine Dystocia

The thesis is a detailed review of the extensive literature pertaining to the important subject of bovine dystocia. Approximately one thousand references have been reviewed covering chiefly the period from 1828 until the present time. The origins of the early British journals and details of the persons involved in their establishment are briefly discussed. Until the year 1932 the subject matter is for the most part confined to the British literature but after that date coverage has been expanded to include world-wide sources. The importance and content of the early textbooks is emphasised.Chapters are devoted to the incidence and causes of bovine dystocia and emphasis is placed on the severe and often avoidable consequences of the condition. The endocrinological and physiological aspects of normal birth are discussed and serve as a useful comparison with dystocia. Subsequent chapters discuss the individual causes of maternal and foetal dystocia. Special attention is paid to the particular problems of foetal oversize and of assessing the likelihood of successful vaginal delivery.In the latter parts of the thesis further consideration is given to methods of foetal delivery in cases of dystocia. The general approach to a case is discussed and methods of manipulative delivery and surgical delivery by embryotomy and caesarean section are reviewed. The importance of good after-care is stressed. In each chapter the author has drawn upon his experience in general and referral practice to comment upon and to amplify the subject matter. The thesis is profusely illustrated with photographs which include sequences of normal and assisted birth together with examples of current and historical instruments.The gradual development" and advancement of knowledge in the field of bovine dystocia should logically have resulted in a much lower incidence of the condition. The means for its prevention or early detection and satisfactory treatment are available but there is evidence that both incidence and losses through foetal stillbirth have increased. In discussion the author attributes the apparent anomaly to economic pressures arising from high calf values and the high cost of providing good supervision of the parturient cow. He questions whether there is any way in which the important welfare aspects of the problem can be made to outweigh economic pressures