Mathematics support—support for all?

Mathematics Support Centres are to be found in various forms in the majority of UK higher education institutions. They have been established in order to ease widespread and serious difficulties that a significant number of students have with mathematics, particularly at the school–university transition. They usually offer mathematics and/or statistics support to students across the full range of disciplines studied. Anecdotal evidence suggests that those students who make good use of such centres are not just those who struggle with mathematics. Many frequent users are quite competent and simply want to do better. The study reported here describes and analyses data from one cohort of engineering students. A novel aspect is the quantification of the proportion of support centre visitors who fall into these, and other, categories. We conclude of the cohort in the study, mathematics support has improved the pass rate by ∼3%. Of the failures, about half (∼4% of the sample total) could well have passed had they attended the mathematics support centre regularly. Furthermore, the majority of those attending were not students who were in danger of failing. This has important implications not only for the design of mathematics support provision, but also for the performance of the high fliers. The methodology offers one way tackling the difficult task of evaluating the effectiveness of mathematics support initiatives

Low level conflict contingencies and Australian defence policy

This monograph examines low-level conflict in two contexts: The incidence and nature of low-level conflict since 1945 and its relevance to Australia's strategic environment; and the role and perceptions of low-level conflict contingencies in Australian defence policy. The paper concludes that low level contingencies are relevant to Australia's strategic environment, but that assessments of these contingencies have tended to focus on the tactics that might be employed at the expense of the possible origins of conflict, the motives and objectives of potential aggressors, and the political-context in which such contingencies might arise. Low level contingencies however, do not in themselves constitute a threat of sufficient magnitude to provide the focus as present lacking in Australia's defence posture and the role of the Australian defence forces

The Opinions of the Undergraduate Students and Faculty Members on Factors that Affect Student Learning and Academic Achievement

Teaching in higher education is a very complicated and detailed subject. Good teaching encourages high quality student learning. One of the key principle of effective teaching in higher education is the concern and respect for student learning. Learning style, learning dimensions and academic belief systems as significant factors contributing to academic achievement. The quality of student learning in higher education should be improved and can be improved. How can it best be improved?. The answer is nearer to home :it lies in the connection between students’ learning of particular content and quality of our teaching of that content. Through listening to what students have said about their learning, we have observed how real this connection is. Good teaching and good learning are linked through students ‘experiences of what we do. It follows that we can not teach belter unless we are able to see what we are doing from their point of view’ (Ramsden,1999). Learning dimensions and academic belief systems as significant factors contributing to academic achievement. Anyone can only improve the quality of higher education if he/she study its effects on students and look at the experience through their and their lecturers’ eyes

The Mathematics Learning Support Centre at Loughborough University: staff and student perceptions of mathematical difficulties

From a census of academic and academic related staff in the School of Mathematics at Loughborough University, most of whom work in the Mathematics Learning Support Centre, and a survey of the students who frequently use this facility we investigate the difficulties that are encountered with mathematics and the growing need for support with this subject. This paper reports the raw data results obtained from a selection of the questions that were posed. Responses were obtained from 29 mathematics staff and 37 students from mathematics, engineering and physics departments. We detail findings from the questions pertaining to perceptions of pre-knowledge, areas of difficulty and reasons for using the Centre. The results show that in some cases the opinions and perceptions of staff and students are almost diametrically opposite and in some cases students are unaware that the difficulties they are experiencing stem from a lack of fluency in areas of basic mathematics. What is also shown is that staff need to be aware of the mathematical content contained in the wide range of qualifications that students may enter university with. These findings have important consequences for those involved with mathematics education in the Higher Education sector and will also prove informative for universities who provide similar support

Tests for finding complex patterns of differential expression in cancers: towards individualized medicine

BACKGROUND: Microarray studies in cancer compare expression levels between two or more sample groups on thousands of genes. Data analysis follows a population-level approach (e.g., comparison of sample means) to identify differentially expressed genes. This leads to the discovery of 'population-level' markers, i.e., genes with the expression patterns A > B and B > A. We introduce the PPST test that identifies genes where a significantly large subset of cases exhibit expression values beyond upper and lower thresholds observed in the control samples. RESULTS: Interestingly, the test identifies A > B and B < A pattern genes that are missed by population-level approaches, such as the t-test, and many genes that exhibit both significant overexpression and significant underexpression in statistically significantly large subsets of cancer patients (ABA pattern genes). These patterns tend to show distributions that are unique to individual genes, and are aptly visualized in a 'gene expression pattern grid'. The low degree of among-gene correlations in these genes suggests unique underlying genomic pathologies and high degree of unique tumor-specific differential expression. We compare the PPST and the ABA test to the parametric and non-parametric t-test by analyzing two independently published data sets from studies of progression in astrocytoma. CONCLUSIONS: The PPST test resulted findings similar to the nonparametric t-test with higher self-consistency. These tests and the gene expression pattern grid may be useful for the identification of therapeutic targets and diagnostic or prognostic markers that are present only in subsets of cancer patients, and provide a more complete portrait of differential expression in cancer

Municipalities and University Athletic Departments: The Collaborative Funding of Capital Improvement Projects

This panel takes three papers and details how municipalities and universities can collaborate, develop, and market policies that subsidize collegiate athletic capital improvement projects and improve both groups. Each paper uses either resource dependency theory or interpretive policy analysis as theoretical frameworks to explore how local governments and universities can add value to their environments, while improving the lives of their constituents. While this kind of community project is not new the difficulties rest in getting people to agree to an additional tax levy. Each paper on this panel communicates the multiple advantages and disadvantages associated with approving and marketing athletic capital improvement projects in a community