25,041 research outputs found
Improving subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge in employment based secondary initial teacher training in England
Each year in England about 6,000 trainee teachers qualify by undertaking an employment-based initial teacher training route (EBITT), where training is mainly school based. Government inspectors have found that trainees on this route are weaker in subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge compared to trainees following the more traditional one year training course (PGCE) of which about a third of course time is University based. EBITT providers are currently seeking to improve the subject knowledge aspect of training. To support this work the TDA have published a model for developing trainees' subject knowledge for teaching and suggest that providers review their provision against the model. In addition EBITT providers must also meet a new requirement that the total training time should be a minimum of 60 days. This new requirement presents a challenge to EBITT providers as most of the subject knowledge enhancement will have to be school-based. This paper seeks to find out:
- how trainee teachers acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge while based in a school and
- whether teaching staff in schools have the required subject and subject pedagogic knowledge and skills for this enhanced role.
Data have been collected from trainees, school-based mentors, school-based Initial Teacher Training Coordinators and University assessors over a one year period. Data about the way trainees acquire subject knowledge was interpreted against the TDA model. The study finds that:
- trainees acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge in a variety of highly individualistic ways that suggests that the TDA model only partially explains what is happening in practice and
- there is a significant training need to ensure schools are well equipped to deliver high quality subject focussed training.</p
Charter and Party Boat Operators in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico: A Social Structure Perspective
To better address the charter and party boat fishery needs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, fishery managers must understand the linkages between the industry and other groups and organizations that affect its success. Gulf state charter and party boat operators were interviewed to ascertain the extent of their social network linkages, membership in community organizations, business community relationships, and linkages to information sources. Approximately one-third to one-half of the charter and party boat operators did not belong to local community organizations that could assist their business through tourism promotion or natural resource protection. Despite their limited integration in the community, the vast majority of operators gave and received referrals from other businesses. Of four major information sources, the National Weather Service and the County Marine Extension agents were rated highest and lowest, respectively, in mean importance to charter and party boat operators. Results suggest that business success can be enhanced by strengthening network ties between operators and local businesses, chambers of commerce, and tourism organizations. For this to occur, individual operators and charter/party boat organizations need to become more effective in representing industry interests. Informational linkages between industry and govemment agencies also need improvement
Applying ACO To Large Scale TSP Instances
Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) is a well known metaheuristic that has proven
successful at solving Travelling Salesman Problems (TSP). However, ACO suffers
from two issues; the first is that the technique has significant memory
requirements for storing pheromone levels on edges between cities and second,
the iterative probabilistic nature of choosing which city to visit next at
every step is computationally expensive. This restricts ACO from solving larger
TSP instances. This paper will present a methodology for deploying ACO on
larger TSP instances by removing the high memory requirements, exploiting
parallel CPU hardware and introducing a significant efficiency saving measure.
The approach results in greater accuracy and speed. This enables the proposed
ACO approach to tackle TSP instances of up to 200K cities within reasonable
timescales using a single CPU. Speedups of as much as 1200 fold are achieved by
the technique
Spin squeezing in optical lattice clocks via lattice-based QND measurements
Quantum projection noise will soon limit the best achievable precision of
optical atomic clocks based on lattice-confined neutral atoms. Squeezing the
collective atomic pseudo-spin via measurement of the clock state populations
during Ramsey interrogation suppresses the projection noise. We show here that
the lattice laser field can be used to perform ideal quantum non-demolition
measurements without clock shifts or decoherence and explore the feasibility of
such an approach in theory with the lattice field confined in a ring-resonator.
Detection of the motional sideband due to the atomic vibration in the lattice
wells can yield signal sizes a hundredfold above the projection noise limit.Comment: Substantially expanded versio
Unraveling quantum dissipation in the frequency domain
We present a quantum Monte Carlo method for solving the evolution of an open
quantum system. In our approach, the density operator evolution is unraveled in
the frequency domain. Significant advantages of this approach arise when the
frequency of each dissipative event conveys information about the state of the
system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses RevTe
Modelling electron distributions within ESA's Gaia satellite CCD pixels to mitigate radiation damage
The Gaia satellite is a high-precision astrometry, photometry and
spectroscopic ESA cornerstone mission, currently scheduled for launch in 2012.
Its primary science drivers are the composition, formation and evolution of the
Galaxy. Gaia will achieve its unprecedented positional accuracy requirements
with detailed calibration and correction for radiation damage. At L2, protons
cause displacement damage in the silicon of CCDs. The resulting traps capture
and emit electrons from passing charge packets in the CCD pixel, distorting the
image PSF and biasing its centroid. Microscopic models of Gaia's CCDs are being
developed to simulate this effect. The key to calculating the probability of an
electron being captured by a trap is the 3D electron density within each CCD
pixel. However, this has not been physically modelled for the Gaia CCD pixels.
In Seabroke, Holland & Cropper (2008), the first paper of this series, we
motivated the need for such specialised 3D device modelling and outlined how
its future results will fit into Gaia's overall radiation calibration strategy.
In this paper, the second of the series, we present our first results using
Silvaco's physics-based, engineering software: the ATLAS device simulation
framework. Inputting a doping profile, pixel geometry and materials into ATLAS
and comparing the results to other simulations reveals that ATLAS has a free
parameter, fixed oxide charge, that needs to be calibrated. ATLAS is
successfully benchmarked against other simulations and measurements of a test
device, identifying how to use it to model Gaia pixels and highlighting the
effect of different doping approximations.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, appearing in Proc. of SPIE Optics and Photonics
Conference (Focal Plane Arrays for Space telescopes IV), 2-6 August 2009, San
Diego, US
Thermodynamics of Multi-Component Fermi Vapors
We study the thermodynamical properties of Fermi vapors confined in a
harmonic external potential. In the case of the ideal Fermi gas, we compare
exact density profiles with their semiclassical approximation in the conditions
of recent experiments. Then, we consider the phase-separation of a
multi-component Fermi vapor. In particular, we analyze the phase-separation as
a function of temperature, number of particles and scattering length. Finally,
we discuss the effect of rotation on the stability and thermodynamics of the
trapped vapors.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, to be published in J. Phys. B (Atom. Mol.) as a
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