A Pilot Study on the Use of Nonlinguistic Concrete Materials and Drama to Aid Vocabulary Learning for Third-Grade Students

This article reports on the effects of the use of nonlinguistic concrete materials and dramatization on student vocabulary learning in eight third-grade classrooms. It follows a preceding study which determined that the use of nonlinguistic concrete materials and drama in K-3 classrooms for vocabulary instruction was minimal and varied across content areas. The results of the pilot study showed that the use of nonlinguistic materials significantly improved vocabulary learning for normally-progressing students (p=0.00185), but had little or no effect on students in reading intervention classrooms. The study was quasi-experimental in nature and utilized six third-grade classrooms of normally-progressing students and two third-grade reading intervention classrooms. Each set of classrooms was randomly divided between treatment and control groups. The study did not prescribe a vocabulary instructional method other than requiring that nonlinguistic concrete materials and drama were to be used in the treatment groups. The concept of augmenting vocabulary lessons with these materials was based on extending the preliterate method of learning names of objects by seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and tasting them. Vocabulary instruction time was held constant throughout the study for both treatment and control groups

The isolated perfused mouse uterus as a model for the study of implantation in vitro. Methodology and morphology

In order to facilitate investigations of mammalian blastocyst implantation in the endometrium, an in-vitro organ perfusion technique was developed. This technique was designed to avoid the drawbacks of inVivo and cell culture investigations, while retaining physiological resolution of the endo- and paracrinology and specifically a normal epithelium to stroma relationship. The ovary, oviduct and uterine horn from 21 mice were perfused in-vitro for 10 hours. The surgical techniques for isolation of the organs as well as the perfusion procedure are described. The resultant morphology of the perfused tissue, including implantations is described and illustrated by light and transmission electron microscopy. The model seems to be useful for studying the mammalian implantation as implantation takes place and decidua is formed during perfusion

The low dimensional dynamical system approach in General Relativity: an example

In this paper we explore one of the most important features of the Galerkin method, which is to achieve high accuracy with a relatively modest computational effort, in the dynamics of Robinson-Trautman spacetimes.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Schmidt number of pure bi-partite entangled states and methods of its calculation

An entanglement measure for pure-state continuous-variable bi-partite problem, the Schmidt number, is analytically calculated for one simple model of atom-field scattering.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure; based on the poster presentation reported on the 11th International Conference on Quantum Optics (ICQO'2006, Minsk, May 26 -- 31, 2006), to be published in special issue of Optics and Spectroscop

Young people's uses of celebrity: Class, gender and 'improper' celebrity

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34(1), 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01596306.2012.698865.In this article, we explore the question of how celebrity operates in young people's everyday lives, thus contributing to the urgent need to address celebrity's social function. Drawing on data from three studies in England on young people's perspectives on their educational and work futures, we show how celebrity operates as a classed and gendered discursive device within young people's identity work. We illustrate how young people draw upon class and gender distinctions that circulate within celebrity discourses (proper/improper, deserving/undeserving, talented/talentless and respectable/tacky) as they construct their own identities in relation to notions of work, aspiration and achievement. We argue that these distinctions operate as part of neoliberal demands to produce oneself as a ‘subject of value’. However, some participants produced readings that show ambivalence and even resistance to these dominant discourses. Young people's responses to celebrity are shown to relate to their own class and gender position.The Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology

An assessment of potential unintended consequences following a national antimicrobial stewardship programme in England: an interrupted time series analysis

Background: The 'Quality Premium' (QP) introduced in England in 2015 aimed to financially reward local healthcare commissioners for targeted reductions in primary care antibiotic prescribing. We aimed to evaluate possible unintended clinical outcomes related to this QP. Methods: Using Clinical Practice Research Datalink and Hospital Episode Statistics datasets, we examined general practitioner (GP) consultations (visits) and emergency hospital admissions related to a series of pre-defined conditions of unintended consequences of reduced prescribing. Monthly age and sex-standardised rates were calculated using a direct method of standardisation. We used segmented regression analysis of interrupted time series to evaluate the impact of the QP on seasonally adjusted outcome rates. Results: We identified 27,334 GP consultations and over five million emergency hospital admissions with pre-defined conditions. There was no evidence that the QP was associated with changes in GP consultation and hospital admission rates for the selected conditions combined. However, when each condition was considered separately, a significant increase in hospital admission rates was noted for quinsy, and significant decreases were seen for hospital-acquired pneumonia, scarlet fever, pyelonephritis and complicated urinary tract conditions. A significant decrease in GP consultation rates was estimated for empyema and scarlet fever. No significant changes were observed for other conditions. Conclusions: Findings from this study show that overall there was no significant association between the intervention and unintended clinical consequences, with the exception of a few specific conditions, most of which could be explained through other parallel policy changes or should be interpreted with caution due to small numbers

Strong Longitudinal Magnetic Fluctuations near Critical End Point in UCoAl: A ^59Co-NMR Study

We report ^59Co-NMR measurements in UCoAl where a metamagnetism occurs due to enhancement of ferromagnetism by magnetic field. The metamagnetic transition from a paramagnetic (PM) state to a ferromagnetic state is a first order transition at low temperatures, but it changes to a crossover at high temperatures on crossing the critical end pint (CEP) at T_CEP ~ 12 K. The contrasting behavior between the relaxation rates 1/T_1 and 1/T_2 suggests that the longitudinal magnetic fluctuation of U moment is strongly enhanced especially near the CEP. A wide diffusion of the fluctuation from the CEP can be confirmed even in the PM state where the magnetic transition does not occur.Comment: 5pages, 6 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

The decline in youth drinking in England – is everyone drinking less? A quantile regression analysis

Background and Aims: Youth alcohol consumption has declined significantly over the past 15 years in many high income countries, which may have significant public health benefits. However, if the reductions in drinking occur mostly among lighter drinkers who are at lower risk, then rates of alcohol-related harm among young people today and adults in future may not fall in line with consumption. There is conflicting evidence from Swedish school studies with some suggesting all young people are drinking less while others suggest alcohol consumption among heavier drinkers may be stable or rising while average consumption declines. This paper extends the geographic focus of previous research and examines whether the decline in youth drinking is consistent across the consumption distribution in England. Design: Quantile regression of 15 waves of repeat cross-sectional survey data. Setting: England, 2001-2016. Participants: 31, 882 schoolchildren (50.7% male) aged 11-15 who responded to the Smoking Drinking and Drug Use amongst Young People surveys. Measurements: Past-week alcohol consumption in UK units at each fifth percentile of the consumption distribution. Findings: Reductions in alcohol consumption occurred at all percentiles of the consumption distribution analysed between 2001 and 2016 but the magnitude of the decline differed across percentiles. The decline in consumption at the 90th percentile (β = -.21, CI = -.24, - .18) was significantly larger than among either lighter drinkers at the 50th percentile (β = - .02, CI = -.02, -.01) or heavier drinkers at the 95th percentile (β = -.16, CI = -.18, -.13). Conclusions: Alcohol consumption among young people in England appears to be declining across the consumption distribution, and peaks among heavy drinkers. The magnitude of this decline differs significantly between percentiles of the consumption distribution, with consumption falling proportionally less among the lightest, moderate and very heaviest youth drinkers

Extraction of coherent structures in a rotating turbulent flow experiment

The discrete wavelet packet transform (DWPT) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are used to extract and study the dynamics of coherent structures in a turbulent rotating fluid. Three-dimensional (3D) turbulence is generated by strong pumping through tubes at the bottom of a rotating tank (48.4 cm high, 39.4 cm diameter). This flow evolves toward two-dimensional (2D) turbulence with increasing height in the tank. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements on the quasi-2D flow reveal many long-lived coherent vortices with a wide range of sizes. The vorticity fields exhibit vortex birth, merger, scattering, and destruction. We separate the flow into a low-entropy ``coherent'' and a high-entropy ``incoherent'' component by thresholding the coefficients of the DWPT and DWT of the vorticity fields. Similar thresholdings using the Fourier transform and JPEG compression together with the Okubo-Weiss criterion are also tested for comparison. We find that the DWPT and DWT yield similar results and are much more efficient at representing the total flow than a Fourier-based method. Only about 3% of the large-amplitude coefficients of the DWPT and DWT are necessary to represent the coherent component and preserve the vorticity probability density function, transport properties, and spatial and temporal correlations. The remaining small amplitude coefficients represent the incoherent component, which has near Gaussian vorticity PDF, contains no coherent structures, rapidly loses correlation in time, and does not contribute significantly to the transport properties of the flow. This suggests that one can describe and simulate such turbulent flow using a relatively small number of wavelet or wavelet packet modes.Comment: experimental work aprox 17 pages, 11 figures, accepted to appear in PRE, last few figures appear at the end. clarifications, added references, fixed typo