1,660 research outputs found

    Using PLASC Data to Identify Patterns of Commuting to School, Residential Migration and Movement Between Schools in Leeds

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    New patterns of interaction emerge annually between the places where schoolchildren live and go to school. This paper concentrates on understanding the dynamics of the 'journey to learn'. It explains how PLASC data for Leeds, a city in northern England, can be used to measure daily pupil movements and to investigate school territories, but also to identify pupil movements between schools and between places of usual residence. The longitudinal nature of the data provides the opportunity for checking the authenticity of individual record attributes from one eyar to another and for making adjustments to improve consistency. Consideration is given to how these flows might be modelled in order to support the local authority (Education Leeds) make better decisions when planning the provision of primary and secondary schools across the district in future years

    Commuting to School in Leeds : How useful is the PLASC?

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    Children's daily travel behaviour is dominated by the journey to school. In some cases, this movement takes only a few minutes and involves no means of transport other than foot; in other instances, the journey can be over substantial distances, be extensive in duration and involve some form of public or private transport. The combination of journeys taking place is likely to have a substantial impact on traffic congestion, particularly since the morning peak coincides with that associated with the journey to work. What datasets exist that allow us to measure and understand this behaviour

    Using PLASC Data to Identify Patterns of Commuting to School, Residential Migration and Movement Between Schools in Leeds

    Get PDF
    New patterns of interaction emerge annually between the places where schoolchildren live and go to school. This paper concentrates on understanding the dynamics of the 'journey to learn'. It explains how PLASC data for Leeds, a city in northern England, can be used to measure daily pupil movements and to investigate school territories, but also to identify pupil movements between schools and between places of usual residence. The longitudinal nature of the data provides the opportunity for checking the authenticity of individual record attributes from one eyar to another and for making adjustments to improve consistency. Consideration is given to how these flows might be modelled in order to support the local authority (Education Leeds) make better decisions when planning the provision of primary and secondary schools across the district in future years

    Creating realistic synthetic populations at varying spatial scales: A comparative critique of population synthesis techniques

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    There are several established methodologies for generating synthetic populations. These include deterministic reweighting, conditional probability (Monte Carlo simulation) and simulated annealing. However, each of these approaches is limited by, for example, the level of geography to which it can be applied, or number of characteristics of the real population that can be replicated. The research examines and critiques the performance of each of these methods over varying spatial scales. Results show that the most consistent and accurate populations generated over all the spatial scales are produced from the simulated annealing algorithm. The relative merits and limitations of each method are evaluated in the discussion

    Signal specific electric potential sensors for operation in noisy environments

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    Limitations on the performance of electric potential sensors are due to saturation caused by environmental electromagnetic noise. The work described involves tailoring the response of the sensors to reject the main components of the noise, thereby enhancing both the effective dynamic range and signal to noise. We show that by using real-time analogue signal processing it is possible to detect a human heartbeat at a distance of 40 cm from the front of a subject in an unshielded laboratory. This result has significant implications both for security sensing and biometric measurements in addition to the more obvious safety related applications

    Leadership Behaviors and Subordinate Resilience

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    Utilizing a sample of 150 part-time MBA students, this study evaluated the relationship between leader behaviors and subordinate resilience. We proposed that the transformational leadership dimensions of Attributed Charisma, Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration, as well as the transactional leadership dimension of Contingent Reward would be positively associated with subordinate resilience. We also proposed that the transactional leadership dimensions of Management-by-Exception Active and Management-by-Exception Passive and the non-leadership dimension of Laissez-Faire leadership would not be positively associated with subordinate resilience. With the exception of Inspirational Motivation, all hypothesized relationships were supported. A post-hoc analysis of open-ended responses to the question What helped you to deal with this situation? indicated that participants who mentioned their leaders as a positive factor in dealing with the situation exhibited greater resilience than participants who did not. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research are discussed

    Transcriptome profiling of granulosa cells of bovine ovarian follicles during growth from small to large antral sizes

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    Background: At later stages of folliculogenesis, the mammalian ovarian follicle contains layers of epithelial granulosa cells surrounding an antral cavity. During follicle development granulosa cells replicate, secrete hormones and support the growth of the oocyte. In cattle, the follicle needs to grow > 10 mm in diameter to allow an oocyte to ovulate, following which the granulosa cells cease dividing and differentiate into the specialised cells of the corpus luteum. To better understand the molecular basis of follicular growth and granulosa cell maturation, we undertook transcriptome profiling of granulosa cells from small ( 10 mm, n = 4) healthy bovine follicles using Affymetrix microarrays (24,128 probe sets).Results: Principal component analysis for the first two components and hierarchical clustering showed clustering into two groups, small and large, with the former being more heterogeneous. Size-frequency distributions of the coefficient of variation of the signal intensities of each probe set also revealed that small follicles were more heterogeneous than the large. IPA and GO enrichment analyses revealed that processes of axonal guidance, immune signalling and cell rearrangement were most affected in large follicles. The most important networks were associated with: (A) Notch, SLIT/ROBO and PI3K signalling, and (B) ITGB5 and extracellular matrix signalling through extracellular signal related kinases (ERKs). Upstream regulator genes which were predicted to be active in large follicles included STAT and XBP1. By comparison, developmental processes such as those stimulated by KIT, IHH and MEST were most active in small follicles. MGEA5 was identified as an upstream regulator in small follicles. It encodes an enzyme that modifies the activity of many target proteins, including those involved in energy sensing, by removal of N-acetylglucosamine from serine and threonine residues.Conclusions: Our data suggest that as follicles enlarge more genes and/or pathways are activated than are inactivated, and gene expression becomes more uniform. These findings could be interpreted that either the cells in large follicles are more uniform in their gene expression, or that follicles are more uniform or a combination of both and that additional factors, such as LH, are additionally controlling the granulosa cells. Β© 2014 Hatzirodos et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.Nicholas Hatzirodos, Helen F Irving-Rodgers, Katja Hummitzsch, Margaret L Harland, Stephanie E Morris and Raymond J Rodger

    Tunable spin transport in CrAs: role of correlation effects

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    Correlation effects on the electronic structure of half-metallic CrAs in zinc-blende structure are studied for different substrate lattice constants. Depending on the substrate the spectral weight of the non-quasiparticle states might be tuned from a well developed value in the case of InAs substrate to an almost negligible contribution for the GaAs one. A piezoelectric material that would allow the change in the substrate lattice parameters opens the possibility for practical investigations of the switchable (tunable) non-quasiparticle states. Since the latter are important for the tunneling magnetoresistance and related phenomena it creates new opportunities in spintronics.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. accepted PRB 71, 1 (2005

    Transcriptome profiling of granulosa cells from bovine ovarian follicles during atresia

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    Background: The major function of the ovary is to produce oocytes for fertilisation. Oocytes mature in follicles surrounded by nurturing granulosa cells and all are enclosed by a basal lamina. During growth, granulosa cells replicate and a large fluid-filled cavity (the antrum) develops in the centre. Only follicles that have enlarged to over 10 mm can ovulate in cows. In mammals, the number of primordial follicles far exceeds the numbers that ever ovulate and atresia or regression of follicles is a mechanism to regulate the number of oocytes ovulated and to contribute to the timing of ovulation. To better understand the molecular basis of follicular atresia, we undertook transcriptome profiling of granulosa cells from healthy (n = 10) and atretic (n = 5) bovine follicles at early antral stages (< 5 mm). Results: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and hierarchical classification of the signal intensity plots for the arrays showed primary clustering into two groups, healthy and atretic. These analyses and size-frequency plots of coefficients of variation of signal intensities revealed that the healthy follicles were more heterogeneous. Examining the differentially-expressed genes the most significantly affected functions in atretic follicles were cell death, organ development, tissue development and embryonic development. The overall processes influenced by transcription factor gene TP53 were predicted to be activated, whereas those of MYC were inhibited on the basis of known interactions with the genes in our dataset. The top ranked canonical pathway contained signalling molecules common to various inflammatory/fibrotic pathways such as the transforming growth factor-beta and tumour necrosis factor-alpha pathways. The two most significant networks also reflect this pattern of tissue remodelling/fibrosis gene expression. These networks also contain molecules which are present in the canonical pathways of hepatic fibrosis/hepatic stellate cell activation and transforming growth factor-beta signalling and were up regulated. Conclusions: Small healthy antral follicles, which have a number of growth outcomes, exhibit greater variability in gene expression, particularly in genes associated with cell division and other growth-related functions. Atresia, on the other hand, not only involves cell death but clearly is an active process similar to wound healing.Nicholas Hatzirodos, Katja Hummitzsch, Helen F Irving-Rodgers, Margaret L Harland, Stephanie E Morris and Raymond J Rodger
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