Perceptions of the actions, initiatives, policies and successes, or otherwise, of the post 1997 UK Government for the education of gifted and talented children, as outlined in its Excellence in Cities proposals

This paper enquires into the implementation of the Government’s directives for the education of the ‘gifted and talented’, as specified in the ‘Excellence in Cities’ (EiC)document. The term ‘gifted and talented’ (GaT) has been determined by government diktat and its appropriateness is examined, as are the arguments about precise definitions, the identification of such children and the rationale for the Government choice. The current concern has its roots in the past, demanding an examination of the political and educational raison d’être for the evolving policies. The assessment of the results of such policies and arrangements sheds light on their suitability and relevance for the future and are thus considered. The experience of others to provide an appropriate education and the arrangements needed to facilitate the process justify a consideration of an international perspective. The examination of the philosophy, current arrangements made elsewhere and innovative proposals for the future of the education of the able aids the establishment of the criteria with which to judge the viability and implementation of the EiC arrangements. The methodology used to obtain research data involves interviews with those responsible for implementing the EiC directives at both City and school/college level. Their answers illuminate their approach and aspirations for the education of the GaT. The success of the policy and its implementation is assessed by means of a critical analysis of the management decisions taken, and the consequences at both City and School/College level. Triangulation is accomplished by the additional use of the data gained from expert witnesses, thus helping to determine the viability and practicality of the arrangements made and envisaged. The post modernist stance of the author, coupled with a qualitative methodology, and a possible initial bias towards a revisionist view of how the education of the able should be organised, should not necessarily invalidate the conclusions reached

Some of tomorrow's catalysts for processing renewable and non-renewable feedstocks, diminishing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and increasing the production of energy

This review provides a wide-ranging summary of several aspects of heterogeneous catalysis and its impact on the increasing need to generate more energy, less CO2 and the production of more commodities required by an expanding world population. Particular attention is paid to the options (some of which are already a practical reality) now available for the use of anthropogenic CO2 as a source for the production of platform chemicals required to sustain civilized life. In this connection, Rubisco-inspired methods of utilizing CO2 are discussed, as is the utilization of algae to yield ethanol and O2 from water, CO2 and sunlight. In addition, the increasing use of methanol (derived from CO2) as an energy vector, as well as a source of ethene and propene (which are in growing worldwide demand), is adumbrated. As far as strategies for the design of new solid catalysts are concerned, summarizing accounts are given of the emerging popularity and recent successes of supported “single-atom”, chemo-selective catalysts (of Pt, Pd, Ir and Au), of so-called “single-atom alloy” catalysts for selective hydrogenations, and of monophasic single-site heterogeneous catalysts (SSHCs) for a range of chemical processes, some of which have already been commercialized. SSHCs can, in general, be assembled from earth-abundant elements (C, N, O, Mg, Al, P, Fe), and are effective for shape-selective, regio-selective and enantio-selective catalytic conversions. We also briefly discuss the prospect of converting anthropogenic CO2 into CH4, and touch upon the action needed to reduce atmospheric CO2 so as to fulfil the aims of the recent (December 2015) UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP-21)

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, a self-taught errand boy of humble origins with no particular knowledge of mathematics, became one of the greatest Englishmen of all times. With simple determination and extraordinary insight he was able to make the scientific discoveries on which most of the technology of the twentieth century is based. His life and works have profoundly influenced contemporary thought, inspiring and complementing the work of other great minds, such as Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein. John Meurig Thomas is continuing a tradition of popularisation of science that has a shining example in Michael Faraday; Sir Thomas has the merit of illustrating the history and scientific work of this philosopher of nature with a simple and at the same time accurate style, which is accessible to all. Faraday’s fascinating and detailed story is enriched with a series of drawings, photographs and letters, mostly unpublished documents

The initial development of a jet caused by fluid, body and free surface interaction

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the problem of a rigid plate, inclined at an angle α ∈(0,1/2π) the horizontal, accelerating uniformly from rest into or away from a semi-infinite expanse of inviscid, incompressible fluid. This work generalized that of Needham, Chamberlain, and Billingham$^1$, by considering the case of negative plate accelerations. We use the method of matched asymptotic expansions to investigate the asymptotic structure of the solution to the free surface evolution problem as t→0$^+$, paying particular attention to the innermost asymptotic region encompassing the initial interaction between the fluid free surface and the inclined accelerating plate. $^1$ Needham et al. The initial development of a jet caused by fluid, body and free surface interaction. The Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics. 61(4):581-614, 2008

Efficient Implementation of Elastohydrodynamics via Integral Operators

The dynamics of geometrically non-linear flexible filaments play an important role in a host of biological processes, from flagella-driven cell transport to the polymeric structure of complex fluids. Such problems have historically been computationally expensive due to numerical stiffness associated with the inextensibility constraint, as well as the often non-trivial boundary conditions on the governing high-order PDEs. Formulating the problem for the evolving shape of a filament via an integral equation in the tangent angle has recently been found to greatly alleviate this numerical stiffness. The contribution of the present manuscript is to enable the simulation of non-local interactions of multiple filaments in a computationally efficient manner using the method of regularized stokeslets within this framework. The proposed method is benchmarked against a non-local bead and link model, and recent code utilizing a local drag velocity law. Systems of multiple filaments (1) in a background fluid flow, (2) under a constant body force, and (3) undergoing active self-motility are modeled efficiently. Buckling instabilities are analyzed by examining the evolving filament curvature, as well as by coarse-graining the body frame tangent angles using a Chebyshev approximation for various choices of the relevant non-dimensional parameters. From these experiments, insight is gained into how filament-filament interactions can promote buckling, and further reveal the complex fluid dynamics resulting from arrays of these interacting fibers. By examining active moment-driven filaments, we investigate the speed of worm- and sperm-like swimmers for different governing parameters. The MATLAB(R) implementation is made available as an open-source library, enabling flexible extension for alternate discretizations and different surrounding flows.Comment: 37 pages, 17 figure

Beta cell lipotoxicity in the development of type 2 diabetes:the need for species-specific understanding

The propensity to develop type 2 diabetes (T2D) is known to have both environmental and hereditary components. In those with a genetic predisposition to T2D, it is widely believed that elevated concentrations of circulatory long-chain fatty acids (LC-FFA) significantly contribute towards the demise of insulin-producing pancreatic β-cells - the fundamental feature of the development of T2D. Over 25 years of research support that LC-FFA are deleterious to β-cells, through a process termed lipotoxicity. However, the work underpinning the theory of β-cell lipotoxicity is mostly based on rodent studies. Doubts have been raised as to whether lipotoxicity also occurs in humans. In this review, we examine the evidence, both in vivo and in vitro, for the pathogenic effects of LC-FFA on β-cell viability and function in humans, highlighting key species differences. In this way, we aim to uncover the role of lipotoxicity in the human pathogenesis of T2D and motivate the need for species-specific understanding.</p

Meshfree and efficient modelling of swimming cells

Locomotion in Stokes flow is an intensively-studied problem because it describes important biological phenomena such as the motility of many species' sperm, bacteria, algae and protozoa. Numerical computations can be challenging, particularly in three dimensions, due to the presence of moving boundaries and complex geometries; methods which combine ease-of-implementation and computational efficiency are therefore needed. A recently-proposed method to discretise the regularised Stokeslet boundary integral equation without the need for a connected 'mesh' is applied to the inertialess locomotion problem in Stokes flow. The mathematical formulation and key aspects of the computational implementation in MATLAB/GNU Octave are described, followed by numerical experiments with biflagellate algae and multiple uniflagellate sperm swimming between no-slip surfaces, for which both swimming trajectories and flow fields are calculated. These computational experiments required minutes of time on modest hardware; an extensible implementation is provided in a github repository. The nearest neighbour discretisation dramatically improves convergence and robustness, a key challenge in extending the regularised Stokeslet method to complicated, three dimensional, biological fluid problems.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

On the dynamical nature of the active center in a single-site photocatalyst visualized by 4D ultrafast electron microscopy

Understanding the dynamical nature of the catalytic active site embedded in complex systems at the atomic level is critical to developing efficient photocatalytic materials. Here, we report, using 4D ultrafast electron microscopy, the spatiotemporal behaviors of titanium and oxygen in a titanosilicate catalytic material. The observed changes in Bragg diffraction intensity with time at the specific lattice planes, and with a tilted geometry, provide the relaxation pathway: the Ti^(4+)=O^(2−) double bond transformation to a Ti^(3+)−O^(1−) single bond via the individual atomic displacements of the titanium and the apical oxygen. The dilation of the double bond is up to 0.8 Å and occurs on the femtosecond time scale. These findings suggest the direct catalytic involvement of the Ti^(3+)−O^(1−) local structure, the significance of nonthermal processes at the reactive site, and the efficient photo-induced electron transfer that plays a pivotal role in many photocatalytic reactions