Social Exclusion and Ethnic Segregation in Schools: The Role of Teacher's Ethnic Prejudice

This is the author accepted manuscript. the final version is available from MIT Press via the DOI in this recordUsing data on primary school children and their teachers, we show that teachers who hold prejudicial attitudes towards an ethnic group create socially and spatially segregated classrooms. Leveraging a natural experiment where newly arrived refugee children are randomly assigned to teachers within schools, we find that teachers’ ethnic prejudice, measured by an implicit association test, significantly lowers the prevalence of inter-ethnic social links, increases homophilic ties among host children, and puts refugee children at a higher risk of peer violence. Our results highlight the role of teachers in achieving integrated schools in a world of increasing ethnic diversity.UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Offic

Genital ulcer severity score and genital health quality of life in Behçet's disease

Background: Behçet's Disease (BD) is a chronic auto-inflammatory, multisystem relapsing/remitting disorder of unknown aetiology. Oro-genital ulceration is a key feature of the disease and has a major impact on the patients' quality of life. Other clinical manifestations include ocular inflammation, rheumatologic and skin involvement, while CNS and vascular complications can lead to considerable morbidity. The availability of a valid monitoring tool for BD activity is crucial in evaluating the impact of the disease on daily life activity. The aims of this study were to validate a novel tool for monitoring genital ulceration severity in BD and to assess the impact of genital ulcers on the Genital Health Quality of Life (GHQoL). Methods: Genital Ulcer Severity Score (GUSS) was developed using six genital ulcer characteristics: number, size, duration, ulcer-free period, pain and site. A total of 207 BD patients were examined, (137 females: mean age∈±∈SD: 39.83∈±∈13.42 and 70 males: mean age∈±∈SD: 39.98∈±∈11.95) from the multidisciplinary Behçet's Centre of Excellence at Barts Health NHS Trust. GUSS was used in conjunction with Behçet's Disease Current Activity Form (BDCAF). Results: The over-all score of GUSS showed a strong correlation with all genital ulcer characteristics, and the strongest correlation was with the pain domain (r∈=∈0.936; P∈2: 0.600; P∈<∈0.0001). Conclusions: This study established the practicality of GUSS as a severity monitoring tool for BD genital ulcers and validated its use in 207 patients. Genital ulcers of BD have a considerable impact on the patients GHQoL

Nurturing Childhood Curiosity to Enhance Learning: Evidence from a Randomized Pedagogical Intervention

This is the author accepted manuscript.We evaluate a pedagogical intervention aiming at improving learning in elementary school children by fostering their curiosity. We test the effectiveness of the pedagogy using achievement scores and a novel measure of curiosity. The latter involves creating a sense of information deprivation and quantifying the urge to acquire information and retention ability. The intervention increases curiosity, knowledge retention, and science test scores, with the effects persisting into middle school years. It also leads to more information sharing and peer learning in the classroom. The evidence can help design better pedagogical tools to increase pupil engagement and the quality of learning.J-PAL Post-Primary Education InitiativeING Bank Turke

Reducing Moment and Current Fluctuations of Induction Motor System of Electrical Vehicles by using Adaptive Field Oriented Control

This paper presents an adaptive field oriented control (FOC) method for induction motor systems (IMSs). After the details of the method are presented, the conventional FOC is applied to control the moment of the system in order to observe current and moment fluctuations. And then, the adaptive FOC method is applied to the EMS to change the switching condition of the voltage vectors. In terms of current, moment and electromagnetic flux, the conventional FOC and the adaptive FOC methods are compared. The proposed method gives better results at the IMS output. Simulation results show that current and moment fluctuations can be reduced by using the proposed approach