The impact of gambling problems on families

Summarises the available research about how gambling problems affect family relationships and family members, how families cope with gambling problems, and the assessment and therapy options available to the family members of people with gambling problems. Summary Gambling problems can have severe personal consequences, including financial hardship, emotional difficulties, social impacts, employment difficulties and legal problems. They can also have significant impacts on families and communities. It has been estimated that the gambling problem of one Australian negatively affects at least seven other people. The impact of gambling problems on families has received relatively little research attention. Although most available information is based on intimate partners and children, gambling problems can also affect extended family members such as parents, grandparents and siblings. This discussion paper summarises the available research about how gambling problems affect family relationships and family members, how families cope with gambling problems, and the assessment and therapy options available to the family members of people with gambling problems

Talking about career: the language used by and with young people to discuss life, learning and work

This report describes the findings of research conducted by the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS) at the University of Derby on behalf of the national HE STEM programme. The research set out to understand how young people conceptualise career vocabulary in order to help those tasked with supporting their career decision making to do so in a way which was both engaging and effective. The research found that there is considerable confusion about a range of career vocabulary both amongst young people themselves and between young people and the adults who seek to influence and inform their careers. This report has also argued that confusion about vocabulary cannot simply be solved by teaching young people the “correct” meaning of different words. The report explores the relationship between the words that we use to talk about career and the way that we think about career. In particular it examines how the different vocabulary and conceptions of career held by young people and adults complicate the career learning that takes place both in school and outside of school. The report notes that current policy suggests that schools are going to have to take increasing levels of control over careers education and a key element of this is supporting teachers and other adults working with young people to talk more effectively about careers and related issues. The report argues that it is important that career educators attend to the career literacy levels of learners and pay close attention to the career vocabularies that they utilise. In particular an argument is made that those young people who are considering STEM careers have additional vocabulary and concepts to learn that relate to the disciplines and sectors within which STEM careers are pursued. The report explores how people talk about career and identifies a range of factors that are likely to influence this. It demonstrates that there is considerable diversity in the ways in which people define and use a word like “career”. It notes that people often use metaphors to describe the concept of career and identifies a wide range of different metaphors that people use. As with the choice of particular vocabulary, the choice of metaphor suggests different ideas about career which educators are likely to want to explore and, at times, challenge. The research was conducted during autumn 2011 and involved interviews with 82 young people, and nine career helpers from schools and organisations largely based in the Midlands. This is a small scale study and the results are therefore presented to open up debate and thinking in this area and do not constitute an exhaustive exploration of the subject. The main findings of the research are presented under five headings each of which represents a major theme of the research.National HE STEM Programm

Determination of the CMSSM Parameters using Neural Networks

In most (weakly interacting) extensions of the Standard Model the relation mapping the parameter values onto experimentally measurable quantities can be computed (with some uncertainties), but the inverse relation is usually not known. In this paper we demonstrate the ability of artificial neural networks to find this unknown relation, by determining the unknown parameters of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (CMSSM) from quantities that can be measured at the LHC. We expect that the method works also for many other new physics models. We compare its performance with the results of a straightforward \chi^2 minimization. We simulate LHC signals at a center of mass energy of 14 TeV at the hadron level. In this proof-of-concept study we do not explicitly simulate Standard Model backgrounds, but apply cuts that have been shown to enhance the signal-to-background ratio. We analyze four different benchmark points that lie just beyond current lower limits on superparticle masses, each of which leads to around 1000 events after cuts for an integrated luminosity of 10 fb^{-1}. We use up to 84 observables, most of which are counting observables; we do not attempt to directly reconstruct (differences of) masses from kinematic edges or kinks of distributions. We nevertheless find that m_0 and m_{1/2} can be determined reliably, with errors as small as 1% in some cases. With 500 fb^{-1} of data tan\beta as well as A_0 can also be determined quite accurately. For comparable computational effort the \chi^2 minimization yielded much worse results.Comment: 46 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables; added short paragraph in Section 5 about the goodness of the fit, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Making use of icould: learning from practice

icould, is an online careers resource which provides individual’s with access to the work and life experiences of hundreds of people in the form of online careers films. The films are supplemented with labour market information and other resources. This approach seeks to provide both a self-directed resource for career explorers and a resource that can be used by career and education professionals to enhance their practice. In addition, icould provides a range of information, games, interactive activities and other resources that can also be used either directly by a career explorer or as underpinning resources for professionals working in the field. icould is a technically innovative product which utilises multi-media content, interactivity and social media in new ways to provide career support. icould has become popular with career professionals and other educators and is frequently used as part of the delivery of career support. icould has produced a very useful suite of resources for teachers to facilitate its use in practice. However, up until now there has been no investigation of the ways that icould is actually being used in practice. Consequently in this project we sought to draw this practice together and to present it in a way that might stimulate, inform and inspire future practice. To do this a diverse group of practitioners were recruited to form a community of practice (COP). This report provides new ideas and insights into the way which the icould website is used by practitioners

Building a progression culture: exploring learning organisations’ use of the Progression Matrix

This research paper explores the implementation of The Progression Matrix in schools, colleges and other learning organisations such as training providers. The project builds on existing research on The Progression Matrix and finds evidence which suggests that the approach provides a useful conceptual model around which learning organisations can re-orientate their practice and deliver enhanced progression for learners.Aimhighe

Enthusiasm Trust and Community Space Challenge: impact evaluation

The aims of research were:- • To build a body of evidence of impact regarding environmental volunteering services on young people, and on the community • To provide an overview of the types of young people who have participated in the past • To document aspects of previous projects that encourage young people to participate and to achieve, and those that discourage young people from participation or from sustained engagement • To identify the key resources that underpinned successful project delivery • To identify specific achievements of young people that are attributable to the programmeEnthusiasm Trus

EU - Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and e-learning in Education Project - Phase II

The training needs analysis was conducted beteeen February and April 2015 for the EU funded project: ICT in Education in Kosovo. The processes required to perform the traning needs analysis have been. The design of a framework of competences; The identification of target groups; The creation and implementation of an online survey to assess the competence of education sector personnel against the competences contained in the framework; The collation, preparation and analysis of the survey data; and Reporting the research findings.European Union Office in KosovoEuropeAid/133846/C/SER/X

Comment on the Updated CDF "Ghost" Events

In 2008 the CDF Collaboration announced the discovery of an excess of events with two or more muons, dubbed "ghost" events for their unusual properties. In a recent update, CDF finds that the azimuthal angle distribution between the primary (trigger) muons is significantly more back-to-back than that of all known sources of di-muon backgrounds. Here we show that this angular distribution cannot be reproduced in models where the muons are produced in the decays of relatively light X-particles: all models of this kind also predict a much broader distribution than that found by CDF. We conclude that the CDF measurement cannot be described via the annihilation of strongly interacting partons, and thus seems to be in conflict with basic tenets of QCD.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure