How can Makaton be embedded in the school community

Many children and young adults struggle with communicating within their Mainstream School communities. Often teachers do not have resources and strategies in place to support these students to communicate with their peers in a social context. This study looked into current literature presented about signing systems, communication, working with parents and social action within school. This developed into how the Makaton Language Programme could be introduced into a Mainstream School environment to support pupils and their communication skills; research design of Case Study allowed me as researcher to look in depth at how Makaton was used in the Special School as a first case, before reviewing the findings and then moving to a second case of how strategies can be used in Mainstream Primary School. Two research methods were used (observation and interview), data were transcribed. Data were analysed using coding and deductive analysis of the transcriptions, looking into which parts of the Makaton Language Programme were applied (signs, symbols, speech) and for which language function they were used for (Halliday, 1978). The interpretivist theoretical perspective was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology and linked with the case study methodology, this allowed me as researcher to place myself in the real life context of the school environment and review each case individually before making comparisons and considerations for theoretical implications. Key themes from the data were then discussed including use of Key Word Signing and use of Makaton for regulation of routines and emotions. Implications were considered for future research studies involving the Makaton Language Programme, its place in Mainstream Education and the wider school community to support communication

A knowledge based system for valuing variations in civil engineering works: a user centred approach

There has been much evidence that valuing variations in construction projects can lead to conflicts and disputes leading to loss of time, efficiency, and productivity. One of the reasons for these conflicts and disputes concerns the subjectivity of the project stakeholders involved in the process. One way to minimise this is to capture and collate the knowledge and perceptions of the different parties involved in order to develop a robust mechanism for valuing variations. Focusing on the development of such a mechanism, the development of a Knowledge Based System (KBS) for valuing variations in civil engineering work is described. Evaluation of the KBS involved demonstration to practitioners in the construction industry to support the contents of the knowledge base and perceived usability and acceptance of the system. Results support the novelty, contents, usability, and acceptance of the system, and also identify further potential developments of the KBS

Balltracking: an highly efficient method for tracking flow fields

We present a method for tracking solar photospheric flows that is highly efficient, and demonstrate it using high resolution MDI continuum images. The method involves making a surface from the photospheric granulation data, and allowing many small floating tracers or balls to be moved around by the evolving granulation pattern. The results are tested against synthesised granulation with known flow fields and compared to the results produced by Local Correlation tracking (LCT). The results from this new method have similar accuracy to those produced by LCT. We also investigate the maximum spatial and temporal resolution of the velocity field that it is possible to extract, based on the statistical properties of the granulation data. We conclude that both methods produce results that are close to the maximum resolution possible from granulation data. The code runs very significantly faster than our similarly optimised LCT code, making real time applications on large data sets possible. The tracking method is not limited to photospheric flows, and will also work on any velocity field where there are visible moving features of known scale length

Digital transformation in government: Lessons for digital health?

Globally, there is a movement for outstanding digital services in government; in many countries, this extends to healthcare. And if digital health is to be delivered at scale, there needs to be involvement from multiple stakeholders, and government often has a central role. Understanding how governments are planning digital transformation generally, and in healthcare in particular, is important for other stakeholders. First, achieving sustainable change at scale will often involve working with government. Second, how governments are approaching these challenges can provide useful lessons for others in the field. In this paper, we describe some common trends in digital transformation in government and how they apply to the health sector, using NHS England as a leading exemplar. People expect their government transactions, like renewing a passport online or paying tax, to deliver the same calibre of service as they receive from online banking or online shopping. The processes by which successful corporations have transitioned towards digital maturity are being replicated in the public sector. The extent of governments’ adoption of contemporary product development methodologies can be seen when books such as that of Eric Reis, The lean startup,1 are found on the desks of senior leaders. The goal of digital transformation for companies is clear: save money by making digital services so good that people simply prefer to use them. Amazon and Netflix did not need to train people to use their service – they created a superior service that actively responded to the needs of users in a dynamic way, with an intuitive layout. These services became the de facto way of doing business; this is digital by default. However, digital governance and ownership is in its infancy in many organisations, both in the private and public sector. The transition to a mature digital governance model within a longstanding organisation is a complex and disruptive journey. It can be challenging when organisations conceptualise digital transformation as a clearly defined change management exercise, rather than a fundamental shift in how the organisation as a whole functions. Many organisations erroneously view digital transformation as primarily about the implementation of IT systems, rather than as a new of way working facilitated by advancements in technology, a mistake often seen in healthcare too.2,

Adoption and non-adoption of a shared electronic summary record in England: a mixed-method case study

Publisher version: http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c3111.full?sid=fcb22308-64fe-4070-9067-15a172b3aea

Mission planning for Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) with a real-time interactive planning software

The Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) mission will operate from the payload bay of the space shuttle for 8 days, gathering Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data over specific sites on the Earth. The short duration of the mission and the requirement for realtime planning offer challenges in mission planning and in the design of the Planning and Analysis Subsystem (PAS). The PAS generates shuttle ephemerides and mission planning data and provides an interactive real-time tool for quick mission replanning. It offers a multi-user and multiprocessing environment, and it is able to keep multiple versions of the mission timeline data while maintaining data integrity and security. Its flexible design allows one software to provide different menu options based on the user's operational function, and makes it easy to tailor the software for other Earth orbiting missions

Fundamental relation between longitudinal and transverse conductivities in the quantum Hall system

We investigate the relation between the diagonal ($\sigma_{xx}$) and off-diagonal ($\sigma_{xy}$) components of the conductivity tensor in the quantum Hall system. We calculate the conductivity components for a short-range impurity potential using the linear response theory, employing an approximation that simply replaces the self-energy by a constant value $-i \hbar /(2 \tau)$ with $\tau$ the scattering time. The approximation is equivalent to assuming that the broadening of a Landau level due to disorder is represented by a Lorentzian with the width $\Gamma = \hbar /(2 \tau)$. Analytic formulas are obtained for both $\sigma_{xx}$ and $\sigma_{xy}$ within the framework of this simple approximation at low temperatures. By examining the leading terms in $\sigma_{xx}$ and $\sigma_{xy}$, we find a proportional relation between $\mathrm{d}\sigma_{xy}/\mathrm{d}B$ and $B \sigma_{xx}^2$. The relation, after slight modification to account for the long-range nature of the impurity potential, is shown to be in quantitative agreement with experimental results obtained in the GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron system at the low magnetic-field regime where spin splitting is negligibly small.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

MHC signaling during social communication

Journal ArticleThe major histocompatibility complex (MHC) has been known to play a critical role in immune recognition since the 1950s. It was a surprise, then, in the 1970s when the first report appeared indicating MHC might also function in social signaling. Since this seminal discovery, MHC signaling has been found throughout vertebrates and its known functions have expanded beyond mate choice to include a suite of behaviors from kin‑biased cooperation, parent‑progeny recognition to pregnancy block. The widespread occurrence of MHC in social signaling has revealed conserved behavioral‑genetic mechanisms that span vertebrates and includes humans. The identity of the signal's chemical constituents and the receptors responsible for the perception of the signal have remained elusive, but recent advances have enabled the identification of the key components of the behavioral circuit. In this chapter we organize recent findings from the literature and discuss them in relation to four nonmutually exclusive models wherein MHC functions as a signal of (i) individuality, (ii) relatedness, (iii) genetic compatibility and (iv) quality. We also synthesize current mechanistic studies, showing how knowledge about the molecular basis of MHC signaling can lead to elegant and informative experimental manipulations. Finally, we discuss current evidence relating to the primordial functions of the MHC, including the possibility that its role in social signaling may be ancestral to its central role in adaptive immunity

Surprisingly uneven distribution of the T cell receptor Vβ repertoire in wild mice

Journal ArticleHeterodimeric TCRa/Bs are made up of combinations of V D, J, and C elements. The majority of laboratory inbred mouse strains are of the VBh haplotype and have at least 20 VB genes from which to construct TCRs (1, 2); however, a number of strains have been reported to have deletions of large portions of the VB locus on chromosome 6 (3-5), and these mice must survive with a considerably reduced potential TCR repertoire