GCSE grades and GNVQ outcomes: results of a pilot study

This paper reports an investigation into the importance of basic skills in literacy and numeracy in the promotion of success on intermediate vocational courses at age 16+. Two measures of attainment in literacy and numeracy are examined; GCSE passes in English and Mathematics analysed by grade awarded and the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) tests in communication and numeracy. The study examines the relationship between prior attainment as attested by GCSE grades and ALBSU scores and course outcome. The extent to which a consistent relationship is found between GCSE grades and ALBSU scores is also examined. The study uses a random sample of 142 students drawn from a population of all first year 16/7 year old students who enrolled at a London Further Education college in 1994. A sub-sample of students on GNVQ Intermediate and NVQ level 2 courses is examined in greater depth. Data on course outcomes was collected at three points in time, 1995, one year after enrolment and on two occasions in 1996. It was therefore possible to chart the progress of students in the sample who took more than one year to complete an Intermediate (G)NVQ. Initial analysis found that at the GCSE middle grade range (Grades C,D,E,F) there was a wide range of literacy and numeracy outcomes as measured by the ALBSU literacy and numeracy tests. GCSE Maths and English passes at these grades do not appear to guarantee threshold attainment levels in basic numeracy and literacy. No significant relationship is found between prior attainment as measured by GCSE Maths and English grades and course outcomes. The ALBSU test scores proved to be more helpful in predicting student outcomes on the Intermediate GNVQ but were still fairly weak predictors. The high proportion of leaves from the sample, probably influenced by ''pull'' factors from the labour market, gives cause for concern. There is no evidence to indicate that weaker students leave Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ students gained their awards after the prescribed one year study period. Commitment and motivation to succeed appear to be as - if not more - important than academic qualifications for success on Intermediate GNVQ. The study offers evidence that, for those motivated to persist with the studies, GNVQ can offer a valuable ''bridge'' to further and higher education opportunities to students who have performed poorly on ''academic'' GCSEs

GCSE Grades and GNVQ Outcomes: Results of a Pilot Study

This paper reports an investigation into the importance of basic skills in literacy and numeracy in the promotion of success on intermediate vocational courses at age 16+. Two measures of attainment in literacy and numeracy are examined; GCSE passes in English and Mathematics analysed by grade awarded and the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) tests in communication and numeracy. The study examines the relationship between prior attainment as attested by GCSE grades and ALBSU scores and course outcome. The extent to which a consistent relationship is found between GCSE grades and ALBSU scores is also examined. The study uses a random sample of 142 students drawn from a population of all first year 16/7 year old students who enrolled at a London Further Education college in 1994. A sub-sample of students on GNVQ Intermediate and NVQ level 2 courses is examined in greater depth. Data on course outcomes was collected at three points in time, 1995, one year after enrolment and on two occasions in 1996. It was therefore possible to chart the progress of students in the sample who took more than one year to complete an Intermediate (G)NVQ. Initial analysis found that at the GCSE middle grade range (Grades C,D,E,F) there was a wide range of literacy and numeracy outcomes as measured by the ALBSU literacy and numeracy tests. GCSE Maths and English passes at these grades do not appear to guarantee threshold attainment levels in basic numeracy and literacy. No significant relationship is found between prior attainment as measured by GCSE Maths and English grades and course outcomes. The ALBSU test scores proved to be more helpful in predicting student outcomes on the Intermediate GNVQ but were still fairly weak predictors. The high proportion of leaves from the sample, probably influenced by 'pull' factors from the labour market, gives cause for concern. There is no evidence to indicate that weaker students leave Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ students gained their awards after the prescribed one year study period. Commitment and motivation to succeed appear to be as - if not more - important than academic qualifications for success on Intermediate GNVQ. The study offers evidence that, for those motivated to persist with the studies, GNVQ can offer a valuable 'bridge' to further and higher education opportunities to students who have performed poorly on 'academic' GCSEs.

Saturn orbiter dual probe mission

The described Saturn orbiter dual probe mission and spacecraft combines three systems into a multi-purpose Saturn exploration package. The spacecraft consists of: (1) Saturn orbiter; (2) Saturn probe; and (3) Titan probe or lander. This single spacecraft provides the capability to conduct in situ measurements of the Saturn and Titan atmospheres, and, possibly the Titan surface, as well as a variety of remote sensing measurements. The remote sensing capabilities will be used to study the surfaces, interiors and environments of Saturn's satellites, the rings of Saturn, Saturn's magnetosphere, and synoptic properties of Saturn's atmosphere

Drag Reduction by Polymers in Wall Bounded Turbulence

We address the mechanism of drag reduction by polymers in turbulent wall bounded flows. On the basis of the equations of fluid mechanics we present a quantitative derivation of the "maximum drag reduction (MDR) asymptote" which is the maximum drag reduction attained by polymers. Based on Newtonian information only we prove the existence of drag reduction, and with one experimental parameter we reach a quantitative agreement with the experimental measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 1 fig., included, PRL, submitte

Collisions of low-energy antiprotons with molecular hydrogen: ionization, excitation and stopping power

A time-dependent coupled-channel approach was used to calculate ionization, excitation, and energy-loss cross sections as well as energy spectra for antiproton and proton collisions with molecular hydrogen for impact energies 8 keV < E < 4000 keV.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, conference LEAP0

The Extreme Value Machine

It is often desirable to be able to recognize when inputs to a recognition function learned in a supervised manner correspond to classes unseen at training time. With this ability, new class labels could be assigned to these inputs by a human operator, allowing them to be incorporated into the recognition function --- ideally under an efficient incremental update mechanism. While good algorithms that assume inputs from a fixed set of classes exist, e.g., artificial neural networks and kernel machines, it is not immediately obvious how to extend them to perform incremental learning in the presence of unknown query classes. Existing algorithms take little to no distributional information into account when learning recognition functions and lack a strong theoretical foundation. We address this gap by formulating a novel, theoretically sound classifier --- the Extreme Value Machine (EVM). The EVM has a well-grounded interpretation derived from statistical Extreme Value Theory (EVT), and is the first classifier to be able to perform nonlinear kernel-free variable bandwidth incremental learning. Compared to other classifiers in the same deep network derived feature space, the EVM is accurate and efficient on an established benchmark partition of the ImageNet dataset.Comment: Pre-print of a manuscript accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (T-PAMI) journa

Cisplatin-induced emesis: systematic review and meta-analysis of the ferret model and the effects of 5-HT3 receptor antagonists

PURPOSE: The ferret cisplatin emesis model has been used for ~30 years and enabled identification of clinically used anti-emetics. We provide an objective assessment of this model including efficacy of 5-HT(3) receptor antagonists to assess its translational validity. METHODS: A systematic review identified available evidence and was used to perform meta-analyses. RESULTS: Of 182 potentially relevant publications, 115 reported cisplatin-induced emesis in ferrets and 68 were included in the analysis. The majority (n = 53) used a 10 mg kg(−1) dose to induce acute emesis, which peaked after 2 h. More recent studies (n = 11) also used 5 mg kg(−1), which induced a biphasic response peaking at 12 h and 48 h. Overall, 5-HT(3) receptor antagonists reduced cisplatin (5 mg kg(−1)) emesis by 68% (45–91%) during the acute phase (day 1) and by 67% (48–86%) and 53% (38–68%, all P < 0.001), during the delayed phase (days 2, 3). In an analysis focused on the acute phase, the efficacy of ondansetron was dependent on the dosage and observation period but not on the dose of cisplatin. CONCLUSION: Our analysis enabled novel findings to be extracted from the literature including factors which may impact on the applicability of preclinical results to humans. It reveals that the efficacy of ondansetron is similar against low and high doses of cisplatin. Additionally, we showed that 5-HT(3) receptor antagonists have a similar efficacy during acute and delayed emesis, which provides a novel insight into the pharmacology of delayed emesis in the ferret

Chemotherapy versus supportive care in advanced non-small cell lung cancer: improved survival without detriment to quality of life

BACKGROUND: In 1995 a meta-analysis of randomised trials investigating the value of adding chemotherapy to primary treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) suggested a small survival benefit for cisplatin-based chemotherapy in each of the primary treatment settings. However, the metaanalysis included many small trials and trials with differing eligibility criteria and chemotherapy regimens. METHODS: The aim of the Big Lung Trial was to confirm the survival benefits seen in the meta-analysis and to assess quality of life and cost in the supportive care setting. A total of 725 patients were randomised to receive supportive care alone (n = 361) or supportive care plus cisplatin-based chemotherapy (n = 364). RESULTS: 65% of patients allocated chemotherapy (C) received all three cycles of treatment and a further 27% received one or two cycles. 74% of patients allocated no chemotherapy (NoC) received thoracic radiotherapy compared with 47% of the C group. Patients allocated C had a significantly better survival than those allocated NoC: HR 0.77 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.89, p = 0.0006), median survival 8.0 months for the C group v 5.7 months for the NoC group, a difference of 9 weeks. There were 19 (5%) treatment related deaths in the C group. There was no evidence that any subgroup benefited more or less fromchemotherapy. No significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of the pre-defined primary and secondary quality of life end points, although large negative effects of chemotherapy were ruled out. The regimens used proved to be cost effective, the extra cost of chemotherapy being offset by longer survival. CONCLUSIONS: The survival benefit seen in this trial was entirely consistent with the NSCLC meta-analysis and subsequent similarly designed large trials. The information on quality of life and cost should enablepatients and their clinicians to make more informed treatment choices

Dynamic of a non homogeneously coarse grained system

To study materials phenomena simultaneously at various length scales, descriptions in which matter can be coarse grained to arbitrary levels, are necessary. Attempts to do this in the static regime (i.e. zero temperature) have already been developed. In this letter, we present an approach that leads to a dynamics for such coarse-grained models. This allows us to obtain temperature-dependent and transport properties. Renormalization group theory is used to create new local potentials model between nodes, within the approximation of local thermodynamical equilibrium. Assuming that these potentials give an averaged description of node dynamics, we calculate thermal and mechanical properties. If this method can be sufficiently generalized it may form the basis of a Molecular Dynamics method with time and spatial coarse-graining.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure