Review of the Supply of and Demand for Further Education in Scotland

These documents provide are an Executive Summary and Full Report of the background to, methodology for, and overall conclusions and recommendations of a review of the supply of and demand for Further Education (FE) provision in Scottish Further Education colleges in 2000. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC), and carried out between November 1999 and June 2000 by a team of researchers drawn from the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU), the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University/University of Stirling, and the Applied Statistics Group, Napier University

Extent of regretted sexual intercourse among young teenagers in Scotland: a cross sectional survey

No abstract available

Impact of a theoretically based sex education programme (SHARE) delivered by teachers on NHS registered conceptions and terminations: final results of cluster randomised trial

<b>Objective</b>: To assess the impact of a theoretically based sex education programme (SHARE) delivered by teachers compared with conventional education in terms of conceptions and terminations registered by the NHS. Design Follow-up of cluster randomised trial 4.5 years after intervention. <b>Setting</b>: NHS records of women who had attended 25 secondary schools in east Scotland. <b>Participants</b>: 4196 women (99.5% of those eligible). <b>Intervention</b>: SHARE programme (intervention group) v existing sex education (control group). <b>Main outcome measure</b>: NHS recorded conceptions and terminations for the achieved sample linked at age 20. <b>Results</b>: In an "intention to treat" analysis there were no significant differences between the groups in registered conceptions per 1000 pupils (300 SHARE v 274 control; difference 26, 95% confidence interval –33 to 86) and terminations per 1000 pupils (127 v 112; difference 15, –13 to 42) between ages 16 and 20. <b>Conclusions</b>: This specially designed sex education programme did not reduce conceptions or terminations by age 20 compared with conventional provision. The lack of effect was not due to quality of delivery. Enhancing teacher led school sex education beyond conventional provision in eastern Scotland is unlikely to reduce terminations in teenagers

The power of simplicity: a fast-and-frugal heuristics approach to performance science.

Performance science is a fairly new multidisciplinary field that integrates performance domains such as sports, medicine, business, and the arts. To give its many branches a structure and its research a direction, it requires a theoretical framework. We demonstrate the applications of this framework with examples from sport and medicine. Because performance science deals mainly with situations of uncertainty rather than known risks, the needed framework can be provided by the fast-and-frugal heuristics approach. According to this approach, experts learn to rely on heuristics in an adaptive way in order to make accurate decisions. We investigate the adaptive use of heuristics in three ways: the descriptive study of the heuristics in the cognitive "adaptive toolbox;" the prescriptive study of their "ecological rationality," that is, the characterization of the situations in which a given heuristic works; and the engineering study of "intuitive design," that is, the design of transparent aids for making better decisions

Comparison of regional blood flow values measured by radioactive and fluorescent microspheres

Fluorescent microspheres (FM) have become an attractive alternative to radioactive microspheres (RM) for the measurement of regional blood flow (RBF). The aim of the present study was to investigate the comparability of both methods by measuring RBF with FM and RM. Eight anaesthetised pigs received simultaneous, left atrial injections of FM and RM with a diameter of 15 mum at six different time points. Blood reference samples were collected from the descending aorta. RBF was determined in tissue samples of the myocardium, spleen and kidneys of all 8 animals. After radioactivity of the tissue samples was determined, the samples were processed automatically for measuring fluorescence using a recently developed filter device (SPU). RBF was calculated with both the isotope and spectrometric data of both methods for each sample resulting in a total of 10,512 blood flow values. The comparison of the RBF values yielded high linear correlation (mean r(2) = 0.95 +/- 0.03 to 0.97 +/- 0.02) and excellent agreement (bias 5.4-6.7%, precision 9.9-16.5%) of both methods. Our results indicate the validity of MS and of the automated tissue processing technique by means of the SPU. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel

When are summary ROC curves appropriate for diagnostic meta-analyses?

Diagnostic tests are increasingly evaluated with systematic reviews and this has lead to the recent developments of statistical methods to analyse such data. The most commonly used method is the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve, which can be fitted with a non-linear bivariate random-effects model. This paper focuses on the practical problems of interpreting and presenting data from such analyses. First, many meta-analyses may be underpowered to obtain reliable estimates of the SROC parameters. Second, the SROC model may be inappropriate. In these situations, a summary with two univariate meta-analyses of the true and false positive rates (TPRs and FPRs) may be more appropriate. We characterize the type of problems that can occur in fitting these models and present an algorithm to guide the analyst of such studies, with illustrations from analyses of published data. A set of R functions, freely available to perform these analyses, can be downloaded from (www.diagmeta.info)

Iterated Elliptic and Hypergeometric Integrals for Feynman Diagrams

We calculate 3-loop master integrals for heavy quark correlators and the 3-loop QCD corrections to the $\rho$-parameter. They obey non-factorizing differential equations of second order with more than three singularities, which cannot be factorized in Mellin-$N$ space either. The solution of the homogeneous equations is possible in terms of convergent close integer power series as $_2F_1$ Gau\ss{} hypergeometric functions at rational argument. In some cases, integrals of this type can be mapped to complete elliptic integrals at rational argument. This class of functions appears to be the next one arising in the calculation of more complicated Feynman integrals following the harmonic polylogarithms, generalized polylogarithms, cyclotomic harmonic polylogarithms, square-root valued iterated integrals, and combinations thereof, which appear in simpler cases. The inhomogeneous solution of the corresponding differential equations can be given in terms of iterative integrals, where the new innermost letter itself is not an iterative integral. A new class of iterative integrals is introduced containing letters in which (multiple) definite integrals appear as factors. For the elliptic case, we also derive the solution in terms of integrals over modular functions and also modular forms, using $q$-product and series representations implied by Jacobi's $\vartheta_i$ functions and Dedekind's $\eta$-function. The corresponding representations can be traced back to polynomials out of Lambert--Eisenstein series, having representations also as elliptic polylogarithms, a $q$-factorial $1/\eta^k(\tau)$, logarithms and polylogarithms of $q$ and their $q$-integrals. Due to the specific form of the physical variable $x(q)$ for different processes, different representations do usually appear. Numerical results are also presented.Comment: 68 pages LATEX, 10 Figure

How Much Is Winning a Matter of Luck? A Comparison of 3 × 3 and 5v5 Basketball

Background: The comparison of team sports based on luck has a long tradition and remains unsolved. A contrast between the new Olympic format three-on-three (3 × 3) and five-on-five (5v5) forms of basketball has never been analyzed and provides a comparison within the same form of sports. Methods: We developed a new method to calculate performance indicators for each team and invented the Relative Score Difference Index, a new competitive balance indicator that allows the comparison of luck in the two basketball forms for both men and women. We collected game-level data about 3 × 3 and 5v5 from the World Cups held between 2010 and 2019 (N = 666). Luck was defined as the difference between the expected and the actual outcomes of games. Using the basketball World Cup data, we applied the Surprise Index, ran probit regression models, and compared the basketball forms on the goodness-of-fit of the models. Results: As we predicted, there are differential effects of luck between game formats and sex, such that the 3 × 3 form depends more on luck and women’s games are less influenced by luck when compared to men’s games. Conclusion: Coaches may better understand the differences between the two forms and sexes regarding luck if they are aware that the 3 × 3 and men’s competitions are usually more influenced by luck. The findings provide a leverage point for testing new performances and competition balance indicators and will acknowledge the number of games we enjoy watching

Review of the Supply of and Demand for Further Education in Scotland

These documents provide are an Executive Summary and Full Report of the background to, methodology for, and overall conclusions and recommendations of a review of the supply of and demand for Further Education (FE) provision in Scottish Further Education colleges in 2000. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC), and carried out between November 1999 and June 2000 by a team of researchers drawn from the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU), the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University/University of Stirling, and the Applied Statistics Group, Napier University