MFL homework in Year 9 French: rising to the challenge

The objectives of this article are, first, to describe a collaborative project between teacher educators and a foreign languages (FL) department in a specialist language college and, second, to evaluate its success. The project focuses on Year 9 pupils across the ability range (in four groups) and involves staff in both institutions working together to plan and produce stimulating homework tasks in French, integrated into the spring term scheme of work. Pupils' work and progress were evaluated and their views sought as well as those of participating staff. A classroom-based action research approach was adopted for the project. The article concludes with outcomes, which include recommendations and ideas to increase the effectiveness of FL homework

Neuroendocrine Reactivity During the Naturalistic Stress of an Outward Bound Course

Recent studies have found that subjects with high hostility propensity have greater catecholamine (CA) and cortisol (Cf) levels during laboratory stressors. The present investigation sought to determine if similar patterns would be found in the naturalistic setting of an Outward Bound experience, and if high versus low aerobic fitness would influence CA and CT levels in this setting. Sixty-six individuals volunteered for the study from participants who had registered for a nine-day \u27adult intensive\u27 Outward Bound course. Thirty-one subjects were selected from those who volunteered. The Cook-Medley Hostility Inventory was completed by each subject prior to arriving for their course and aerobic fitness estimates were completed within the first six hours of the course using the University of Houston Non-Exercise Test Stress levels were quantified by urinary CA and CT excretion. Three to five hour urine samples were collected for the following activities: rockclimbing/rappelling, whitewater canoeing, ropes course, off-trail backpacking, commuting from airport to base camp and back, and one night-time sleep sample. At the beginning of each activity period, all subjects voided and at the end of the three to five hour period urine was collected, measured for total volume, and a sample was taken and ftw.en within two hours of collection. The urine was assayed by high-pressure liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection to determine levels of excreted epinephrine (E), norepinephrine (NE), and cortisol (CT). The CA and CT were then quantified by mg of creatinine. Of the 31 subjects (14 females and 17 males), nine were classfied as high hostile (HiHo) and 22 as average to low hostile (LoHo). The classifications for aerobic fitness were: 26 average to high fit (HF) with an estimated max V02 greater than 39 ml/kg for women and 46 ml/kg for men, and five low fit (LF) subjects with lower estimated V02 max. The data were analyzed by the two levels of hostility and two levels of aerobic fitness using univariate ANOVA with repeated measures across activity periods. The analysis of hostility revealed significant CT excretion differences between hostility levels for four of the nine activity periods with the LoHo subjects excreting higher CT levels. The four activities where this was found were: off-trail backpacking, (F=4.74,

Direct Numerical Simulation of a Weakly Stratified Turbulent Wake

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) is used to investigate a time-dependent turbulent wake evolving in a stably stratified background. A large initial Froude number is chosen to allow the wake to become fully turbulent and axisymmetric before stratification affects the spreading rate of the mean defect. The uncertainty introduced by the finite sample size associated with gathering statistics from a simulation of a time-dependent flow is reduced, compared to earlier simulations of this flow. The DNS reveals the buoyancy-induced changes to the turbulence structure, as well as to the mean-defect history and the terms in the mean-momentum and turbulence-kinetic-energy budgets, that characterize the various states of this flow - namely the three-dimensional (essentially unstratified), non-equilibrium (or 'wake-collapse') and quasi-two-dimensional (or 'two-component') regimes observed elsewhere for wakes embedded in both weakly and strongly stratified backgrounds. The wake-collapse regime is not accompanied by transfer (or 'reconversion') of the potential energy of the turbulence to the kinetic energy of the turbulence, implying that this is not an essential feature of stratified-wake dynamics. The dependence upon Reynolds number of the duration of the wake-collapse period is demonstrated, and the effect of the details of the initial/near-field conditions of the wake on its subsequent development is examined

Development of Aluminum LEKIDs for Balloon-Borne Far-IR Spectroscopy

We are developing lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) designed to achieve background-limited sensitivity for far-infrared (FIR) spectroscopy on a stratospheric balloon. The Spectroscopic Terahertz Airborne Receiver for Far-InfraRed Exploration (STARFIRE) will study the evolution of dusty galaxies with observations of the [CII] 158 $\mu$m and other atomic fine-structure transitions at $z=0.5-1.5$, both through direct observations of individual luminous infrared galaxies, and in blind surveys using the technique of line intensity mapping. The spectrometer will require large format ($\sim$1800 detectors) arrays of dual-polarization sensitive detectors with NEPs of $1 \times 10^{-17}$ W Hz$^{-1/2}$. The low-volume LEKIDs are fabricated with a single layer of aluminum (20 nm thick) deposited on a crystalline silicon wafer, with resonance frequencies of $100-250$ MHz. The inductor is a single meander with a linewidth of 0.4 $\mu$m, patterned in a grid to absorb optical power in both polarizations. The meander is coupled to a circular waveguide, fed by a conical feedhorn. Initial testing of a small array prototype has demonstrated good yield, and a median NEP of $4 \times 10^{-18}$ W Hz$^{-1/2}$.Comment: accepted for publication in Journal of Low Temperature Physic

Evaluating Accomplished Teaching: Report of a Pilot Study into Means of Investigating the Impact of Accomplished Teaching on Pupils’ Learning in the Context of the Chartered Teacher Initiative in Scotland

No abstract available

Use of MMG signals for the control of powered orthotic devices: Development of a rectus femoris measurement protocol

Copyright © 2009 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society (RESNA). This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Assistive Technology, 21(1), 1 - 12, 2009, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10400430902945678.A test protocol is defined for the purpose of measuring rectus femoris mechanomyographic (MMG) signals. The protocol is specified in terms of the following: measurement equipment, signal processing requirements, human postural requirements, test rig, sensor placement, sensor dermal fixation, and test procedure. Preliminary tests of the statistical nature of rectus femoris MMG signals were performed, and Gaussianity was evaluated by means of a two-sided Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. For all 100 MMG data sets obtained from the testing of two volunteers, the null hypothesis of Gaussianity was rejected at the 1%, 5%, and 10% significance levels. Most skewness values were found to be greater than 0.0, while all kurtosis values were found to be greater than 3.0. A statistical convergence analysis also performed on the same 100 MMG data sets suggested that 25 MMG acquisitions should prove sufficient to statistically characterize rectus femoris MMG. This conclusion is supported by the qualitative characteristics of the mean rectus femoris MMG power spectral densities obtained using 25 averages

Optimisation of variables for studying dilepton transverse momentum distributions at hadron colliders

In future measurements of the dilepton ($Z/\gamma^*$) transverse momentum, \Qt, at both the Tevatron and LHC, the achievable bin widths and the ultimate precision of the measurements will be limited by experimental resolution rather than by the available event statistics. In a recent paper the variable \at, which corresponds to the component of \Qt\ that is transverse to the dilepton thrust axis, has been studied in this regard. In the region, \Qt\ $<$ 30 GeV, \at\ has been shown to be less susceptible to experimental resolution and efficiency effects than the \Qt. Extending over all \Qt, we now demonstrate that dividing \at\ (or \Qt) by the measured dilepton invariant mass further improves the resolution. In addition, we propose a new variable, \phistarEta, that is determined exclusively from the measured lepton directions; this is even more precisely determined experimentally than the above variables and is similarly sensitive to the \Qt. The greater precision achievable using such variables will enable more stringent tests of QCD and tighter constraints on Monte Carlo event generator tunes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Enhanced protection to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in IL-10-deficient mice is accompanied by early and enhanced Th1 responses in the lung

IL-10 regulates the balance of an immune response between pathogen clearance and immunopathology. We show here that Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection in the absence of IL-10 (IL-10−/− mice) results in reduced bacterial loads in the lung. This reduction was preceded by an accelerated and enhanced IFN-γ response in the lung, an increased influx of CD4+ T cells into the lung, and enhanced production of chemokines and cytokines, including CXCL10 and IL-17, in both the lung and the serum. Neutralization of IL-17 affected neither the enhanced production of CXCL10 nor the accumulation of IFN-γ-producing T cells in the lungs, but led to reduced numbers of granulocytes in the lung and reduced bacterial loads in the spleens of Mtb-infected mice. This suggests that IL-17 may contribute to dissemination of Mtb

Measuring response functions of active materials from data

From flocks of birds to biomolecular assemblies, systems in which many individual components independently consume energy to perform mechanical work exhibit a wide array of striking behaviors. Methods to quantify the dynamics of these so called active systems generally aim to extract important length or time scales from experimental fields. Because such methods focus on extracting scalar values, they do not wring maximal information from experimental data. We introduce a method to overcome these limitations. We extend the framework of correlation functions by taking into account the internal headings of displacement fields. The functions we construct represent the material response to specific types of active perturbation within the system. Utilizing these response functions we query the material response of disparate active systems composed of actin filaments and myosin motors, from model fluids to living cells. We show we can extract critical length scales from the turbulent flows of an active nematic, anticipate contractility in an active gel, distinguish viscous from viscoelastic dissipation, and even differentiate modes of contractility in living cells. These examples underscore the vast utility of this method which measures response functions from experimental observations of complex active systems

The design and characterization of a 300 channel, optimized full-band millimeter filterbank for science with SuperSpec

SuperSpec is an integrated, on-chip spectrometer for millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy. We report the approach, design optimization, and partial characterization of a 300 channel filterbank covering the 185 to 315 GHz frequency band that targets a resolving power R ~ 310, and fits on a 3.5×5.5 cm chip. SuperSpec uses a lens and broadband antenna to couple radiation into a niobium microstrip that feeds a bank of niobium microstrip half-wave resonators for frequency selectivity. Each half-wave resonator is coupled to the inductor of a titanium nitride lumped-element kinetic inductance detector (LEKID) that detects the incident radiation. The device was designed for use in a demonstration instrument at the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)