School Leadership and Equity : an examination of policy response in Scotland

In this paper we adopt a critical perspective on the implementation of policy on school leadership and equity in Scotland, viewing policy as both an attempt to solve problems and an attempt to persuade social actors to subscribe to particular beliefs that delineate action. We begin by offering a definition of “policy response”, and then examine how policy “conversations” establish consensus around such things as school leadership and equity. We examine Scottish policy on school leadership and equity and consider what practices this policy does, and does not permit. In so doing, our examination of the implementation of policy on school leadership and equity in Scotland acknowledges that such policy is in part extemporized, and in part the attempt to make inevitable a “de-stated” account of governance. We conclude by contextualising our forthcoming empirical study of the Leadership Standards for Social Justice in Scotlan

Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircraft

The primary purpose of this project is to combine the benefits of both multi-copters and fixed-wing crafts, reducing the drawbacks of both. The explosion of small unmanned aerial systems (“UASs”), also called unmanned aerial vehicles (“UAV”) in recent years is the result of their versatility and practicality. It is invaluable for obvious reasons to be able to send a small, comparatively inexpensive, remotely controlled vehicle with a camera or a payload into places where either people cannot or would prefer not to go. Quadcopters have the advantage of being able to take off and land without significant runway space, but require huge amounts of electrical power and have short battery lifespans. Small fixed-wing craft, however, have the advantage of needing comparatively little power and being able to stay in the air for comparatively long spans, but require significant, clear, flat spaces to takeoff and land. The Vertical Take-off and Landing Aircraft project will incorporate the VCU UAV lab’s existing unmanned, autonomous aerial vehicle software, as well as a high resolution video camera as a surveillance payload.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1149/thumbnail.jp

Can a training hub deliver undergraduate medical education with patient educators?

Background Medical schools may find it difficult to coordinate GP practices to support undergraduate medical education in primary care. In England, every Integrated Care System area now has a funded training hub to plan and upskill the primary care and community health workforce. We evaluated whether a training hub could help deliver undergraduate medical education, co-facilitated by patient educators. No published research has evaluated this model before. Methods We used before and after surveys (617 students), interviews (28) and focus groups (20 people) with undergraduate medical students, patient educators and training hub and medical school team members. Findings It was feasible for a training hub to develop and co-deliver a workshop with patient educators. 61% of Year 4 undergraduate students (first clinical year) took part, a high attendance rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. 80% of students said they learnt a lot about managing conditions in primary care and the community as a result. They particularly valued engaging with patient educators and seeing interprofessional working between GPs and pharmacists, which were cornerstones of the training hub approach. The hub was able to recruit and retain patient educators more effectively than the medical school alone. Patient educators said they felt valued and developed new skills. Conclusions Working with training hubs may be part of the solution to issues medical schools face when organising undergraduate education about primary care. This small evaluation suggests that this model could be tested further

Financial capability, money attitudes and socioeconomic status: risks for experiencing adverse financial events

The risk of experiencing adverse financial events (e.g. bankruptcy) depends on the world economy and on individual differences in financial and psychological variables. Analysing data from 109,472 British survey respondents, this study reports the risks associated with financial capabilities, money attitudes, and socio-economic status for suffering negative financial outcomes. The results show that (1) socio-economic status is associated with financial capabilities but not with money attitudes; (2) money attitudes and financial capabilities are largely independent; (3) money attitudes and financial capabilities each contribute independently to the risk of experiencing adverse financial outcomes, even after adjusting for socio-economic status; and (4) financial capabilities are greater risk factors of adverse financial outcomes than money attitudes; the latter, however, are likely to be promising targets for interventions

Understanding the mental health of doctoral researchers: a mixed methods systematic review with meta-analysis and meta-synthesis.

Data from studies with undergraduate and postgraduate taught students suggest that they are at an increased risk of having mental health problems, compared to the general population. By contrast, the literature on doctoral researchers (DRs) is far more disparate and unclear. There is a need to bring together current findings and identify what questions still need to be answered. We conducted a mixed methods systematic review to summarise the research on doctoral researchers' (DRs) mental health. Our search revealed 52 articles that were included in this review. The results of our meta-analysis found that DRs reported significantly higher stress levels compared with population norm data. Using meta-analyses and meta-synthesis techniques, we found the risk factors with the strongest evidence base were isolation and identifying as female. Social support, viewing the PhD as a process, a positive student-supervisor relationship and engaging in self-care were the most well-established protective factors. We have identified a critical need for researchers to better coordinate data collection to aid future reviews and allow for clinically meaningful conclusions to be drawn. PROSPERO registration CRD42018092867

Reduced laughter contagion in boys at risk for psychopathy

Humans are intrinsically social animals, forming enduring affiliative bonds [1]. However, a striking minority with psychopathic traits, who present with violent and antisocial behaviours, tend to value other people only insofar as they contribute to their own advancement [2, 3]. Extant research has addressed the neurocognitive processes associated with aggression in such individuals, but we know remarkably little about processes underlying their atypical social affiliation. This is surprising, given the importance of affiliation and bonding in promoting social order and reducing aggression [4, 5]. Human laughter engages brain areas that facilitate social reciprocity and emotional resonance, consistent with its established role in promoting affiliation and social cohesion [6, 7, 8]. We show that, compared with typically developing boys, those at risk for antisocial behaviour in general (irrespective of their risk of psychopathy) display reduced neural response to laughter in the supplementary motor area, a premotor region thought to facilitate motor readiness to join in during social behavior [9, 10, 11]. Those at highest risk for developing psychopathy additionally show reduced neural responses to laughter in the anterior insula. This region is implicated in auditory-motor processing and in linking action tendencies with emotional experience and subjective feelings [10, 12, 13]. Furthermore, this same group reports reduced desire to join in with the laughter of others—a behavioural profile in part accounted for by the attenuated anterior insula response. These findings suggest that atypical processing of laughter could represent a novel mechanism that impoverishes social relationships and increases risk for psychopathy and antisocial behaviour

Understanding the educational experiences and opinions, attainment, achievement and aspirations of looked after children in Wales

This report presents the findings of research that explored the educational experiences attainment and aspirations of looked after children and young people (LACYP) in Wales. The findings of the report are drawn from interviews with LACYP and an analysis of available statistics and literature on the looked after children population

Encoding conditions shape temporal memory precision by modulating temporal uncertainty and temporal bias

Temporal memory about when in the past something happened is suggested to be reconstructed rather than recalled. Participants usually show a degree of mismatch between remembered and actual temporal position of an event. However, recent studies showed markedly different results, including both relatively low temporal precision, for visual objects presented earlier in a series, and relatively high temporal precision, for movie scenes shown at the start of a movie. One explanation could be the use of different stimulus materials, for which participants would employ different cognitive encoding or mnemonic strategies. However, a more parsimonious explanation would be that temporal judgments arise from a common mechanism, regardless of stimulus material or context. In the current manuscript, we reanalysed the results of two previously published experiments and investigated the effect of boundary segmentation and semantic relatedness during encoding in two new experiments. We found that participants showed more temporal uncertainty when the encoded visual objects and contexts were unrelated. Further, we found that increasing the semantic associations during encoding diminished temporal uncertainty but increased temporal underestimation bias, which we interpret as an indication of temporal compression. A simple computational model in which temporal judgment is based on a Gaussian process defined by temporal uncertainty (dispersion) and temporal bias (location) replicated the empirical data of all four experiments, suggesting that patterns of temporal errors observed in different experiments arise from a common mechanism. The model further underscores that semantic relatedness between items decreases temporal uncertainty but enhances temporal compression. These findings have important ramifications for how we memorize the temporal structure of events

Tidal stream resource assessment uncertainty due to flow asymmetry and turbine yaw misalignment

The majority of tidal energy convertors (TECs) currently under development are of a non-yawing horizontal axis design. However, most energetic regions that have been identified as candidate sites for installation of TEC arrays exhibit some degree of directional and magnitude asymmetry between incident flood and ebb flow angles and velocities, particularly in nearshore environments where topographic, bathymetric and seabed frictional effects and interactions are significant. Understanding the contribution of directional and magnitude asymmetry to resource power density along with off axis rotor alignment to flow could influence site selection and help elucidate optimal turbine orientation. Here, 2D oceanographic model simulations and field data were analysed to investigate these effects at potential deployment locations in the Irish Sea; an energetic semi-enclosed shelf sea region. We find that observed sites exhibiting a high degree of asymmetry may be associated with a reduction of over 2% in annual energy yield when deployment design optimisation is ignored. However, at the majority of sites, even in the presence of significant asymmetry, the difference is \u3c0.3%. Although the effects are shown to have less significance than other uncertainties in resource assessment, these impacts could be further investigated and quantified using CFD and 3D modelling