Letting students speak, or be silent if they prefer

Within different classroom activities, giving students time to think and respond is a common approach among teachers. But what happens when this time extends into uncomfortable silence or when the students seem unwilling to respond at all? This paper considers why students might decide to remain silent in language classes and the implications of this for teachers

Separated and complete adelic models for one-dimensional Noetherian tensor-triangulated categories

We prove the existence of various adelic-style models for rigidly small-generated tensor-triangulated categories whose Balmer spectrum is a one-dimensional Noetherian topological space. This special case of our general programme of giving adelic models is particularly concrete and accessible, and we illustrate it with examples from algebra, geometry, topology and representation theory. This version: minor improvements, additional references and examples

Support for graphicacy: a review of textbooks available to accounting students

This Teaching Note reports on the support available in textbooks for graphicacy that will help students understand the complexities of graphical displays. Graphical displays play a significant role in financial reporting, and studies have found evidence of measurement distortion and selection bias. To understand the complexities of graphical displays, students need a sound understanding of graphicacy and support from the textbooks available to them to develop that understanding. The Teaching Note reports on a survey that examined the textbooks available to students attending two Scottish universities. The support of critical graphicacy skills was examined in conjunction with textbook characteristics. The survey, which was not restricted to textbooks designated as required reading, examined the textbooks for content on data measurement and graphical displays. The findings highlight a lack of support for graphicacy in the textbooks selected. The study concludes that accounting educators need to scrutinize more closely the selection of textbooks and calls for more extensive research into textbooks as a pedagogic tool

Torsion models for tensor-triangulated categories: the one-step case

Given a suitable stable monoidal model category $\mathscr{C}$ and a specialization closed subset $V$ of its Balmer spectrum one can produce a Tate square for decomposing objects into the part supported over $V$ and the part supported over $V^c$ spliced with the Tate object. Using this one can show that $\mathscr{C}$ is Quillen equivalent to a model built from the data of local torsion objects, and the splicing data lies in a rather rich category. As an application, we promote the torsion model for the homotopy category of rational circle-equivariant spectra from [18] to a Quillen equivalence. In addition, a close analysis of the one step case highlights important features needed for general torsion models which we will return to in future work

Never too old to learn - Parenting interventions for grandparents–A systematic review

Grandparents may often be involved in childcare and in some settings, may be a primary caregiver. It may be assumed that as grandparents have raised their own children, their capabilities in terms of child care have been achieved through such experience. However, experience does not necessarily equate to expertise. Parenting interventions have beneficial effects for both parent and child outcomes. If such skills can be taught to parents, they may also be of benefit to grandparents. This systematic review explores the evidence base on parenting interventions for grandparents. The aim is to examine the implications of parenting interventions on outcomes for the grandparents, the parents and the child. A keyword data base search generated 191 manuscripts and eight studies met the criteria for inclusion. Overall, this review identifies relatively weak literature on interventions for grandparenting skills. Studies identified predominantly originated from the USA, and focused on the outcomes for the grandparents with sparse information on implications for the child or parent. However, despite such limitations, the studies all seem to report benefits of parenting interventions for grandparents. The interventions identified are varied and range from short to longer courses as well as support groups and home visits. As such, conclusions are limited. However, an enticing range of interventions with a growing evidence base of efficacy is seemingly emerging, laying the foundations for future studies honing the parenting provision for grandparents

Risks of stillbirth and neonatal death with advancing gestation at term: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies of 15 million pregnancies.

BACKGROUND: Despite advances in healthcare, stillbirth rates remain relatively unchanged. We conducted a systematic review to quantify the risks of stillbirth and neonatal death at term (from 37 weeks gestation) according to gestational age. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We searched the major electronic databases Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar (January 1990-October 2018) without language restrictions. We included cohort studies on term pregnancies that provided estimates of stillbirths or neonatal deaths by gestation week. We estimated the additional weekly risk of stillbirth in term pregnancies that continued versus delivered at various gestational ages. We compared week-specific neonatal mortality rates by gestational age at delivery. We used mixed-effects logistic regression models with random intercepts, and computed risk ratios (RRs), odds ratios (ORs), and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Thirteen studies (15 million pregnancies, 17,830 stillbirths) were included. All studies were from high-income countries. Four studies provided the risks of stillbirth in mothers of White and Black race, 2 in mothers of White and Asian race, 5 in mothers of White race only, and 2 in mothers of Black race only. The prospective risk of stillbirth increased with gestational age from 0.11 per 1,000 pregnancies at 37 weeks (95% CI 0.07 to 0.15) to 3.18 per 1,000 at 42 weeks (95% CI 1.84 to 4.35). Neonatal mortality increased when pregnancies continued beyond 41 weeks; the risk increased significantly for deliveries at 42 versus 41 weeks gestation (RR 1.87, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.86, p = 0.012). One additional stillbirth occurred for every 1,449 (95% CI 1,237 to 1,747) pregnancies that advanced from 40 to 41 weeks. Limitations include variations in the definition of low-risk pregnancy, the wide time span of the studies, the use of registry-based data, and potential confounders affecting the outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest there is a significant additional risk of stillbirth, with no corresponding reduction in neonatal mortality, when term pregnancies continue to 41 weeks compared to delivery at 40 weeks. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42015013785

Nurturing the young shoots of talent: Using action research for exploration and theory building

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(4), 433-450, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1350293X.2011.623515.This paper reports the outcomes of a set of action research projects carried out by teacher researchers in 14 local education authorities in England, working collaboratively with university tutors, over a period of three years. The common aim of all the projects was to explore practical ways of nurturing the gifts and talents of children aged four–seven years. The project was funded by the Department of Education and Skills in England as part of the government's gifted and talented programme. The project teachers felt that their understanding of issues relating to nurturing the gifts and talents of younger children was enhanced through their engagement in the project. It was possible to map the findings of the projects to the English government's National Quality Standards for gifted and talented education which include: (1) identification; (2) effective provision in the classroom; (3) enabling curriculum entitlement and choice; (4) assessment for learning; (5) engaging with community, families and beyond. The findings are also analysed within the framework of good practice in educating children in the first years of schooling. Participating practitioners felt that action research offered them a suitable methodology to explore the complexity of the topic of giftedness through cycles of planning, action and reflection and personal theory building

Variable-Pitch Rectangular Cross-section Radiofrequency Coils for the Nitrogen-14 Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance Investigation of Sealed Medicines Packets

This work was partly funded by a technology transfer award from the Wellcome Trust (U.K.). Additional funding was provided by the European Commission as part of 7th Framework Programme under Grant No. 261670

Periodic points in random substitution subshifts

We study various aspects of periodic points for random substitution subshifts. In order to do so, we introduce a new property for random substitutions called the disjoint images condition. We provide a procedure for determining the property for compatible random substitutions—random substitutions for which a well-defined abelianisation exists. We find some simple necessary criteria for primitive, compatible random substitutions to admit periodic points in their subshifts. In the case that the random substitution further has disjoint images and is of constant length, we provide a stronger criterion. A method is outlined for enumerating periodic points of any specified length in a random substitution subshift

Chemical composition and antibacterial activity of essential oils from the medicinal plant Mentha cervina L. grown in Portugal

Mentha cervina is a medicinal plant traditionally used in Portugal in folk medicine, in different gastric disorders and inflammations of the respiratory tract. In order to validate those traditional uses, M. cervina essential oils (EOs) were characterized by GC and GC–MS and their antimicrobial activity was tested against 23 bacterial strains (including multiresistant strains). The EOs were dominated by the monoterpenes pulegone (52–75%), isomenthone (8–24%), limonene (4–6%), and menthone (1–2%). The antibacterial activity of these EOs was compared to that of the main components standards. The most effective antibacterial activity was expressed by the EOs against the Gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumanni, with MIC values of 1 mg/ml. The EOs complex mixtures were more active than the individual aromatic components supporting the hypothesis that the EOs antibacterial activity is a function of the synergistic effect of their different aromatic components. These results show the potential role of M. cervina EOs as antibacterial agents and validate the traditional use of this plant