New perspectives - approaches to medical education at four new UK Medical Schools

To create more UK doctors, the government has funded an increase in medical student numbers of 57% (from 3749 to 5894)1 between 1998 and 2005. This has been done by increasing student places at existing medical schools; creating shortened programmes open to science graduates; “twinning” arrangements, which host an existing curriculum at a new site; and four entirely new schools (table 1). Through reflection on our experiences and the literature evidence, we examine to what extent these new schools have a common vision and approach to undergraduate medical education, and we discuss the rationale for and likely outcomes of these new ventures

Outstanding Terrestrial Vertebrate Faunal Diversity in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, New South Wales

We have compiled a comprehensive account of the native terrestrial vertebrate fauna of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. A total of 432 species has been reliably recorded within the area since European settlement, including 68 mammal, 254 bird, 74 reptile and 36 frog species. At least five species are represented by more than one subspecies. There have been losses: one mammal species is now totally extinct and eight others appear to be extinct in the World Heritage Area. Seventy-three species are currently listed as threatened under NSW and Commonwealth legislation, including 28 mammal, 34 bird, 4 reptile and 7 frog species. It is still a rich and diverse fauna of international significance, but it is a fauna under threat, a situation made worse by the bushfires of 2019-20, which burnt a globally unprecedented proportion of Australia’s temperate forests, including 75% of the World Heritage Area. There is much to be done to support the recovery of the region’s biodiversity after the fires. This should include an increase in land management staff and resources and the establishment of a systematic, comprehensive, long-term biodiversity monitoring program as a basis for effective adaptive management practices in these uncertain times

Recruiting and Retaining Special Educators in Rural Areas: Strategies from the Field

Rural administrators put a great deal of time and ingenuity into the effort to recruit and retain qualified personnel. Their strategies range lrom Home Growing to telethons

The Rural Education Gold Mine

It\u27s time to share the rural gold mine. It\u27s time to recognize the wisdom and strength that good rural teachers and small schools can give to all schools

Probabilistic lower bounds on maximal determinants of binary matrices

Let ${\mathcal D}(n)$ be the maximal determinant for $n \times n$ $\{\pm 1\}$-matrices, and $\mathcal R(n) = {\mathcal D}(n)/n^{n/2}$ be the ratio of ${\mathcal D}(n)$ to the Hadamard upper bound. Using the probabilistic method, we prove new lower bounds on ${\mathcal D}(n)$ and $\mathcal R(n)$ in terms of $d = n-h$, where $h$ is the order of a Hadamard matrix and $h$ is maximal subject to $h \le n$. For example, $\mathcal R(n) > (\pi e/2)^{-d/2}$ if $1 \le d \le 3$, and $\mathcal R(n) > (\pi e/2)^{-d/2}(1 - d^2(\pi/(2h))^{1/2})$ if $d > 3$. By a recent result of Livinskyi, $d^2/h^{1/2} \to 0$ as $n \to \infty$, so the second bound is close to $(\pi e/2)^{-d/2}$ for large $n$. Previous lower bounds tended to zero as $n \to \infty$ with $d$ fixed, except in the cases $d \in \{0,1\}$. For $d \ge 2$, our bounds are better for all sufficiently large $n$. If the Hadamard conjecture is true, then $d \le 3$, so the first bound above shows that $\mathcal R(n)$ is bounded below by a positive constant $(\pi e/2)^{-3/2} > 0.1133$.Comment: 17 pages, 2 tables, 24 references. Shorter version of arXiv:1402.6817v4. Typos corrected in v2 and v3, new Lemma 7 in v4, updated references in v5, added Remark 2.8 and a reference in v6, updated references in v

Clinical Internship Support: Instructional Coaching

The Instructional Coaching Model is a product of the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant funded 2009-2014. Over the last four years, instructional coaches have been introduced in the traditional internship model with the intent of strengthening the internship experience and leading to positive gains in internship performance measures and K-12 student achievement

Marine Invaders in the Northeast: Rapid Assessment Survey of non‐native and native marine species of floating dock communities, July 2007

The 2007 Rapid Assessment Survey (RAS) began in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts on July 24 and was completed in Rockland, Maine on July 30. Seventeen coastal sites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine were surveyed, twelve of which were located within four National Estuary Program (NEP) study areas. The following NEPs were included in the study: Buzzards Bay Estuary Program, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Bays Program, Massachusetts; Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, New Hampshire; Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, Maine. In all, twenty‐five non‐native marine species were recorded. Sampling locations are listed below, from south to north. Each listing includes sampling date, time (usually one hour sampling per site), a brief site description and the non‐native species found at each location