National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Annex 3. Direct Support in Poor and Weak Local Authorities: Emerging findings

This report summarises emerging findings from initial scoping analysis and case study fieldwork with authorities that have received Direct Support from the Capacity Building Programme (CBP) for local government. The report is one of a series of outputs from the national evaluation of the CBP, being undertaken by a team of researchers at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) at Leeds Metropolitan University and the Cities Research Unit at the University of West of England

Aids given to beginning teachers in Rhode Island: their source and their usefulness.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Annex 4: Follow On Study of Progress in Seven Case Study Improvement Partnerships

This report is one of a series of outputs from the national evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme for local government in England (CBP), being undertaken by a team of researchers at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) at Leeds Metropolitan University and the Cities Research Unit at the University of West of England. This report summarises the findings from the second phase of fieldwork with regional and sub-regional Improvement Partnerships, established to facilitate capacity building and improvement activity in local authorities. The research underpinning this report was undertaken in seven case study Improvement Partnerships (see Section 2) in October and November 2006 and follows a similar – baseline – exercise undertaken during the same period during 2005. It thus both draws on the earlier research (see Section 3) and identifies evidence of progress and impact (see Section 10) since the baseline phase

National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Annex 1. Seven Case Studies: The Pilot Programme

This report presents the findings of the evaluation of the Capacity Building pilots. The evaluation of the pilots is part of the on-going evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme and has been undertaken in the early scoping phase of the main evaluation in order to capture key learning points and insights into the programme. It is intended that the ongoing evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme will be formative and assist in the development of the programme over time. In what follows the background to the pilots programme is discussed, highlighting the kinds of capacity building activities the pilots are engaged with and the link between the Capacity Building Programme and the CPA. The report outlines the structure and purpose of the pilots programme and the nature and characteristics of the different pilots that were undertaken. The seven case studies are then discussed in more detail in the main body of 1 Introduction | 5 the report. These are drawn together in key themes and findings which can be used to strengthen future project development

National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Overall Final Report

This report is one of a series of outputs from the National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme for local government in England (CBP), undertaken by a team of researchers at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) at Leeds Metropolitan University and the Cities Research Unit at the University of West of England. This report summarises the findings from all four key strands of the evaluation. Because of the difficulties associated with quantifying the capacity of local authorities, much less the sector, in relation to the dynamic roles and objectives that they pursue, the report focuses on what has worked, why and in what circumstances, rather than providing a definitive assessment of the extent of change of capacity building enabled by the CBP. The CBP was launched in 2003 as a joint Department for Communities and Local Government/Local Government Association (LGA) initiative to support capacity building and improvement activities within local authorities in England. The CBP has supported four main streams of improvement and capacity building activity in local authorities (see Section 1.2; p13)

Accretion Disk Temperatures of QSOs: Constraints from the Emission Lines

QSO emission-line spectra are compared to predictions based on theoretical ionizing continua of accretion disks. Observed line intensities do not show the expected trend of higher ionization with higher accretion disk temperature as derived from the black hole mass and accretion rate. This suggests that, at least for accretion rates close to the Eddington limit, the inner disk does not reach temperatures as high as expected from standard disk theory. Modified radial temperature profiles, taking account of winds or advection in the inner disk, achieve better agreement with observation. This conclusion agrees with an earlier study of QSO continuum colors as a function of disk temperature. The emission lines of radio-detected and radio-undetected sources show different trends as a function of disk temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

The supercuspidal representations of p-adic classical groups

Let G be a unitary, symplectic or special orthogonal group over a locally compact non-archimedean local field of odd residual characteristic. We construct many new supercuspidal representations of G, and Bushnell-Kutzko types for these representations. Moreover, we prove that every irreducible supercuspidal representation of G arises from our constructions.Comment: 55 pages -- minor changes from 1st version (mostly in sections 2.2, 4.2 and 6.2). To appear in Inventiones mathematicae, 2008 (DOI is not yet active as at 12 Nov 2007

Using non-speech sounds to provide navigation cues

This article describes 3 experiments that investigate the possibiity of using structured nonspeech audio messages called earcons to provide navigational cues in a menu hierarchy. A hierarchy of 27 nodes and 4 levels was created with an earcon for each node. Rules were defined for the creation of hierarchical earcons at each node. Participants had to identify their location in the hierarchy by listening to an earcon. Results of the first experiment showed that participants could identify their location with 81.5% accuracy, indicating that earcons were a powerful method of communicating hierarchy information. One proposed use for such navigation cues is in telephone-based interfaces (TBIs) where navigation is a problem. The first experiment did not address the particular problems of earcons in TBIs such as “does the lower quality of sound over the telephone lower recall rates,” “can users remember earcons over a period of time.” and “what effect does training type have on recall?” An experiment was conducted and results showed that sound quality did lower the recall of earcons. However; redesign of the earcons overcame this problem with 73% recalled correctly. Participants could still recall earcons at this level after a week had passed. Training type also affected recall. With personal training participants recalled 73% of the earcons, but with purely textual training results were significantly lower. These results show that earcons can provide good navigation cues for TBIs. The final experiment used compound, rather than hierarchical earcons to represent the hierarchy from the first experiment. Results showed that with sounds constructed in this way participants could recall 97% of the earcons. These experiments have developed our general understanding of earcons. A hierarchy three times larger than any previously created was tested, and this was also the first test of the recall of earcons over time

High spatial resolution observations of CUDSS14A: a SCUBA-selected ultraluminous galaxy at high redshift

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com '. Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI : 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03822.xWe present a high-resolutionmillimetre interferometric image of the brightest SCUBA- selected galaxy from the Canada-UK deep SCUBA survey (CUDSS). We make a very clear detection at 1.3 mm, but fail to resolve any structure in the source.Peer reviewe