The Formation of School Peer Groups: Pupils’ Transition from Primary to Secondary School in England

This paper examines the transitions from primary to secondary school for a contemporary cohort of children moving between state schools in England. It uses data on over 12,000 primary schools, over 2000 secondary schools and around 400,000 pupils. The results suggest that the experiences of poor (FSM) pupils at age 11 may be quite different, on average, to their non-poor peers. Poor pupils’ primary peer groups are more fractured at the age of 11 and these pupils tend to find themselves more concentrated within lower performing secondary schools. High ability pupils are more likely to go to the modal secondary school if it is better than average; the reverse is true for low ability pupils. Poor pupils are less likely to go to the modal school when it is better than average but more likely to go when it is worse. Finally, we find that primary schools which have high academic test scores have more bifurcated flows: poor and non-poor pupils are dispersed across different secondary schools, with the former more likely to attend a low performing secondary school.Primary to secondary school transitions; England; regression and graphical analysis

Revised Accounting For Business Combinations

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has recently issued Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 (Revised 2007) Business Combinations. The object of this Statement is to improve the relevance, representational faithfulness, and comparability of reported information about a business combination and its effects. This Statement replaces FASB Statement No. 141, but retains the fundamental requirements that the acquisition method of accounting (previously called the purchase method) be used for all business combinations. Some of the changes related to the accounting for business combinations as a result of the new requirements are discussed and illustrated below

Enron: An In-Depth Analysis Of The Hedging Schemes

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Reducing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression for NICU Parents

This project aims to appraise evidence of the effectiveness of various practices on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression among parents of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The project contains six research articles from both national and international journals. Study designs include one meta-analysis, one randomized controlled trial, one small scale randomized controlled trial, one prospective phase lag cohort study, on pretest-posttest study, and one mixed-methods pretest-posttest study. Recommendations for effective interventions were based on best evidence discovered through quality appraisal and study outcomes. All interventions, except for educational programs and Kangaroo Care, resulted in a statistically significant reduction of either stress, anxiety, and/ or depression. Family centered care and mindfulness-based intervention reduced all barriers of interest. There is strong and high-quality evidence for the effect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on depression, moderate evidence for the effect of activity-based group therapy on anxiety, and promising evidence for the effect of HUG Your Baby on stress

Neogenin and RGMa control neural tube closure and neuroepithelial morphology by regulating cell polarity

In humans, neural tube closure defects occur in 1: 1000 pregnancies. The design of new strategies for the prevention of such common defects would benefit from an improved understanding of the molecular events underlying neurulation. Neural fold elevation is a key morphological process that acts during neurulation to drive neural tube closure. However, to date, the molecular pathways underpinning neural fold elevation have not been elucidated. Here, we use morpholino knock-down technology to demonstrate that Repulsive Guidance Molecule (RGMa)-Neogenin interactions are essential for effective neural fold elevation during Xenopus neurulation and that loss of these molecules results in disrupted neural tube closure. We demonstrate that Neogenin and RGMa are required for establishing the morphology of deep layer cells in the neural plate throughout neurulation. We also show that loss of Neogenin severely disrupts the microtubule network within the deep layer cells suggesting that Neogenin-dependent microtubule organization within the deep cells is essential for radial intercalation with the overlying superficial cell layer, thereby driving neural fold elevation. In addition, we show that sustained Neogenin activity is also necessary for the establishment of the apicobasally polarized pseudostratified neuroepithelium of the neural tube. Therefore, our study identifies a novel signaling pathway essential for radial intercalation and epithelialization during neural fold elevation and neural tube morphogenesis. Copyright ©2008 Society for Neuroscienc

Centrifuge Characterization and Numerical Modeling of the Dynamic Properties of Tire Shreds for Use as Bridge Abutment Backfill

Two model tests were performed on tire shred fills to document the dynamic elastic material properties of tire shreds using the large centrifuge at UC Davis. The tests were considered to be “element” tests of tire shred material properties, rather than the more typical centrifuge modeling of a site profile. As these were the first tests using tire shred material on the UC Davis centrifuge, new construction and instrumentation techniques were developed. New geophysical wave sources for use with tire shreds were developed to identify reasonable material properties to use in FEM analyses. In addition to the geophysical testing for elastic material parameters, each tire shred fill was shaken with a suite of earthquake and sinusoidal motions using the servo-hydraulic shaking table mounted on the centrifuge. A two-dimensional finite element model using the elastic material parameters identified from the centrifuge tests was used to explore the effects of incorporating tire shred fills with varying geometries in bridge abutment backfills. Modal analyses were used to examine the effects of including shreds on the abutment natural frequency. Results of these preliminary analyses are mentioned briefly

Health, ethics and environment: A qualitative study of vegetarian motivations

This qualitative study explored the motivations of vegetarians by means of online ethnographic research with participants in an international message board. The researcher participated in discussions on the board, gathered responses to questions from 33 participants, and conducted follow-up e-mail interviews with eighteen of these participants. Respondents were predominantly from the US, Canada and the UK. Seventy per cent were female, and ages ranged from 14 to 53, with a median of 26 years. Data were analysed using a thematic approach. While this research found that health and the ethical treatment of animals were the main motivators for participants’ vegetarianism, participants reported a range of commitments to environmental concerns, although in only one case was environmentalism a primary motivator for becoming a vegetarian. The data indicates that vegetarians may follow a trajectory, in which initial motivations are augmented over time by other reasons for sustaining or further restricting their diet

The oldest old and the risk of social exclusion

This article examines whether people aged eighty-five-and-over, referred to throughout as ‘The Oldest Old’, are more likely to suffer from social exclusion than people aged sixty-five to eighty-four. Social Exclusion is defined according to the four dimensions identified in the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey. Using data from Understanding Society, the analysis finds that the Oldest Old have a higher likelihood of experiencing social exclusion than people aged sixty-five to eighty-four. These findings illustrate the risks facing the Oldest Old, and highlight the policy challenges presented by ageing western populations

The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of macrophyte communities in thirty small, temporary ponds over a period of ten years

Ponds are important habitats within many landscapes because of the diversity of wildlife they support. This arises in part because of the heterogeneity of ecological communities found in neighbouring ponds but this variation has proved difficult to explain. Chance and unrecorded historic events have often been emphasised as explanations. This study describes the development of spatial heterogeneity and the role of historic events in the development of pond plant macrophyte communities from the ponds' creation until ten later using thirty small, adjacent temporary ponds in Northumberland. Plant communities showed significant spatial variation from the first year onwards. Metacommunity spatial patterns changed over time but even after ten years several distinct macrophyte communities persisted in different ponds. The outcome was that a greater variety of pond communities persisted than was likely if a single, larger pond had been created on the site. The spatial patterns of the plants communities were compared to spatial variation of summer dry-phase and winter inundation. Macrophyte heterogeneity appeared to result from deterministic change which would have been difficult to detect in a snap-shot survey not knowing the history of the ponds. Winter inundation showed significant spatial trends every year which mirrored the changing distribution of macrophyte communities between ponds. The proximate influence of the inundation is ultimately determined by the position of each pond in the landscape so that the marked spatial and temporal heterogeneity of plant communities was strongly influenced by small scale variation in hydrology. The results suggest that the heterogeneity of pondlife across a landscape may be deterministic when recorded over a longer time period and not due to chance, but that the determining environmental factors are highly contingent on the locality of the pond