Do teachers matter? Measuring the variation in teacher effectiveness in England

Using a unique primary dataset for the UK, we estimate the effect of individual teachers on student outcomes, and the variability in teacher quality. This links over 7000 pupils to the individual teachers who taught them, in each of their compulsory subjects in the high-stakes exams at age 16. We use point-in-time fixed effects and prior attainment to control for pupil heterogeneity. We find considerable variability in teacher effectiveness, a little higher than the estimates found in the few US studies. We also corroborate recent findings that observed teachers’ characteristics explain very little of the differences in estimated effectiveness.education, test scores, teacher effectiveness

An archaeological analysis of later prehistoric settlement and society in Perthshire and Stirlingshire

This thesis presents the first ever synthesis of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Perthshire and Stirlingshire. It draws on evidence from excavations, field survey and aerial survey, the latter two largely undertaken by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. It is clear from this study that the key to appreciating the structure of the data within this region is a sound understanding of the history of research. Several key players are identified in the history of antiquarian research in the area, with Christian Maclagan and David Christian emerging as pioneers in field recording. However, aerial and ground survey, particularly since the mid-1970s has been crucial in altering the perceived nature of the archaeological resource, with the density of known upland settlement increasing dramatically, and numerous plough-truncated sites being identified in lowland cropmarks. The geology, geomorphology and soils of the study area is characterised, and factors that might have affected how later prehistoric people interacted with and perceived their environment are identified. These include sea level change in the Forth Valley in the Iron Age, climatic deterioration in the Early Iron Age and major forest clearance and increased cultivation in the Late Iron Age. A mosaic of vegetation types can be envisaged for the later prehistoric landscape, which seems to have opened out in the last few hundred years of the first millennium ВС, perhaps to cope with an increased population. Analysis of existing excavated data on plant macrofossils provided further detail here, suggesting that such crops were grown and processed in both the upland and lowland zones. While the absence of significant quantities of cereal pollen need not conclusively imply a pastoral dimension to the later prehistoric economy, a reassessment of zoo-archaeological evidence made it quite clear that domestic cattle and sheep/goat were in use, in addition to domestic horses and wild animals. Following this, a critical review of the chronological framework is provided, followed by reclassification of the various site types known. It proves possible to assign broad date ranges to the different types of site identified. This new classification is used as the basis for an assessment of dating and function of these sites. The case studies of Stirling, south-east Perthshire and north-east Perthshire enable an assessment of site morphology and settlement patterns on a more local level, armed with a regionally-specific chronological and functional framework. These various lines of enquiry are then drawn together to provide a narrative describing the nature of later prehistoric settlement and society. The study area is then put into context, through comparison with the evidence from adjacent areas of Eastern Scotland. The previous models, which emphasised the differences between settlement, society and economy in areas north and south of the Forth, as a long-term structural feature of Scottish archaeology have been shown to be erroneous. It is not until the Late Iron Age that marked differences in the settlement of Stirlingshire and Perthshire can be observed. A conscious decision was made in this study to move away from the status-dominated assumptions of previous accounts. When we look at the Iron Age of Stirlingshire in a chronologically dynamic way, we see rather than the no-man's land described by previous authors, or the highly stratified society envisaged by those who assume that the lowland brochs are high-status, a wealthy area with a high enough population to necessitate large-scale woodland clearance by the final years of the first millennium ВС. In Perthshire too, both highland and lowland, there is little evidence of a social hierarchy at any time. The contextual, temporally dynamic approach to later prehistoric remains taken here has enabled us to gain a much more firmly-based view of settlement and society in Perthshire and Stirlingshire

LIFE: Costing the digital preservation lifecycle

Having confidence in the permanence of a digital resource requires a deep understanding of the preservation activities that will need to be performed throughout its lifetime, and an ability to plan and resource for those activities. The LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-Literature) Project1 has advanced understanding of the short and long-term costs in this complex area, facilitating better planning, comparison and evaluation of digital lifecycles. The LIFE Project created a digital lifecycle model based on previous work undertaken on the lifecycles of paper-based materials. It applied the model to real-life collections, modelling their lifecycles and studying their constituent processes. The results were then used to estimate the costs of each element of the digital lifecycle. Organisations can now apply this process, enabling evaluation and refinement of their existing lifecycles and facilitating more effective planning for the preservation of newly acquired content. Phase 2 of the LIFE Project began in February 2007. It is evaluating and refining the models and methodology developed in the first phase of the project and developing lifecycle costings for a range of further case studies

Streaming primary urgent care: a prospective approach

Aim: To identify the appropriate service provider attendees of emergency departments (EDs) and walk-in centres (WiCs) in North East London and to match this to local service provision and patient choice. Design: An anonymous patient survey and a retrospective analysis of a random sample of patient records were performed. A nurse consultant, general practitioner (GP) and pharmacist used the presenting complaints in the patients’ records to independently stream the patient to primary care services, non-National Health Services or ED. Statistical analysis of level of agreement was undertaken. A stakeholder focus group reviewed the results. Subjects and setting Adult health consumers attending ED and urgent care services in North East London. Results The health user survey identified younger rather than older users (mean age of 35.6 years – SD 15.5), where 50% had not seen a health professional about their concern, with over 40% unable to obtain a convenient or emergency appointment with their GP. Over a third of the attendees were already receiving treatment and over 40% of these saw their complaint as an emergency. Over half of respondents expected to see a doctor, one-quarter expected to see a nurse and only 1% expected to see a pharmacist across both services, although WiCs are nurse-led services. More respondents expected a prescription from a visit to a WiC, whereas in the ED a third of respondents sought health advice or reassurance. Conclusion: A number of unscheduled care strategies are, or have just been, developed with the emphasis on moving demand into community-based services. Plurality of services provides service users with a range of alternative access points but can cause duplication of services and repeat attendance. Managing continued increase in emergency and unscheduled care is a challenge. The uncertainties in prospective decision making could be used to inform service development and delivery

Estimating nutrient concentrations from catchment characteristics across the UK

Within a Geographical Information System (GIS) framework, the distributions of nitrate and orthophosphate concentrations at monitoring sites across the UK were examined and empirical relationships with catchment characteristics were established. The mean orthophosphate concentrations were linked strongly with the urban component, and less significantly with effective rainfall and agricultural coverage. This is of strategic importance in relation to phosphorus and the Water Framework Directive. Correspondingly, mean nitrate concentrations were linked to land-use types, base flow index and effective rainfall. Within-catchment residence times and effective-rainfall (runoff) were important in relation to nitrate. The issue of nitrate and the Water Framework Directive is more complex than that for orthophosphate and involves a strong agricultural as well as an urban component

Particle swarm algorithm with adaptive constraint handling and integrated surrogate model for the management of petroleum fields

This paper deals with the development of effective techniques to automatically obtain the optimum management of petroleum fields aiming to increase the oil production during a given concession period of exploration. The optimization formulations of such a problem turn out to be highly multimodal, and may involve constraints. In this paper, we develop a robust particle swarm algorithm coupled with a novel adaptive constraint-handling technique to search for the global optimum of these formulations. However, this is a population-based method, which therefore requires a high number of evaluations of an objective function. Since the performance evaluation of a given management scheme requires a computationally expensive high-fidelity simulation, it is not practicable to use it directly to guide the search. In order to overcome this drawback, a Kriging surrogate model is used, which is trained offline via evaluations of a High-Fidelity simulator on a number of sample points. The optimizer then seeks the optimum of the surrogate model

The early presentation and management of rheumatoid arthritis cases in primary care

Recent NICE guidance has emphasised the importance of early recognition and referral of patients with inflammatory arthritis so that disease modifying treatment can be promptly initiated. The timely identification of such patients, given the large numbers consulting with musculoskeletal complaints, is a considerable challenge and descriptive data from primary care are sparse. Our objective was to examine GP records from three years before to 14 days after the first coded diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in order to describe the early course and management of the diseas

The ergonomics of designing a CD-ROM workplace in an automated library

This study considers ergonomics related to the design of a Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) workplace. The practical research was performed at Charing Cross and Westminster Library and Information Service which houses five dedicated CD-ROM workstations in a 'microlab'. The first objective of the research was to draw up a comprehensive list of specifications detailing the ideal layout of a computerized office and CD-ROM workstation. Secondly, to identify and examine the ergonomic problems in the micro-lab. Thirdly, to make a series of recommendations relating to the human factors in the micro-lab. This dissertation also asks the question, 'Why is ergonomics important?'. The principal means of research was the interview survey technique. This was applied to obtain the views of staff and users on a wide range of human factor issues relating to CD-ROM workstation design. The interview contained questions on aspects of automation, workplace deSign, health and safety and environmental working conditions. There was also a period of observation when photographs were taken. Host users had a positive reaction to the CD-ROM workplace and wanted the service extended. However, there was concern expressed regarding specific human factor problems relating to ergonomics, workplace design and the environmental conditions. Some operators made a link between human factor issues and the health and safety problems. Consequently, the recommendations, detailing the possible improvements, outlined how the micro-lab could be relocated. They were divided into short term and long term goals