A perspective on the control of FES-supported standing

This special section is about the control of electrical stimulators to restore standing functions to paraplegics. It addresses several important topics regarding the interactions of the intact central nervous systems (CNS) with the artificial control system. The topics are as follows: how paraplegics use their arms to help themselves stand up with functional electrical stimulation (FES); the user-driven artificial control of FESsupported standing up; a controller which is promising for the control of sitting down; the application of reinforcement machine learning for the controllers of standing up; arms-free\ud standing with voluntary upper body balancing and artificially controlled ankle stiffness; and cognitive feedback in balancing. This Commentary introduces the papers in this section and relates them to earlier research

Dirac Monopoles and Witten's Monopole Equations

A simple solution of Witten's monopole equations is given.Comment: 3 pages. Late

An evaluation of a professional learning network for computer science teachers

This paper describes and evaluates aspects of a professional development programme for existing CS teachers in secondary schools (PLAN C) which was designed to support teachers at a time of substantial curricular change. The paper’s particular focus is on the formation of a teacher professional development network across several hundred teachers and a wide geographical area. Evidence from a series of observations and teacher surveys over a two-year period is analysed with respect to the project’s programme theory in order to illustrate not only whether it worked as intended, by why. Results indicate that the PLAN C design has been successful in increasing teachers’ professional confidence and appears to have catalysed powerful change in attitudes to learning. Presentation of challenging pedagogical content knowledge and conceptual frameworks, high-quality teacher-led professional dialogue, along with the space for reflection and classroom trials, triggered examination of the teachers’ own current practices

An analysis of the appropriateness of the four funds approach for the taxation of life insurers in South Africa including a qualitative comparison to the recently enacted approach adopted in New Zealand and recommendations for improvement to the approach

Section 29A of the Income Tax Act No. 58 of 1962 contains a special set of rules for the taxation of life insurers. These rules were originally enacted in 1993 and are commonly referred to as the four funds approach. The rules have remained largely unchanged since their original enactment despite ongoing changes in the life insurance industry in particular with regards to new product offerings

Remembering the South African War

The experience of the South African War sharpened the desire to commemorate for a number of reasons. An increasingly literate public, a burgeoning populist press, an army reinforced by waves of volunteers and, to contemporaries at least, a shockingly high death toll embedded the war firmly in the national consciousness. In addition, with the fallen buried far from home those left behind required other forms of commemoration. For these reasons, the South African War was an important moment of transition in commemorative practice and foreshadowed the rituals of remembrance that engulfed Britain in the aftermath of the Great War. This work provides the first comprehensive survey of the memorialisation process in Britain in the aftermath of the South African War. By uncovering the themes and myths that underpinned these interpretations of the war, shifting patterns in how the war was represented and conceived are revealed

Attributes and weights in health care priority setting: a systematic review of what counts and to what extent

In most societies resources are insufficient to provide everyone with all the health care they want. In practice, this means that some people are given priority over others. On what basis should priority be given? In this paper we are interested in the general public's views on this question. We set out to synthesis what the literature has found as a whole regarding which attributes or factors the general public think should count in priority setting and what weight they should receive. A systematic review was undertaken (in August 2014) to address these questions based on empirical studies that elicited stated preferences from the general public. Sixty four studies, applying eight methods, spanning five continents met the inclusion criteria. Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) and Person Trade-off (PTO) were the most popular standard methods for preference elicitation, but only 34% of all studies calculated distributional weights, mainly using PTO. While there is heterogeneity, results suggest the young are favoured over the old, the more severely ill are favoured over the less severely ill, and people with self-induced illness or high socioeconomic status tend to receive lower priority. In those studies that considered health gain, larger gain is universally preferred, but at a diminishing rate. Evidence from the small number of studies that explored preferences over different components of health gain suggests life extension is favoured over quality of life enhancement; however this may be reversed at the end of life. The majority of studies that investigated end of life care found weak/no support for providing a premium for such care. The review highlights considerable heterogeneity in both methods and results. Further methodological work is needed to achieve the goal of deriving robust distributional weights for use in health care priority setting.12 page(s

Flexible Low-cost Activities to Develop Novice Code Comprehension Skills in Schools

The lack of code comprehension skills in novice programming students is recognised as a major factor underpinning poor learning outcomes. We use Schulte’s Block Model to support teachers’ understanding of how to break the skill down into component parts that are more manageable for a learner. This analysis is operationalised in three code annotation-based learning/assessment exercise formats, two helping students to identify and describe programming concepts and the third enabling them to parse code correctly and carry out desk executions. A great benefit of the activities is that they are low cost and can be applied to any imperative style code and so can be easily adopted by schools anywhere; furthermore, they are active, not passive, an issue with some animation-based visualisation approaches. The exercise formats were included as part of a national schools computing science professional learning programme (PLAN C)

Theoretical studies of some inelastic collision processes

i. The quadrupole-quadrupole mechanism alone cannot account for all the observed rate constants though it does account almost entirely for near-resonant processes. (Te/H₂, I/HD). In particular, isotopic ratios, which are largely independent of the details of the electronic eigen functions, are not correctly predicted. Nevertheless, the long-range mechanism is clearly an important one and cannot be dismissed.ii. Neglecting rotational and populational factors, processes which differ in ΔE from the nearest resonant process by more than 200 cm⁻¹ at 300K may be neglected.iii. The calculated rate constants are not sensitive to the choice of co-ordinate system.iv. For the rotating co-ordinate system calculations, the symmetrised, straight line trajectory is a.useful approximation.v. The observed rate constants may increase or decrease with increasing temperature.vi. Provided a(v) does not vary too rapidly around V=Vm the approximation K=VO(Vm) is a useful one

The relationship between regulatory focus and online shopping: perceived risk, affect, and consumers' response to online marketing.

Regulatory focus theory (RTF) has demonstrated that individuals can be distinguished on the basis of two independent structures of strategic inclination and orientation in the pursuit of goals: promotion focus - which emphasises the presence of positive outcomes while minimising errors of omission, versus prevention focus - which favours the absence of negative outcomes and minimising errors of commission. Yet no research, thus far, has explicitly considered the potential link between consumers' regulatory focus (RF), perceived risk, affect, and their response to online marketing (ROM) in the various dimensions of online shopping (OS). This paper fills this gap. By linking regulatory focus with online consumer shopping behaviour we empirically test a number of hypotheses to predict how consumers with different foci perceive risk on the internet, the consequence of this perception on their affect, and their overall response behaviour to online marketing. Our findings provide confirmatory evidence that RF is a powerful predictor of behaviour in OS

Can regulatory focus help explain why we shop differently online?

As an important behavioral trait in consumer psychology, regulatory focus (RF) has been proven to describe and predict human behavior in numerous situations as it demonstrates that individuals can be distinguished according to two independent structures of strategic inclination and orientation in the pursuit of goals: promotion focus and prevention focus. However, to date no research has explicitly considered the potential link between RF and perceived risk in the various dimensions of online shopping (OS). This paper aims to fill this gap. By developing an RF model of online consumer shopping behavior (REFCOS) covering motives, behaviors, and continuance-evaluation and empirically testing a number of hypotheses, we find how consumers with different foci use the Internet. Our findings provide confirmatory evidence for emerging literature that RF is a powerful predictor of behavior in OS