Alterations in functional brain network structure induced by subchronic phencyclidine (PCP) treatment parallel those seen in schizophrenia

Abstract of poster presentation shown at the 2nd Biennial Schizophrenia International Research Conference on Alterations in functional brain network structure induced by subchronic phencyclidine (PCP) treatment parallel those seen in schizophrenia

Modelling the cAMP pathway using BioNessie, and the use of BVP techniques for solving ODEs (Poster Presentation)

Copyright @ 2007 Gu et al; licensee BioMed Central LtdBiochemists often conduct experiments in-vivo in order to explore observable behaviours and understand the dynamics of many intercellular and intracellular processes. However an intuitive understanding of their dynamics is hard to obtain because most pathways of interest involve components connected via interlocking loops. Formal methods for modelling and analysis of biochemical pathways are therefore indispensable. To this end, ODEs (ordinary differential equations) have been widely adopted as a method to model biochemical pathways because they have an unambiguous mathematical format and are amenable to rigorous quantitative analysis. BioNessie http://www.bionessie.com webcite is a workbench for the composition, simulation and analysis of biochemical networks which is being developed in by the Systems Biology team at the Bioinformatics Research Centre as a part of a large DTI funded project 'BPS: A Software Tool for the Simulation and Analysis of Biochemical Networks' http://www.brc.dcs.gla.ac.uk/projects/dti_beacon webcite. BioNessie is written in Java using NetBeans Platform libraries that makes it platform independent. The software employs specialised differential equations solvers for stiff and non-stiff systems to produce model simulation traces. BioNessie provides a user-friendly interfact that comes up with an intuitive tree-based graphical layout, an edition function to SBML-compatible models and feature of data output

Raising the participation age in historical perspective : Policy learning from the past?

The raising of the participation age (RPA) to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015 marks a historic expansion of compulsory education. Despite the tendency of New Labour governments to eschew historical understanding and explanation, RPA was conceived with the benefit of an analysis of previous attempts to extend compulsion in schooling. This paper assesses the value of a historical understanding of education policy. The period from inception to the projected implementation of RPA is an extended one which has crossed over the change of government, from Labour to Coalition, in 2010. The shifting emphases and meanings of RPA are not simply technical issues but connect to profound historical and social changes. An analysis of the history of the raising of the school leaving age reveals many points of comparison with the contemporary situation. In a number of key areas it is possible to gain insights into the ways in which the study of the past can help to comprehend the present: the role of human capital, the structures of education, in curriculum development and in terms of preparations for change