The effectiveness of the discretionary financial award, the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), in a tertiary college in the South West of England

The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a discretionary financial award being developed to support young people from low-income households who undertake full-time courses in further education (FE). South West College* is part of the national pilot scheme for this award initiated by the government in September 1999, which currently involves 56 Local Education Authorities. The aim of this research was to examine the effect of the EMA on participation. retention and achievement in full-time further education courses for young people from low-income households in South West College; and to identify the extent to which a financial incentive can improve post-16 recruitment, retention and results on advanced level (academic and vocational) courses. Theme generating student and staff perceptions were sought on the impact of the EMA. College data were analysed to allow for a comparison of an EMA and non-EMA cohort and any tentative identification of the extent to which remuneration had affected student participation, retention and achievement. Findings suggest that for full-time advanced level students from low-income backgrounds enrolling on a course in 1999, the EMA may have had a positive effect on retention, but that participation and achievement appeared unaffected in South West College. The findings differs from the national evaluation results that identify increased levels of both participation and retention, but have yet to comment on achievement. Student and staff perceptions of the EMA were that it is a good idea in further education and that it should help students in paying for additional and indirect educational expenses. The EMA appears to support widening participation and success in further education; however critical evaluation suggests that cultural factors, as well as financial or structural factors, may impact on students' decisions to participate, stay on and achieve at advanced level. The EMA may not generate a more highly skilled workforce to support economic growth (DfES 2002a). *The name of the case study college has been changed to protect its identity in accordance with ethical considerations

XMDS2: Fast, scalable simulation of coupled stochastic partial differential equations

XMDS2 is a cross-platform, GPL-licensed, open source package for numerically integrating initial value problems that range from a single ordinary differential equation up to systems of coupled stochastic partial differential equations. The equations are described in a high-level XML-based script, and the package generates low-level optionally parallelised C++ code for the efficient solution of those equations. It combines the advantages of high-level simulations, namely fast and low-error development, with the speed, portability and scalability of hand-written code. XMDS2 is a complete redesign of the XMDS package, and features support for a much wider problem space while also producing faster code.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Different forms of the bovine PrP gene have five or six copies of a short, G-C-rich element within the protein-coding exon

Current models of the virus-like agents of scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) have to take into account that structural changes in a host-encoded protein (PrP protein) exhibit an effect on the time course of these diseases and the survival time of any man or animal exposed to these pathogens. We report here the sequence of different forms of the bovine PrP gene which contain either five or six copies of a short, G-C-rich element which encodes the octapeptide Pro-His-Gly-Gly-Gly-Trp-Gly-Gln or its longer variants Pro-Gln/His-Gly-Gly-Gly-Gly-Trp-Gly-Gln. Out of 12 cattle, we found eight animals homozygous for genes with six copies of the Gly-rich peptide (6:6), while four were heterozygous (6:5). Two confirmed cases of BSE occurred in (6: 6) homozygous animals. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a transmissible disease (Fraser et al., 1988; Dawson et al., 1990; Barlow & Middleton, 1990) which produces neuropathological lesions in cattle similar to those seen in ovine scrapie (Wells et al., 1987) and the rare human dementias Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Gerstmann-Str/iussler syndrome (GSS) (Beck & Daniel, 1987). A cellular membrane protein (PrP) has a key role in the transmission and development of these diseases. This protein accumulates in the brain and other tissues during the protracted time course of these diseases and, in a disease-specific, protease-resistant isoform (SAF-PrP), has been purified by subcellular fractionation of scrapie

Net Intercensal Migration For States And Geographic Divisions Of The United States, 1950-1960: Methodological And Substantive Aspects

The main purpose of this report is to carry forward the major migration series analyzed in Population Redistribution and Economic Growth, and to summarize developments in 1950-1960. In the process, considerable emphasis is placed upon comparisons between 1950-1960 and 1940-1950. Because the historica1 data exclude Hawaii and Alaska, much of the discussion deals with conterminous United States rather than with the total United States as now constituted. In addition, estimates derived by other methods are compared with those based on census survival ratios, and some attempt is made to evaluate the merits of each and to integrate the findings

Twenty-one young adult patients with rheumatic heart disease

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University, 1942. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Let’s Talk: A Study of the Impact of Gendered Racial Socialization on African American Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health

Internalized racial oppression in African American girls is understudied within research. As people of color are victimized by racism, they may internalize it, developing ideas, beliefs, actions and behaviors that support or collude with racism (Bivens, 1995). This internalized racism has its own systemic reality and its own negative consequences in the lives and communities of people of color. Understanding the way negative racial messages influence the mental health of African American adolescent girls allows for the development of intervention and prevention methods to reduce symptomology of depression, anxiety, and stress. In order for African American girls and young women to develop a healthy sense of self, families must prepare them to cope with the realities of experiencing intersecting oppression (i.e., racism and sexism; Edmondson Bell & Nkomo 1998; Lewis et al. 2013). This may occur through an African American-specific process of gendered racial socialization (Brown et al. 2016). While some research has examined the relationship between racial discrimination and race related stress outcomes (Buford, 2009) or internalized racial oppression on ethnic identity and self-efficacy (La Mar, 2018), there are no current studies that have looked at the impact of internalized gendered racial oppression (IGRO) on negative affect of African American adolescent girls or possible ways to moderate this impact. This study identifies a relationship between IGRO and depression, anxiety and stress symptoms while isolating messages of gendered racial pride and empowerment (GRPE) that reduce these symptoms in Black adolescent girls. To test the hypothesis, GRPE socialization moderates the relationship between IGRO socialization and indicators of psychological wellbeing (i.e., depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms) this study analyzed the responses of 287 Black adolescent girls (MAge = 15.40) who completed questionnaires assessing the study variables of interest as part of a larger parent-teen dyadic study. A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. Models of the main effects of IGRO and GRPE on depression (R 2 = .04), anxiety (R 2 = .04), and stress (R 2 = .04) were significant (all ps \u3c .001), suggesting these variables accounted for significant variance in the mental health symptoms. For depression, increases in both IGRO (b=.83, p \u3c .001) and GRPE (b=.20, p \u3c .05) were associated with increases in reported depression symptoms. However, examination of the interaction (b=-.16, p \u3c .01) via simple slopes suggested that the Black girls reported higher levels of GRPE, the negative impact of IGRO on depressive symptoms was attenuated. Indeed, at the highest levels of GRPE, the effect of IGRO on depressive symptoms was reduced to non-significance. Similar patterns emerged for teen anxiety and stress, with increased IGRO associated with increasing symptom endorsement and increasing GRPE attenuating this effect. These findings suggest that it is particularly important for African-American youth to receive messages conveying pride and empowerment on being a black girl to aid in reducing the mental health symptoms associated with IGRO. By identifying key messages of gendered racial socialization, this study has the potential to educate parents and teachers on the impact of their messages on children’s mental health. Implications and future directions regarding gendered racial socialization of Black teenaged girls are discussed.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1053/thumbnail.jp

Multimode quantum limits to the linewidth of an atom laser

The linewidth of an atom laser can be limited by excitation of higher energy modes in the source Bose-Einstein condensate, energy shifts in that condensate due to the atomic interactions, or phase diffusion of the lasing mode due to those interactions. The first two are effects that can be described with a semiclassical model, and have been studied in detail for both pumped and unpumped atom lasers. The third is a purely quantum statistical effect, and has been studied only in zero dimensional models. We examine an unpumped atom laser in one dimension using a quantum field theory using stochastic methods based on the truncated Wigner approach. This allows spatial and statistical effects to be examined simultaneously, and the linewidth limit for unpumped atom lasers is quantified in various limits.Comment: 8 Figure

Recruiting New Teachers to Urban School Districts: What Incentives Will Work

Explores the effectiveness of financial incentives in attracting qualified teachers to low-performing and hard-to-staff schools. Surveys teachers in training on factors in job choices and considers the size of an effective pay incentive and alternatives