Subjective ratings of prospective memory deficits in chronic heavy alcohol users

Chronic alcohol abuse has a detrimental effect on retrospective memory. Less is known about its putative effects on everyday memory. This study looked at self-ratings of prospective memory (PM) (memory for future events). After controlling for other drug and strategy use, chronic heavy alcohol users showed global impairments in PM, when compared to matched controls. The underlying mechanisms are discussed

'We didn't realise how brave we were at the time': the 1968 Ford sewing machinists' strike in public and personal memory

The 1968 sewing machinists' strike for equal grading at Ford's plant in Dagenham has been identified as a key moment in the history of women and work, widely associated with prompting the 1970 Equal Pay Act and presaging a period that saw the emergence of the Women's Liberation Movement and increased gender equality in Britain. Public memory of the strike's legacy was transmitted to a wider audience through the 2010 feature film Made in Dagenham. This article shows that this was not necessarily how the sewing machinists understood the strike's outcome at the time, or in the period since. The article considers the impact of film on the personal memory of women involved in the dispute and explores how they negotiated the tension between their newfound public role as history-makers and their personal experience of defeat

Rethinking the Role of History in Law & Economics: The Case of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927

In the study of law and economics, there is a danger that historical inferences from theory may infect historical tests of theory. It is imperative, therefore, that historical tests always involve a vigorous search not only for confirming evidence, but for disconfirming evidence as well. We undertake such a search in the context of a single well-known case: the Federal Radio Commission's (FRC's) 1927 decision not to expand the broadcast radio band. The standard account of this decision holds that incumbent broadcasters opposed expansion (to avoid increased competition) and succeeded in capturing the FRC. Although successful broadcaster opposition may be taken as confirming evidence for this interpretation, our review of the record reveals even stronger disconfirming evidence. In particular, we find that every major interest group, not just radio broadcasters, publicly opposed expansion of the band in 1927, and that broadcasters themselves were divided at the FRC's hearings.

The Danielson Model of Teacher Evaluation: Exploring Teacher Perceptions Concerning Its Value in Shaping and Improving Instructional Practice

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, the school reform movement has offered many contrasting ideas and initiatives to make our nation’s schools more effective and globally competitive. Today’s educational leaders are faced with an array of complex demands as they are challenged at the state and federal level to improve teacher practices and learning outcomes within their schools. One of those demands for New Jersey administrators was to implement a teacher evaluation program that improves teaching and learning during the 2013-2014 school year. Mielke and Frontier (2012) believe that meaningful teacher evaluation has the potential to lead to improved instruction and professional growth and that the key to success in teacher evaluation may very well be the perceptions and attitudes of the teachers as they participate in the process The purpose of this research study was to examine teachers’ perception concerning their school’s evaluation practices utilizing the Danielson Framework, specifically if these teachers believe that it is of value in shaping and improving their instructional practices. This qualitative study gathered data from fifteen teachers from one New Jersey high school through semi-structured interviews and observations of the teachers’ conversations with the researcher. The purposely-selected participants are all teachers at the selected high school representing a wide variety of content areas taught as well as a variety in teaching experience. This research is relevant for school leaders contemplating how best to support, design, develop and implement an effective teacher evaluation system. This research can help districts transform teacher evaluation system from merely an exercise in state compliance into an effective tool that can link effective teacher evaluation to improved teacher practices. The researcher believes that the teachers interviewed in this study perceive that if educators are given the opportunity to reflect deeply on their practice through a common framework like what is presented in the Danielson Framework, teachers can identify both their strengths and weaknesses and set attainable goals. Through active involvement in the evaluation process, evidence-based feedback, and professional discussions between teachers and their supervisors, meaningful teacher evaluation practices can help both the school and the teacher determine the focus of each teachers’ professional development based on what is actually occurring or not occurring in the classroom. The vast amounts of money, energy, and dedication currently being expended by Rolling Hills to reform their teacher evaluation system will only ensure the continuous improvement of teaching and learning if teacher learning is part of their evaluation. If a culture of meaningful evaluation, continuous feedback, and differentiated support does not already exist, then school leaders must provide the communication and actions to win over the trust of its teachers so that they all believe that professional growth is one of the schools purposes of evaluation

Linear degeneracy in multidimensions

Linear degeneracy of a PDE is a concept that is related to a number of interesting geometric constructions. We first take a quadratic line complex, which is a three parameter family of lines in projective space P3 specified by a single quadratic relation in the Plucker coordinates. This complex supplies us with a conformal structure in P3. With this conformal structure, we associate a three-dimensional second order quasilinear wave equation. We show that any PDE arising in this way is linearly degenerate, furthermore, any linearly degenerate PDE can be obtained by this construction. We classify Segre types of quadratic complexes for which the structure is conformally flat, as well as Segre types for which the corresponding PDE is integrable. These results were published in [1]. We then introduce the notion of characteristic integrals, discuss characteristic integrals in 3D and show that, for certain classes of second-order linearly degenerate dispersionless integrable PDEs, the corresponding characteristic integrals are parameterised by points on the Veronese variety. These results were published in [2]

The Danielson Model of Teacher Evaluation: Exploring Teacher Perceptions Concerning Its Value in Shaping and Improving Instructional Practice

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, the school reform movement has offered many contrasting ideas and initiatives to make our nation’s schools more effective and globally competitive. Today’s educational leaders are faced with an array of complex demands as they are challenged at the state and federal level to improve teacher practices and learning outcomes within their schools. One of those demands for New Jersey administrators was to implement a teacher evaluation program that improves teaching and learning during the 2013-2014 school year. Mielke and Frontier (2012) believe that meaningful teacher evaluation has the potential to lead to improved instruction and professional growth and that the key to success in teacher evaluation may very well be the perceptions and attitudes of the teachers as they participate in the process The purpose of this research study was to examine teachers’ perception concerning their school’s evaluation practices utilizing the Danielson Framework, specifically if these teachers believe that it is of value in shaping and improving their instructional practices. This qualitative study gathered data from fifteen teachers from one New Jersey high school through semi-structured interviews and observations of the teachers’ conversations with the researcher. The purposely-selected participants are all teachers at the selected high school representing a wide variety of content areas taught as well as a variety in teaching experience. This research is relevant for school leaders contemplating how best to support, design, develop and implement an effective teacher evaluation system. This research can help districts transform teacher evaluation system from merely an exercise in state compliance into an effective tool that can link effective teacher evaluation to improved teacher practices. The researcher believes that the teachers interviewed in this study perceive that if educators are given the opportunity to reflect deeply on their practice through a common framework like what is presented in the Danielson Framework, teachers can identify both their strengths and weaknesses and set attainable goals. Through active involvement in the evaluation process, evidence-based feedback, and professional discussions between teachers and their supervisors, meaningful teacher evaluation practices can help both the school and the teacher determine the focus of each teachers’ professional development based on what is actually occurring or not occurring in the classroom. The vast amounts of money, energy, and dedication currently being expended by Rolling Hills to reform their teacher evaluation system will only ensure the continuous improvement of teaching and learning if teacher learning is part of their evaluation. If a culture of meaningful evaluation, continuous feedback, and differentiated support does not already exist, then school leaders must provide the communication and actions to win over the trust of its teachers so that they all believe that professional growth is one of the schools purposes of evaluation

Exploring attitudes towards a randomised controlled trial of venous access devices – a nested pre-trial qualitative study

Purpose: This pre-trial qualitative research study was carried out to explore patient and clinical staff attitudes to central venous access devices (CVADs). In addition, views about participation in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) were explored with the aim of maximising recruitment to an imminent RCT of three CVADs. Methods: Three patient focus groups (each comprising three patients) and 23 interviews with clinical staff were conducted. Interviews and focus group discussions were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, anonymised, uploaded to the QSR NVivo10 qualitative software programme and thematically analysed. Results: Analysis of focus group interviews revealed the added challenges that a CVAD poses to patients with cancer. Four key themes emerged: continuity of daily life, pain and discomfort, stigma (a mark of disgrace associated with certain conditions) and self-preservation. The findings show the impact of a CVAD on patients’ ability to manage their condition. Clinical staff interviews highlighted several potential barriers to recruitment; a lack of equipoise (genuine clinical uncertainty as to which intervention is the most beneficial), concerns about the logistics of device insertion and a perceived requirement for education and training. Conclusions: This qualitative study raises awareness of key areas of concern to patients who need a CVAD for chemotherapy delivery. It was identified that there is a need for clearer patient information around CVADs. Additionally it allows investigators to identify barriers to recruitment in a timely manner in order to minimise the potential for conflict between the roles of carer and researcher and consequently, maximise recruitment to the RCT

Linearly degenerate PDEs and quadratic line complexes

A quadratic line complex is a three-parameter family of lines in projective space P3 specified by a single quadratic relation in the Plücker coordinates. Fixing a point p in P3 and taking all lines of the complex passing through p we obtain a quadratic cone with vertex at p. This family of cones supplies P3 with a conformal structure, which can be represented in the form fij(p)dpidpj in a system of affine coordinates p = (p1; p2; p3). With this conformal structure we associate a three-dimensional second-order quasilinear wave equation, X i;j fij(ux1 ; ux2 ; ux3 )uxixj = 0; whose coefficients can be obtained from fij(p) by setting p1 = ux1 ; p2 = ux2 ; p3 = ux3 . We show that any PDE arising in this way is linearly degenerate, furthermore, any linearly degenerate PDE can be obtained by this construction. This provides a classi cation of linearly degenerate wave equations into eleven types, labelled by Segre symbols of the associated quadratic complexes. We classify Segre types for which the structure fij(p)dpidpj is conformally at, as well as Segre types for which the corresponding PDE is integrable

Characteristic integrals in 3D and linear degeneracy

Conservation laws vanishing along characteristic directions of a given system of PDEs are known as characteristic conservation laws, or characteristic integrals. In 2D, they play an important role in the theory of Darboux-integrable equations. In this paper we discuss characteristic integrals in 3D and demonstrate that, for a class of second order linearly degenerate dispersionless integrable PDEs, the corresponding characteristic integrals are parametrised by points on the Veronese variety