School-based parents’ groups - a politics of voice and representation?

In this paper we consider two discussion-based parents’ forums at two secondary schools. We ask whether such forums can be considered as part of the small, local associative mechanisms which theorists claim have the potential to encourage a more vibrant and interactive public conversation concerning state provided welfare services. We conclude that they cannot – at least in any simple way. However, a study of the forums does raise several interesting issues to do with parents’ relationships with schools, the differential resources particular class fractions bring to bear in developing their relations with teachers, and the responses of the schools to parental voices

Class, culture and agency: Researching parental voice

This paper explores the differential possession and deployment of social, cultural and material resources by parents, and the effect of these processes on their willingness and ability to be involved with and intervene in their children’s school life – what we have called parental voice. The data presented here is drawn from a study of parents at two secondary schools, a sub-sample of data from a larger study involving six schools. We consider the social positioning and behaviour of three cohorts of parents, those demonstrating high, low and intermediate levels of intervention with the school. Our conclusions stress both the similarities and differences in parents’ experience of voice. Certainly parental access to and deployment of a number of social resources significantly affected how often, how easily and over what range of issues they approached the school. However, we also describe the overall character of parental voice in these two schools as individual, cautious and insecure

Bell's Inequalities for Continuous-Variable Systems in Generic Squeezed States

Bell's inequality for continuous-variable bipartite systems is studied. The inequality is expressed in terms of pseudo-spin operators and quantum expectation values are calculated for generic two-mode squeezed states characterized by a squeezing parameter $r$ and a squeezing angle $\varphi$. Allowing for generic values of the squeezing angle is especially relevant when $\varphi$ is not under experimental control, such as in cosmic inflation, where small quantum fluctuations in the early Universe are responsible for structures formation. Compared to previous studies restricted to $\varphi=0$ and to a fixed orientation of the pseudo-spin operators, allowing for $\varphi\neq 0$ and optimizing the angular configuration leads to a completely new and rich phenomenology. Two dual schemes of approximation are designed that allow for comprehensive exploration of the squeezing parameters space. In particular, it is found that Bell's inequality can be violated when the squeezing parameter $r$ is large enough, $r\gtrsim 1.12$, and the squeezing angle $\varphi$ is small enough, $\varphi\lesssim 0.34\,e^{-r}$.Comment: 9 pages without appendices (38 pages total), 16 figures, matches published version in Physical Review

On the Chacteristic Numbers of Voting Games

This paper deals with the non-emptiness of the stability set for any proper voting game. We present an upper bound on the number of alternatives which guarantees the non emptiness of this solution concept. We show that this bound is greater than or equal to the one given by Le Breton and Salles (1990) for quota games.voting game, core, stability set

On the Chacteristic Numbers of Voting Games

This paper deals with the non-emptiness of the stability set for any proper voting game.We present an upper bound on the number of alternatives which guarantees the non emptiness of this solution concept. We show that this bound is greater than or equal to the one given by Le Breton and Salles [6] for quota games.voting game, core, stability set

Atlas-Based Prostate Segmentation Using an Hybrid Registration

Purpose: This paper presents the preliminary results of a semi-automatic method for prostate segmentation of Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) which aims to be incorporated in a navigation system for prostate brachytherapy. Methods: The method is based on the registration of an anatomical atlas computed from a population of 18 MRI exams onto a patient image. An hybrid registration framework which couples an intensity-based registration with a robust point-matching algorithm is used for both atlas building and atlas registration. Results: The method has been validated on the same dataset that the one used to construct the atlas using the "leave-one-out method". Results gives a mean error of 3.39 mm and a standard deviation of 1.95 mm with respect to expert segmentations. Conclusions: We think that this segmentation tool may be a very valuable help to the clinician for routine quantitative image exploitation.Comment: International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (2008) 000-99