Yoko Ono's Magical Thinking

In this piece I analyse Yoko Ono's recent artwork Mended Cups and link this to other creative works concerned with grief and mourning

A Canadian on Horseback: 9 July 1944 Memorialized in Bronze

Canadian and British troops liberated Caen after 33 days of the bloodiest battles of the Normandy campaign. A small but dramatic ceremony in the main square marked the historic first raising of the French flag. But a Canadian artillery officer on horseback made the moment symbolically Canadian too

Different track - same destination? exploring the potential of 'Curriculum for Excellence' to improve educational practice in Scotland

This paper provides a commentary on the current opportunities open to policy makers and educators in developing the new national Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) for Scotland. It identifies areas of commonality between educational professionals from different sectors around the notion of curriculum. It explores different interpretations of the concept of curriculum and uses examples from informal education to highlight how youth workers and teachers could develop useful ways of working together. Further, the paper argues that an expression and prioritisation of values within the CfE policy provides the platform on which they can work more closely together in spite of their historically different pedagogical starting points. Ultimately, the paper seeks to convince both sectors that the CfE can be used creatively to offer an enhanced educational experience for young people in Scotland based on equity and social justice. This is an important and current issue for Education in Scotland and it is a debate which needs to be articulated, if we are to succeed in delivering a service which matches the aspirations of our nation and our young people

Creating a Quantum Degenerate Gas of Stable Molecules via Weak Photoassociation

Quantum degenerate molecules represent a new paradigm for fundamental studies and practical applications. Association of already quantum degenerate atoms into molecules provides a crucial shortcut around the difficulty of cooling molecules to ultracold temperatures. Whereas association can be induced with either laser or magnetic fields, photoassociation requires impractical laser intensity to overcome poor overlap between the atom pair and molecular wavefunctions, and experiments are currently restricted to magnetoassociation. Here we model realistic production of a quantum degenerate gas of stable molecules via two-photon photoassociation of Bose-condensed atoms. An adiabatic change of the laser frequency converts the initial atomic condensate almost entirely into stable molecular condensate, even for low-intensity lasers. Results for dipolar LiNa provide an upper bound on the necessary photoassociation laser intensity for alkali-metal atoms ~30 W/cm^2, indicating a feasible path to quantum degenerate molecules beyond magnetoassociation.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, 39 references; published version (essentially

The nature of written language deficits in children with SLI

Children with Speech and Language Impairment (SLI) have associated difficulties in reading decoding and reading comprehension. To date few research studies have examined the children's written language. The aim of the present study was to provide data, which would evaluate the nature and extent of the children?s difficulties with writing, and to investigate the relationship between oral and written language. Eleven children with SLI were identified, with a mean age of 11 (age range 9:8-12:1) and were compared with a group of children matched for chronological age (CA) mean age 11:2 (age range 10-12.3) and language age (LA), with a mean chronological age of 7:3 (age range 6-9:8). All groups completed a language measure, the Bus Story Test of Continuous Speech (Renfrew, 1985), a standardised measure of writing, the Picture Story Language Test (Myklebust, 1965), and a reading assessment, the Wechsler Objective Reading Dimensions (Rust, Golombok & Trickey, 1993). The writing assessment revealed that the SLI group wrote fewer words and produced proportionately more spelling and syntax errors than the CA group. There was no difference between the groups on a measure of the content of written language. The SLI group also produced proportionately more syntax errors than the LA group. The relationships between oral language, reading and writing differed for the three groups. The SLI group revealed specific difficulties in the omission of verbs and verbal morphology. The nature and extent of the children's written language problems are considered in the context of difficulties with spoken language

Virtual learning environments – help or hindrance for the ‘disengaged’ student?

The introduction of virtual learning environments (VLEs) has been regarded by some as a panacea for many of the problems in today’s mass numbers modular higher education system. This paper demonstrates that VLEs can help or hinder student engagement and performance, and that they should be adapted to the different types of learner. A project is described that aimed to investigate whether the introduction of a VLE can assist ‘disengaged’ students, drawing on click count tracking data and student performance. The project took place in the context of two very large undergraduate modules (850 and 567 students) in a Business School of a new university in the UK. In an adaptation of a model of learner engagement in Web-enhanced environments, four distinct learner types have emerged: model, traditionalist, geek and disengaged. There was evidence that use of the VLE exacerbated, rather than moderated, the differences between these learner types

Measuring the Benefits Gained by Industry from Road Network Improvements

Over the last twenty years, physical distribution has gone through a revolution (McKinnon 1989). Changes in industrial structure, the power structure within the supply chain, service quality standards, marketing and production methods, heavy goods vehicle productivity and capacity, and road network quality have all played a part. External factors such as high real interest rates have made firms acutely sensitive to the costs of holding inventory and to the scope for inventory rationalisation. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of road network improvement to the restructuring of physical distribution. There is a particular policy context to this. At a political level, the Government attaches prime importance to the effects of road investment on economic growth (DTp 1989). But at the level of economic appraisal, it is questionable whether the Department of Transport's (DoT) procedures give adequate weight to the benefits to industry of road network improvements. The D.o.T. currently take account of the direct savings which accrue from road improvement schemes (Dawson and Vass 1974)(DTp 1981). This allows for changes in mileage related and time related operating costs, including depreciation, based on the simple assumption that time savings are translated fully into proportionate increases in utilisation of vehicles and crews (Nash 1974). Although at first sight, the existence of scheduling indivisibilities and delivery time constraints might be thought to make this assumption unrealistic, such evidence as there is suggests that it is not an unreasonable rule of thumb (Mackie and Simon 1986). Economic theory suggests that in addition to the direct transport cost savings from road improvements, some indirect "reorganisation" or "restructuring" benefits should also be expected (Mohring and Williamson 1969)(Dodgson 1973). As real transport costs fall, firms should respond by substituting within the production and distribution process so as to arrive at a more transport-intensive, but lower cost solution. The restructuring of the brewery industry into an operation with a few large plants is often attributed, at least in part, to improvements in the road network. A number of restructuring responses to strategic road investment may be listed:- - Centralisation of manufacturing or production - Concentration of distribution into fewer depots - Changes to inter-depot boundaries - Increases in market areas served by regional firms - Improvements in service quality (24 hour delivery, etc.) - Changes in distribution methods (e.g. satellite distribution) This list suggests that the indirect benefits are likely to be some mixture of economies of scale in production or warehousing, inventory savings, and added value to products. A number of studies have been undertaken in the past into the benefits from road network improvements. It is claim they played a part in the decline of road haulage rates between 1974 and 1984 of 27% (Turner 1987). Their effect on transit times and reliability has been demonstrated (Cooper and Tweddle 1988), as well as on the cost of quality of service enhancement (Walker 1988). Benefits gained in terms of larger trading areas have been revealed by studies of the major estuary crossings, such as the Severn and Humber Bridges (Cleary and Thomas 1973) (Mackie and Simon 1986). Quarmby's studies of a major retail grocery operation are of particular interest in this context (Quarmby 1989). He examines the effect of reducing the number of depots in a distribution system following improvements to the strategic road network so that each depot now serves a larger area. He finds that the total systems benefits from restructuring the distribution and depot network could exceed the direct transport benefits by 30-50%. He does not demonstrate that either his initial or final depot configuration is optimally balanced with the road network conditions. However, his study provided the stimulus for the research proposal to ESRC and to partner industrial sponsors