Is 'gender-sensitive education' a useful concept for educational policy?

This article responds to Astrid Sinnes and Marianne Løken’s article ‘Gendered education in a gendered world: Looking beyond cosmetic solutions to the gender gap in science’ by exploring the idea of ‘gender-sensitive’ education and its usefulness in educational policy. It draws on theoretical discussions of the concept of gender and of difference to consider ways in which ‘gender-sensitive’ education might serve the task of promoting equality and justice

On-shell Recursion Relations for n-point QCD

We present on the use of on-shell recursion relations. These can be used not only for calculating tree amplitudes, including those with masses, but also to compute analytically the missing rational terms of one-loop QCD amplitudes. Combined with the cut-containing pieces calculated using a unitarity approach complete one-loop QCD amplitudes can be derived. This approach is discussed in the context of the adjacent 2-minus all-multiplicity QCD gluon amplitude.Comment: Talk presented at the 7th Workshop On Continuous Advances In QCD, 11-14 May 2006, Minneapolis, Minnesot

Direct extraction of one-loop integral coefficients

We present a general procedure for obtaining the coefficients of the scalar bubble and triangle integral functions of one-loop amplitudes. Coefficients are extracted by considering two-particle and triple unitarity cuts of the corresponding bubble and triangle integral functions. After choosing a specific parameterisation of the cut loop momentum we can uniquely identify the coefficients of the desired integral functions simply by examining the behaviour of the cut integrand as the unconstrained parameters of the cut loop momentum approach infinity. In this way we can produce compact forms for scalar integral coefficients. Applications of this method are presented for both QCD and electroweak processes, including an alternative form for the recently computed three-mass triangle coefficient in the six-photon amplitude $A_6(1^-,2^+,3^-,4^+,5^-,6^+)$. The direct nature of this extraction procedure allows for a very straightforward automation of the procedure.Comment: 42 pages, 7 figure

Developing Accomplished Teaching and Teachers

This paper discusses the question of the development of accomplished teachers and teaching in Scotland and examines a number of emerging issues including the definition of accomplished teaching, the enhancement of teaching quality, the role of accomplished teachers including chartered teachers in schools, the contribution of accomplished teachers and impact on pupil learning, the question of teacher agency and enhanced professionalism and opportunities to engage with the wider social and educational context. The origins of this work on accomplished teachers and teaching were in a series of symposia at ECER (European Conference for Educational Research, 2009, 2010) organized by Dr Margery McMahon, University of Glasgow who brought together stakeholders in Scotland with international partners including academics and professional associations to examine the issues related to the recognition and development of expertise and accomplishment in teaching. These symposia were followed by an International Symposium on Developing Accomplished Teachers and Teaching (ISAT&T) co-hosted by the University of Glasgow and the GTCs and sponsored by the Scottish Government. Participants in the ISAT&T were drawn from the universities of Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Wales, Glasgow and Stirling and representatives from HMIe, Local Authorities and the GTCs. This paper is a synposis of the proceedings of the International Symposium

Susceptibility, diffusion and relaxation contrast in NMR microscopy at high resolution : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in physics at Massey University

An integrated approach to the functional NMR imaging of plant tissue at moderately-high transverse resolution (23 µm) was undertaken. Attention was paid to all the possible commonly-known influences, such as sources of nuclear spin relaxation or of artefacts, relevant to the final image intensity of the different tissues. While it was not clear at the outset which influences might prove to be significant, two phenomena in particular, susceptibility inhomogeneity and correlated diffusion effects, were selected for detailed investigation using simple model systems constructed from small glass tubes and rods combined with aqueous solutions, before continuing on to more complex plant samples. Simulated images compared well with the experimental results in these studies. Preliminary images of a stem of an intact Stachys sylvatica L. plant showed that the apparent T₂ relaxation time is much less (an order of magnitude) than the T₁ relaxation time in all tissues. A range of diagnostic pulse sequences was then carried out on this and similar stems in order to reveal the signatures for different models of T₂ relaxation which might explain this fact (assuming that the water protons imaged fall within the extreme-narrowed region of Bloembergen, Purcell and Pound theory). It was found that measures were necessary to avoid the complicating factor of attenuation due to diffusion in the applied read gradient, specifically the use of Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) refocusing pulses. Susceptibility inhomogeneity seemed important in sensitive gradient echo images, but further experiments at different B₀ strengths revealed that it (and chemical shift exchange) does not contribute significantly to the spin echo image contrast. The Brownstein-Tarr model of relaxation at boundaries and surfaces (without local field offsets) was also considered as a possibility, but was ruled out for at least some of the tissues (those which display a CPMG pulse-spacing dependence). Another alternative explanation is short-range dipole interactions between water protons and protons of more slowly-moving molecules, which should be abundant in the particular cells which escape the other hypotheses, but it is difficult to confirm this within the scope of the pulse sequences used here. More progress might be possible with proper multicomponent T₂ analysis and improved knowledge of subcellular structure of our particular tissues

Small-time asymptotics for basket options -- the bi-variate SABR model and the hyperbolic heat kernel on H3\mathbb{H}^3

We compute a sharp small-time estimate for the price of a basket call under a bi-variate SABR model with both $\beta$ parameters equal to $1$ and three correlation parameters, which extends the work of Bayer,Friz&Laurence [BFL14] for the multivariate Black-Scholes flat vol model. The result follows from the heat kernel on hyperbolic space for $n=3$ combined with the Bellaiche [Bel81] heat kernel expansion and Laplace's method, and we give numerical results which corroborate our asymptotic formulae. Similar to the Black-Scholes case, we find that there is a phase transition from one "most-likely" path to two most-likely paths beyond some critical $K^*$.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure