Mining revival

In relation to its size the United Kingdom (UK) is remarkably well-endowed with mineral resources as a result of its complex geological history. Their extraction and use have played an important role in the development of the UK economy over many years and minerals are currently worked at some 2100 mine and quarry sites. Production is now largely confined to construction minerals, primarily aggregates, energy minerals and industrial minerals including salt, potash, kaolin and fluorspar, although renewed interest in metals is an important development in recent years

An exploration of Life orientation educators’ knowledge and the teaching of study skills in further education and training phase high schools in Ekudibeng Cluster, Gauteng East

This study aimed at exploring the Life Orientation (LO) teachers’ knowledge and teaching of study skills in high schools, Ekudibeng cluster, Gauteng East. The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) is the most recent curriculum policy (Department of Basic Education [DBE], 2012) and serves as an action plan to 2030 for the South African education system in order to address some of the origins of underperformance in South African schools (Nicolson, 2013). Life Orientation (LO) can be described as a learning area within the educational context that promotes the holistic development of a child. The educational context refers to all processes at school level involved in training children’s minds and abilities so that they can acquire knowledge and develop skills to succeed in life. Life Orientation integrates subjects, such as life skills, career guidance, health education, physical education, human rights studies and religious education (Pillay, 2012). According to the Life Orientation 2011 CAPS document, Life Orientation teachers are expected to teach study skills to learners starting from grade 10 – 12 (Further Education and Training (FET) Phase (DBE, 2011). Learning or study skills carry over into other areas of life and beyond school. Study skills are therefore critical tools that ensure that learner achievement leads to success. Furthermore, effective study skills need effective interaction between teachers and learners (Gettinger, & Seibert, 2002). The teacher is a social agent and should make study skills accessible through the process of teaching in the classroom. This implies that the teacher is a central tool for equipping the learners with the necessary study skills which can aid in the unlocking of their future potential (Sasikala, 2012). As such, it was considered important to explore the knowledge and skills for teaching LO as well as the challenges faced and their needs for further development. Three schools in Ekudibeng cluster, Gauteng East were purposefully selected for this purpose on the basis of their results in the previous year’ matric exit examinations. Qualitative case studies of the Further Education and Training LO teachers’ experiences at each of these schools were undertaken utilising semi-structured interviews as a data collection tool. The data were analysed via qualitative content analysis techniques. The findings of this study emphasise the need for a focus on study skills teaching and teacher proficiency in the high school education system. The South African Education System role-players need to take LO seriously and have teachers qualified to teach LO, and to meet their needs through study skills training workshops. Comprehensive continuous improvement in learner performance requires a constant determination of trained LO teachers, qualified for the subject and properly equipped with relevant knowledge to cascade it to learners and cooperative community members, where parents are involved/hands on in shaping their children’s’ future.Psychology of EducationM. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling

Echoes and revival echoes in systems of anharmonically confined atoms

We study echoes and what we call 'revival echoes' for a collection of atoms that are described by a single quantum wavefunction and are confined in a weakly anharmonic trap. The echoes and revival echoes are induced by applying two, successive temporally localized potential perturbations to the confining potential, one at time $t=0$, and a smaller one at time $t=\tau$. Pulse-like responses in the expectation value of position are predicted at $t \approx n\tau$ ($n=2,3,...$) and are particularly evident at $t \approx 2\tau$. A novel result of our study is the finding of 'revival echoes'. Revivals (but not echoes) occur even if the second perturbation is absent. In particular, in the absence of the second perturbation, the response to the first perturbation dies away, but then reassembles, producing a response at revival times $mT_x$ ($m=1,2,...$). Including the second perturbation at $t=\tau$, we find temporally localized responses, revival echoes, both before and after $t\approx mT_x$, e.g., at $t\approx m T_x-n \tau$ (pre-revival echoes) and at $t\approx mT_x+n\tau$, (post-revival echoes), where $m$ and $n$ are $1,2,...$ . Depending on the form of the perturbations, the 'principal' revival echoes at $t \approx T_x \pm \tau$ can be much larger than the echo at $t \approx 2\tau$. We develop a perturbative model for these phenomena, and compare its predictions to the numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger Equation. The scaling of the size of the various echoes and revival echoes as a function of the symmetry and size of the perturbations applied at $t=0$ and $t=\tau$ is investigated. We also study the presence of revivals and revival echoes in higher moments of position, , $p>1$, and the effect of atom-atom interactions on these phenomena.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figures, corrected typos and added reference