The effect of term-time employment on UK higher education students

In the UK, participation in higher education has risen over the past two decades, along with a shift of the costs of higher education onto the individual and a move to widening participation among previously underrepresented groups. This has led to changes in the way individuals fund their higher education, in particular a rise in the incidence of term time employment. Term time employment potentially plays a much bigger role than in the past, both as a means for individuals to fund their education and reduce debt, and as a way to gain valuable work experience and increase employability. With the increase in the number of graduates in the UK labour market it is now more important for individuals to be able to differentiate themselves in the labour market.

The supply and movement of Denarii in Roman Britain

Hoards of denarii are common in Britain and the number which have been recorded in detail means that it is now possible to suggest reasonably accurately what a ‘normal’ hoard of a particular date should look like. That being the case, we can then look for variation around that norm and both investigate and speculate what that variation means. A methodology is developed which suggests periods of faster and less rapid coin circulation which has implications for consideration of monetisation. The model also enables us to view where denarii entered circulation; unsurprisingly the army looms large in this picture. The methodology is directly transferable to other provinces and other periods where there are longlived, relatively stable monetary systems.

The aims of early years outdoor education in England: a conceptual and empirical investigation

This paper explores the place of aims in the early years foundation stage outdoor environment in England. Through examining the writing of academics, various themes are identified, and constructed into possible aims. These themes/aims are compared to an empirical study of early years teachers’ attitudes. Data was collected by questionnaire from schools within the University of Reading partnership. There was general agreement between experts and teachers as to the aims. While some respondents were able to explain what the aims of outdoor activity were, a significant number were unable to identify aims; further, a significant number did not distinguish between approach/practice and aims. A lack of understanding and agreement as to what the aims are may indicate teachers are unsure about the purpose of outdoor education for young children. A result of this study is to agree and make explicit the aims for outdoor education in the early years.

Sexually Dimorphic Effect of the Val66Met Polymorphism of BDNF on Susceptibility to Alzheimer`s Disease: New Data and Meta-Analysis

Conflicting results have been reported as to whether genetic variations (Val66Met and C270T) of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene (RDNF) confer susceptibility to Alzheimer`s disease (AD). We genotyped these polymorphisms in a Japanese sample of 657 patients with AD and 525 controls, and obtained weak evidence of association for Val66Met (P = 0.063), but not for C270T. After stratification by sex, we found a significant allelic association between Val66Met and AD in women (P = 0.017), but not in men. To confirm these observations, we collected genotyping data for each sex from 16 research centers worldwide (4,711 patients and 4,537 controls in total). The meta-analysis revealed that there was a clear sex difference in the allelic association; the Met66 allele confers susceptibility to AD in women (odds ratio = 1.14, 95% CI 1.05-1.24, P = 0.002), but not in men. Our results provide evidence that the Met66 allele of BDNF has a sexually dimorphic effect on susceptibility to AD. (C) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Worldwide sequence conservation of transmission-blocking vaccine candidate Pvs230 in Plasmodium vivax

Pfs230, surface protein of gametocyte/gamete of the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is a prime candidate of malaria transmission-blocking vaccine. Plasmodium vivax has an ortholog of Pfs230 (Pvs230), however, there has been no study in any aspects on Pvs230 to date. To investigate whether Pvs230 can be a vivax malaria transmission-blocking vaccine, we performed evolutionary and population genetic analysis of the Pvs230 gene (pvs230: PVX_003905). Our analysis of Pvs230 and its orthologs in eight Plasmodium species revealed two distinctive parts: an interspecies variable part (IVP) containing species-specific oligopeptide repeats at the N-terminus and a 7.5 kb interspecies conserved part (ICP) containing 14 cysteine-rich domains. Pvs230 was closely related to its orthologs, Pks230 and Pcys230, in monkey malaria parasites. Analysis of 113 pvs230 sequences obtained from worldwide, showed that nucleotide diversity is remarkably low in the non-repeat 8-kb region of pvs230 (theta pi = 0.00118) with 77 polymorphic nucleotide sites, 40 of which results in amino acid replacements. A signature of purifying selection but not of balancing selection was seen on pvs230. Functional and/or structural constraints may limit the level of polymorphism in pvs230. The observed limited polymorphism in pvs230 should ground for utilization of Pvs230 as an effective transmission-blocking vaccine. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Existence of secondary bifurcations or isolas for PDEs

In this paper, we introduce a method to conclude about the existence of secondary bifurcations or isolas of steady state solutions for parameter dependent nonlinear partial differential equations. The technique combines the Global Bifurcation Theorem, knowledge about the non-existence of nontrivial steady state solutions at the zero parameter value and explicit information about the coexistence of multiple nontrivial steady states at a positive parameter value. We apply the method to the two-dimensional Swift-Hohenberg equation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In search of academic identity : physical education, sport science and the field of human movement studies

This thesis addresses the problem of the academic identity of the area traditionally referred to as physical education. The study is a critical examination of the argu ments for the justi cation of this area as an autonomous branch of knowledge. The investigation concentrates on a selected number of arguments. The data collection comprised articles books and proceedings of conferences. The preliminary assessment of these materials resulted in a classi cation of the arguments into three groups. The rst group comprises the arguments in favour of physical education as an academic discipline. The second includes the arguments supporting a science of sport. The third consists of the arguments in favour of to a eld of human movement study. The examination of these arguments produced the following results. (a) The area of physical education does not satisfy the conditions presupposed by the de nition of academic discipline. This is so because the area does not form an integrated system of scienti c theories. (b) The same di culty emerges from the examination of the ar guments for sport science. There is no science of sport because there is no integrated system of scienti c theories related to sport. (c) The arguments in favour of a eld of study yielded more productive results. However di culties arise from the de nition of human movement. The analysis of this concept showed that its limits are not well demarcated. This makes it problematic to take human movement as the focus of a eld of studies. These aspects led to the conclusion that such things as an academic discipline of physical education sport science and eld of human movement studies do not exist. At least there are not such things in the sense of autonomous branches of knowledge. This does not imply that a more integrated inquiry based on several disciplines is not possible and desirable. This would enable someone entering phys ical education to nd a more organised structure of knowledge with some generally accepted problem situations procedures and theories on which to base professional practice.

Is the Czech economy a success story?: the case of CzechInvest, the strategic promotion agency in Czech industrial restructuring

Includes Bibliography

The phenomenon of ageing and the situation of older persons in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Application of the concepts of agro-tourism, agricultural diversification and food and nutrition for the development of Caribbean communities with reference to standards and priority setting

Introduction There is a renewed call for a new approach to development with emphasis on community empowerment or participation, with the belief that more sustainable activities will be undertaken in those communities. Much of that call, however, is coming not from within the communities, but primarily from advocates of change who may have little to do with those communities. What then will the new approach bring apart from a change in who are the decision-makers? And how do we ensure that the change that is called for will, in fact, bring added benefits to the communities themselves? To be sure, there are some successful stories of a community approach to problem solving. However, there are also many more stories of project failures. Serious analytical work, therefore, needs to be done to determine the factors that promote a successful community-based approach; when this approach should be used; and the methodology that should be employed. In an attempt to determine these factors, a brief analysis will be made of some of the governing structures in the subregion and their possible impact on the proposed new approach. Some of the earlier efforts at stakeholder and community approach to projects will also be examined as well as the new development strategy that is prompting the call for this new paradigm. The new paradigm focuses to a large extent on decision-making and community empowerment. With few exceptions, it is short on the promotion of tangible activities that are based on the resource inventory of the communities. This is not surprising, since, as noted before, the advocates of community empowerment may have very little connection with the communities and, in most cases, are unfamiliar with the resource base. Hence, a theoretical case is made, suggesting more style than substance. Another obvious shortcoming of this new paradigm is its continued over- dependence on assistance from the outside to build communities. Externally funded projects, seminars and meetings outside of the communities and foreign technical assistance continue to dominate these projects. While, of course, all communities have basic common needs such as water, health, education and electricity, there is sufficient diversity within communities to allow for tailoring of activities and programmes such that their differences become assets. It is in that context, that agro-tourism activities, standards, agricultural diversification, food and nutrition and priority setting have been chosen as aspects and activities for promoting community development, drawing on the various strengths of communities, rural or urban.

The advance of cloud computing

The “Implementation of the National Data Centre” project, Augusto Espín, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society, Ecuador .-- Cloud computing and public policy in Brazil, Rafael Henrique Rodrigues Moreira, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Brazil .-- “The cloud is being taken up more quickly in Latin America than in the rest of the world”, interview to Lalo Steinmann, Microsoft .-- The impact of education and research networks on the development of cloud computing Eduardo Vera, University of Chile .-- “The cloud helps to narrow divides by providing access to technology resources that used to be unaffordable”, interview to Luis Urzúa, Movistar Chile .-- “Cloud computing will be a strategic sector of the economy in the coming years”, interview to Jean-Bernard Gramunt, France’s digital strategy .-- “If take-up in Latin America is as strong as predicted, it will be a good opportunity to create and export technology”, interview to Flavio Junqueira, Yahoo! Labs.

Inequality in education in Costa Rica: The gap between students in public and private schools. An analysis of the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Includes bibliography.

Media Education and Brazilian Educational Policies for the Enhancement of Learning

As media education concepts and practices have been disseminated and strengthened in European countries and Americas, the policies responsible for that expansion remain little known, particularly in countries where the achievements have been recently noted. That is the case for Brazil, where there have been new opportunities for media education, considered as a valuable resource to help accomplish goals of the educational system. This paper looks into the contribution of media education to the enhancement of teaching and learning in the context of innovations brought by recent policies of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. After educational reform programmes which brought the opportunity for emerging fields such as media education, we produced teaching material and conducted a series of workshops with students and teachers from state secondary schools. By reading and producing multimedia information about local public services available to young people, pupils learned about democracy, citizenship, civic engagement, media language, and identity. Lessons from our experiment are discussed against the backdrop of education policies being implemented to ameliorate harsh conditions resulting from the recent economic crisis. We suggest that media education can help by creating a learning environment in which the students become aware of the value of educational attainments.