Valuing initial teacher education at Master's level

The future of Master’s-level work in initial teacher education (ITE) in England seems uncertain. Whilst the coalition government has expressed support for Master’s-level work, its recent White Paper focuses on teaching skills as the dominant form of professional development. This training discourse is in tension with the view of professional learning advocated by ITE courses that offer Master’s credits. Following a survey of the changing perceptions of Master’s-level study during a Post Graduate Certificate in Education course by student teachers in four subject groups, this paper highlights how the process of professional learning can have the most impact on how they value studying at a higher level during their early professional development

Wigs, disguises and child's play : solidarity in teacher education

It is generally acknowledged that much contemporary education takes place within a dominant audit culture, in which accountability becomes a powerful driver of educational practices. In this culture both pupils and teachers risk being configured as a means to an assessment and target-driven end: pupils are schooled within a particular paradigm of education. The article discusses some ethical issues raised by such schooling, particularly the tensions arising for teachers, and by implication, teacher educators who prepare and support teachers for work in situations where vocational aims and beliefs may be in in conflict with instrumentalist aims. The article offers De Certeau’s concept of ‘la perruque’ to suggest an opening to playful engagement for human ends in education, as a way of contending with and managing the tensions generated. I use the concept to recover a concept of solidarity for teacher educators and teachers to enable ethical teaching in difficult times

Serum S-adenosylmethionine, but not methionine, increases in response to overfeeding in humans

Background: Plasma concentration of the methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is linearly associated with body mass index (BMI) and fat mass. As SAM is a high-energy compound and a sensor of cellular nutrient status, we hypothesized that SAM would increase with overfeeding. Methods: Forty normal to overweight men and women were overfed by 1250 kcal per day for 28 days. Results: Serum SAM increased from 106 to 130 nmol/l (P=0.006). In stratified analysis, only those with weight gain above the median (high-weight gainers; average weight gain 3.9±0.3 kg) had increased SAM (+42%, P=0.001), whereas low-weight gainers (weight gain 1.5±0.2 kg) did not (Pinteraction=0.018). Overfeeding did not alter serum concentrations of the SAM precursor, methionine or the products, S-adenosyl-homocysteine and homocysteine. The SAM/SAH (S-adenosylhomocysteine) ratio was unchanged in the total population, but increased in high-weight gainers (+52%, P=0.006, Pinteraction =0.005). Change in SAM correlated positively with change in weight (r=0.33, P=0.041) and fat mass (r=0.44, P=0.009), but not with change in protein intake or plasma methionine, glucose, insulin or low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol. Conclusion: Overfeeding raised serum SAM in proportion to the fat mass gained. The increase in SAM may help stabilize methionine levels, and denotes a responsiveness of SAM to nutrient state in humans. The role of SAM in human energy metabolism deserves further attention.A K Elshorbagy, F Jernerén, D Samocha-Bonet, H Refsum and L K Heilbron

More Discriminants with the Brezing-Weng Method

The Brezing-Weng method is a general framework to generate families of pairing-friendly elliptic curves. Here, we introduce an improvement which can be used to generate more curves with larger discriminants. Apart from the number of curves this yields, it provides an easy way to avoid endomorphism rings with small class number

Neutrons from multiplicity-selected La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV

Triple-differential cross sections for neutrons from high-multiplicity La-La collisions at 250 and 400 MeV per nucleon and Nb-Nb collisions at 400 MeV per nucleon were measured at several polar angles as a function of the azimuthal angle with respect to the reaction plane of the collision. The reaction plane was determined by a transverse-velocity method with the capability of identifying charged-particles with Z=1, Z=2, and Z > 2. The flow of neutrons was extracted from the slope at mid-rapidity of the curve of the average in-plane momentum vs the center-of-mass rapidity. The squeeze-out of the participant neutrons was observed in a direction normal to the reaction plane in the normalized momentum coordinates in the center-of-mass system. Experimental results of the neutron squeeze-out were compared with BUU calculations. The polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $r(\theta)$ was found to be insensitive to the mass of the colliding nuclei and the beam energy. Comparison of the observed polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $r(\theta)$ with BUU calculations for free neutrons revealed that $r(\theta)$ is insensitive also to the incompressibility modulus in the nuclear equation of state.Comment: ReVTeX, 16 pages, 17 figures. To be published in Physical Review

Polynomial Growth Harmonic Functions on Finitely Generated Abelian Groups

In the present paper, we develop geometric analytic techniques on Cayley graphs of finitely generated abelian groups to study the polynomial growth harmonic functions. We develop a geometric analytic proof of the classical Heilbronn theorem and the recent Nayar theorem on polynomial growth harmonic functions on lattices \mathds{Z}^n that does not use a representation formula for harmonic functions. We also calculate the precise dimension of the space of polynomial growth harmonic functions on finitely generated abelian groups. While the Cayley graph not only depends on the abelian group, but also on the choice of a generating set, we find that this dimension depends only on the group itself.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Ann. Global Anal. Geo

Inclusive Dielectron Cross Sections in p+p and p+d Interactions at Beam Energies from 1.04 to 4.88 GeV

Measurements of dielectron production in p+p and p+d collisions with beam kinetic energies from 1.04 to 4.88 GeV are presented. The differential cross section is presented as a function of invariant pair mass, transverse momentum, and rapidity. The shapes of the mass spectra and their evolution with beam energy provide information about the relative importance of the various dielectron production mechanisms in this energy regime. The p+d to p+p ratio of the dielectron yield is also presented as a function of invariant pair mass, transverse momentum, and rapidity. The shapes of the transverse momentum and rapidity spectra from the p+d and p+p systems are found to be similar to one another for each of the beam energies studied. The beam energy dependence of the integrated cross sections is also presented.Comment: 15 pages and 16 figure