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For cetaceans to be sentinels of environmental change, reliable methods to assess overall health and physiological state are required. Blubber lipid content of remotely darted biopsies has been used to approximate energy stores and overall health. However, studies on beluga (Delphinapterus leucas), fin (Balaenoptera physalus) and killer whales (Orcinus orca) found a sampling effect (lipid-loss) biasing blubber biopsy lipid content. To determine if this applies to all cetaceans, we conducted a literature review, comparing the lipid content of outer blubber from biopsy (darted) and stranding (excised) samples for 27 species. For 16 species of five taxa (Balaenidae, Balaenopteridae, Delphinidae, Physeteridae and Ziphiidae), independent observations (n = 1346) of both biopsies and strandings were available. With taxon as a factor, a beta regression model (pseudo-R.sup.2 = 0.638) determined that the mean lipid content of biopsies is 11.1 ± 1.9% lower than that of strandings. Post hoc Sidák tests confirmed that the difference among sampling methods was statistically significant ([alpha] = 0.05) for all taxa (p < 0.001). This is a universal problem, likely due to tissue disruption associated with the force of the biopsy dart resulting in lipid loss and confirms that biopsy lipid content estimates are unreliable indicators of health or body condition. Our results have unexplored implications for the quantification of blubber biopsy lipid fractions for fatty acid or contaminant analyses, for example. There is a welfare and conservation imperative to develop alternative markers of overall health and physiological state from biopsies. In this regard, emerging technologies such as 'omics analyses look particularly promising., Author(s): Conor Ryan [sup.1] , Joanna L. Kershaw [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) 2 Shore Street Close, Main Street, PA75 6NT, Tobermory, UK (2) grid.7107.1, 0000 0004 1936 7291, School of [...]

United Kingdom Department for Education secretary Michael Gove has drafted legislation on the creation of free schools and fast-track academies. Gove has also identified 670 million pounds sterling in spending cuts. The bill will enable parents and teachers to establish 'free schools' with the help of charitable foundations.

United Kingdom Schools secretary Ed Balls has criticized lawmaker Michael Gove's plan for major education spending cuts. Gove, on the other hand, has denounced Balls' bureaucratic policies. But Balls is seen to be more accommodating to local authorities on the issue of education.

United Kingdom shadow schools secretary Michael Gove says the Conservative Party is planning to restore a traditional curriculum to all classrooms. The party also promises to provide more newly-built academies. It will also allow the establishment of primary academies.

It is believed that national tests called Standard Assessment Tests (Sats) have raised educational standards, and should continue to play a role in school assessments. The chaos surrounding the Sats has given impetus to calls for an end to the 50 million pounds sterling a year testing program.

The reasons for the dismal performance records of some of the schools are examined and it is concluded that poor discipline is the main culprit. The proposed education policy is examined from this perspective. Suggestions are offered to improve the education and exam systems.

The efforts to reform the 14-19 education system by replacing A-levels and General Certificate of Secondary Education by diploma in the United Kingdom are presented. The implication of such reforms are discussed.

The government of UK has increased education and health spending, but it must assure parents and patients that the funding is not going to be cut off in a third term. The public services battle will decide the winner of the next elections.

The school transport is now a prime candidate for co-payment with parents and the government likely to share the extra cost of an expansion, despite the close parliamentary vote on tuition fees. The new legislative freedoms will help children and their parents be at the traffic and improve the health and fitness of children.

School managements discovered that they face a looming spending crisis, despite substantial budget increases. This situation has been caused by changes in the distribution of funds and extra pay to teachers.

This issue of Trends & Controversies considers genetic programming (GP), which is inspired by computational analogies to Darwinian evolution. GP is part of a larger field known as evolutionary computation.

The issue of workload agreement and pay reforms of teachers under the teaching reforms of education secretary Ruth Kelly is examined.

The reasons for failure of LondonEs state schools are discussed. The positive outcomes of the recent efforts on the part of public as well as private parties to correct the situation are also discussed.

The colleges are skeptical about the decision to distribute funds through the 47 Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) to fund the governmentEs Further education (FE) program. The college lecturers are also agitating for pay parity with school teachers.

There is a proposal to merge U.K. teachers' unions and create a single union of half a million members. The 3 largest are the Association of Teachers and Lecturers led by Peter Smith, the National Union of Teachers led by Doug McAvoy, and the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers led by Eamonn O'Kane.

UK Dept of Education's plan to involve private sector in the management of England's schools is discussed. Additional information on business and education partnerships in UK is included.

In nationwide mammography screening, thousands of mammography examinations must be processed. Each consists of two standard views of each breast, and each mammogram must be visually examined by an experienced radiologist to assess it for any anomalies. The ability to detect an anomaly in mammographic texture is important to successful outcomes in mammography screening and, in this study, a large number of mammograms were digitized with a highly accurate scanner; and textural features were derived from the mammograms as input data to a SONNET selforganizing neural network. The paper discusses how SONNET was used to produce a taxonomic organization of the mammography archive in an unsupervised manner. This process is subject to certain choices of SONNET parameters, in these numerical experiments using the craniocaudal view, and typically produced O(10), for example, 39 mammogram classes, by analysis of features from O([10.sup.3]) mammogram images. The mammogram taxonomy captured typical subtleties to discriminate mammograms, and it is submitted that this may be exploited to aid the detection of mammographic anomalies, for example, by acting as a preprocessing stage to simplify the task for a computational detection scheme, or by ordering mammography examinations by mammogram taxonomic class prior to screening in order to encourage more successful visual examination during screening. The resulting taxonomy may help train screening radiologists and conceivably help to settle legal cases concerning a mammography screening examination because the taxonomy can reveal the frequency of mammographic patterns in a population., 1. INTRODUCTION Nationwide mammography screening (NMS) is the most successful method for the early detection of breast cancer [1]. There exist differing opinions concerning the details of an ideal NMS [...]

United Kingdom Schools secretary Ed Balls' plan to save two billion pounds sterling is seen as possible. Schools could cut their budgets by six percent without affecting standards. But teachers have expressed opposition to the plan.

The Labour Government's Child Trust Fund gives [pounds sterling] 250 to children born after September 2002 to start an endowment fund, which they can access at 18. The prosperity for all slogan mooted by the Labour could become a reality if two modifications were done; increased incentives and matching funding for poorer families and targeted top ups by teenagers. The Singapore model is proposed, where people deposit a fifth of their income into compulsory savings accounts with matching 13% contributions by employer and are helped by low taxes.

The school inspection in the U.K. is expected undergo changes, such as the replacement of six-yearly inspections with 6 to 10 weeks notice by three-yearly ones with little warning, from September 2000. The reforms envisaged combine the government's requirement for more frequent inspections with the demands from schools for reduced bureaucracy and more self-evaluation but how far they will help schools improve and keep parents informed, remains uncertain.

In order to assess the effectiveness of labor partyEs policies, it is suggested that an independent commission be appointed for conducting a constituency-by-constituency audit on progress or regress in public services since 1997.

The government has sought former inspector of schools Mike Tomlinson to develop a model for a new set of qualifications for teenagers. The proposed system change is received with mixed response from the students. The proposed education reform is discussed.

A stormy parliamentary session is expected mainly due to the introduction of top-up-fees in the universities as the labor party members have gone on record to oppose this system. The government hopes to tide over the issue by introducing measures that will widen the access of education to the lower strata of people and by introducing differential fee structure. Attempts are being made to arrive at a consensus on the matter

The lack of funding for UK education is discussed.

EnglandEs school buildings are going to be state of art buildings with all modern amenities like food courts, cyber cafe, computer facilities, auditorium and other community facilities. This is going to motivate the students and encourage their learning in the classroom of the future.

A record number of people are getting trained to be teachers. The teachers are now getting better pay and a reduced workload. Paradoxically, at least a quarter of new teachers is leaving within five years.

The debate about fees and loans, universities are getting worked up about the core funding that has been slowing down when compared to the schools. Though the vice chancellors have requested for 5.5 bn pounds in recurrent spending and 5 bn pounds for capital, the ministers find these requests to be unreasonably high. There is no way in which the middle class students who form major part of the universities be asked to pay more and thus other options like cutting lecturers salary and giving lesser amounts to universities may be followed by the government.

Multiplicity of examination boards leads to error prone examinations and increases workload on teachers. A single board can focus itself to specify the syllabus, set the test papers, and value them properly. Improvement in standards will occur across the education spectrum.

After the government adopted a policy of transparency, everyone suspected every public contract, checking if it was awarded to somebody who had contributed to the Labor party.

Education Secretary Estelle Morris announced a new exclusion guidelines for schools along with the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice for early intervention and prevention.special needs

The U.K. government has published the secondary school performance tables showing results weighed against government targets that were disappointing but most public service workers think government targets are unfair and unreasonable. Harris City Technology College in Croydon, was the most improved school.

The UK government plans to end tuitions and student loans and introduce a graduate tax for the higher education system. There are concerns about the extra investment that the government will have to pay before the graduates start to pay taxes plus the burden that middle class graduates will have when their taxes come due.

There is an alleged shortage of teachers in the UK but no one has the exact figure. Smaller class sizes and labor union attempts to increase salaries have also had an effect on the reports of the teacher shortage.

Information on curricula of secondary, vocational and specialist schools in England is offered. Additional information on UK government's education programs is included.

British government's plan to directly allocate funds to public schools, not through local education authorities is discussed. Additional information on the role of local education authorities in UK is included.