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This paper explores whether civic attitudes cluster in ways that correspond to distinct citizenship regimes. Drawing on political philosophy and citizenship literature, it identifies a liberal, a republican, a conservative, a social-democratic and a post-communist regime. These regimes are said to prevail in particular European regions and to show a certain level of stability. Using European Values Study / World Values Survey data, the paper explores whether socio-political attitudes ‘fit’ the theoretical regimes in terms of substance, country membership and durability and whether distinct European citizenship regimes can also be identified at the global level. It finds fairly strong evidence for a social-democratic, a liberal and a post-communist regime of civic attitudes at the European level, but could not find much support for a specific republican or conservative regime. The regimes identified at the European level disappear at the global level. At that level, a group of western countries appears, which distinguishes itself from other countries by showing relatively high scores on a range of citizenship indicators. Thus, it depends on the vantage point whether qualitatively different clusters of civic attitudes emerge that correspond to distinct European citizenship regimes.

The land speed record vehicle, Bloodhound, undertook testing at subsonic and low transonic speeds (up to Mach 0.8) at Hakskeen Pan, South Africa, during October and November of 2019. A decade of CFD-led aerodynamic design had been undertaken to produce a vehicle with the aim of minimised Mach number aerodynamic dependencies and minimised overall drag. This paper sets out and explains the measured pressure distributions with a focus on the highest speed run of Bloodhound up to a peak speed of 628 mile/h. It compares the measured aerodynamic performance with the various CFD model predictions used throughout the design process showing that, whilst localised discrepancies between CFD model and real behaviour exist, overall the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)-based CFD tools used to design the car did result in sufficiently accurate aerodynamic data to predict the overall vehicle performance to a high degree of accuracy. The work outlined in this paper, and the conclusions and recommendations drawn, form the basis for a future record attempt and the understanding of what will be required in principle to extend the World Land Speed Record to 1000 mile/h. It also provides guidance on how to effectively make use of RANS-based CFD modelling predictions for other complex, ground-interacting high-speed applications.

Most greenfields mineral exploration projects involve a process of testing targets that have been selected on the basis of geoscientific data. Although this data can be used to rank targets, questions still arise as to how many targets should be tested before the area is dropped. This paper addresses this question with a probabilistic model of the exploration process and illustrates the method with a geophysical example. The model is governed by the target and background distributions of the variable used to rank targets, various economic parameters and two geologically determined probabilities. It generates Expected Value, Probability of Success and Return on Investment (ROI) for a range of possible project budgets showing where each is maximized. It is argued that a lower and upper limit for the number of tests to be undertaken can be defined in terms of this model. The lower limit, called the Equal Opportunity Truncation point, occurs where the ROI is maximized and is relevant when other equally attractive prospects are available. The upper limit, called the Economic Truncation point, occurs when the Expected Value is maximized. The kimberlite exploration case study illustrates a new method of estimating the target distribution using magnetic modelling and shows how the probabilistic model could have been used to budget this exploration project.

La pregunta central que se aborda en este artículo es: «¿Qué tipo de formación a lo largo de toda la vida puede facilitar conseguir una “economía del conocimiento” competitiva y dinámica que también sea una “sociedad del conocimiento” con altos niveles de cohesión social?». El presente artículo trata de examinar estas cuestiones mediante el análisis de los diferentes modelos nacionales y regionales de la «economía del conocimiento» y la «sociedad del conocimiento» en Europa, así como la contribución de la formación a lo largo de toda la vida en cada uno de ellos. Para hacerlo, trata de manera comparada, en primer lugar, de los diferentes modelos de «economía del conocimiento» y de «sociedad del conocimiento» y, en segundo lugar, de su relación con los sistemas de formación a lo largo de toda la vida., The main question that informs this article is: which system of lifelong learning is able to facilitate a competitive and dynamic “knowledge economy”, while simultaneously also promoting a “knowledge society” with high levels of social cohesion? This article attempts to examine these questions by means of an analysis of national and regional models of the “knowledge economy” and the “knowledge society” in Europe, and the contribution of lifelong learning programmes to each of these models. First, we compare the different models of the “knowledge economy” and the “knowledge society” and, second, their relationship with systems of lifelong learning.

Many IoT devices are geographically distributed without human administrators, which are maintained by a remote server to enforce security updates, ideally through machine-to-machine (M2M) management. However, malware often terminates the remote control mechanism immediately after compromise and hijacks the device completely. The compromised device has no way to recover and becomes part of a botnet. Even if the IoT device remains uncompromised, it is required to update due to recall or other reasons. In addition, the device is desired to be automatically disposable after the expiration of its service, software, or device hardware to prevent being cyber debris. We present Reboot-Oriented IoT (RO-IoT), which updates the total OS image autonomously to recover from compromise (rootkit or otherwise), and manages the life cycle of the device using Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and PKI-based certificates (i.e., CA, server, and client certificates which are linked to device, software, and service). RO-IoT is composed of three TEE-protected components: the secure network bootloader, periodic memory forensics, and life cycle management. The secure network bootloader downloads and verifies the OS image by the TEE. The periodic memory forensics causes a hardware system-reset (i.e., reboot) after detecting any un-registered binary or a time-out, which depends on a TEE-protected watchdog timer. The life cycle management checks the expiration of PKI-based certificates for the device, software, and service, and deactivates the device if necessary. These features complement each other, and all binaries and certificates are encrypted or protected by TEE. We implemented a prototype of RO-IoT on an ARM Hikey board with the open source trusted OS OP-TEE. The design and implementation take account of availability (over 99.9%) and scalability (less than 100MB traffic for a full OS update, and estimated at a cent per device), making the current prototype specifically suitable for the AI-Edge (Artificial Intelligence on the Edge) IoT devices.

Modern economists generally see human skills as the key factor in economic competitiveness (Porter, 1990). Vocational education has consequently been a high priority for policy-makers, particularly in Britain where provision is seen to lag behind that of other competitor nations (Green and Steedman, 1993). This situation has given rise to intense public debate about the causes of underachievement among young people in post-compulsory education and training. Current discussions focus on the narrow and over-specialized nature of academic study, the relative unpopularity and low status of alternative vocational tracks, and on the fragmented and incoherent nature of the post-compulsory system as a whole (National Commission on Education, 1993). In addition to multiple institutional distinctions in the sector, and the fragmented and dispersed nature of control over these institutions and over the qualifications system, there is a deep and damaging divide between ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’ learning. This is often believed to impede access and achievement among students and to perpetuate the low status of the vocational routes which the government wishes to enhance (Ball, 1991; IPPR, 1991).

On a multi-access network, one of the PIM-SM (PIM Sparse Mode) routers is elected as a Designated Router. One of the responsibilities of the Designated Router is to track local multicast listeners and forward data to these listeners if the group is operating in PIM-SM. This document specifies a modification to the PIM-SM protocol that allows more than one of the PIM-SM routers to take on this responsibility so that the forwarding load can be distributed among multiple routers.

BSAVA’s flagship meeting has been on a perilous journey over the past year. The trip to Birmingham for Congress 2020 had to be abandoned only a few days before its scheduled arrival and planning for this year’s event has been dogged by uncertainty over the likely course of the coronavirus pandemic. That preparation has now been completed and the Association will set off from March 25–27 for the unchartered waters of its first virtual Congress. John Bonner catches up with Andy Green, Chair of the Congress Programme Committee, to find out more…

The comparison described in this paper has been motivated by two things: 1) a “spectral library” of shortwave infrared reflectance spectra that we have built, consisting of the spectra of 60 nominally pure materials (mostly minerals, but also water, dry vegetation, and several man-made materials) and 2) the needs of users in the mining industry for the use of fast and accurate unmixing software to analyze tens to hundreds of thousands of spectra measured from drill core or chips using HyLogging instruments, and other commercial reflectance spectrometers. Individual samples are typically a mixture of only one, two, three, or occasionally four minerals. Therefore, in order to avoid overfitting, a sparse unmixing algorithm is required. We compare three such algorithms using some real world test data sets: full subset selection (FSS), sparse demixing (SD), and L1 regularization. To aid the comparison, we introduce two novel aspects: 1) the simultaneous fitting of the low frequency background with mineral identification (which provides greater model flexibility) and 2) the combined fitting being carried out using a suitably defined Mahalanobis distance; this has certain optimality properties under an idealized model. Together, these two innovations significantly improve the accuracy of the results. FSS and L1 regularization (suitably optimized) produce similar levels of accuracy, and are superior to SD. Discussion includes possible improvements to the algorithms, and their possible use in other domains.

How public relations practitioners in the United Kingdom create and maintain social capital in support of organizational objectives is considered in a research project addressing a research gap identified in its literature review. The project informs the work of a new Working Party on Social Capital established by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. The project’s empirical phase is informed by a conceptual model developed by the authors and presented in the chapter. It draws on research from behavioural economics and evolutionary biology building on theories associated with community organizing and leadership studies. The conceptual framework also features a phronetic planning tool to help practitioners balance organizational requirements against wider social responsibilities. This aspect of the framework serves as an antidote to social capital being viewed as a resource which can be appropriated for narrow organizational ends. The chapter argues that such an instrumental approach to building social capital is both counterproductive and unethical.

This report asks what is happening to middle-skill workers. Driven by mega trends such as automation, ageing and offshoring, the share of jobs whose wages placed them firmly in the middle of the wage distribution has been declining. Termed job polarisation, economists have observed the decline in the share of middle-skill jobs in the majority of OECD labour markets. One little explored question is where are these workers going? This report examines what workers are doing who in the past would have been employed in middle-skill jobs. The report first examines the traits of previous middle-skill workers to build a picture of the “typical” middle-skill worker. Using this profile, the report next examines what types of jobs a worker with the typical middle-skill profile is taking, and how likely such a worker is to be working. The study then analyses different metrics of job stability and compensation to put in perspective what shifts out of middle-skill work imply for labour market outcomes.

Objective To identify personality, biomedical and behavioural factors associated with adult obesity in a large longitudinal sample. Method In total, 5360 participants with data on personality, neurological functioning, maternal smoking during pregnancy, education and occupation, physical exercise, adult self-reported BMI and obesity were included in the study. Obesity at 55 years was the outcome variable. Results The rates of obesity increased from 9.5 to 22.8% from age 33 to 55 years. Logistic regression analyses (adjusted estimates) showed that childhood neurological functioning (OR = 1.32: 1.07–1.63, P < 0.01), maternal smoking during pregnancy (OR = 1.42: 1.22–1.65, P < 0.001), educational qualifications (OR = 0.54: 0.37–0.79, P < 0.01), trait conscientiousness (OR = 0.80:0.74–0.86, P < 0.001) and physical exercise (OR = 0.87: 0.82–0.92, P < 0.001) were significant predictors of obesity at age 55 years for both men and women. Trait extraversion for men (OR = 1.16: 1.07–1.26, P < 0.001) and trait emotional stability for women (OR = 0.90: 0.82–0.99, P < 0.05) were also significant predictors of the outcome variable. Conclusion Biomedical, psychological, environmental and behavioural factors were all associated with adult obesity.

The present study investigated biomedical, social, and psychological factors associated with self-reported heart conditions in adulthood in a British cohort. In total, 5697 (50.7% males) participants with data on parental socioeconomic status, childhood cognitive ability, childhood heart problems, educational qualifications, current occupational levels, adulthood personality traits, and the prevalence of self-reported heart conditions in adulthood were included in the study. The prevalence of self-reported heart conditions measured at age 54 years was the outcome variable. Hierarchical logistic regression analysis showed that childhood heart problems identified by physicians (OR = 3.47:1.74–6.92, p

A new reference library of thermal infrared spectral reflectance measurements of the major rock-forming and alteration minerals has been compiled to support and enhance analysis of data acquired using the CSIRO HyLogger-3 drill-core logging system. The HyLogger-3 is a robotic system that acquires large volumes of bidirectional reflectance spectra from diamond drill core within the wavelength range of visible light, the near infrared and shortwave infrared (400–2500 nm) as well as the thermal infrared from 6000 to 14 000 nm. The library samples were selected as single pure solid mineral crystals or monomineralic hand samples judged to have a similar bidirectional spectral response to that of typical diamond drill cores. Furthermore, a large number of individual mineral samples were chosen to cover the various natural spectral variations within single mineral groups such as, for example, a range of solid solutions of plagioclase. Owing to the bidirectional measurement geometry of the HyLogger-3, spe...

This study investigated the effects of socio-demographic and psychological factors in childhood and adulthood on the prevalence of migraine in adulthood using data from The National Child Development Studies (NCDS), a birth cohort in the UK. The analytical sample comprises 5,799 participants with complete data. Logistic regression analysis showed that higher professional parental social class (OR=2.0: 1.05, 3.86), female sex (OR=2.24: 1.68-2.99, p

Research tells us much about the effects of primary and lower-secondary schooling on skills inequality, but we know less about the impact of the next stage of education. This article uses a differences-in-differences analysis of data on literacy and numeracy skills in PISA 2000 and SAS 2011/12 to assess the contribution of upper-secondary education and training to inequalities in skills opportunities and outcomes. It finds that greater parity of esteem between academic and vocational tracks, as found in German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, has some positive effects in mitigating skills inequality. However, the most important factors seem to be high completion rates from long-cycle upper-secondary education and training and mandatory provision of Maths and the national language in the curriculum.

This article analyses the contribution of post-compulsory education and training systems to the development of literacy and numeracy skills across OECD countries. While there is extensive cross-country comparative research on the effects of primary and lower secondary education systems on aggregate skills levels, there has been little comparative analysis of system effects after the end of lower secondary education. This article makes use of a quasi-cohort analysis of the tested literacy and numeracy skills of 15 year olds in PISA 2000 and 27 year olds in the 2011 OECD Survey of Adult Skills (SAS) to estimate the gains in different countries in mean levels of competence in literacy and numeracy over the life course between ages 15 and 27. We found that Nordic countries with comprehensive upper secondary education and training systems (Norway and Sweden) and German speaking countries with dual systems of apprenticeship (Austria and Germany) are particular effective, while countries with mixed systems (England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Spain) show relative decline in both literacy and numeracy. The education system characteristics that account for those system types’ differences are 1) the inclusiveness – as proxied by high rates of participation at 17/18 and low social gradients of level 3 completion – 2) the esteem of vocational programmes and 3) curriculum standardisation with regards to the study of maths and the national language.

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both skills opportunities and outcomes and uses pseudo-cohort analysis to establish trends over time and during the life course. The analysis shows that adults’ skills in Anglophone countries, and particularly in the United States and England, tend to be more unequal than in other countries on a wide range of measures. This cannot be explained by intercohort differences, skills distributions among adult migrants, or levels and distributions of adult learning, but inequality in education levels provides a strong predictor of skills inequality among adults. Whereas research suggests that early selection drives skills inequality in compulsory schooling, certain forms of tracking, such as bifurcation into academic or apprenticeship/vocational education in upper secondary education, can have a mitigating effect.

Characterizing the occurrence and distribution of soluble salts on planetary surfaces allows us to model or monitor aqueous and geochemical conditions. Thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing is useful for identifying some types of salt deposits; however, mineral abundance determinations are based on the interaction of infrared with only the top few hundred micrometers of the surface. Thus, distinguishing massive deposits from coatings presents a challenge to TIR remote sensing. To better understand the TIR properties of spectrally transmissive halite coatings, we investigated the effects of coating thickness and texture on the TIR reflectance spectra of halite-coated glasses. We analyzed two coating textures with variable thickness: (1) continuous and (2) discontinuous particulate coatings. As halite coating thickness increases, the intensity of substrate absorption bands decreases nonlinearly. The substrate is not detected with halite coatings >150 µm thick. Therefore, when coatings are present, it is not possible to apply TIR models of mineral abundances using linear deconvolution algorithms. We show that continuous and coarse particulate halite coatings increase the reflectance minimum (emissivity maximum), making them potentially detectable on planetary surfaces by the methods of Osterloo et al. (2008). However, the reflectance minimum does not change if coatings have low areal coverage (

This study investigated the associations between psychological as well as social factors in childhood and adulthood and the occurrence of adulthood back pain in a longitudinal birth cohort study. The analytic sample comprises 5698 participants with complete data on parental social class at birth, childhood cognitive ability tests scores at age 11, educational qualifications obtained at age 33, personality traits assessed at age 50, occupational levels, and back pain measured at age 55. Using hierarchical logistic regression analysis, results showed that among all socio-demographic and psychological factors examined, only the highest educational qualification (OR = 0.62: 0.41–0.93, p < 0.05) and traits emotional stability (OR = 0.76: 0.71–0.83, p < 0.001) and agreeableness (OR = 1.10: 1.01–1.21, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of the occurrence of back pain in adulthood. No significant sex differences were found for the prevalence of back pain in adulthood.

This study used a longitudinal data set of 5874 adults to examine factors that influence adult functional memory. Data were collected at birth, in childhood (at age 11), and adulthood (at ages 23 and 50) to examine the effects of family social class, childhood cognitive ability, childhood behaviour problems, personality traits, psychological distress, and educational and occupational achievement in adulthood on adult functional memory. Structural equation modelling showed that parental social status, childhood cognitive ability, personality traits, psychological distress, education and occupation were all significant and direct predictors of adult functional memory. Whilst traits Openness and Emotional Stability were positively associated with adult functional memory, trait Conscientiousness was modestly but negatively associated with adult functional memory. The strongest predictor of adult functional memory was childhood cognitive ability, followed by trait Openness and educational achievement.

Objectives To understand the effects of personality traits on self-rated quality of life. Design This was the exploration of a large longitudinal data base. Methods This study explored a longitudinal data set of over 5000 adults examining the effects of childhood cognitive ability (measured at age 11), parental social class (measured at birth), personality, educational qualifications and current occupational attainment (all measured at age 50) on adult quality of life (measured at age 50). Results Correlational analysis showed childhood cognitive ability, parental social class, education and occupation, and personality traits (emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness) were all significantly associated with adult quality of life. The strongest correlates of adult quality of life were personality traits, followed by current occupational levels and educational qualifications, childhood ability, and parents’ social class. Structural equation modelling showed parental social class had modest but significant direct influence in adult levels of quality of life. Personality traits, educational qualifications and occupational attainment were also the direct predictors of adult quality of life, and the effect of childhood cognitive ability on adult quality of life was mainly through these variables. The implications for policy with respect to improving population level self-rated quality of life are discussed.

In this article we argue that the legitimacy of the social and political order in Britain is undermined by persistent inequalities of skills and opportunities. We first contend that British society is characterised by a liberal regime of social cohesion. Crucial to such a regime is the belief in individual opportunity and rewards based on merit. We demonstrate, through comparative analysis, that skills inequality is actually higher and social mobility lower in Britain than in other western countries. Also the perception of equal opportunities is lower. In Britain there is thus a mismatch between the cherished ideal of meritocracy and the reality of a stratified society, both objective and perceived. This, we postulate, is likely to contribute to the political alienation of disadvantaged groups. We argue that in theory adult learning could reduce the skills gap but that in reality it only magnifies skills inequality since in Britain the well educated and people in work have higher participation rates than the poorly educated and unemployed.

This study extends the comparative model of country groups to analyse the cross-national trends in the higher education expansion and opportunities. We use descriptive data on characteristics and outcomes of higher education systems in different countries groups, including the liberal market countries, the social democratic countries, the Mediterranean countries, the German-speaking countries, the Northern states, and the East Asian societies. At the theoretical level, we assess the validity of the maximally maintained inequality (MMI) theory in the cross-national contexts. We confirm the MMI theory in general patterns of the expansion of higher education opportunities; however, we argue that it is not sufficient to provide accounts on specific country differences in the strength of the relationship between participation rates and inequality of opportunities. Therefore, we explain the divergences from the general pattern of higher participation being associated with lower inequality. We propose three main contenders including the private contribution to higher education, less hierarchical higher education systems, and the participation in the dual higher education system and greater public support and entitlements. We use a series of indicators on the trends of participation in higher education and different types of universities, the private contribution to higher education, and the trends of public support and entitlements to assess the three contenders. Thus, we argue that there are different patterns of the trade-offs between expansion and equalising opportunities. Most rapid expansion is observed in countries with high private contributions to higher education and little government support for students mainly because governments can then afford more places but equalisation of opportunities from the expansion in these systems is limited because of financial barriers to access to less well-off groups. Most egalitarian systems seem to have somewhat lower participation rates with lower fees and strong government support such as the social democratic and the German-speaking countries.