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As guest editors for this special issue of History of Education we are delighted to be able to introduce a range of specially selected articles based on the theme of ‘Politics, Professionals and Pr...

This paper traces the origins of the concept of personalisation in public sector services, and applies it to school education. The original conceptualisation stressed the need for ‘deep’ rather than shallow, personalisation, if radical transformation of services were to be achieved. It is argued that as the concept has been disseminated and implemented through policy documents, notably the 2005 White Paper, it has lost its original emphasis on deep personalisation. The focus in this article is particularly upon gifted and talented students whose education provides the best case example of how the theory of personalisation might work in practice. Two examples of the lessons in a sixth form college are used to illustrate the character of personalised pedagogy in practice. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The English education system has been shown over a long period to be catering poorly for the educational needs of gifted and talented students. In the last five years, however, a national policy and an associated strategy have been established, distinctively attempting to embed core provision for gifted and talented students in the mainstream school system. A major thrust of this ‘English model’ is to identify and support students from those lower socio-economic groups, and ethnic minorities, which historically have been under-represented in higher education. This social inclusivity dimension to the national policy raises substantive challenges for policy research and development. This paper provides a detailed geo-demographic analysis of over 37,000 gifted and talented students admitted to the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth in England in 2003/2005. The analysis shows that the National Academy, whilst having a student membership skewed towards groups with high levels of cultural and economic capital, had nonetheless reached significant numbers of students in the poorest areas, something over 3000 students, and 8% of students identified as gifted and talented at this stage. Possible explanations for the profile of gifted and talented students’ social origins are raised, and an intervention project arising from the analysis is outlined.

This paper highlights just one aspect of the highly gendered nature of nineteenth century pupil teaching and focuses on how the female pupil teacher was constructed as a ‘problem’. The paper consists of two broad sections and draws extensively upon the experience of female pupil teachers who attended pupil teacher centres during the school board period. First, to set the scene and contextualise the ‘problem’, a brief account of the feminisation of teaching and what this meant for the female pupil teacher and pupil teaching in general is explored, with particular reference to the complexities of female pupil teachers’ working life and the issue of mixed centre organisation. Secondly, there follows an analysis of how attempts were made to solve or contain the perceived ‘problem’ of the female pupil teacher through the simultaneous exercise of: moral control; protection and concern with physical and mental well‐being; moulding through the medium of ‘healthful recreation’.

We report the case of a woman who developed chorea in her neck, trunk, and extremities soon after taking gabapentin as treatment for complex regional pain syndrome Type 1. The chorea lasted for a year and resolved completely within 2 weeks of discontinuing gabapentin.

We describe a 45-year-old man with biopsy proven cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL). This patient demonstrated unique retinal findings, including arteriole narrowing and sheathing, irregular choroidal filling on fluorescein angiography, and patchy visual field loss. CADASIL is a hereditary, nonamyloid, nonathersclerotic microangiopathy. This disorder has been mapped to chromosome 19 with mutations in the Notch 3 gene. Deposits of granular osmiophilic material in the basal lamina of the smooth muscle cells of small vessels are considered pathognomonic for CADASIL and are typically seen only on electron microscopy. Although CADASIL is a systemic vascular disease affecting the entire arteriole tree, we are unaware of other reports describing the retinal findings observed in our patient.

Purpose: To define a practice pathway for the evaluation of sixth-nerve palsies (SNPs) and to determine its cost—effectiveness and validity in a retrospective chart review. Methods: A Medline search of the English-language literature from 1966 to 1995 was performed to define the available clinical evidence and develop the practice pathway. The authors retrospectively reviewed 407 charts with the diagnosis of SNP seen at three centers. Information obtained included: etiologic diagnosis if known; development of new neurologic or ophthalmologic findings; and results and costs of neuroimaging studies, if performed. Results: Of the 407 patients, 98 underwent computed tomogra phy scans and 212 underwent magnetic resonance imaging of the head. Eighty cases were non-isolated, 317 were isolated SNP, and ten could not be classified from chart information. Of the 317 cases of isolated SNP, 49 were classified as traumatic; 5, congenital; 158, vasculopathic; 63, nonvasculopathic; and 42, progressive or unre solved. Following the recommendations of the practice pathway, the 158 patients clas sified as having vasculopathic SNP would not have undergone neuroimaging studies, realizing a savings of $100,000 in this study population of 407 patients. Conclusion: The recommendations of the practice pathway are supported by review of the literature and the retrospective review of these cases. However, a prospective study with a matched control group is needed to demonstrate regional and specialty-specific van ations in care and to strengthen the clinical certainty of the pathway recommendations. Key words: practice pathway; diagnostic evaluation; sixth cranial nerve palsies; oph thalmology. (Med Decis Making 1999;19:42-48)

Question Is wearing a night splint as effective as standing on a tilt table in preventing ankle dorsiflexion contracture and promoting the ability to stand up early after stroke? Design Randomised trial with concealed allocation, assessor blinding, and intention-to-treat analysis. Participants 30 patients undergoing rehabilitation who were not yet walking and within three weeks of their first stroke. Intervention For four weeks, one group wore a splint with the affected ankle at plantargrade, 7 nights per week, while the other group stood on a tilt table for 30 min with the ankle at maximum dorsiflexion, 5 times per week. This was followed by a period of no intervention for six weeks. Both groups received inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation emphasising mobility. Outcome measures The primary outcome was contracture measured as maximum passive ankle dorsiflexion. Results The night splint group had the same amount of ankle dorsiflexion as the tilt table group by Week 4 (mean difference 1 deg, 95% CI –5 to 7), and by Week 10 (mean difference 3.5 deg, 95% CI –3 to 10). Conclusion When added to early rehabilitation, wearing a night splint on the affected ankle in stroke patients appears to be as effective as standing on a tilt table in preventing contracture at the ankle. However, since there was no control group, the prevention of contracture may have been due to other factors.

Internet documents are generally created with the sweeping assumption that hypertext's characteristics make for better reading. However, one type of reading does not fit all genres of writing. In fact, how people go about reading hypertext is a largely unanswered question. This essay examines whether hypertext syllabi discourage reading and discourage searching the Internet by suggesting to students that all they need is linked to the syllabus. Specifically, the essay examines a syllabus called “Ethics and the Internet” by Wendy Robinson at Duke University to see how some pages lend themselves to reading, and how others do not.

s / Placenta 36 (2015) A1eA60 A7 NI3.3. HLA CLASS II IS ABERRANTLY EXPRESSED ON CIRCULATING SYNCYTIOTROPHOBLAST MICROPARTICLES IN EARLY ONSET PREECLAMPSIA Chiara Tersigni , Christopher Redman , Dionne Tannetta , Rebecca Dragovic , Sylvia Shahjahan , Nicoletta Di Simone , Ian Sargent , Manu Vatish . Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Universit a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Policlinico A. Gemelli, 00168, Rome, Italy; Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Women’s Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, OX3 9DU, Oxford, UK Objectives: The lack of expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II in trophoblast tissues is believed to be one of the escape mechanisms of the fetus from maternal immune system. Since an exaggerate systemic inflammatory response is known to be a feature of pre-eclampsia (PET), aim of this study was to investigate the possible abnormal expression of MHC class II molecules, namely HLA-DR, in circulating syncytiotrophoblast microparticles (STBMs) from preeclamptic patients. Methods: STBMs obtained by dual placental perfusion after caesarean section from 9 women with early onset ( 34 weeks of gestation) PET (EOPET), 7 women with late onset (>34 weeks of gestation) PET (LOPET) and 12 women with uncomplicated pregnancies were analysed for HLADR and the syncytiotrophoblast-specific placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) expression by flow cytometry. Results: STBMs from women with EOPET showed a significant expression of HLA-DR coupled with PLAP compared to controls (P1⁄40.03). No significant difference was found between either controls and LOPET (P1⁄40.24) or EOPET and LOPET (P1⁄40.35) (Figure 1). Figure 1. Percentage of STBMs double positivity for HLA-DR and PLAP obtained from uncomplicated pregnancies (controls), women with EOPET or LOPET. A significant aberrant expression of HLA-DR was found in EOPET women compared to controls (*P1⁄40.03). Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first observation of an aberrant expression of HLA-DR in STBMs from women with EOPET. This finding might lead the way to the identification of a novel immunological mechanism representing a co-cause or a consequence of the exaggerate pro-inflammatory status that is a feature of PET. More studies are needed to confirm this observation in a larger cohort of patients and to define the possible functional role of aberrant HLA-DR expressed on STBMs spread in maternal circulation in PET. NI3.4. AN INTEGRATED TRANSCRIPTIONAL, EPIGENETIC, AND CLINICAL ANALYSIS OF PREECLAMPTIC PLACENTAS Katherine Leavey , Samantha Wilson , Shannon Bainbridge , Wendy Robinson , Brian Cox . University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Objectives: Preeclampsia (PE) is a complex, multi-system disorder of pregnancy, demonstrating a high degree of variability in observed maternal symptoms and fetal outcomes. We hypothesize that this heterogeneity, leading to a lack of robust predictive biomarkers and effective treatments for this disorder, is due to the existence of multiple molecular forms of PE. While transcriptional analysis of placenta samples can group and classify patients, the integration of epigenetic information should reveal gene regulatory mechanisms behind the pathology. Methods: To address our hypothesis, microarray gene expression data was collected for 330 placentas, including 157 highly annotated samples drawn from the RCWIH BioBank. This combined data set was then subjected to unsupervised model-based clustering and correlative analysis with the available clinical covariates. Additionally, 48 BioBank samples were further assessed by methylation arrays, and genes differentially methylated and/or expressed between clusters were investigated by pathway enrichment analysis. Results: Clustering of the transcriptional data revealed four subclasses of PE samples, including a group with relatively healthy placentas, normal birth weights, and term deliveries, indicating a possible maternal origin of the pathology. An identified “canonical” PE subclass, with clinical presentation of low placental weights and early deliveries, was associated with hypo-methylation and increased expression of genes related to secretion, metabolism, and response to hypoxia, including known PE markers ENG, INHA, and LEP. The third PE group demonstrated severe fetal growth restriction and hypo-methylation of genes involved in immune response, while the fourth subclass formed due to chromosomal abnormalities, confirmed by aCGH analysis, leading to cohesive changes in gene expression but not in methylation status. Conclusion: Overall, our integrated molecular and clinical analysis of preeclamptic placentas has identified multiple subtypes of this disorder, fitting with our hypothesis. Hopefully, this research will eventually lead to the development of robust biomarkers and personalized treatments for all PE subclasses. NI3.5. INTEGRATIVE ANALYSIS OF PLACENTAL TRANSCRIPTOME ORGANIZATION REVEALS HIGHLY CONSERVED REGULATORY PROGRAMS AND POINTS TOWARD A PREECLAMPSIA GENE CLUSTER Sam Buckberry , Tina Bianco-Miotto , Stephen Bent , Gustaaf Dekker , Claire Roberts . 1 The Robinson Research Institute, The University of Adelaide, SA, Australia; 2 School of Agriculture, Food & Wine, The University of Adelaide, SA, Australia; 3 Lyell McEwin Hospital, SA