BACKGROUND Failure rates in postgraduate examinations are often high and many candidates therefore retake examinations on several or even many times. Little, however, is known about how candidates perform across those multiple attempts. A key theoretical question to be resolved is whether candidates pass at a resit because they have got better, having acquired more knowledge or skills, or wheth...

VEC3D is a language learning and teaching project that promises 3-D immersion, live voice interaction and social context. Building on goal-based instructional design, VEC3D learners embody avatars and meet each other in virtual spaces. VEC3D can be integrated into various educational settings, student needs, paces, styles and research goals. This article summarizes the VEC3D curriculum, system,...

A number of persons have described stereotypic behavior as being caused by “boredom”. However, several problems exist with this supposed cause. First, it’s anthropomorphic. You’re assuming what would make a human bored would make another species or individual animal bored. Second, it’s circular: If the animal paces because it’s bored, how do you know it’s bored? Because it’s pacing. Finally, th...

We discuss higher-dimensional gravitational instantons by studying appropriate self-duality equations for the spin connection. In seven and in eight dimensions, the corresponding spaces admit a covariantly constant spinor and, consequently, have holonomies in G 2 and Spin(7), respectively. We find a non-compact solution to the self-duality equations in eight dimensions in which the self-dual sp...

The MRCP(UK) PACES examination has been sat by almost 40,000 candidates in 10 countries around the world since its introduction in 2001. The examination assesses skills of relevance to the practice and delivery of high quality clinical care and is the leading international postgraduate summative assessment of this kind. In 2009, the examination was revised, and this article describes those revi...