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The purpose of this paper is to explore how principals’ leadership approaches to teacher professional development arise from school banding and may impact upon teacher professional capital and student achievement.

The case study is situated within the context of school-based management, comprising reflective accounts of nine school principals selected by stratified sampling from a sample of 56 Hong Kong schools to represent Bands One, Two, and Three schools. The reflective accounts were triangulated with observations of teachers and analysis of school websites.

First, under school-based management, principals remain obliged to recognize the power of state-defined examinations in determining the schools’ future priorities. Second, the exercise of school autonomy in response to this obligation varies, depending upon the competitive advantage schools have in the school banding system. Ideally, effective school-based management is dependent upon the principal’s capacity to facilitate good instructional practices. However, principals need to adjust their leadership practices to school contextual demands. Third, adaptations to contexts result in the varied developments of teacher capacities in schools, corresponding with the types of principal leadership adopted.

While statistical studies have identified attributes of exemplary principal leadership, few studies have examined the qualitative reasons for the exemplification of these attributes, and the influence of the school context in shaping these attributes. Departing from assumptions that leadership attributes are intrinsic to individuals, this paper considers how principals contextualize leadership in teacher professional development to the schools’ student academic achievement.

This paper aims to present a triple-band monopole antenna design of 0.2-mm thickness with an overall dimension of 21 × 8 mm² for wireless local area network (WLAN)/worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) applications in the laptop computer.

It comprises three monopole radiating elements, namely, strip AD (inverted C), strip EG (inverted J) and strip FI (inverted U) along with two rectangular open-end tuning stubs, namely, “m” and “n” of size 1.5 × 0.9 mm² and 1.8 × 0.9 mm², respectively. The proposed structure is compact, cost-effective and easy to integrate inside the laptop computers.

This structure excites three WLAN (2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz) and three WiMAX (2.3/3.3/5.5 GHz) bands. The proposed antenna array elucidates that it has measured −10dB impedance bandwidth of 11.86 per cent (2.22-2.50) GHz in a lower band (f_l), 6.83 per cent (3.25-3.48) GHz in medium band (f_m) and 16.84 per cent (5.00-5.92) GHz in upper band (f_u). The measured gain and radiation efficiency are above 3.64dBi and 75 per cent, respectively, and isolation better than −20dB. The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is less than 0.004. The simulated and measured results are in good concurrence, which confirms the applicability of the proposed antenna array for MIMO applications in the laptop computer.

The proposed antenna is designed without using vias, reactive elements and matching circuits for excitation of WLAN/WiMAX bands in the laptop computers. The design also does not require any additional ground for mounting the antenna. Further, the antenna array, formed by using the same antenna design, does not need additional isolating elements and is designed in such a way that the system ground itself acts as an isolating element. The proposed antenna has a low profile and is ultra-thin, cost-effective and easy to manufacture and can be easily embedded inside the next-generation laptop computers.

The purpose of this paper is to developing a kind of acoustic metamaterial with wide frequency band especially in low frequency region. At the same time, its the tunability of sound insulation frequency is achieved.

A three-dimensional (3D) acoustic metamaterial consisting of rigid frame, spherical attachment and thin film is proposed. The material parameters and the effect of the attachment hole on the forbidden band are investigated by finite element simulation. The sound insulation effect of the structure is validated by the combination of simulation and experiment.

The results show that the elastic modulus of the structural material determines the initial frequency of the forbidden band of the proposed 3D acoustic metamaterials. The lower the elastic modulus of the structural material, the lower the initial frequency of the forbidden band. The material parameters of the frame mainly affect the initial frequency of the first forbidden band, and the material parameters of the attachment will affect both the initial and termination frequency of the first forbidden band. Holes in the attachments reduce the band gap width. The characteristic curve moves down with the increase of subtracted mass.

The findings may greatly benefit the application of the acoustic metamaterials in the fields of sound insulation and noise reduction.

This acoustic metamaterial structure has excellent sound insulation performance. At the same time, the single cell structure can be assembled into any shape. The structure can achieve sound selective filtering and combination control.

Forthcoming requirements in MiFID and RegNMS mean that buy‐side and sell‐side firms need to find ways of showing regulators that they are sifting through their trading volumes in a justifiable, methodical manner looking for anomalous trades and investigating them, in order to prove “best execution”. The objective was to see if a SVM/DAPR approach could help identify equity trade anomalies for compliance investigation.

A major stock exchange, a computer systems supplier, four brokers and a statistical firm undertook a cooperative research project to determine whether automated statistical processing of trade and order information could provide a tighter focus on the most likely trades for best execution compliance investigation.

The support vector machine approach worked on UK equities and has significant potential for other markets such as foreign exchange, fixed income and commodities.

The research has implications for risk professionals as a generic approach to trading anomaly detection. The prototype compliance workstation can be trialed.

Automated anomaly detection could transform the role of compliance and risk in financial institutions.

This work proposes a tertiary wavelet model based automatic epilepsy classification system using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals.

In this paper, a three-stage system has been proposed for automated classification of epilepsy signals. In the first stage, a tertiary wavelet model uses the orthonormal M-band wavelet transform. This model decomposes EEG signals into three bands of different frequencies. In the second stage, the decomposed EEG signals are analyzed to find novel statistical features. The statistical values of the features are demonstrated using multi-parameters graph comparing normal and epileptic signals. In the last stage, the features are inputted to different conventional classifiers that classify pre-ictal, inter-ictal (epileptic with seizure-free interval) and ictal (seizure) EEG segments.

For the proposed system the performance of five different classifiers, namely, KNN, DT, XGBoost, SVM and RF is evaluated for the University of BONN data set using different performance parameters. It is observed that RF classifier gives the best performance among the above said classifiers, with an average accuracy of 99.47%.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which two or more spontaneous seizures occur repeatedly. EEG signals are widely used and it is an important method for detecting epilepsy. EEG signals contain information about the brain's electrical activity. Clinicians manually examine the EEG waveforms to detect epileptic anomalies, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process. An automated epilepsy classification system is proposed in this paper based on combination of signal processing (tertiary wavelet model) and novel features-based classification using the EEG signals.

This paper describes emerging metadata practice and standards. It gives an overview of the environments in which metadata is used, before focusing on metadata for information resources. It outlines an approximate typology of approaches and explores different strands of metadata activity. It discusses trends in format development, metadata management, and use of search and retrieve protocols. It concludes by discussing some features of future deployment of metadata in support of network resource discovery.

This study of performances by three groups of musicians (of different genre) takes audiences into account and employs Couch’s (1986) formulation of cooperation as the analytical framework. Couch and others using his formulation restricted their focus to the core cooperating group without attending to their audiences. Data for this study, however, showed that a lot of the musicians’ behavior had no particular musical value but was directed toward the audiences instead. The authors examine these data and integrate audiences into Couch’s formulation for cooperation. The authors will discuss the issues surrounding our core question: “How do cooperating groups of musicians integrate audiences into their thinking about cooperation and group performance?”

The purpose of this paper is to develop a workforce optimisation model that maximises the profitability of a knowledge-based service organisation in the quaternary sector.

An optimisation model that allocates resources from different skillsets and seniority to projects that are delivered from several geographies has been developed in this paper. With the objective of maximising the profitability of a pipeline of projects, the model selects which projects to accept and which not to and indicates how many resources to hire for (or layoff from) each skillset-seniority-geography combination.

The paper discusses the model and its scalable nature. Through hypothetical scenarios, it is shown that the model, using a simple non-linear algorithm, converges to optimal solutions.

The model depends on inputs that are exogenously supplied by the organisation. The applicability of the outcome is dependent on them. However, on the other hand, it allows for the alignment of the outcomes with the strategic objective of the organisation.

The paper discusses the multi-dimensional nature of effective human resource allocation problem. It not only maximises profitability but also allows organisations to strategically screen projects. With proper calibration and minor modifications, the model may be used to allocate resources across the knowledge-based industry.

The paper integrates the demand and supply-side problems of workforce allocation to projects in a novel way to form a tractable model that is pragmatic and applicable.