U.K. to back Innovation Universities project

The United Kingdom is committed to supporting India as it develops 14 world-class Innovation Universities, said David Willetts, British Minister for Universities and Science.

Addressing academics at IIT-Madras Research Park, Mr. Willetts said eight U.K. universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Essex, Birmingham, Newcastle, Exeter and the Open University – are eager to forge links during the design and eventual creation of the new Innovation Universities.

“We are keen to identify 14 British universities that can work alongside from the beginning. After talks with Kapil Sibal, I will go back to Britain to identify the 14 British universities to match up with the universities here,” the British Minister said.

Keen on flow of postgraduate and research students and academics between the two countries, Mr. Willetts said he would encourage the British academics to come to India. “There is scope for PG and Ph.D students to study in both countries to obtain a single award. Twinning arrangements between universities sharing staff and resources is beneficial,” he said, outlining the broad contour for collaboration.

The UK already has more than 80 university-related collaborations up and running in India, making it the most active international partner here.

To move things on substantially, Mr. Willetts said he would be visiting India again in November with leading UK university vice-chancellors to establish a framework for collaboration as India and the UK have a solid base to build on.

Recent commitments on co-funded research projects are worth about £60 million. Indeed, funding pledged by the UK bodies for collaboration with India this year has already approached 1 per cent of its science budget, a level that some argue should be the budget set aside for international collaboration, Mr. Willetts said. Jointly funded and administered research programmes will concentrate on priority areas for both countries – food security, water resources and sustainable energy. The UK has offered to commit up to £6 million for research in areas such as off-grid power generation technologies and ICT to improve services in, and the economic capacity of, rural communities in both countries. In the area of civil nuclear energy, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and India's Department of Atomic Energy are collaborating on five new projects, including areas such as plant safety and nuclear waste management, the British Minister said.

Mr. Willetts held discussions with IIT-M officials led by its Director M.S. Ananth, and then visited facilities at the TeNet Laboratory and Research Park on the campus.

NEWS BY:http://www.thehindu.com

Education Divisions Boost McGraw-Hill and Pearson Earnings

Two of the biggest players in education publishing had good news to report in their most recent earnings filings, even though McGraw-Hill (MHP) supplied more tangible information than its U.K.-based competitor, Pearson (PSO).

McGraw-Hill Sees Strong Gains in Education Division

For its third quarter, McGraw-Hill's profit rose to $380 million, or $1.23 a share, from $336 million, or $1.07 a share in the year-earlier period -- a 15% increase from the same time last year and way above analysts' expectations of $1.10 EPS. Total revenue grew by 5.5% to $1.98 billion, also beating analysts' projections for the company.

On the education side, revenue jumped 5.5% to $1.1 billion while operating profit grew 19.9% to $357.5 million. That took into account a $3.8 million pre-tax gain on the divestiture of a secondary school business in Australia, while foreign exchange had negligible impact this quarter, a far cry from previous earnings periods.

Looking at specific education segments, revenue for the School Education Group increased by 6.7% to $534.7 million compared to the same time last year, while the higher education side went up 4.3% to $520.0 million. The School Education Group is now on track to capture 30% of the estimated $825 million to $875 million state new adoption market in 2010, owing in large part to substantial orders from the adoption states with the biggest student enrollments, such as Texas, California, and Florida.

Good news also came from the Standard & Poor's side, as that division's revenue increased 9.5% to $697.4 million compared to 12 months ago. The biggest reason? High-yield debt issuance.

As for information and media, Q3 revenue declined by 4.7% to $227.8 million compared to the same period last year, but it would have increased 5.1% if not for lingering residue from the sale of BusinessWeek to Bloomberg. Operating profit for this division also increased by 55.1% to $45.8 million in the third quarter.

In a statement, Chairman, CEO and President Harold McGraw III attributed the earnings jump to a slew of factors, including "surging global high-yield issuance in the bond market, a solid gain at S&P Indices, increases in U.S. elementary-high school and higher education in the seasonally most important quarter of the year, double-digit increases in the sales of digital products and services in higher education and professional markets, and global growth in energy information products."

Looking ahead, the company is bumping up its guidance, now anticipating earnings per share somewhere between $2.60 and $2.65, even with a one-time gain of 2 cents EPS from recent acquisitions.

Pearson Finds Success in Move to Global Learning Technology

As for Pearson, its nine-month trading report was thin on numbers and long on percentage-driven positive news. Overall, the company increased sales by 7% and adjusted operating profit 15% in the first nine months of 2010. Its trade book publishing arm, Penguin, saw revenue grow 5% compared to last year, and the education side increased 7% from 12 months ago. That piece of news caused Pearson to remark that it continues "to accelerate our transformation from book publisher to the leading global learning technology and services company through organic investment and bolt-on acquisitions."

An 11% jump in revenue for the Financial Times came about because of "strong demand for its print and digital content," increased M&A activity and sustained advertising growth. For Penguin, Pearson noted that "physical retail markets are tough," but they were offset "by strong publishing and rapid growth in eBook sales" for 16,500 titles currently available. Industry newsletter Publishers Lunch ran the numbers, and for e-books that means "if Penguin ebooks went from 8.5% of U.S. sales after two quarters to 10% of U.S. sales in the third quarter, that would comprise revenue of approximately $4 million."

In other words, as is the case for almost all big publishers right now, e-books are growing, but the story is still small potatoes compared to larger sectors like education -- and print publishing as a whole.


NEWS BY: http://www.dailyfinance.com

Tracing musical style through technology

Aberdeen academics will employ the techniques of DNA sequencing to look at how music has changed over the centuries.

They are part of an international team successful in securing a £100,000 grant from the Digging into Data project, which supports researchers using computational techniques to change the nature of humanities and social sciences research.

Dr Frauke Jurgensen, a lecturer in music at the University of Aberdeen, will lead the Aberdeen team, working alongside academics from Canada and the USA, to study changes in musical style from 1300 to 1900.

They will employ computational techniques, including those more commonly used in genetics research, to pinpoint transitions in musical style which could ultimately change the way in which we appreciate and perform music from this era.

Dr Jurgensen will focus on Renaissance music, analysing the changes in musical chords and melodic motions using advanced music information retrieval techniques.

She said: “As a singer I have a strong interest in music from a performance perspective, and if you are going to perform or even listen to music then you have to understand it.

“Modern audiences are not going to be familiar with much of the music we are looking at, since we subconsciously build up an understanding of the music we normally listen to.

“Much of the music we are investigating deserves to be performed, and we hope that by developing our understanding of the way it is constructed, we can help modern audiences and musicians to connect to it.”

Dr Jurgensen will use the digitised collections of several large music repositories, including the music of Palestrina and his contemporaries, to extract answers as to how the styles of the composers differ.

She will work with Professor George Coghill, Head of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen and Dr Ian Knopke from the BBC, with Dr David Smith, Head of Music at the University of Aberdeen, acting in an advisory role.

“The collections we are looking at extend to thousands of pieces and if you were to attempt this kind of analysis by hand it would take many years.

“By using digitised data we are able to use pattern matching techniques similar to those in DNA sequencing to look at both similarities and differences in the music.

“We will be able to pinpoint the way in which a composer writes a piece of music that makes it different from another composer from the same period.

“This way of looking at music should help us to understand not only how this older music works, but also affects our understanding of newer music, which is underpinned by similar concepts.”




NEWS BY:http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/details-11607.php

Silverstone to house new technical college

Silverstone motor racing circuit is to house one of the first in a new wave of specialist university technical colleges (UTCs).

Set up with Northampton University and a local college, it will be one of 13 UTCs to offer highly technical subjects to teenagers from next year.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the UTCs "have the potential to change the lives of thousands for the better."

Others argue they risk setting children on a rigid career path too early.

The government also announced on Monday that it had approved 55 new free schools.

This includes one being set up by the prestigious independent school Brighton College in a deprived part of east London but targeting poor, bright teenagers across the city.

And plans for the first bilingual primary school, which aims to teach in English 50% of the time and Spanish the rest, have also been approved.

Like free schools, university technical colleges are a flagship Conservative policy. They are being pioneered by former Education Secretary Kenneth Baker.

They are similar to German technical schools, where students can elect to follow skills-based education from their mid-teens.

The other 12 new UTCs will be established in Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Burnley, Bedfordshire, Daventry, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield, Southwark and Wigan.

There are already two UTCs open in England, one sponsored by heavy plant manufacturers JCB in Staffordshire and the other, The Black Country UTC, in Walsall in the West Midlands. And three more are already in the pipeline.

They offer 14- to 19-year-olds the opportunity to take a full time, technically oriented course of study and are supposed to be very well equipped with modern technical facilities.

They are sponsored by a university and aim to offer clear routes into higher education or further learning in work.

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15216987