We know from monitoring children's development for almost a decade that despite lots of money being spent in the early years, standards of early reading and mathematics development haven't increased.

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Lands' End also provides a good example of how technological development and increasingly clever mathematics are bringing new services to the internet.

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And of all the artifacts that have aided cognition, the most important is the development of writing, or more properly, of notational systems: number systems, writing, calendars, notational systems for mathematics, engineering, music and dance.

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The Initiative, a 10-year plan to provide greater work-related flexibility to women and men in research careers, is run by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is the leading source of Federal grants for many fields that are crucial to US technology development and job creation, including computer science, mathematics, and the social sciences.

WHITEHOUSE: First Lady Michelle Obama at the National Science Foundation Family-Friendly Policy Rollout | The White House