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Education ‘in’ and ‘through’ singing to improve and facilitate the communication skills of autistic children
Get PDFIntroduction/Background
Autistic children can gain from education ‘in’ and ‘through’ music (Ockelford & Markou, 2012, p. 387). This exploratory study explored four research questions: 1) What approaches do teachers of singing consider to be effective in teaching singing to autistic students, including students who are MS (minimally speaking)? 2) What is the impact of teaching autistic students to sing as perceived by teachers of singing? 3) What are the perceptions of practitioners and parents about how singing can facilitate the communication skills of autistic children who are NS (nonspeaking), MS, or LS (limited speaking)? 4) To explore how, while keeping the uniqueness of the child at the centre, I can use singing to facilitate and improve the communication skills of autistic children who are NS, MS, or LS.
Methods
In phase one, 35 singing teachers answered an online questionnaire. In the second phase, online interviews were conducted with 14 participants, including parents, music therapists, and speech-language pathologists. In the third phase, five autistic children and their caregivers participated in an ethnographic study; an ethnographic case series was written. Data was analysed using descriptive analytics and reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022).
Findings and Discussion
The responses to the questionnaire indicated that a specific singing teaching approach for all autistic students does not exist. Singing teachers observed improvements in musical and other skills, including communication skills. The interviews suggested that singing can be explored as a tool to facilitate communication skills. The importance of goal adaptation and linking singing to communication goals was emphasised in the ethnographic case series. This qualitative, exploratory study showed that singing is perceived as a potential tool for fostering the development of communication skills in autistic students; however, further research using quantitative methods is needed to analyse the impact of singing instruction on autistic students
Resource Systems Under Human Depopulation: The Case of Anthropocene Japan
No full textHuman activity has left an indelible and deepening imprint on Earth systems, prompting calls for formal recognition of the “Anthropocene” as a new geological epoch and raising concerns about a polycrisis of interlinked environmental, societal, and demographic disruptions. Among the drivers of this crisis, population growth is often identified as a key factor, which has spurred long debates over whether depopulation could mitigate the crisis. As more countries transition to sustained sub-replacement fertility, this premise has gained prominence. This thesis explores that assumption focusing on Japan, a vanguard depopulating country, to investigate the nexus among population change, resource systems, and sustainability. It begins by presenting a conceptual framework that places the Anthropocene crisis within the population-society-environment nexus and critiques reductionist views that single out population as the principal driver. It then explores the Resource Nexus literature on land, food, water, and energy to highlight geographic and thematic biases in how socio-demographic challenges are addressed. Building on these insights, two empirical analyses of Japan are undertaken: a Bayesian causal analysis of the population-economy-land-food-water-energy nexus, and a multiregional input-output analysis to assess the land-water-greenhouse-gas emissions nexus embedded in resource consumption. Findings indicate that Japan’s depopulation has yielded measurable reductions in resource demand across multiple sectors, yet these also entail risks of food insecurity and footprint offshoring as domestic cropland use shrinks and trade dependency grows. Further, despite a shrinking population, absolute food system footprints have remained stable while per-capita shares have risen by nearly one-third over the past decade, driven by overconsumption of animal-based and ultra-processed foods, most of which are externalised through global supply chains. The thesis argues that, although depopulation could theoretically yield environmental dividends, affluence and pro-growth lock-in limit these gains. It, therefore, calls for transformational societal changes to achieve sustainable resource management and safely navigate the Anthropocene crisis
The Modernist Night: Bram Stoker, James Joyce, Louis Aragon, and Djuna Barnes
No full textThis thesis examines representations of the night in modernist prose. It studies how four modernist writers were inspired by the new, brightly lit night in the development of their writing and understandings of the modern urban experience. Chronologically, this study goes from the last decade of the 1800s to the 1920s. It begins by exploring anxieties about the changing night displayed in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). It then considers James Joyce’s depiction of subversive female experience found in the modern Dublin evening in Ulysses (1922). After this, the focus of the thesis shifts forward in time to Paris — a city known for its lights and nightlife — and considers two works set in the 1920s. First, it looks at Louis Aragon’s Le Paysan de Paris (1926) and the text’s characterizations of the dreamlike qualities of the everyday before reading the importance of the night walk in developing the author’s understanding of the surreal experience of the frisson. Finally, it explores Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (1936) and the ways in which it uses the darkness of night in both its style and form, showing a strange, distant figure — the modern somnambule — who disrupts what is seen and understood, unsettling the text through her silence and mystery.
This thesis argues that across these works of modernist prose, a distinct appreciation of the night as a vital and productive space becomes evident. These writers reevaluate the significance of the night during an era in which it underwent dramatic changes. This thesis explores how these writers registered these changes and responded to the newly illuminated and busy nightscape of modernity by crafting texts that seek and portray benighted experiences. In doing so, it aims to illustrate the importance of the night in the shaping of both the experience of modernity and of modernism itself
Upstream Liability: The Civil and Criminal Liabilities of the Manosphere
Get PDFThe Manosphere is a loose confederacy of male-centric online groups, consisting of activists, seduction communities, and cliques of extremists with verifiable links to mass-casualty attacks. Members of these communities are known to incite real-world harm, a phenomenon this thesis terms ‘downstream harm.’ The thesis responds to an urgent need for research into how this phenomenon should be combatted, both within the Manosphere and beyond. To do this it identifies whether existing legal tools would be effective in holding online actors liable, individually or collectively, for real-world harm. It employs a vignette methodology; exploring the criminal and civil liabilities of the Manosphere through plausible narratives designed to test existing legal frameworks. The thesis develops and analyses two narratives featuring orthodox Manosphere communities. However the conclusions are widely transferable.
By analysing these vignettes the thesis constructs defensible legal arguments on how existing frameworks could be used to hold online actors liable for downstream harm. It argues accessory liability, in crime and tort, is a means through which those who contribute to mass casualty attacks can be held to account. The thesis proposes a duty of care for online influencers to identify the circumstances in which they may be liable in negligence. It further suggests that the law of unincorporated associations could be used to establish wide-ranging collective liability for members of online communities. Indeed this could be used in conjunction with public nuisance to regulate the harms of the Manosphere
Before/After/Between: uncovering the abject in the Hollywood makeover film
No full textThis thesis explores relationship between the Hollywood makeover of the late 1990s and early 2000s to identity and body through the lens of abjection. This thesis argues that the makeover’s attempt to separate the self into the neat categories of before and after is troubled by the individual, as the abject always returns and the self resists division. The makeover narrative endures in the cinematic imagination, often using narrative and formal elements such as the makeover montage to enable viewers to witness the fantasy of becoming the best version of themselves. Therefore, the makeover film simultaneously reinforces normative beauty standards and represents examples of women and girls attaining success within a neoliberal capitalist framework. Using five central case studies: The Princess Diaries (Marshall, 2001), The Devil Wears Prada (Frankel, 2006), Miss Congeniality (Petrie, 2000), Jawbreaker (Stein, 1999), and Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), each chapter deploys textual analysis and feminist psychoanalysis as a principal method to unpick the film text and assess how identity is formed, critiqued, surveilled, and negotiated on screen. Despite some commonalities, each film produces specific articulations of how aesthetic transformation impacts the individual, ranging from the regal to the monstrous. The research questions raised and answered by this thesis are: where can we find abjection in the makeover film, and what is its significance to the makeover subject? How does the abject function as a tool of identity formation in the makeover film, particularly as a contrast to glamour? Through its use of the abject, to what extent can the makeover film be read as horror? And what is the relationship between abjection in the makeover film and neoliberal postfeminism
Profiling calibration devices and simulating cosmic-ray muon spallation for Hyper-Kamiokande
Get PDFNeutrinos are produced in many places, with the most explosive being core-collapse supernovae. Owing to their low chance of interacting, it is expected that the majority of the neutrinos produced in this way still exist and should be able to be detected by modern neutrino observatories such as Super- and Hyper-Kamiokande. However, efforts to detect such a signal have been hampered by overwhelming backgrounds.
One such background is the low-energy events caused by the spallation of nuclei by cosmic-ray muon interactions. A spallation simulation chain has been developed for the Hyper-Kamiokande experiment, which uses FLUKA to simulate the complex spallation interactions and the water Cherenkov simulation (WCSim) framework to simulate the detector’s response to these interactions.
The result of the simulations is a machine learning classification which classifies between DSNB events and spallation-induced low-energy events. The results of this classification are a promising indication of the best possible performance of a classifier being approximately 98% in both background rejection and signal efficiency.
An underwater profiling system used to measure precision profiles of calibration devices for use in Hyper-Kamiokande has also been developed. Two types of calibration devices have been developed: collimators and diffusers. The system has successfully measured the profiles of a number of both types of calibration devices and has contributed towards the development of the devices by investigating their compatibility with long-term submersion in ultra-pure water.
Finally, an updated analysis of data collected with a high-purity germanium detector was developed to aid in the 2023 linear accelerator calibration campaign of the Super-Kamiokande detector. This included the calibration of the germanium detector using multiple radioactive sources, the simulation of the detector’s response to sub-20MeV electrons, and a χ2 analysis to determine the energy of electrons produced by the linear accelerator
Navigating challenges in medical robotic manipulation: modelling, sensing and control of magnetic soft robots
No full textThe role of HDAC6 in the cellular contractility of metastatic cells
Get PDFBackground: Cancer is the term used to describe a group of diseases, which are all characterised by mutation of normal cells and their uncontrollable growth in different parts of the body. Cancer also has the ability to metastasise, which makes it highly malignant and allows it to quickly spread through the body proving quickly fatal. Mechanobiology is a field of science that studies how differences in the mechanical properties of cells affect cellular properties and disease. Cellular contractility is the ability of cells to exert contraction and generate force by cell-matrix interaction. This cell-matrix interaction results in the exertion of cell traction forces, which is essential for cell migration, maintaining cell homeostasis and cell structure. Histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) is an enzyme in humans and HDAC6 gene expression correlates with increased carcinogenesis and metastasis of cancer cells.
Aim: To determine the effect of HDAC6 on contractile forces of metastasising human BJ fibroblasts and the molecular mechanisms that control these contractile forces.
Methods: To measure contractile forces of cells, isogenically matched normal, immortalized, transformed, and metastatic human BJ fibroblast cells were cultured on polyacrylamide gels and cells were imaged using Traction force microscopy (TFM). Contractile forces were also measured after HDAC6 inhibition and HDAC6 siRNA knockdown of metastasising cells. Confocal microscopy was also performed to image the cell-matrix adhesions and cell spreading area between the cellular components and extracellular matrix. Cell migration assays were used to evaluate the effect of HDAC6 inhibition or knockdown on the morphological properties of metastasising fibroblast cells. The intracellular force of the nucleus was also measured in metastasising and HDAC6 inhibited cells.
Results: Metastasising cells have increased cellular contractility than normal BJ fibroblasts, but this contractility is reduced significantly when HDAC6 is inhibited using tubacin in metastasising cells. However, this trend is significantly reversed in siRNA knockdown of HDAC6 since contractile forces increase when compared to untreated metastasising cells. Metastasising cells have decreased nuclear forces than normal BJ fibroblasts and this force decreases further when HDAC6 is inhibited. Metastasising cells have smaller cell-matrix adhesions and decreased cell spreading area compared to normal BJ fibroblasts.
Conclusion: Increased cellular contractility in metastasising cells makes them more invasive. This is dependent on HDAC6 activity via its deacetylase and protein-binding functions. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that control this contractility will allow for the development of drugs that can help reduce metastasis of cancer and mortality rates
High-throughput models to investigate the ecology and control of oral biofilms
No full textThe microbial community inhabiting the oral cavity constitutes a subset of the broader human microbiome. Second only to the gut in species diversity, the oral microbiome is implicated in numerous oral and systemic diseases. These microorganisms persist within the challenging oral environment as biofilms, structures which provide protection against environmental stressors and facilitate cooperative microbial interactions. Biofilm development is influenced by numerous variables which results in inconsistency both clinically and in vivo, restricting standardisation.
In vitro modelling overcomes this with better control of experimental conditions whilst retaining the potential to predict clinical outcomes. Nevertheless, increasing the physiological relevance in these devices typically degrades throughput, thereby reducing research capacity.
The “MiTooth” platform described here is engineered with an aim of addressing this key limitation through scalable design. The model was evaluated through three different case studies, each designed to assess specific model features:
1. Evaluating the protective efficacy of topical self-assembling peptides against acid-induced enamel erosion. Analysis by X-ray microtomography revealed increased enamel demineralisation in peptide-treated teeth versus a fluoride varnish control under pH cycling.
2. Investigating how environmental parameters influence the development of defined-species biofilms. Changes to culture conditions in parallel experiments created distinct biofilm communities. Increased environmental complexity was associated with a reduced disparity between Gram-positive and Gram-negative populations in a biofilm composed of species implicated in periodontitis.
3. Assessing the effects of probiotic supplementation on periodontal biofilm formation. This study demonstrated that probiotic species can integrate into a developing defined-species oral biofilm, albeit with limited impact to composition.
Although MiTooth is limited in its long-term evaluation and ability to impose defined spatial restriction to developing biofilms, the case studies presented here demonstrate that it can be adapted to facilitate diverse research objectives. Its focus on resource efficiency and scalability positions it as a candidate tool for supporting studies into biofilm dynamics and exploring potential therapeutic targets related to oral and systemic diseases
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