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Believability in the diversity moral economy
Get PDFThis article is the athor's contribution to: A roundtable discussion of Kathryn Claire Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s Believability: Sexual Violence, Media and the Politics of Doubt, published early online by SAGE Publications, 25 March 2024 at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14647001241228856 .Believability has enabled me to think about how sexual violence intersects with ‘diversity signalling’ within the industrialised diversity landscape. Many of the book's powerful arguments can be applied to the construction of believability logics within ‘liberal’ public-facing organisational settings such as the university and the creative industries. In these spaces, liberalism exists as a dimension of functioning markets, shaping who is believed and for what reason
Identifying and characterising digital behaviour change interventions to improve fruit and vegetable intake in low-socioeconomic status primary school children: A Systematic Review
Get PDFAvailability of data and materials:
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.Supplementary Information is available online at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s44247-024-00085-w#Sec27 .Background:
Digital behaviour change interventions aiming to improve dietary intakes; specifically fruit and vegetable intake, in low-socioeconomic children are being developed and tested. However there is currently no synthesis of the characteristics or reported effectiveness of these interventions. This systematic review aims to: (1) identify existing digital interventions targeting fruit and vegetable intake in low-socioeconomic status children, (2) identify and synthesise characteristics and reported effectiveness of these interventions using the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology.
Method:
CINAHL, ERIC, PubMed, Cochrane Library, ACM Digital Library and Scopus were searched in December 2021 – February 2022 and in February–March 2024. Inclusion criteria for studies were: 1) children of low-SES families, aged between 5–11 years old; 2) Digital intervention to improve fruit and vegetable intake; 3) Comparison groups could be digital or non-digital; 4) Outcome measures were fruit and vegetable intake and antecedents to diet behaviours; 5) Randomised controlled trials (cluster and parallel designs). Characteristics of identified studies were coded using the Behaviour Change Techniques Taxonomy and Modes of Delivery, Setting and Source ontologies of the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology.
Results:
Five studies met all inclusion criteria, with majority reporting significant effects of interventions on improving fruit and vegetable intake. Most common Behaviour Change Techniques found were Goal Setting (k = 4), Problem Solving (k = 3), Instruction on how to perform a Behaviour (k = 3), and Prompts and Cues (k = 3). Characteristics relating to intervention source were unclear.
Conclusions:
Digital interventions had positive outcomes in fruit and vegetable intake in children; particularly more for fruit than vegetable intake. Characteristics in digital interventions which have direct effects on child fruit and vegetable intake in low-socioeconomic families should be further investigated. Furthermore, clearer reporting on intervention characteristics is needed.Not applicable
PyCoM: a python library for large-scale analysis of residue-residue coevolution data
Get PDFThe version currently archived on this institutional repository is an accepted manuscript, the PDF version of the author’s final manuscript, as accepted for publication by the journal but prior to copyediting or typesetting. They can be cited using the author(s), article title, journal title, year of online publication, and DOI. They will be replaced by the final typeset articles, which may therefore contain changes. The DOI will remain the same throughout.Data availability The data underpinning this publication can be accessed from Brunel University London's data repository under CC BY license: Coevolution matrix database https://brunel.figshare.com/articles/dataset/PyCoM_ProCoM_Database_of_coevolu tion_matrices/23735613 and protein database https://brunel.figshare.com/articles/dataset/PyCoM_ProCoM_Curated_UniProt_pro tein_database/23733309 .Availability and implementation
PyCoM code is freely available from https://github.com/scdantu/pycom and PyCoMdb and the Jupyter Notebook tutorials are freely available from https://pycom.brunel.ac.uk .Supplementary information:
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online at https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btae166/7635577#supplementary-data .Motivation:
Computational methods to detect correlated amino acid positions in proteins have become a valuable tool to predict intra and inter-residue protein contacts, protein structures, and effects of mutation on protein stability and function. While there are many tools and webservers to compute coevolution scoring matrices, there is no central repository of alignments and coevolution matrices for large-scale studies and pattern detection leveraging on structural and biological annotation already available in UniProt.
Results:
We present a Python library, PyCoM, which enables users to query and analyse coevolution matrices and sequence alignments of 457,622 proteins, selected from UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot database (length ≤ 500 residues), from a pre-compiled coevolution matrix database (PyCoMdb). PyCoM facilitates the development of statistical analyses of residue coevolution patterns using filters on structural and biological annotation from UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, with simple access to PyCoMdb for both novice and advanced users, supporting Jupyter Notebooks, Python scripts, and a web API access. The resource is open source and will help in generating data-driven computational models and methods to study and understand protein structures, stability, function, and design.This project made use of time on HPC granted via the UK High-End Computing Consortium for Biomolecular Simulation, HECBioSim (http://hecbiosim.ac.uk), supported by EPSRC (grant no. EP/R029407/1). Philipp Bibik was funded by Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, summer internship programme
Organisational justice: Barriers to the selection and promotion of black individuals within UK organisations
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonResearch aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers faced by black people in UK public sector organisations, and to explore the factors that enable and sustain these barriers, ultimately preventing Black individuals from reaching board-level management positions. The study provides a more detailed understanding of the specific barrier enabling and sustaining factors that have been overlooked in previous studies.
Methodology: To achieve the aim of the study, a qualitative research design was employed, which involved a comprehensive review of relevant literature on organisational justice to inform the theoretical framework and analysis of interview data. A purposive and snowball sampling technique was used to recruit 46 Black participants from diverse Black ethnic backgrounds, including Black British, Black African, and Black Caribbean, who held various job roles, including managerial positions, in two public sector organisations: the National Health Service and Higher Education. Through semi-structured interviews, the study captures the experiences of the participants regarding their work, selection and promotion opportunities and analyse these experiences using thematic analysis.
The use of thematic analysis allowed for a more in-depth understanding of the barriers faced by Black individuals in the public sector from an organisational justice perspective, as well as the factors that enable and sustain these barriers. By focusing on the experiences of Black participants, the study provides a more nuanced understanding of the specific challenges faced by this group in the UK public sector. By employing a qualitative research design and focusing on organisational justice theory, the study provides a comprehensive and detailed account of the barriers that Black individuals face in accessing board-level management positions in UK public sector organisations.
Findings: The study identified complex and intersecting barriers faced by Black individuals in the UK public sector, despite anti-racist initiatives and efforts by the UK government to promote diversity and inclusion. These barriers are perpetrated and sustained by those in senior, very senior management, and board level positions who are legally required to eliminate them. The study emphasises the importance of taking concerted effort and actions in response to workplace injustice, discrimination, racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and retaliation.
The identified barriers are Procedural justice barriers which include a lack of transparency and fairness in recruitment, selection, and promotional processes, exploitation of positive action under section 159 of Equality Acts 2010 to further discriminate as well as insufficient support and feedback during the selection and promotion processes. Distributive justice barriers include unequal opportunities, a lack of recognition for work and contributions, an inequitable distribution of pay, rewards, and resources, and a lack of managerial support for promotion. Interactional justice barriers involve discriminatory behaviours towards Black individuals from managers and very senior management, including bullying and harassment, microaggressions, victimisation and retaliation, as well as negative stereotypes. Finally, informational justice barriers include a lack of access to important information about career progression and promotion opportunities, a lack of transparency in decision-making, and limited access to decision-making processes.
The study also identified systemic justice barriers and barriers enablers and sustainers, which are structural in nature and include various factors such as a lack of leadership accountability, a lack of genuine commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, power imbalances, cultural incompetence and disregard, white solidarity, managerial incompetency, cliques at senior level management, as well as conscious and unconscious bias. HRM practises were found to contribute significantly to these barriers, including conflicts of interest and poor practises within HRM, inadequate application of HRM processes and procedures, and the use of the term "perception" to undermine the experiences of Black individuals.
Additionally, external factors such as racism in UK society, gaps in the legal system, and a systemic bypass of legal safeguards contribute to the perpetuation, enabling and sustaining of these barriers. Addressing these barriers requires a multi-level approach that involves both internal and external efforts.
Contribution: This study makes important contributions to the literature on the employment and career experiences of Black ethnic groups in UK public sector organisations. Specifically, it identifies systemic justice barriers, factors that enables and sustains the barriers that impede the selection and promotion of Black individuals and underscores the significance of distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, and informational justice in promoting equity, justice, and fairness. Potentially, the findings may inform the development of policies and practises that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and address these barriers and enablers. This study highlights the need for genuine leadership accountability and a commitment to EDI to create a more just and equitable work environment for all employees, regardless of their race or ethnicity. The theoretical contribution of this study is the production of a process model that extends the applicability of organisational justice theory. This model forms a conceptual link between the barriers, the enablers, and the impact of the barriers. By applying organisational justice theory as an alternative lens for examining workplace (in)justice, this study provides a deeper understanding of the nature and extent of barriers faced by underrepresented groups, specifically Black people. Additionally, it inspires recommendations for expanding the study of (in)justice in the workplace as well as organisational learning and accountability.
Overall, this study provides theoretical, practical, and policy-related contributions to the literature on the employment and career experiences of Black ethnic groups in UK public sector organisations. It contributes to the global agenda on inclusion, respect, dignity, and diversity in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, as well as the implications of the fourth industrial revolution. By embracing a broader understanding of workplace justice and a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, organisations can create more equitable and just workplaces for all employees, regardless of their race or ethnicity
Ki-67 is necessary during DNA replication for fork protection and genome stability
Get PDFAvailability of data and materials:
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available at Arrayepress (accession E-MTAB-12279) for RNA sequencing data [74] and PRIDE PXD037513 for the proteomic data [75] respectively. Accession numbers are listed in the Additional file 2: Table S2.
Images and blots data are available from the lead contact upon request and will be shared via Figshare (https://ndownloader.figstatic.com/files/45799353).Supplementary Information is available online at: https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-024-03243-5#Sec38 .A preprint version of this article is available at BioRxiv, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.18.537310v1.abstract . It has not been certified by peer review. The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.Background:
The proliferation antigen Ki-67 has been widely used in clinical settings for cancer staging for many years, but investigations on its biological functions have lagged. Recently, Ki-67 has been shown to regulate both the composition of the chromosome periphery and chromosome behaviour in mitosis as well as to play a role in heterochromatin organisation and gene transcription. However, how the different roles for Ki-67 across the cell cycle are regulated and coordinated remain poorly understood. The progress towards understanding Ki-67 function have been limited by the tools available to deplete the protein, coupled to its abundance and fluctuation during the cell cycle.
Results:
Here, we use a doxycycline-inducible E3 ligase together with an auxin-inducible degron tag to achieve a rapid, acute and homogeneous degradation of Ki-67 in HCT116 cells. This system, coupled with APEX2 proteomics and phospho-proteomics approaches, allows us to show that Ki-67 plays a role during DNA replication. In its absence, DNA replication is severely delayed, the replication machinery is unloaded, causing DNA damage that is not sensed by the canonical pathways and dependent on HUWE1 ligase. This leads to defects in replication and sister chromatids cohesion, but it also triggers an interferon response mediated by the cGAS/STING pathway in all the cell lines tested.
Conclusions:
We unveil a new function of Ki-67 in DNA replication and genome maintenance that is independent of its previously known role in mitosis and gene regulation.The Vagnarelli lab is supported by the Wellcome Trust Investigator award 210742/Z/18/Z to Paola Vagnarelli. KS was supported by a CHMLS PhD scholarship (Brunel University London)
Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons with lepton flavour conserving or violating decays to a jet and a charged lepton
Get PDFA preprint version of the article is available at arXiv:2312.07484v3 [hep-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.07484 . Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/EXO-21-013 (CMS Public Pages)A search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) is presented, which considers the hadronic final state and coupling scenarios involving all three lepton generations in the 2-20 GeV HNL mass range for the first time. Events comprising two leptons (electrons or muons) and jets are analyzed in a data sample of proton-proton collisions, recorded with the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. A novel jet tagger, based on a deep neural network, has been developed to identify jets from an HNL decay using various features of the jet and its constituent particles. The network output can be used as a powerful discriminating tool to probe a broad range of HNL lifetimes and masses. Contributions from background processes are determined from data. No excess of events in data over the expected background is observed. Upper limits on the HNL production cross section are derived as functions of the HNL mass and the three coupling strengths VℓN to each lepton generation ℓ and presented as exclusion limits in the coupling-mass plane, as lower limits on the HNL lifetime, and on the HNL mass. In this search, the most stringent limit on the coupling strength is obtained for pure muon coupling scenarios; values of |VμN|2 > 5 (4) × 10−7 are excluded for Dirac (Majorana) HNLs with a mass of 10 GeV at a confidence level of 95% that correspond to proper decay lengths of 17 (10) mm.SCOAP3
Necropolitics and Necroresistance: A Qualitative Research with Gypsy, Traveller and Roma Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFIn this article based on participatory research, we demonstrate how members of the Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma communities experienced the pandemic during a period of increasing criminalisation. Our investigation of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic among community members was enriched by having a criminologist from a Gypsy/Traveller background as part of the research team. The rich data gleaned during interviews provided insight into the broader context of the lives of Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma communities during the pandemic. Using Mbembe's theory of necropolitics to consider how these marginalised communities were experiencing the pandemic, we illustrate necroresistance, small acts of resistance to the pandemic and Governmental responses by communities and individuals. This article explores how individuals took responsibility for their families and broader networks' survival during the pandemic in conditions exacerbated by escalating systemic hostility.This paper is independent research commissioned and funded by the National Institute for Health Research Policy Research Programme. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research, the Department of Health and Social Care or its arm's length bodies, and other Government departments
Educational research in the global north and south; reflections on the field and future directions
Get PDFEditorialData Availability Statement:
There is no data set associated with this article.We are delighted to have been appointed as the new Editorial Team for the British Educational Research Journal (BERJ). As we embark on this new challenge, we would like to reflect here on our aspirations and ambitions for the journal over the coming four years of our tenure
BMP antagonist CHRDL2 enhances the cancer stem cell phenotype and increases chemotherapy resistance in Colorectal Cancer
Get PDFThe article version is a preprint. It has not been certified by a journal but peer reviews are available [submitted to Gut (BMJ)]. Please refer to the published version archive at https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/31372 - Clarkson E. and Lewis, A. (2025) 'BMP antagonist CHRDL2 enhances the cancer stem-cell phenotype and increases chemotherapy resistance in colorectal cancer', Molecular Oncology, 0 (ahead of print), pp. 1 - 21. doi url: https://doi.org/10.1002/1878-0261.70064 ,Data visualisation and R:
Data was cleaned and significant data was extracted using R software. Graphs we generated using R studio 4.1.0 using libraries ggplot2 and heatmap2.
Gene-set-enrichment analysis was performed using the GSEA software 4.2.3. The Chip annotation platform used was Human_Ensembl_Transcript_ID_MSigDB.v7.5.1.chip.
Gene sets used:
* c6.all.v7.5.1.symbols.gmt
* h.all.v7.5.1.symbols.gmt
* GOBP_REGULATION_OF_BMP_SIGNALING_PATHWAY
* enplot_REACTOME_PI3K_AKT_SIGNALING_IN_CANCER_13
* enplot_GOMF_BMP_RECEPTOR_BINDING_58
* WP_NRF2_PATHWAY.v2023.1.Hs.Chordin-like-2 (CHRDL2) is a secreted BMP antagonist, with overexpression and genomic variants associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk. BMP signalling in the normal intestinal epithelium operates in opposition to the WNT signalling pathway, which maintains stem-cells and self-renewal. Elevated WNT signalling leads to expansion of the stem cell compartment and hyperproliferation, defining characteristics of CRC.
Here, we explored the impact of CHRDL2 overexpression on CRC cells and normal intestinal organoids to investigate whether CHRDL2’s inhibition of BMP signalling intensified WNT signalling, and enhanced the cancer stem-cell phenotype.
CHRDL2 increased cell survival during chemotherapy and irradiation with associated activation of DNA damage response pathways. Organoids treated with secreted CHRDL2 exhibited elevated levels of stem cell markers and reduced differentiation. RNA-seq analysis revealed that CHRDL2 increased the expression of stem cell markers and well-established cancer-associated pathways. We suggest that CHRDL2 overexpression can augment the stem-cell potential of CRC and normal intestinal cells.Bowel Research UK: project title “Investigating variations in two genes that increase the risk of bowel cancer”. ... [submitted article - modify metadata to match when published and split off bioRxiv DOI on CRIS! DB 2024-02-09
A novel optimal allocation of STATCOM to enhance voltage stability in power networks
Get PDFCrown Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Utilizing a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) in the electrical power grid greatly improves the grid's voltage profile by enhancing voltage stability. This article proposes a novel approach based on Mixed Integer Distributed Ant Colony Optimization (MIDACO) to determine the optimal STATCOM installation in the electrical power grid. This approach has two control variables to optimize: the STATCOM size and location. This optimization aims to enhance voltage stability with minimum cost by minimizing two objectives: the voltage deviation index and the STATCOM cost. Also, this article presents a sensitivity analysis to show the stochastic nature of MIDACO and to explain the effect of MIDACO parameters on the optimization approach and the process of reaching the optimal solution. The proposed method has been evaluated on three standard test systems: IEEE 14-bus, IEEE 57-bus, and IEEE 118-bus. In addition, the MIDACO results are compared to those of the artificial bee colony algorithm, the genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization.This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors
Data sources:
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