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Comparison of variability in ‘front end’ sampling and its effect on downstream qPCR & LAMP assay results
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One-word university ratings are fool’s gold
No full textRather than designating England’s universities gold, silver or bronze the TEF should promote deeper understanding of teaching quality, says Steve Briggs <br/
Safe uncertainty:rethinking consent and relational intimacies in adolescent post-digital cultures
Get PDFThis article explores the concept of ‘safe uncertainty’ as a guiding principle for understanding and supporting adolescent relational intimacies in an era shaped by pervasive digital connectivity and shifting norms. Drawing on research into young people’s sexual and relational practices and insights from the Reimagining RSE pilot programme, the article argues that dominant educational approaches to consent often present legalistic and over-simplistic binary frameworks of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ that fail to reflect the complexities of adolescent experiences. In contrast, the concept of safe uncertainty offers a more nuanced lens that engages with ambivalence, power dynamics and ethical challenges inherent in contemporary relational contexts. The article situates safe uncertainty within broader discussions of risk, safety and relational wellbeing, illustrating how it can engender critical reflection, emotional literacy and adaptive decision-making among young people. Based on the principles of safe uncertainty, the article advocates pedagogical practices that embrace complexity, encourage open dialogue and move beyond prescription. In doing so, the article argues that promoting safe uncertainty does not entail abandoning safety but rather reimagining it as a dynamic, relational process that supports young people’s development of meaningful, ethical and pleasurable intimate relationships.</p
DNA conformational regulation in PDMS chambers under low-concentration monovalent ionic solutions
No full textLow concentrations of monovalent alkali metal ions fail to effectively shield the strong electrostatic repulsion between DNA strands, preventing them from approaching and forming entangled structures. This concentration dilemma limits the application of DNA entanglement-dependent programmable assembly strategies in physiologically relevant low-salt environments. To address this challenge, a PDMS chamber with spatiotemporal regulation capabilities was designed, featuring the following. (1) Spatial regulation: The PDMS evaporation chamber suppressed excessive lateral spreading behavior of droplets, thereby preventing nonuniform dispersion and rapid deposition of DNA and ions. Raman results indicated about 18-fold Na+concentration enhancement in evaporation-driven droplets within PDMS chambers before liquid film rupture. (2) Temporal regulation: The liquid phase retention time of a 10 μL droplet was extended to 55–60 min under controlled conditions (22 °C, 55% RH), providing a temporal window for ion-mediated DNA conformational regulation. (3) DNA conformational regulation: Raman analysis revealed that the high-salt microenvironment formed by evaporative concentration in PDMS chambers drove the entanglement of DNA molecules. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) topographies further confirmed denser DNA entanglement networks in PDMS-chambered droplets, with higher surface coverage than those in open-surface droplets. This work presents a strategy for low-concentration monovalent-ion-mediated DNA morphological regulation, with potential applications in microfluidics, biosensing, and programmable nanomaterials.</p
Seven tips to turn teaching practices into scholarship outputs
No full textWhat are universities looking for when they ask for examples of scholarship outputs? Find out what could provide evidence of this work and how it can enhance your academic career
Support vector machine (SVM) based detection for volumetric bandwidth distributed denial of service (DVB-DDOS) attack within gigabit passive optical network
Get PDFThe dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm is highly impactful in improving the network performance of gigabit passive optical networks (GPON). Network security is an important component of today’s networks to combat security attacks, including GPON. However, the literature contains reports highlighting its vulnerability to specific attacks, thereby raising concerns. In this work, we argue that the impact of a volumetric bandwidth distributed denial of service (DVB-DDOS) attack can be mitigated by improving the dynamic bandwidth assignment (DBA) scheme, which is used in PON to manage the US bandwidth at the optical line terminal (OLT). Thus, this study uses a support vector machine (SVM), a machine learning approach, to learn the optical network unit (ONU) traffic demand patterns and presents a hybrid security-aware DBA (HSA-DBA) scheme that is capable of distinguishing malicious ONUs from normal ONUs. In this article, we consider the deployment of the HSA-DBA scheme in OMNET++ to acquire the monitoring data samples used to train the ML technique for the effective classification of ONUs. The simulation findings revealed a mean upstream delay improvement of up to 63% due to the security feature offered by the mechanism. Moreover, significant reductions in upstream delay performance, including 63% for TCONT2, 65% for TCONT3, and 95% for TCONT4, along with a reduction in frame loss rates for normal ONU traffic, were observed. This research provides a significant stride towards secure GPONs, ensuring reliable defense mechanisms are in place, which paves the way for more resilient future broadband network infrastructures.</p
Associations between malnutrition and physical performance, sarcopenia, and frailty in older adults
Get PDFBackground: The present study examined the associations between malnutrition and physical function, sarcopenia, and frailty in older adults. Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of octogenarians who lived in the mountain community of the Sirente geographic area in Central Italy. Malnutrition was operationalized according to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria. Physical performance measures included the short physical performance battery (SPPB) and the isometric handgrip (IHG) test. Sarcopenia was operationalized as the coexistence of dynapenia and low appendicular skeletal mass, while frailty was identified using a modified Fried’s frailty phenotype. Linear regressions were conducted to examine the associations between malnutrition and physical performance tests. Binary regressions were performed to test the associations between malnutrition and both sarcopenia and frailty. Results: Data of 364 older adults (mean age: 86.3 years) were analyzed. Malnutrition was significantly and inversely associated with IHG and walking speed (WS) performance, but not with other physical performance measures. No significant associations were found with sarcopenia or frailty. Conclusions: Our results indicate that malnutrition is significantly associated with impairments in IHG and WS performance, but not with other well-established physical performance tests in octogenarian older adults. These data might be more closely associated with overall health impairments rather than isolated deficits in the neuromuscular system. Moreover, no significant associations were found between malnutrition and the prevalence of sarcopenia or frailty, which might reflect the fact that individuals examined in the present study were in a process of transition.</p
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