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To test or not to test? : Assessing the English proficiency of international applicants to a Scottish university with reference to educational background
Get PDFThis chapter details the development of procedures and online guidance to assess whether applicants for degree programmes at a Scottish Higher Education Institution (HEI) (University of St Andrews) possessed threshold English language proficiency for academic study based on their educational backgrounds, as well as related developments in how different English language test scores were used to evaluate proficiency at point of entry. These developments were innovative in adopting a transparent, holistic, and inclusive approach to evaluating English language proficiency for large numbers of international applicants, and in aiming to ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, applicants with significant and successful English-medium educational experience were not asked to obtain additional English language proficiency test scores to evidence their ability. They were also innovative in working within the constraints of immigration requirements and guidance from UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) regarding how HEIs can assess English language ability for international students who require a visa to study in the UK. The chapter describes in detail the context of the innovation, as well as providing a chronological and reflective account of how English language entry requirements were developed at University of St Andrews from 2019 onwards. It ends with a discussion of ongoing issues, and lessons learned through the development process
Nineteenth-century literary languages : politics, aesthetics, and print culture
Get PDFFunding: AHRC (grant number AH/V006630/1).This introduction argues that a focus on the multilingualism of nineteenth-century British and Irish literature can lead to new insights about the literary, cultural, and social histories of the four nations across the long nineteenth century. It offers a historical overview of the changing relations between the languages of nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland (English, Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and Scots, as well as regional dialects). It discusses the particular difficulties involved in studying multilingualism and linguistic diversity in literature, and highlights the potential of collaborative, interdisciplinary research to address those difficulties. The introduction also considers the specific political and methodological questions which are raised by a multilingual and four-nations approach to the study of nineteenth-century literature, and which the articles in this issue of 19 examine in detail.Peer reviewe
The perception of prosocial agents by chimpanzees and humans
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [project grant numbers 310030_185324 (KZ) and 100015_182845 (BB)], and by the National Centre for Competence in Research "Evolving Language" [SNSF agreement number 51NF40_180888 (BB, KZ)]The human propensity for prosocial behaviour has no equal, not even in our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees. However, it remains unclear whether this difference is grounded in the sheer perception and cognitive evaluation of prosociality. We investigated how two hominid species, chimpanzees and humans, perceive third-party social interactions with prosocial, neutral and antisocial agents. Using a touchscreen paradigm, human and chimpanzee participants freely selected between two actors after viewing their interactions, ranging from pro- to antisocial. Contrary to current thinking, we found no evidence for species differences in their choices for agents, regardless of whether interactions were between conspecifics or not. Both humans and chimpanzees demonstrated comparable sensitivity to prosociality, challenging existing views of a profound chimpanzee-human difference in prosociality. Instead, our results indicate that the perception of social interactions is similar across hominids, but that humans have evolutionarily diverged in how they act upon such perceptionsPeer reviewe
Comparison of the performance of fluorescent, phosphorescent and TADF luminophores for explosives sensing
Get PDFFunding: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (GrantNumber(s): EP/W015137/1, EP/W007517/1, EP/Z535291/1.This study investigates how the emission mechanism (fluorescence, phosphorescence, or thermally activated delayed fluorescence, TADF) of a luminescence-quenching chemical sensor influences the sensitivity of explosives detection. Steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements were used to evaluate the quenching kinetics of representative emitters in the presence of 2,4-dinitrotoluene ( DNT ), a model nitroaromatic explosive. Linear Stern-Volmer behavior was observed for the fluorescent and phosphorescent emitters, whereas the TADF compound exhibited a pronounced downward deviation in steady-state measurements, arising from the simultaneous but distinct quenching of singlet and triplet exciton populations. To describe this behavior, we derived a modified Stern–Volmer formalism comprising separate relationships for the prompt and delayed fluorescence. The quenching dynamics of the TADF system were found to be strongly dependent on the intrinsic parameters φ0ISCφ0RISC, kStot and kTtot, with the singlet and triplet populations being quenched with different efficiencies. These insights highlight the potential of TADF luminophores to act as sensitive photoinduced electron transfer-based explosives sensors.Peer reviewe
TRIO
Get PDFThis written commentary is part of a larger portfolio of artistic research that I submitted for my DPerf degree. It includes three artistic projects and one development project. In all four projects, I aimed to highlight and reveal the extraordinary and profound interactions between the lives, creative ideas, and music of three extraordinary musicians – C. Wieck, R. Schumann, and J. Brahms.
The centre figure for this journey was C. Wieck, whose role as a performer, composer, and muse remains underappreciated. Each of my projects is dedicated and focused on a particular personality and their significant influence on the other two, while emphasising their mutual impact and shared musical language. It is difficult to imagine the compositional styles – and indeed much of the output - of R. Schumann and J. Brahms without the influence of C. Wieck and the pivotal role she played in their lives.
The first Artistic Project centres on C. Wieck’s Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 7, which I performed with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. This performance challenged me both technically and emotionally and deepened my understanding of her music. The second project was a solo recital based on variations by all three composers around a shared musical theme, highlighting the intertextual references on how they qouted and responded to one another’s ideas. The third project was a piano duo recital with my wife Eglė Šarmavičiūtė-Rudokė, where we performed four-hand and two-piano arrangements of R. Schumann’s and Brahms’ chamber music, rediscovering this repertoire from an intimate and collaborative perspective. The Development Project was a reimagining of R. Schumann’s Dichterliebe as a collaborative and interdisciplinary performance that brought together piano, voice, and modern ballet. Working with ballet dancers and a singer has given me a unique opportunity to present a fresh perspective on how this music can be experienced and interpreted on stage.
Throughout this portfolio, I have aimed to combine academic research and historical knowledge with emotional engagement in the musical performances. In my written commentary, I discuss about my rehearsal strategies, analyse technical and expressive choices, and summarise how the emotional qualities of the music have shaped my interpretation. This has been a deeply personal journey, not only into the music of the TRIO, but also into my own development as a performer, collaborator, and researcher
Properties and prevalence of false poor man's Majoranas in two- and three-site artificial Kitaev chains
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported as a part of NCCR SPIN, a National Centre of Competence in Research, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 225153). This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERC Starting Grant, Grant Agreement No. 757725).A minimal chain of two quantum dots (QDs) connected via a superconductor has been predicted to host perfectly localized zero-energy states, known as poor man's Majoranas (PMMs). These states are expected to be related to Majorana bound states (MBSs) in longer chains and that the tunable nature of this setup makes it a promising platform to study MBSs. However, realistic systems can only host highly, but not perfectly, localized near-zero-energy states, called imperfect PMMs. These imperfect PMMs have been shown to evolve into trivial states unrelated to MBSs when the chain is extended. Such states are called false PMMs, whereas PMMs that evolve into MBSs in long chains are called true PMMs. Here, using a microscopic model of QD-superconductor arrays, we consider properties of false PMMs and the circumstances under which they appear. In two-site systems, we find that the origin of many false PMMs can be related to zero-energy states occurring in the absence of superconductivity, and we use this analytic understanding to characterize the false PMMs that are typical for different regions of parameter space. In three-site systems, we show that false PMMs can occur via the same mechanism as for two-site systems, but we also find them in regions of parameter space where they are not predicted to exist, thus hinting that the physics of false PMMs can be richer in longer chains. Finally, we demonstrate that the PMMs most stable to perturbations in chemical potential and with the largest excitation gaps appear in a region of parameter space that also has a large ratio of false to true PMMs.Peer reviewe
Genomic studies of common neurodevelopmental conditions
No full textDyslexia and related neurodevelopmental conditions are significantly influenced by genetics. This thesis investigated how genetic variations contribute to these conditions, analysing both common and rare variants and their interactions. Common variants were analysed for sensory and motor traits, including visual acuity (VA) and grip strength (GS). The effectiveness of various bioinformatics tools, including FINDOR, a package that reweights p-values estimated from genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and a Bayesian-based polygenic risk score (PRS) method, was assessed. Overall, no major difference was observed across the performance of different tools. GWAS is a powerful and cost-effective method for identifying common genetic variants linked to complex disorders, enabling the analysis of thousands of variants across the genome in large cohorts. However, GWAS typically accounts for only a small portion of heritability and excludes rare variants, highlighting the need for complementary methods such as whole exome sequencing (WES). WES was performed on individuals diagnosed with dyslexia, their family members, and typically
developing controls. The analysis identified five novel candidate genes (CACNA1D, CACNA1G, CLDN3, CNGB1, and CP) and highlighted the activity of voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) and the transport of ions across the membrane as important pathways associated with dyslexia. A replication study of these variants found that three out of five genes were replicated, and the
biological pathways, including the activity of VGCCs, converged. Prioritised genes were investigated in the UK Biobank to test for associations with cognitive traits and to evaluate their expressivity. This thesis has identified novel candidate genes for dyslexia and suggests that larger WES studies are likely to identify additional genetic associations."This work was supported by Medical Research Scotland [grant number PHD-50010-2019].
This work was supported by Canon Medical Research Europe [grant number PHD-50010-2019]."--Fundin
Asymmetric warming rates between warm and cold weather regimes in Europe
Get PDFFunding: Mika Rantanen and Juha Aalto acknowledge funding by the Academy of Finland (decision 342890). Simon H. Lee acknowledges funding from National Science Foundation grant AGS-1914569 to Columbia University.In Europe, the increase in temperatures caused by climate change has been particularly fast in the cold season. Although the magnitude of this change is relatively well known, less research has been done on how the increase of temperatures is manifested in different large-scale weather types, called weather regimes. For example, one could expect that the weather patterns in which air is flowing from the rapidly-warming Arctic would have warmed faster than other weather patterns in recent decades. Here we show that such an asymmetric warming actually occurs in the four Euro-Atlantic weather regimes. In northern Europe, the weather regime which is typically associated with cold airmasses from the Arctic (NAO–) has warmed about 25% faster than the cold-season days on average, and about 60% faster than the regime where the air flows from the North Atlantic (NAO+). Consequently, the weather regime that on average brings the coldest weather is warming the fastest in a large part of northern Europe. In contrast, the weather regime that typically brings the warmest weather has warmed the slowest, especially in the continental Europe. Our results provide a new perspective on the reported decrease of sub-seasonal temperature variability.Peer reviewe
Continuum reverberation mapping of accretion disks surrounding supermassive black hole binaries : observational signatures
Get PDFFunding: YRL acknowledges financial support from the the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12273041), from the National Key R&D Programme of China (2023YFA1607904), from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS, and from the China Manned Space Project (CMS-CSST-2025-A07). JMW acknowledges financial support from the National Key R&D Programme of China (2021YFA1600404) and from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12333003). RV acknowledges financial support from the STFC studentship ST/Y509589/1. ABK, LČP acknowledge funding provided by the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Mathematics (the contract 451-03-136/2025-03/200104), Astronomical Observatory Belgrade (the contract 451-03-136/2025-03/200002).It has remained challenging to reliably identify sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), despite them being expected to be ubiquitous. We propose a new method using multiband continuum reverberation mapping to identify low-massratio SMBHBs in active galactic nuclei. The basic principle is that, due to the presence of a low-density cavity between the mini-discs and the circumbinary disc, the continuum emissions show a deficit at certain wavelengths, leading to a distinguishing feature in the relation between the inter-band time lag and wavelengths τ(λ). Specifically, the relation appears flat at short wavelengths because of the truncated sizes of the mini-discs and transits to a power law λ4/3 at long wavelength stemming from the circumbinary disc. This transition feature is distinct from the uniform relation λ4/3 of the standard accretion disc around a single black hole. Using the lamp-post scenario and assuming that only the secondary black hole is active in a low-mass-ratio SMBHB, we design a simple continuum reverberation model to calculate the transfer function of the accretion discs and the resulting τ(λ) relations for various SMBHB orbital parameters. The transition wavelength typically can lie at UV/optical bands, mainly depending on the total mass and orbital separation of the SMBHB. We apply our SMBHB model to the intensive multiwavelength monitoring data of the SMBHB candidate PG1302–102 and find that the SMBHB model can reproduce the inter-band time lags. Remarkably, the inferred total mass and orbital period from the SMBHB fitting are consistent with values derived from other independent methods.Peer reviewe
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