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The impact of collocation interventions on the lexical accuracy of students’ timed writings
Get PDFA collocation-driven approach to language acquisition has proved to be effective in enhancing students’ understanding of target vocabulary, but recent research suggests that there is a gap in the literature on the impact of productive vocabulary interventions and student writing performance. A previous case study piloted at a Japanese university by the researchers found a noticeable increase in intermediate-level students’ accuracy in spoken vocabulary after receiving collocation-targeted interventions. Based on these findings, the researchers conducted a follow-up study to assess how the same group of students (n = 71) performed in a timed writing assignment by comparing student accuracy of intervened target vocabulary with the accuracy of other non-intervened taught vocabulary. The findings indicate that students used the targeted collocations more accurately. Thus, it can be argued that a collocation-focused approach to teaching vocabulary can positively influence students’ accuracy in both writing and speaking.Peer reviewe
On the Fringe : indistinction and intramediation in online audience reviewing
Get PDFThis thesis investigates how audience reviewing online proceeds as a social practice, and how this might relate to the cultural intermediation performed by art critics, understood as influencing culture through the application of capital and dispositions to struggle for symbolic power (Bourdieu 1984, 1993). Through qualitative case study, I use Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice to examine how the phenomenon is produced in the relationship of field and habitus, enabling its comparison to cultural intermediation. I observe the practice as manifest in reviews and other artefacts produced by users of four websites serving the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I analyse these data in three phases: First, I examine field dimensions and materialities which might enable or constrain agents as they ‘play’ the field’s symbolic game for distinction (Bourdieu 1993). Here, I find agents are structured in intramediary, weakly symbolic positions on the field fringe, among many other similarly legitimised consumers. Secondly, I examine whether and how agents might assert more competitive field positions. With website profile data, I typologise agents by the capital they claim, finding the majority declare little and instead buttress their intramediary position. The third focus is how agent habitus is manifest in performances of reviewing and expressions of taste. Here, I find incomplete understandings of reviewing, and tastes which do not distinguish agents as cultural meaning makers. I characterise their practice logic as one of indistinction, or acting to maintain minimal, intramediary position. In combination, intramediary position and indistinction logic produce the practice of intramediation, or cultural communication by weakly empowered consumers, who do not engage in the field’s symbolic game. I conclude online audience reviewing of the Fringe is not the same as the symbolic intermediation produced in critics’ struggle for capital and field distinction (Bourdieu 1993)
Utilizing virtual reality to assist social competence education and social support for children from under-represented backgrounds
Get PDFFunding: This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Trinity College Dublin-China Scholarship Council Joint Scholarship (ID 202008300006) and Horizon Europe Framework Program (HORIZON - ID 6101070109).Although education is a fundamental human right for global citizens, educational inequality still exists within and among countries. Still today, many students struggle to access and receive quality education. Therefore, the value of using immersive technology to increase social competence and perceived social support for children who live in remote areas of the world, reduce inequality, and improve the quality of education requires much attention to address the lacuna between urban and rural education systems. Based on three representative pedagogies (Pedagogy of Technology, Play-based Learning, and Traditional Pedagogy), we designed three social competence educational approaches – virtual reality (VR) assisted social competence education, Lego social competence education, and traditional classroom learning – and applied them to interventions in two rural schools in Southwest China. Our results showed that VR and Lego social competence education prompted children's social competence and perceived social support with elementary school children (Study 1). Furthermore, VR social competence education resulted in substantially greater social competencies and subjective sense of social support than traditional classroom learning with middle school children (Study 2). The results suggest that VR-assisted social competence education (Pedagogy of Technology) could be a potential tool to reduce educational inequalities in underdeveloped countries and regions.Peer reviewe
Evaluating serpentinization as a source of phosphite to microbial communities in hydrothermal vents
Get PDFFunding: Funding for this work came from a NERC Frontiers grant (NE/V010824/1) awarded to E.E.S. S.M.S. acknowledges support from the NASA Planetary Science Division ISFM Program and the Exploring Ocean Worlds program of the NASA Astrobiology Program, grant (80NSSC19K1427), PI C. German. Further funding came from an NSF grant (OCE-1536405) awarded to W.B. with help from the NASA Astrobiology Institute Rock-Powered Life team. R.A. performed this work as part of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team, a member of the NASA Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, funded via NASA Astrobiology Program Grant No. 80NSSC18K0829.Previous studies have documented the presence of phosphite, a reduced and highly soluble form of phosphorus, in serpentinites, which has led to the hypothesis that serpentinizing hydrothermal vents could have been an important source of bioavailable phosphorus for early microbial communities in the Archean. Here, we test this hypothesis by evaluating the genomic hallmarks of phosphorus usage in microbial communities living in modern hydrothermal vents with and without influence from serpentinization. These genomic analyses are combined with results from a geochemical model that calculates phosphorus speciation during serpentinization as a function of temperature, water:rock ratio, and lithology at thermodynamic equilibrium. We find little to no genomic evidence of phosphite use in serpentinizing environments at the Voltri Massif or the Von Damm hydrothermal field at the Mid Cayman Rise, but relatively more in the Lost City hydrothermal field, Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory, The Cedars and chimney samples from Old City hydrothermal field and Prony Bay hydrothermal field, as well as in the non-serpentinizing hydrothermal vents at Axial Seamount. Geochemical modeling shows that phosphite production is favored at ca 275-325°C and low water:rock ratios, which may explain previous observations of phosphite in serpentinite rocks; however, most of the initial phosphate is trapped in apatite during serpentinization, suppressing the absolute phosphite yield. As a result, phosphite from serpentinizing vents could have supported microbial growth around olivine minerals in chimney walls and suspended aggregates, but it is unlikely to have fuelled substantial primary productivity in diffusely venting fluids during life’s origin and evolution in the Archean unless substrates equivalent to dunites (composed of >90 wt% olivine) were more common.Peer reviewe
Electromembrane extraction and mass spectrometry for liver organoid drug metabolism studies
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centre of Excellence Scheme, project number 262613. The work was also supported by the Olav Thon Foundation. Financial support from UiO:Life Science is also gratefully acknowledged.Liver organoids are emerging tools for precision drug development and toxicity screening. We demonstrate that electromembrane extraction (EME) based on electrophoresis across an oil membrane is suited for segregating selected organoid-derived drug metabolites prior to mass spectrometry (MS)-based measurements. EME allowed drugs and drug metabolites to be separated from cell medium components (albumin, etc.) that could interfere with subsequent measurements. Multiwell EME (parallel-EME) holding 100 μL solutions allowed for simple and repeatable monitoring of heroin phase I metabolism kinetics. Organoid parallel-EME extracts were compatible with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) used to separate the analytes prior to detection. Taken together, liver organoids are well-matched with EME followed by MS-based measurements.Peer reviewe
Key drivers of large scale changes in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations and their predictability
Get PDFFunding: This review article was written with support of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Climate Change in the Arctic-North Atlantic Region and Impacts on the UK (CANARI) project (NE/W004981/1).Significant changes have occurred during the last few decades across the North Atlantic climate system, including in the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere. These large-scale changes play a vital role in shaping regional climate and extreme weather events across the UK and Western Europe. This review synthesizes the characteristics of observed large-scale changes in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations during past decades, identifies the drivers and physical processes responsible for these changes, outlines projected changes due to anthropogenic warming, and discusses the predictability of these circulations. On multi-decadal time scales, internal variability, anthropogenic forcings (especially greenhouse gases), and natural forcings (such as solar variability and volcanic eruptions) are identified as key contributors to large-scale variability in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations. However, there remain many uncertainties regarding the detailed characteristics of these various influences, and in some cases their relative importance. We therefore conclude that a better understanding of these drivers, and more accurate quantification of their relative roles, are crucial for more reliable decadal predictions and projections of regional climate for the North Atlantic and Europe.Peer reviewe
Contrasting reactivity of B-Cl and B-H bonds at [Ni(IMes)2] to form unsupported Ni-boryls
Get PDFFunding: G. A. thanks the University of Surrey for a studentship. I. M. R. thanks the Royal Society of Chemistry for support (R21-1723146519). A. C. thanks Heriot-Watt University for a James Watt Scholarship.[Ni(IMes)2] reacts with chloroboranes via oxidative addition to form rare unsupported Ni-boryls. In contrast, the oxidative addition of hydridoboranes is not observed and products from competing reaction pathways are identified. Computational studies relate these differences to the mechanism of oxidative addition: B–Cl activation proceeds via nucleophilic displacement of Cl−, while B–H activation would entail high energy concerted bond cleavage.Peer reviewe
Study of disorder in pulsed laser deposited double perovskite oxides by first-principle structure prediction
Get PDFFunding: Part of this work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), supported by the National Science Foundation under award ECCS-1542152. C.W. was supported by a grant [EP/R02992X/1] from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This work was performed using resources provided by the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service and the Cambridge Service for Data-Driven Discovery (CSD3) operated by the University of Cambridge Research Computing Service (www.csd3.cam.ac.uk), provided by Dell EMC and Intel using Tier-2 funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (capital grant [EP/P020259/1]), and DiRAC funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (www.dirac.ac.uk).Double perovskite oxides, with generalized formula A2BB′O6, attract wide interest due to their multiferroic and charge transfer properties. They offer a wide range of potential applications such as spintronics and electrically tunable devices. However, great practical limitations are encountered, since a spontaneous order of the B-site cations is notoriously hard to achieve. In this joint experimental-theoretical work, we focused on the characterization of double perovskites La2TiFeO6 and La2VCuO6 films grown by pulsed laser deposition and interpretation of the observed B-site disorder and partial charge transfer between the B-site ions. A random structure sampling method was used to show that several phases compete due to their corresponding configurational entropy. In order to capture a representative picture of the most relevant competing microstates in realistic experimental conditions, this search included the potential formation of non-stoichiometric phases as well, which could also be directly related to the observed partial charge transfer. We optimized the information encapsulated in the potential energy landscape, captured via structure sampling, by evaluating both enthalpic and entropic terms. These terms were employed as a metric for the competition of different phases. This approach, applied herein specifically to La2TiFeO6, highlights the presence of highly entropic phases above the ground state which can explain the disorder observed frequently in the broader class of double perovskite oxides.Peer reviewe
Alkaline attack of boro-alumino-silicate glass : new insights of the molecular mechanism of cold consolidation and new applications
Get PDFFunding: This paper is a part of the dissemination activities of project ‘FunGlass’. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 739566. G.T and E.B. acknowledge additional support from the University of Padova (Dept. Industrial Engineering) by means of the project “SusPIRe” (Sustainable porous ceramics from inorganic residues, BIRD202134) and from Italian Ministry of University & Research (MUR), through National project MUR PON R&I 2014–2021 and Next Generation EU funds, PRIN 2022 PNRR project ‘GLASS_TREA.S.U.RES’ (GLASS-based TREAtments for Sustainable Upcycling of inorganic RESidues, #P2022S4TK2). E.B. and S.E.A. acknowledge also the Padua-St Andrews Joint Seed Funding Scheme.Alkali activation is of interest for the development of sustainable construction materials, especially those produced from waste-derived reactive alumino-silicate feedstock. Fine powders suspended in concentrated alkaline aqueous solutions undergo gelation during drying by condensation reactions that involve the products of glass dissolution. Boro-alumino-silicate glasses from discarded pharmaceutical containers can be activated under ‘mild’ conditions (2.5 M NaOH/KOH), upon drying at 40 °C for 7 days. This work focuses on the study of specific molecular mechanism of glass hardening after the alkali activation. Contrary to what has been reported for geopolymers, hardening does not result from an extensive dissolution phase. Condensation reactions occur in hydrated surface layers, leading to formation of strong bonds (Si-O-Si, Al-O-Si, etc.) between individual glass particles. Silicates, borates, and aluminates from glass dissolution combine with alkaline ions, yielding additional soluble phases. The proposed mechanism is supported by the results of solid-state NMR spectroscopy and elemental analysis using ICP OES. Stable matrices prepared by direct foaming or by the inclusion of cenospheres or commercial expanded glass (Poraver®) can be exploited for the fabrication of lightweight components.Peer reviewe
Generative model for multiple-purpose inverse design and forward prediction of disordered waveguides in linear and nonlinear regimes
Get PDFData-driven machine learning framework has become a state-of-art technique to explore whole parameters design space for designing complex systems. In this work, we used conditional generative adversarial networks to inverse design three problems that we are interested in random nanophotonic systems: pattern optimization, geometry generation, and pattern reproduction. Meanwhile, automation convolutional neural networks group for forward prediction of the transmission spectra of disordered waveguides in linear and nonlinear regimes, at telecommunication wavelengths
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