32151 research outputs found
Sort by
A qualitative synthesis of practitioner research of English language learner autonomy in higher education in Japan
Get PDFThis study draws on Chong and Reinders’ ([2025]. “Autonomy of English Language Learners: A Scoping Review of Research and Practice.” Language Teaching Research 29 (2): 607–632. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688221075812) international scoping review to offer a nationally focused, qualitative synthesis of bilingual practitioner research on the conceptualisation, operationalisation, and evaluation of English language learner (ELL) autonomy in Japan. The scarcity of chances to use English, alongside a facilitative domestic publishing culture, have made autonomy a key practitioner research focus. However, this work has not undergone systematic secondary review. As such, while aiming to benefit Japanese audiences, the study also hopes to broaden international access to research published in Japanese. Adopting systematic procedures aligned with the Synthesis Methods and Reporting Tool (SMART) for Research Syntheses in Applied Linguistics (Chong [2025]. “Synthesis Methods and Reporting Tool (SMART) for Research Syntheses in Applied Linguistics.” Research Synthesis in Applied Linguistics: 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/29984475.2025.2456880), data from 14 studies was extracted, inductively coded, and discursively analysed following a literature search on CiNii, a Japanese research database (National Institute of Informatics [n.d.]. About CiNii Research. https://support.nii.ac.jp/en/cir/manual_outline). The findings revealed points of convergence (e.g., conceptual prevalence ordering) and divergence (e.g., use of non-experimental research designs, focus on the transition to higher education) between domestic and international settings. Practitioner-researchers are recommended to adopt diverse research designs using performance-based measures, ground work more firmly in theory, strive for greater clarity in role definition, and examine other liminal periods – such as the transition to work life.Peer reviewe
Hope under the shadow of the mushroom cloud : from the crisis of nuclear modernity to the “miracle” of a world free of nuclear weapons
Get PDFThis article reconstructs Hannah Arendt’s arguments in relation to crisis and hope against the rise of modern society, with a focus on the global crisis posed by nuclear weapons. Although Arendt was critical of twentieth century utopianism, she provides a standpoint for non-perfectionist utopian hope in the twin phenomena of natality and political action. Braiding together Arendt’s account of the modern world with the invention of atomic weapons, this article provides a twofold contribution to understanding the emergence of nuclear modernity and the possibility of averting looming nuclear catastrophe. First, the entanglement between the production of nuclear weapons and mass consumer capitalism spotlights the role of technoscientific instrumentality in facilitating organized complicity with modes of destruction capable of extinguishing all life on the planet. Second, Arendt’s ontology of natality sheds light on the potential of human beings to imagine novel ways of living and acting together, which speaks to the “miraculous” capacity of human freedom to bring about transformative sociopolitical change. Several initiatives regarding nuclear weapons non-proliferation and abolition are examined to demonstrate what transformative change has been achieved already as well as what still may be realistically hoped for to reach a world without nuclear weapons.Peer reviewe
Vermin in society : plague, pests and poisons at the dawn of zoonosis
No full textThis thesis elaborates a historical-ethnography of rat control as it was fractiously transposed into a critical modality of colonial counter-epidemic practice in India. Throughout the 19th century, rats scratched, scurried, gnawed and rotted throughout the colonial archive as injurious pests, naturalist enigmas and domestic ‘vermin’. However, for all the frustration and occasionally anxiety they engendered, rats were widely considered by Victorian publics and colonial officers as not only relatively ‘clean’ creatures, but indeed an advantageous facet of sanitary systems in both in India and Europe. The third plague pandemic (1898-1947), however, occasioned a profound reorganisation of epidemiological frameworks which incorporated rats in relation to this diverse suite of ‘verminous’ characteristics, elaborated, tracked and inscribed with novel pathogenic meanings. Alongside the surge of scientific literature mobilised by the confounding behaviours of plague as proliferated across India, claiming upwards of 12million lives in India, the third plague pandemic galvanised an unprecedent explosion in lethal practices pivoting around rats. Whilst historians have tended to collapse ‘rat destruction’ as unitary practice, often established in a narrative of teleological progress to the ‘rat-flea’ theory affirmed in 1905, the colonial authorities expressed continual ambivalence about the possibility and advisability of such measures within India. This thesis follows the development of counter-rat activities as they emerged across shifting epistemic environments, economic interests and roiling bio-political concerns of imperial governance in India. In particular, the dissertation centres the programs of ‘poisoning’ on terra firma, exploring the enmeshment of inter-imperial networks, colonial governmental priorities and economic rationalities which cooperated to institute rat poisoning as a vital facet of both counter-epidemic practice and mercantile commerce. Focusing on the period between 1896-1910, it engages follows the material and discursive entanglements between plague, indigenous peoples, rats and poisons instituted through the novel counter-epidemic modality of chemical rat extermination
‘Highland chieftains’ : officer selection, status and identity in The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), c.1902-1918
No full textThis thesis examines the selection and integration of commissioned officers in The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) in the years 1902-1918, a group defined by Scottish national identity and elevated social status.
It analyses the processes by which candidates were selected for commissions and appointed to regiments, charting the evolution of these processes in response to the exigencies of war and highlighting disparities and inconsistencies between regular and auxiliary commissions. It explores how this shaped the composition of the group, demonstrating that the ‘officer corps’ of a Scottish regiment was socially, nationally, and professionally heterogeneous.
Subsequently, it examines how this relatively disparate group maintained a common and enduring social and national character, particularly in the face of wartime diversification. It demonstrates that individuals of diverse backgrounds and commission types adopted the lifestyle and behaviours characteristic of the British officer and the specific regimental and national culture of the unit regardless of their individual origins, promoting an appearance of homogeneity. Further, it argues that this resulted in a very real identification with this social status and national identity on the part of individual members of the group.
Finally, it considers the long-term effects of this phenomenon on the army and the officers themselves, illustrating developments and limitations in officer selection following the experience of wartime diversification and integration, and the impact of their newfound social status and national identity on individuals in post-war civilian life.
Ultimately, it concludes that officer selection was rarely designed to create, and certainly did not achieve, a socially or nationally homogeneous group, but that uniformity could be achieved on both counts through socialisation and integration
Adsorptive removal of a triphenylmethane dye from its aqueous solutions using a biosorbent
Get PDFFunding: One of the Authors (BG) expresses her gratitude to MANIT, Bhopal, for providing a PhD fellowship. Electron Microscopy was performed at the University of St Andrews and we acknowledge funding for these facilities from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK (EP/L017008/1, EP/R023751/1 and EP/T019298/1).A hazardous triphenylmethane dye, Crystal Violet, was effectively removed from its aqueous solution using a waste material—Hen Feather—as biosorbent. The Crystal Violet-Hen Feather adsorption system gives promising results and has not been studied previously. By removing a highly toxic dye, using a ubiquitous biowaste material this research provides dual advantages. The influence of contact time, adsorbent dosage, dye concentration, and solution pH on the uptake of Crystal Violet by Hen Feathers was systematically investigated. Six adsorption isotherm models, namely the Freundlich, Langmuir, Temkin, Dubinin–Radushkevich, Halsey, and Jovanovic models, were studied for the adsorption of Crystal Violet over Hen Feather and various physicochemical parameters were derived. Langmuir isotherm data were exploited to obtain thermodynamic variables. Negative values for ΔH° were recorded as −15.15 to −17.01 kJ·mol−1, and negative ΔG° values of −23.34 to 25.94 kJ·mol−1 confirmed the adsorption process was exothermic and spontaneous. It was determined that a pseudo-second-order kinetic model is applicable to the present adsorption system at all three tested temperatures. It was established that Hen Feather possesses a very strong affinity for Crystal Violet and works as an excellent scavenger through physisorption.Peer reviewe
Early medieval medicine : how a new corpus of manuscripts is transforming the field
Get PDFThanks to the work of several generations of scholars, there has never been a greater interest in early medieval medicine. Yet the field, which continues to be largely manuscript-based given the sheer number of unedited texts, remains tethered to two now-outdated manuscript catalogues that collectively record 225 Latin manuscripts containing medical writings produced before ca. 1100. The Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (CEMLM) has recently completed a handlist of early medieval manuscripts with medical texts that do not feature in the earlier catalogues, more than doubling the total number of witnesses up to the year 1000. These findings have far-reaching implications, and this article offers a series of case studies that illustrate how the handlist, in concert with a reassessment of definitions and categorizations in the field, is transforming our understanding of early medieval medicine.Peer reviewe
Aragonite lithium/magnesium as an indicator of calcification media saturation state in marine calcifiers
Get PDFFunding: Funding for this project was provided by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/S001417/1). Raman analyses were supported by the EPSRC Light Element Analysis Facility Grant EP/T019298/1 and EPSRC Strategic Equipment Resource Grant EP/R023751/1 at the University of St. Andrews.Marine calcifiers support ecosystem services, including shell fisheries and coral reefs. Constraining the saturation state of the calcification media of these organisms is essential to understand the response of biomineralisation to environmental change. Here we synthesise aragonite over variable pH, saturation state, temperature, and in the presence of simple biomolecules. We show that the lithium/magnesium distribution coefficient, relating aragonite and precipitation fluid compositions, is significantly affected by precipitation rate but not by temperature or pH. Precipitation rate reflects saturation state and temperature, so lithium/magnesium of biogenic aragonite can be used to calculate mineral precipitation rate and, if the precipitation temperature is known, to reconstruct calcification medium saturation state. Applying the distribution coefficients to a published calcifier dataset indicates that calcification media saturation state is ca. 9 to 13 at 18–30 °C and ca. 6 to 10 at 10–18 °C. Coral calcification media saturation state varies between ocean sites, species, and reef zones.Peer reviewe
Some results in speech processing and recognition
Get PDFThis thesis describes the results of experimental work done in the field of time domain digital speech processing. The work described has application in the fields of digital telecommunications, speech recognition and subsea communication. Surveys of pertinent work in these areas are included
The extremely high albedo of LTT 9779 b revealed by CHEOPS : an ultrahot Neptune with a highly metallic atmosphere
Get PDFFunding: S.H. acknowledges CNES funding through the grant 837319. J.S.J. acknowledges support by FONDECYT grant 1201371, and partial support from CONICYT project Basal AFB-170002. G.Sc. acknowledges support from CHEOPS ASI-INAF agreement no. 2019-29-HH.0. T.G.W. acknowledges support from STFC consolidated grant number ST/V000861/1. The contribution of M.L. has been carried out within the framework of the NCCR PlanetS supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grants 51NF40_182901 and 51NF40_205606. M.L. further acknowledges support of the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number PCEFP2_194576. J.I.V. acknowledges support of CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional-21191829.Context . Optical secondary eclipse measurements of small planets can provide a wealth of information about the reflective properties of these worlds, but the measurements are particularly challenging to attain because of their relatively shallow depth. If such signals can be detected and modeled, however, they can provide planetary albedos, thermal characteristics, and information on absorbers in the upper atmosphere. Aims . We aim to detect and characterize the optical secondary eclipse of the planet LTT 9779 b using the CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) to measure the planetary albedo and search for the signature of atmospheric condensates. Methods . We observed ten secondary eclipses of the planet with CHEOPS. We carefully analyzed and detrended the light curves using three independent methods to perform the final astrophysical detrending and eclipse model fitting of the individual and combined light curves. Results . Each of our analysis methods yielded statistically similar results, providing a robust detection of the eclipse of LTT 9779 b with a depth of 115±24 ppm. This surprisingly large depth provides a geometric albedo for the planet of 0.80−0.17+0.10, consistent with estimates of radiative-convective models. This value is similar to that of Venus in our own Solar System. When combining the eclipse from CHEOPS with the measurements from TESS and Spitzer, our global climate models indicate that LTT 9779 b likely has a super metal-rich atmosphere, with a lower limit of 400× solar being found, and the presence of silicate clouds. The observations also reveal hints of optical eclipse depth variability, but these have yet to be confirmed. Conclusions . The results found here in the optical when combined with those in the near-infrared provide the first steps toward understanding the atmospheric structure and physical processes of ultrahot Neptune worlds that inhabit the Neptune desert.Peer reviewe
exoALMA. II. Data calibration and imaging pipeline
Get PDFFunding: J.B. acknowledges support from NASA XRP grant No. 80NSSC23K1312. M.B., D.F., and J.S. have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (PROTOPLANETS, grant agreement No. 101002188). Computations by JS have been performed on the “Mesocentre SIGAMM” machine, hosted by Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur. P.C. acknowledges support by the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca through the grant Progetti Premiali 2012—iALMA (CUP C52I13000140001) and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. S.F. is funded by the European Union (ERC, UNVEIL, 101076613) and acknowledges financial contribution from PRIN-MUR 2022YP5ACE. M.F. is supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI: No. JP22H01274). J.D.I. acknowledges support from an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (ST/W004119/1) and a University Academic Fellowship from the University of Leeds. Support for AFI was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant No. HST-HF2-51532.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. C.L. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 823823 (DUSTBUSTERS) and by the UK Science and Technology Research Council (STFC) via the consolidated grant ST/W000997/1. C.P. acknowledges Australian Research Council funding via FT170100040, DP18010423, DP220103767, and DP240103290. D.P. acknowledges Australian Research Council funding via DP18010423, DP220103767, and DP240103290. G.R. acknowledges funding from the Fondazione Cariplo, grant no. 2022-1217, and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research & Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101039651 (DiscEvol). FMe received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 101053020, project Dust2Planets). H-W.Y. acknowledges support from the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan through grant NSTC 113-2112-M-001-035- and from the Academia Sinica Career Development Award (AS-CDA-111-M03). G.W.F. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agreement no. 815559 (MHDiscs)). GWF was granted access to the HPC resources of IDRIS under the allocation A0120402231 made by GENCI. Support for BZ was provided by The Brinson Foundation. T.C.Y. acknowledges support by Grant-In-Aid for JSPS Fellows JP23KJ1008.The exoALMA Large Program was designed to search for subtle kinematic deviations from Keplerian motion, indicative of embedded planets, in high-angular-resolution and high-spectral-resolution Band 7 observations of 12CO, 13CO, and CS emission from protoplanetary disks. This Letter summarizes the calibration and imaging pipelines used by the exoALMA collaboration. With sources ranging in diameter from 2.″4 to 13.″8 when probed by 12CO, multiple antennae configurations were required to maximally recover all spatial information (including Atacama Compact Array data for seven sources). Combining these data sets warranted particular care in their alignment during calibration and prior to imaging so as not to introduce spurious features that might resemble the kinematic deviations being investigated. Phase decoherence was found in several data sets, which was corrected by an iterative self-calibration procedure, and we explored the effects of the order of operations of spatial alignment, flux scaling, and self-calibration. A number of different imaging sets were produced for the continuum and line emission, employing an iterative masking procedure that minimizes bias due to non-Keplerian motions in the disk.Peer reviewe
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage St Andrews Research Repository? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!