77 research outputs found
Going virtual: a report from the sixth young microbiologists symposium on ‘microbe signalling, organisation and pathogenesis’
Full text linkThe sixth Young Microbiologists Symposium on 'Microbe Signalling, Organisation and Pathogenesis' was scheduled to be held at the University of Southampton, UK, in late August 2020. However, due to the health and safety guidelines and travel restrictions as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the symposium was transitioned to a virtual format, a change embraced enthusiastically as the meeting attracted over 200 microbiologists from 40 countries. The event allowed junior scientists to present their work to a broad audience and was supported by the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Federation of European Microbiological Societies, the Society of Applied Microbiology, the Biochemical Society, the Microbiology Society and the National Biofilms Innovation Centre. Sessions covered recent advances in all areas of microbiology including: Secretion and transport across membranes, Gene regulation and signalling, Host–microbe interactions, and Microbial communities and biofilm formation. This report focuses on several of the highlights and exciting developments communicated during the talks and poster presentations.Keywordsgene regulation, biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance, infection, host–pathogen interactions, signallin
Dissecting interactions within focal adhesions: studies on vinculin
No full textVinculin and paxillin are proteins that localise to focal adhesions. Focal adhesions arespecialised sites of cell attachment between the cytoplasmic side of the cell membrane andthe extracellular matrix. They consist of receptors that link extracellular matrix ligands tothe actin cytoskeleton via various protein assemblies. They act as mechanical links and assites of signal transduction to transduce signals for cell locomotion, cell attachment anddetachment, apoptosis and gene expression. A range of cellular responses depend criticallyon the composition and regulation of focal adhesions.Vinculin and paxillin will interact in vitro. The tail domain of vinculin interacts with amotif on paxillin called an LD motif. The interaction between LD motifs and their targetproteins is important for regulation of focal adhesion signalling, yet little is knownregarding recognition mechanisms between LD domains and interaction partners.In this thesis, the molecular nature of the vinculin tail (Vt) and paxillin LD motifinteraction has been studied using purified Vt, synthesised LD peptide mimics andrecombinant paxillin His-LD1/LD2. The 1H-15N-HSQC spectrum of a Vt/I997S mutanthas been assigned and the NH assignments transferred to a wild-type Vt spectrum.Chemical shift perturbation studies have subsequently been undertaken using wild-type Vtand paxillin.The data presented here is consistent with specificity for LD motifs and points to aninteraction between Vt and LD1 and LD2. In contrast there is little or no interaction withLD4. Two binding models are proposed; a single binding site on Vt face 3-4 where LDmotifs bind in an extended conformation, or a two-site binding on Vt face 3-4 with twoLD motifs bound as a-helices. Both models need further analysis. NMR data for thepaxillin His-LD1/LD2 construct suggests a predominantly unstructured molecule insolution that can catalyse precipitation of Vt when Vt is added to excess.It is clear that the mechanism of interaction between Vt and paxillin LD motifs is distinctfrom that of focal adhesion kinase interacting with paxillin. Further investigation isrequired to elucidate the precise mechanism of binding. A comparison of this data withother LD-protein interactions suggests there are little similarities between the targetsequences that LD motifs recognise and that target proteins can be structurally different
An annotated catalogue of selected works for clarinet by South African composers
No full textThe dissertation consists of an annotated catalogue of nineteen selected works for clarinet by South African composers. These are presented in chronological order, based on the year of composition. A short biographyof the composer is given before the work is discussed. Of the analysed works, all those for solo clarinet or for clarinet and piano have been graded. A thesis of a similar nature, written in 1989 by L.A. Hartshorne, entitled ""The Compositions for Clarinet by South African Composers"", contains details of twenty-four works written between 1928 and circa 1981. The majority of the compositions analysed in the current dissertation were written from around 1981 onwards, and to some extent, therefore, this research could be seen as complementary to the information contained in the aforementioned thesis. An addendum lists all the South African works featuring solo clarinet that the author was able to trace. These include solo works, cham ber works for up to nineteen instruments and concerto-type works with strings or orchestra
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The electric shepherd and the marvellous boy: literary evocations of Thomas Chatterton's 'suicide' in Philip K. Dick's 'A scanner darkly' and elsewhere
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Would there be numbers if there were no people? : an approach from the problem of the many
No full textThis thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author.
Researchers can access this thesis by asking their local university, institution or public library to
make a request on their behalf. Monash staff and postgraduate students can use the link in the References field
Indo-European vocabulary in Old Chinese : a new thesis on the emergence of Chinese language and civilization in the late Neolithic age
No full textThis study is a much expanded version of the paper I read at the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies on August 28, 1986 in Hamburg (Germany). Contents 1. Recent developments in the field of historical linguistics 2. Monosyllabic structure of Chinese words and Indo-European stems 3. Tonal accents of Middle Chinese 4. Preliminaries on the comparison of consonants and vowels 5. Some IE stems corresponding to Chinese words of entering tone 6. Middle Chinese tones and final consonants of IE stems 7. Some IE stems corresponding to Chinese words of rising tone 8. Some IE stems corresponding to Chinese words of vanishing tone 9. Some IE stems corresponding to Chinese words of level tone 10. Reconstruction of Middle Chinese vocalism according to Yün-ching 11. Old Chinese vocalism 12. Vocalic correspondences between Chinese and IE 13. Initials of Old Chinese 14. Initial consonant clusters in Old Chinese as seen from IE-stems 15. Proximity of Chinese to Germanic 16. Relation of Old Chinese to neighboring languages 17. Emergence of Chinese Empire and language in the middle of the third millennium B.C. Appendix * Abbrevations * Bibliography * Rhyme Tables of Early Middle Chinese (600) * Rhyme Tables of Early Mandarin (1300) * Word Index o English o Pinyin In 1786, just over two hundred years ago, comparative historical linguistics was born, when Sir William Jones (1746-1794) discovered the relationship between Old-Indian Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. Since then, the emerging Indo-European philology has thrown much light on the early history of mankind in Eurasia. During the past two hundred years, many suggestions were also made in regard to relationships of Indo-European to other languages such as Semitic, Altaic, Austronesian, Korean etc., but Indo-Europeanists commonly rejected such attempts for want of convincing evidence. As to Chinese, Joseph Edkins was the first to advance the thesis of its proximity to Indo-European. In his work China's Place in Philology. An Attempt to show that the Language of Europe and Asia have a Common Origin (1871) he presented a number of Chinese words similar to those of Indo-European. In his time, Edkins' thesis seemed bold and extravagant. But today, more than a hundred years later, we are in a much better position to carry out a comprehensive and well-founded comparative study. Since the end of the nineteenth century, many Sinologists have been engaged in reconstruction of the mediaeval and archaic readings of Chinese characters. Among them, Karlgren (1889-1978) was the most successful, and in 1940 he published a comprehensive phonological and etymological dictionary entitled Grammata Serica. In the meantime, the Indo-Europeanists Alois Walde (1869-1924) and Julius Pokorny (1887-1970) were devoting themselves to the compilation of a useful etymological dictionary. The result was the Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch by Pokorny (1959) which provides a solid basis for our lexical comparisons. Soon thereafter, some Sinologists made use of the two dictionaries by Karlgren and Pokorny to compare Chinese and Indo-European words. In 1967, an unaffiliated German scholar, Jan Ulenbrook, published an article "Einige Übereinstirnrnungen zwischen dem Chinesischen und dem Indogermanischen", in which he claimed that 57 words are related. Shortly afterwards, Tor Ulving of the University of Goteborg, Sweden, wrote a review of this article framing the title as a question: "Indo-European elements in Chinese?" While working on his thesis on word families in Chinese, Ulving compiled for his own use two dictionaries: "Archaic Chinese - English" and "English - Archaic Chinese", and discovered thereby 238 Chinese words similar to Indo-European roots. In spite of this considerable number of word equivalents, however, Mr. Ulving became discouraged and, as he told me in his letter of April, 1986, has given up his researches in this field. The skepticism, common among Indo-Europeanists in regard to comparative studies with other languages, is largely based on the dogmatic opinion that only morphology is relevant but not vocabulary. Since the typology of Chinese seems to preclude a cognate relation to Indo-European, they are inclined to discard any lexical correspondences as merely accidental or onomatopoetic. Besides, prehistorical contacts and mixtures between these languages seem not conceivable, as the Indo-Europeans are supposed to have originated in Northern Europe or at best in the Central Asian steppe, thousands of miles away from East Asia. Hence, any research into a relationship between Old Chinese and Indo-European languages would be but futile from the outset. Yet there are also opposing views among Indo-Europeanists. Investigations into Germanic languages and the oldest Indo-European language, Hittite, led some of them to a critical revision of the prevailing conception about a Proto-Indo-European. Hermann Hirt (1934) for instance states: "Inflexion of Indo-European languages is due to a relatively late development, and its correct comprehension can be achieved only by proceeding from the time of non-inflexion." And Carl Karstien (1936) holds the opinion that "Chinese corresponds most ideally to the hypothetic prototype of Indo-European." Regarding vocabulary, there are striking similarities in the monosyllabic structure of the basic words. In modern German and English, all the words of everyday speech are monosyllabic and their stereotypical structure is: initial consonant(s) + vowel(s) + final consonant(s). The same word structure is valid for Chinese as well. It is fundamentally different from the disyllabic structure of Altaic words and from the triconsonantal-disyllabic structure of Semitic words. Characteristic of the monosyllabic word structure is, besides, the complexity of the syllable nucleus, which consists of different vowels and vowel clusters in contrast to the monophthongal vocalism of polysyllabic words. Another objection raised to comparisons between Chinese and Indo-European is the existence of tonal accents in Chinese. Since most modern Indo-European languages have only expiratory accents, Chinese is considered to be a highly exotic language. Yet, even in Chinese, the use of tonal accents as a means of lexical differentiation is a result of comparatively recent development in the long history of Chinese language, the earliest monuments of which date back to 1300 B.C. (cf. Chang 1970, p.21). Unknown to Old Chinese, the existence of tonal accents was for the first time mentioned in the 5th century by Shen Yüeh (441-513). In Middle Chinese (Mch.) there were four tone categories: A P'ing-sheng 平 a level tone (which developed into Mandarin tone 1 or 2). B Shang-sheng 上 a rising tone (Mandarin tone 3). C Ch'u-sheng 去 a vanishing, i.e. falling tone (Mandarin tone 4). D Ju-sheng 入 an entering tone with a staccato effect, the word being abruptly stopped by a final consonant -p, -t, -k. (In Early Mandarin the words of this tone lost their final consonant and were distributed among the tones 2, 3 and 4, respectively according to the phonation of initials). In Middle Chinese, words of the entering tone were the only group which still preserved the final stops and therefore a close syllabic structure. So they are most appropriate for convincing comparisons with monosyllabic Indo-European word stems. The final stops -p, -t, -k of the entering tone are nowadays still extant in daily speech of several dialects in South China as well as in Chinese borrowings in Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean. As a speaker of a Taiwan dialect of Minnan origin, I could immediately identify some Indo-European stems with corresponding Chinese words. Besides, the command of Japanese and German was also a great help for this study. In the following lists I have chosen a number of Indo-European stems which are phonetically and semantically equivalent to Chinese words. Correspondences in initial and final consonants refer to the points of articulation, thus we have equations: IE labials = Old Chinese labials, IE dentals = dentals, IE l, r = dentals (cf. p. 31); Ø, i (final and medial) IE velars = velars and laryngeals, and occasionally (the so-called "satem"-forms) IE velars = dental sibilants and affricates. Regarding the manner of articulation, there are no regular correspondences between Indo-European and Chinese consonants like Grimm's law which is valid among Indo-European dialects to a certain extent. But this is not astonishing, since in Old Chinese the alternation of initials in voicing was a conventional means of creating new words from one basic form. The rules of vocalic correpondences among Indo-European dialects are quite complex. Vowels permanently change their qualities from one language to another, and from time to time within one language also, as is well known from the history of English pronunciations. Generally, the vocalism of Old Greek is taken as the standard for Proto-Indo-European. Old Chinese vowels corresponds nearly (cf. p. 30), but the details about the reconstruction of Middle and Old Chinese vocalism will be treated later (pp. 26-30). For the moment, it is necessary to notice in advance that the stem of ablauting Germanic verbs is the form of preterite or noun, rather than that of infinitive as assumed hitherto. Therefore, in some cases I must slightly modify the basic vowel of verbal stems given in Pokorny, in order to get better basis for comparison. As Old Chinese verbs were non-flexional, they might probably have preserved the original vowel the best
Applying queer theory about time and place to playwriting
Full text linkThis practice as research contributes a ‘queer-place dramaturgy’ to knowledge about playwriting by creating an intersection of writing queer site specific performance and conventional dramatic theatre practice. It follows the recent shift of focus from queer theorizing of sexuality as a constructed identity, to thinking about what queer use of time and space might be. This shift proposes queerness that is detached, but not completely separated from, sexual identity. This shift also produces a range of kinds of queerness that can be described as odd, imaginative, strange, eccentric, dangerous, threatening wonder-full and abject. I use key works by Sara Ahmed, Jon Binnie, Judith Butler, Michael Foucault and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to theoretically contextualise these kinds of queer times and places.
I materially investigate the theory that there is such a thing as queer time and place through an exercise of writing on a public bench for a prolonged period of time, called the ‘civic couch’ exercise. I found that this small resistance to the apparently politically neutral temporal use of a place could (re) author ‘me’ as queer beyond sexual identity. It also began to (re) author ‘identity’ itself, so that ‘I’ became more and more identified by where I was. This led to a queer practice of co-writing self and place with each time and place. When that text was dramatized the audience were invited to co-author each local place through the play and outside after the performance. This series investigates, through a spiraling structure of research the relationship between direct resistance to homophobia and heterosexism through representation of queer lives, bodies, times and places and an indirect formal resistance to a (hetero) normative construction of ‘reality’. Asking finally the question: How queer can queer writing for conventional theatre practice be in the UK today?
This project aimed to bring queer theory into practical contact with playwriting to see what it could change in the form of dramatic theatre. I found that I could (re) shape and guide dramaturgical principles but not fundamentally change or break them. I define what ‘dramaturgical principles’ are in relation to the critical work of Sue-Ellen Case, Elin Diamond, Peggy Phelan and José Esteban Muñoz and argue that ancient concepts of ‘dramaturgical principles’ continue to circulate in postmodern, queer and feminist theorizing about form in theatre and performance.
I propose that the lineage of queer writing for theatre maps a negotiation between challenging form and content, which changes significantly from the early twentieth century (and the work of Gertrude Stein and Lillian Hellman) to the emergence of the gay liberation movement in the late 1960s, (and the work of Gay Sweatshop, 1974 -1997), to Performance Art, Live Art and mainstream theatre in the 1990s (and work by Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane and Split Britches). I also contextualize this research as practice with contemporary site-specific performance interventions into (hetero) normative uses of public, outdoor places, particularly through the public bench
Virtue Ethics and Corporate Governance
No full textThe purpose of this interpretative phenomenological study was to explore directors’ lived experience of ethics in their task of corporate governance so as to capture some of the multiple facets of this phenomenon: specifically how directors understand the role of ethics in their task of corporate governance and how they understand and practise ethics. The focus of the investigation was the role and relative importance of directors’ personal ethics as opposed to corporate governance rules or regulations and to what extent their understanding and practise of ethics as such, resembled Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and Aristotelian virtue theory (AVT). Such issues have implications primarily for the influence of leaders’ personal ethics in the context of corporate governance failure and whether AVT in particular can contribute to the achievement of best-practice governance. AVT differs from the other two ethical theories because it focuses on the importance of a good character for the making and carrying out of sound ethical judgments. It assumes that human nature contains the seeds of ethics and that a good character can develop over time with the help of role models and experience. The study also discusses the subjective aspects of the ethical experience and the debate about the relationship between descriptive and philosophical branches of business ethics. The researcher chose to take an interpretive phenomenological approach using an AVT conceptual framework. The focus of the inquiry was what the individual’s narratives imply about what he or she experiences every day. This allowed the researcher to go further by interpreting the meanings for the purposes of practice and research. The use of the AVT conceptual framework facilitated the examination of the relevance of philosophical ethics for business practice in general and in particular to investigate the relevance of AVT as opposed to the two other ethical theories.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-four directors, eight of which were interviewed a second time. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) technique was used to interpret the data. The findings revealed that directors understand ethics to be integral to their task and that they rely on their personal ethics in carrying out their corporate governance activities. Moreover their experience of ethics resonated with the key features of AVT, aspects which on the whole were not addressed by Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. What is more, directors’ understandings seem to point to an innate objective element underpinning their personal code developed over time through learning and experience. This finding highlights the need to accommodate the subjective-objective complexity of the lived experience of ethics. The findings also indicate that philosophical ethics is needed to adequately account for the lived experience of ethics; directors’ descriptions of their experience contained and were inseparable from ethical standards, the realm of philosophical ethics. In light of the resemblance between AVT and directors’ lived experience of ethics, corporate governance reformers and educators should place just as much emphasis on the development of good character as on learning about ethical duties and how to balance outcomes
Effects of social restrictions on people with dementia and carers during the pre-vaccine phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: experiences of IDEAL cohort participants
Full text linkCopyright © 2022 The Author(s). This qualitative study was designed to understand the impact of social distancing measures on people with dementia and carers living in the community during a period of ongoing restrictions before the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in England and Wales. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 people with dementia and 10 carers (including 3 dyads) living in the community in England and Wales. Participants were recruited during November and December 2020. We used framework analysis to identify issues and elicit suggestions for potential solutions.
We identified three interrelated themes. People with dementia experienced a fear of decline in capabilities or mood and attempted to mitigate this. Carers were aware of changes in the person with dementia and an increase in caring responsibilities and for some, there was a change in the relationship. Subsequently, reduced confidence in capabilities to navigate a new and hostile environment created a cyclical dilemma of returning to ‘normal’ where not returning to usual activities made things worse. People with dementia and carers had feelings of neglect and being alone in their struggle, alongside feeling socially excluded during the pandemic when comparing themselves to others in society, and there was little optimism associated with the upcoming vaccine programme.
People found their own solutions to reduce the effects of isolation by keeping busy and socially active and practising skills deemed to help reduce the progression of dementia. This and some limited local public initiatives for the general public facilitated feelings of social inclusion. This study adds understanding to existing evidence about the longer-term experience of social isolation several months into the pandemic highlighting the importance of health and community groups and how services can find ways to support, include and interact with people with dementia and carers during and after social restrictions.‘Identifying and mitigating the individual and dyadic impact of COVID-19 and life under physical distancing on people with dementia and carers (INCLUDE)’ was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through grant ES/V004964/1. Investigators: Clare, L., Victor, C., Matthews, F., Quinn, C., Hillman, A., Burns, A., Allan, L., Litherland, R., Martyr, A., Collins, R., & Pentecost, C. ESRC is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI); ‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life: living well with dementia. The IDEAL study’ was funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) through grant ES/L001853/2. Investigators: L. Clare, I.R. Jones, C. Victor, J.V. Hindle, R.W. Jones, M. Knapp, M. Kopelman, R. Litherland, A. Martyr, F.E. Matthews, R.G. Morris, S.M. Nelis, J.A. Pickett, C. Quinn, J. Rusted, J. Thom. ESRC is part of UK Research and Innovation
(UKRI). IDEAL data were deposited with the UK data archive in April 2020 and will be available to access from April 2023. Details of how the data can be accessed after that date can be found
here: http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/854293/; ‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life: a longitudinal perspective on living well with dementia. The IDEAL-2 study’ is funded by Alzheimer’s Society, grant number 348, AS-PR2-16-001; Investigators: L. Clare, I.R. Jones, C. Victor, C. Ballard, A. Hillman, J.V. Hindle, J. Hughes, R.W. Jones, M. Knapp, R. Litherland, A. Martyr, F.E. Matthews, R.G. Morris, S.M. Nelis, C. Quinn, J. Rusted. L. Clare and L Allan acknowledge support from the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South-West Peninsula. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the ESRC, UKRI, NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care, the National Health Service, or Alzheimer’s Society. The support of ESRC, NIHR and Alzheimer’s Society is gratefully acknowledged
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