Corpus Linguistics and Academic Writing

• Studies of academic writing employ a range of corpus linguistic techniques • Studies have examined a diverse range of professional, student and research genres • Studies reveal routine organisation and features of different genres and show clear disciplinary preferences for expressing ideas and structuring arguments. • Language choices vary between genres, disciplines, first language speakers, contexts and over time. • Academic conventions constrain both meanings and author identities, but also provide the resources for creativity and agency. • More work needs to be done, particularly on less visible genres, multimodal texts and the impact on AI on academic writing

Genomic insights into the beneficial potential of Bifidobacterium and Enterococcus strains isolated from Cameroonian infants

A healthy early-life gut microbiota plays an important role in maintaining immediate and long-term health. Perturbations, particularly in low-to middle-income communities, are associated with increased infection risk. Thus, a promising avenue for restoring a healthy infant microbiota is to select key beneficial bacterial candidates from underexplored microbiomes for developing new probiotic-based therapies. This study aimed to recover bifidobacteria and lactic acid bacteria from the faeces of healthy Cameroonian infants and unravel the genetic basis of their beneficial properties. Faecal samples were collected from 26 infants aged 0–5 months recruited in Dschang (Cameroon). Recovered bacterial isolates were subjected to whole-genome sequencing and in silico analysis to assess their potential for carbohydrate utilization, their antimicrobial capacities, host-adaptation capabilities and their safety. From the range of infant-associated Bifidobacterium and Enterococcus strains identified, Bifidobacterium species were found to harbour putative gene clusters implicated in human milk oligosaccharide metabolism. Genes linked to the production of antimicrobial peptides such as class IV lanthipeptides were found in Bifidobacterium pseu-docatenulatum, while those implicated in biosynthesis of cytolysins, enterolysins, enterocins and propeptins, among others, were identified in enterococci. Bifidobacterial isolates did not contain genes associated with virulence; however, we detected the presence of putative tetracycline resistance genes in several strains belonging to Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis and Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum. Among the enterococci, Enterococcus mundtii PM10 did not carry any genes associated with antimicrobial resistance or virulence. The latter, together with all the Bifidobacterium strains, also encoded several putative adaptive and stress-response-related genes, suggesting robust gastroinstestinal tract colonization potential. This work provides the first genomic characterization of Bifidobacterium and Enterococcus isolates from Cameroonian infants. Several strains showed the genomic potential to confer beneficial properties. Further phenotypic and clinical investigations are needed to confirm their suitability as customized probiotics

Reimagining labour law through the lived experiences and collective strength of women beedi workers

My PhD explores the lived realities of women beedi workers in northern Telangana—how labour law manifests (or fails to) in their lives, and how they respond collectively. Using an intersectional feminist lens, I conducted a 10-month mixed-methods study: a survey of 320 women, 60 semi-structured interviews, two focus group discussions with union leaders and members, and key informant interviews with contractors, labour welfare officers, medical staff, and government officials. I also examined archival records and policy documents tracing the beedi industry's history of unionisation, legislation, and struggles for implementation

Nonlinear and nonmonotonic effect of ocean tidal mixing on exoplanet climates and habitability

Tides play an important role in the circulation and mean state of the Earth's oceans through inducing significant mixing. On other planets, tidal forcings could be highly amplified compared to Earth, such as planets orbiting relatively close to low-mass host stars, or planets having massive and/or close moons. The former scenario is especially important as, due to their abundance and their observational advantages, low-mass stars offer the best chance of finding habitable planets through sheer numbers. By varying the magnitude of tidal forcing over several orders of magnitude in a coupled atmosphere–ocean global circulation climate model, we find that key climatic quantities, such as heat transport intensity and both surface and deep ocean temperature, change with tidal strength in a nonlinear and nonmonotonic manner. We find an optimum value of tidal mixing, approximately 100 times that of Earth's oceans, which minimizes climatic thermal gradients across the planet. In particular, we show that such planets are habitable for stellar flux values at which oceans with weaker or stronger tidal mixing freeze globally, suggesting an important role for ocean tidal mixing in planetary habitability

Earl Thorfinn of Orkney and the forgotten battle of 1058

Verses by Arnórr ‘jarls’-poet’, preserved in Orkneyinga saga, describe a battle in which Earl Thorfinn of Orkney fought the English south of the Isle of Man. The thirteenth-century saga-author associated these verses with a campaign supposedly fought in the 1030s or 1040s, but this account is doubtful. Turning to the Norwegian expedition of 1058, this article considers whether the verses might originally have referred to that campaign and later become linked with a different story. New readings of the key stanzas are proposed, and a new sequence, with consequences impacting on the chronology and circumstances of Thorfinn’s life and death. There are ramifications for discussions touching the saga tradition, Arnórr’s career, Malcolm (Máel Coluim) III Canmore’s career, and his marriage to Ingibjorg

The expert assessor perspective on assessment center taxonomies

Research on assessment centers (ACs) has advanced the development of taxonomies for the evaluation of dimension and exercise performance. However, largely missing from current AC taxonomies is the perspective of subject matter expert assessors. Assessor perspectives could contribute toward improving construct differentiation and the development of a theoretical understanding of AC dimensions and exercises. In this study, 197 internationally based assessors participated in a series of multidimensional scaling (MDS) tasks involving stimuli from extant dimension and exercise taxonomies. For our dimension taxonomy, results suggested distinctions between (a) task orientation, (b) interpersonal relations, (c) activity, (d) organizing and planning, and (e) tolerance for stress/uncertainty. For our exercise taxonomy, results suggested that exercises are distinguished by varying levels of (a) media richness and (b) interpersonal interaction. We investigated assessor perceptions of illustrative dimension-exercise combinations and found, in contrast to findings for operational ACs, that assessors expected to rate same dimensions across different exercises. Our results suggest updates to and unique perspectives on taxonomies for dimensions and exercises. We discuss novel theoretical and practical insights that contribute to knowledge relevant to AC research and practice. We furthermore offer applied methodological contributions based on our unique application of MDS in the context of assessor perceptions

Students' perspectives on the organization of health in physical education

Purpose: This study explored students’ perspectives of the approaches to organizing health in secondary school physical education lessons. Method: Utilizing a qualitative methodology, 47 students (aged 11–16 years) from four secondary schools were interviewed. Data were analyzed thematically, with Harris’ “approaches to organizing health in physical education” conceptual framework used to support the analytical process. Results: For the focused approach, many students reported that a positive aspect was its functional nature. They valued a dedicated lesson specifically for health-related learning and appreciated not having to concentrate on two aspects at once. For the permeation approach, views were mixed, whereas the combined approach was hardly mentioned from either a positive or a negative perspective. Conclusion: We provided the first insight into students’ perspectives of the organization of health in physical education and highlighted the importance of consulting students in the development of effective health education programs

Decolonising the curriculum in Japanese language education in the UK and Europe

In recent years, “Decolonising the Curriculum (DtC)” has been widely discussed and advocated in the European educational landscape as part of inclusive education. However, few examples of its practice in Japanese language teaching have been reported. While discussions of DtC in Japan often focus on the context of Japan’s former colonies, this context does not apply to Japanese language education in Europe, where Japanese is positioned as a minority language, thus a target for inclusion. Considering these complex contexts, we conducted a survey of Japanese teachers to understand the position and goal of DtC for Japanese language education in Europe. This report primarily investigates how Japanese language teachers in Europe perceive and implement the concept of decolonisation in their teaching. The project highlighted the complexity of DtC within Japanese language education in the UK and Europe, where both the perspectives of the coloniser and the colonised are present. Our findings revealed a range of practices for reviewing power dynamics in the classroom to make education more inclusive, whether respondents intended DtC or not; there were different ways of understanding DtC. We hope that this initiative will provide an opportunity for further discussion of DtC in the teaching of languages other than English

Identification of the lydiamycin biosynthetic gene cluster in a plant pathogen guides structural revision and identification of molecular target

The natural products actinonin and matlystatin feature an N-hydroxy-2-pentyl-succinamyl (HPS) chemophore that facilitates metal chelation and confers their metalloproteinase inhibitory activity. Actinonin is the most potent natural inhibitor of peptide deformylase (PDF) and exerts antimicrobial and herbicidal bioactivity by disrupting protein synthesis. Here, we used a genomics-led approach to identify candidate biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) hypothesized to produce HPS-containing natural products. We show that one of these BGCs is on the pathogenicity megaplasmid of the plant pathogen Rhodococcus fascians and produces lydiamycin A, a macrocyclic pentapeptide. The presence of genes predicted to make an HPS-like chemophore informed the structural recharacterization of lydiamycin via NMR and crystallography to show that it features a rare 2-pentyl-succinyl chemophore. We demonstrate that lydiamycin A inhibits bacterial PDF in vitro and show that a cluster-situated PDF gene confers resistance to lydiamycin A, representing an uncommon self-immunity mechanism associated with the production of a PDF inhibitor. In planta competition assays showed that lydiamycin enhances the fitness of R. fascians during plant colonization. This study highlights how a BGC can inform the structure, biochemical target, and ecological function of a natural product

Fully experimental conceptual engineering

Conceptual engineers are in the business of helping us think as we should. Experimental philosophy can be seen as being in the business of describing how we think. One might think there must thus be a gap between any experimental philosophy project and any successful project in conceptual engineering, that conceptual engineering reserves a special role for armchair philosophers. But, a successful project in conceptual engineering might be fully experimental. Conceptual engineering reserves no special role for armchair philosophers