The Impact of EMI on ELT Professional Development

In this paper, it is our intention to discuss the history of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and EMI (English Medium Instruction) training at our university and explain how this has led us to realize that there are two possible areas for professional development for the English language teacher (ELT). EMI potentially provides an opportunity for the ELT to become an English language expert (ELE) accompanying EMI instructors or to become an EMI instructor. We consider the steps we have taken in order to foment content classes in English as a means to increasing internationalized education across faculty. The instruction of content courses in English at the higher education level has been the focus of our particular interest for the past few years at our university and the Language Department has been involved in this part of the university’s internationalization project. The university’s interest in raising its international profile has been top-of-mind for some time now. Not only are the authority figures anxious to improve the university rankings, but they are also interested in attracting foreign students to come to Guadalajara to learn Spanish as a foreign language while they continue studying for credits in their undergraduate programs. These credit-bearing classes, which they study in departments such as mathematics, administration, engineering and so on, are taught in English. The content courses in English (EMI classes) are attended by both foreign and Mexican students, thus providing an international experience for both. Some of the EMI lecturers are native English speakers, but the vast majority are Mexican and English is their second language. Over the years, the university has provided several opportunities for CLIL/EMI training. Faculty members who have undergone this training have realized that EMI requires a change in the instructional methods typically used in a higher education setting. Taking a content class in a language that is not the student’s first language implies a greater challenge; therefore, how these classes are given is crucial. Scaffolding learning is of vital importance in order to make input accessible for the students and to help them achieve the required academic production (class related assignments such as, essays, summaries, reports, presentations, discussions in English). This scaffolding process is familiar to the English language teacher but may not be to the EMI instructor; therefore, this is an area of support provided by the ELE. We go on to discuss the importance of this ELE working alongside the faculty instructor to train, advise, observe, and give feedback and support. Becoming an ELE advisor for EMI instructors is one possible area for professional development. The second area of opportunity that we envision is that of the language professional looking at their own background to appreciate if they have a future as a possible EMI lecturer, especially if their first area of academic study is unrelated to a languages background. This paper provides real-life examples of English language teachers in this role at our university.ITESO, A.C

Nocturnal pollination: An overlooked ecosystem service vulnerable to environmental change

© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and the Royal Society of Biology and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). Existing assessments of the ecosystem service of pollination have been largely restricted to diurnal insects, with a particular focus on generalist foragers such as wild and honey bees. As knowledge of how these plant-pollinator systems function, their relevance to food security and biodiversity, and the fragility of these mutually beneficial interactions increases, attention is diverting to other, less well-studied pollinator groups. One such group are those that forage at night. In this review, we document evidence that nocturnal species are providers of pollination services (including pollination of economically valuable and culturally important crops, as well as wild plants of conservation concern), but highlight how little is known about the scale of such services. We discuss the primary mechanisms involved in night-time communication between plants and insect pollen-vectors, including floral scent, visual cues (and associated specialized visual systems), and thermogenic sensitivity (associated with thermogenic flowers). We highlight that these mechanisms are vulnerable to direct and indirect disruption by a range of anthropogenic drivers of environmental change, including air and soil pollution, artificial light at night, and climate change. Lastly, we highlight a number of directions for future research that will be important if nocturnal pollination services are to be fully understood and ultimately conserved

Stress-induced nuclear accumulation is dispensable for Hog1-dependent gene expression and virulence in a fungal pathogen

The authors thank E. Veal for intellectual input. This work was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Research Council [J.Q. BB/K016393/1; A.J.P.B. BB/K017365/1], the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) [D.M.M. NC/N002482/1] and the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology [097377]). D.M.M. and A.J.P.B. are also supported by the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen (MR/N006364/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The prevalences of Salmonella Genomic Island 1 variants in human and animal Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 are distinguishable using a Bayesian approach

Throughout the 1990s, there was an epidemic of multidrug resistant Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 in both animals and humans in Scotland. The use of antimicrobials in agriculture is often cited as a major source of antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic bacteria of humans, suggesting that DT104 in animals and humans should demonstrate similar prevalences of resistance determinants. Until very recently, only the application of molecular methods would allow such a comparison and our understanding has been hindered by the fact that surveillance data are primarily phenotypic in nature. Here, using large scale surveillance datasets and a novel Bayesian approach, we infer and compare the prevalence of Salmonella Genomic Island 1 (SGI1), SGI1 variants, and resistance determinants independent of SGI1 in animal and human DT104 isolates from such phenotypic data. We demonstrate differences in the prevalences of SGI1, SGI1-B, SGI1-C, absence of SGI1, and tetracycline resistance determinants independent of SGI1 between these human and animal populations, a finding that challenges established tenets that DT104 in domestic animals and humans are from the same well-mixed microbial population

Mouse WRN Helicase Domain Is Not Required for Spontaneous Homologous Recombination-Mediated DNA Deletion

Werner syndrome is a rare disorder that manifests as premature aging and age-related diseases. WRN is the gene mutated in WS, and is one of five human RecQ helicase family members. WS cells exhibit genomic instability and altered proliferation, and in vitro studies suggest that WRN has a role in suppressing homologous recombination. However, more recent studies propose that other RecQ helicases (including WRN) promote early events of homologous recombination. To study the role of WRN helicase on spontaneous homologous recombination, we obtained a mouse with a deleted WRN helicase domain and combined it with the in vivo pink-eyed unstable homologous recombination system. In this paper, we demonstrate that WRN helicase is not necessary for suppressing homologous recombination in vivo contrary to previous reports using a similar mouse model

Occultation Searches for Kuiper Belt Objects

The occultation of background stellar sources by foreground Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) can be used to survey physical properties of the KBO population. We discuss statistics related to a KBO occultation survey, such as the event duration distribution, and suggest that occultation searches can be effectively used to probe the KBO size distribution below 10 km. In particular, we suggest that occultation surveys may be best suited to search for a turnover radius in the KBO size distribution due to collisions between small-size objects. For occultation surveys that monitor stellar sources near the ecliptic over a few square degrees, with time sampling intervals of order 0.1 sec and sensitivity to flux variations of a few percent or more, a turnover radius between 0.1 and 1.0 km can be probed. While occultation surveys will probe the low-radius limit and imaging surveys will detect KBOs of size 100 km or more, statistics of objects with sizes in the intermediate range of around 1 km to 100 km will likely remain unattainable.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; ApJL submitte

La capacitación y el desarrollo profesional en el uso del inglés como medio de enseñanza-aprendizaje para fortalecer la estrategia de internacionalización en casa

En este capítulo abordaremos la internacionalización del currículo y la importancia de involucrar al cuerpo docente en dicho proceso. Revisaremos la historia del aprendizaje integrado de contenidos y lenguas extranjeras y la capacitación en inglés como medio de enseñanza-aprendizaje en la universidad ITESO, así como los pasos a seguir para introducir clases de contenido en este idioma a fin de aumentar la educación internacionalizada. También consideramos que el papel principal de un experto en lengua inglesa trabajando con instructores del personal académico es el de capacitar, asesorar, observar y dar retroalimentación. Por último, sugerimos posibles áreas de desarrollo profesional para apoyar la creación e implementación de un plan de estudios internacionalizado.In this chapter, we discuss internationalization of the curriculum and the importance of engaging faculty in that process. We review the history of Content and Language Integrated Learning and English Medium Instruction training at ITESO University and the steps taken to introduce content classes in English to increase internationalized education. We also consider the key role of the English Language Expert working alongside the faculty instructor to train, advise, observe, and give feedback. Lastly, we suggest possible areas of professional development to support the creation and implementation of an internationalized curriculum

Redox Regulation, Rather than Stress-Induced Phosphorylation, of a Hog1 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Modulates Its Nitrosative-Stress-Specific Outputs

Data availability. The RNA sequencing dataset is available at EBI (www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) under accession number E-MTAB-5990. Other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Debbie Smith for constructing the strains JC41 and JC310, Arnab Pradhan for help with DHE control experiments, and our colleagues in the Aberdeen Fungal Group and Newcastle Yeast Group for insightful discussions. We are also grateful to Mike Gustin for his advice. We are grateful to the Centre for Genome Enabled Biology and Medicine, Aberdeen Proteomics, the Iain Fraser Cytometry Centre, the Microscopy and Histology Facility, and the qPCR facility at the University of Aberdeen for their help, advice, and support. This work was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk) (grants BB/K017365/1 and BB/F00513X/1 to A.J.P.B. and grant BB/K016393/1 to J.Q.). This work was also supported by the European Research Council (http://erc.europa.eu/) (STRIFE advanced grant C-2009-AdG-249793 to A.J.P.B.), the UK Medical Research Council (http://www.mrc.ac.uk) (grant MR/M026663/1 to A.J.P.B. and grant MR/M000923/1 to P.S.S.), the Wellcome Trust (https://wellcome.ac.uk) (grant 097377 to A.J.P.B. and J.Q.), the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology and the University of Aberdeen (grant MR/M026663/1 to A.J.P.B.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD