Scholarly insight Spring 2018: a Data wrangler perspective

In the movie classic Back to the Future a young Michael J. Fox is able to explore the past by a time machine developed by the slightly bizarre but exquisite Dr Brown. Unexpectedly by some small intervention the course of history was changed a bit along Fox’s adventures. In this fourth Scholarly Insight Report we have explored two innovative approaches to learn from OU data of the past, which hopefully in the future will make a large difference in how we support our students and design and implement our teaching and learning practices. In Chapter 1, we provide an in-depth analysis of 50 thousands comments expressed by students through the Student Experience on a Module (SEAM) questionnaire. By analysing over 2.5 million words using big data approaches, our Scholarly insights indicate that not all student voices are heard. Furthermore, our big data analysis indicate useful potential insights to explore how student voices change over time, and for which particular modules emergent themes might arise. In Chapter 2 we provide our second innovative approach of a proof-of-concept of qualification path way using graph approaches. By exploring existing data of one qualification (i.e., Psychology), we show that students make a range of pathway choices during their qualification, some of which are more successful than others. As highlighted in our previous Scholarly Insight Reports, getting data from a qualification perspective within the OU is a difficult and challenging process, and the proof-of-concept provided in Chapter 2 might provide a way forward to better understand and support the complex choices our students make. In Chapter 3, we provide a slightly more practically-oriented and perhaps down to earth approach focussing on the lessons-learned with Analytics4Action. Over the last four years nearly a hundred modules have worked with more active use of data and insights into module presentation to support their students. In Chapter 3 several good-practices are described by the LTI/TEL learning design team, as well as three innovative case-studies which we hope will inspire you to try something new as well. Working organically in various Faculty sub-group meetings and LTI Units and in a google doc with various key stakeholders in the Faculties, we hope that our Scholarly insights can help to inform our staff, but also spark some ideas how to further improve our module designs and qualification pathways. Of course we are keen to hear what other topics require Scholarly insight. We hope that you see some potential in the two innovative approaches, and perhaps you might want to try some new ideas in your module. While a time machine has not really been invented yet, with the increasing rich and fine-grained data about our students and our learning practices we are getting closer to understand what really drives our students

The Art of Conduct, The Conduct of Art and The \u27Mixed Science\u27 of Eliot\u27s Ethics: \u27 Sympathetic Impulse\u27 and \u27The Scientific Point of View\u27 in The Mill on The Floss

The Mill on the Floss is full of keys and clues. Most famously, Maggie Tolliver, following her father\u27s bankruptcy, \u27wanted some key that would enable her to understand and, in understanding, endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her young heart.\u27 1 In chapter three of Book Four of Eliot\u27s novel, Maggie believes herself to have found just such a key in Thomas a Kempis\u27s The Imitation of Christ (MF, 298): Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other secrets ... [F]or the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. (302) George Eliot was, of course, highly suspicious of the endeavour to discover master keys:2 opposed to Casaubon\u27s search for the Key to all Mythologies, she could hardly have wholly supported Maggie\u27s belief in a Kempisian key to existence. In the final chapter of Book Six however, it becomes clear that Maggie has discovered something in Kempis. What she has actually found, suggests Eliot\u27s narrator, is not a key but a \u27clue\u27. In the following quotation from \u27Waking\u27, we find Maggie engaged in a process of discovery: \u27soon the whole terrible truth urged itself upon her\u27 (491). Maggie is shown to be coming to know that to rend such \u27ties\u27 as give \u27meaning\u27 to \u27duty\u27 is irrevocably \u27wrong\u27; Her life with Stephen could have no sacredness: she must forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by uncertain impulse; for she had let go the clue of life - that clue which once in the far off years her young need had clutched so strongly. (491; my italics) I want to suggest that Eliot\u27s account of Maggie\u27s development itself includes some crucial clues to her own ideas about the symbiotic relation between ethics (the art of conduct), aesthetics (the conduct of art) and epistemology (the art or science of coming to know). In The Mill on the Floss, Maggie\u27s initial response to The Imitation of Christ is not entirely separable from her later discovery that she is just one \u27part\u27 of a more complex \u27whole\u27, which includes both Philip and Lucy. In turn, Maggie\u27s aesthetic response to Kempis and her epistemological discovery (of the \u27terrible truth\u27) are deeply related to her ethical decision, to return home. My reason for applying these philosophical terms to Eliot\u27s fiction is to highlight how different her perspective is from those of some of the figures with whom she is regularly associated. As Martha Vogeler highlighted in a Special \u27George Eliot\u27 Issue of Nineteenth Century Fiction published in 1980, positivists like Frederic Harrison staunchly believed that ethics, aesthetics and epistemology ought first to be clearly separated, before being set back together again: Just as Positivist philosophy established the [epistemologically] True, and Positive polity defined the [ethically] Good, so Positivist art should present the [aesthetically] Beautiful

Balancing act : competition and cooperation in US Asia-Pacific regionalism

While the United States is an important Asia-Pacific actor, its engagement with the region is complex and often difficult. Not only must US regionalism balance the diverse requirements of an ambitious policy agenda, but also US policy norms and priorities often clash with those of other regional actors. This has important implications for the capacity of the United States to provide regional leadership. Recent years have seen growing policy convergence between the United States and other Asia-Pacific actors, particularly in economic terms, but US regionalism continues to feature competition alongside collaboration

Modeling H2 formation in the turbulent ISM: Solenoidal versus compressive turbulent forcing

We present results from high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of the turbulent interstellar medium that study the influence of the nature of the turbulence on the formation of molecular hydrogen. We have examined both solenoidal (divergence-free) and compressive (curl-free) turbulent driving, and show that compressive driving leads to faster H2 formation, owing to the higher peak densities produced in the gas. The difference in the H2 formation rate can be as much as an order of magnitude at early times, but declines at later times as the highest density regions become fully molecular and stop contributing to the total H2 formation rate. We have also used our results to test a simple prescription suggested by Gnedin et al. (2009) for modeling the influence of unresolved density fluctuations on the H2 formation rate in large-scale simulations of the ISM. We find that this approach works well when the H2 fraction is small, but breaks down once the highest density gas becomes fully molecular.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Failure to deactivate the default mode network indicates a possible endophenotype of autism.

BACKGROUND: Reduced activity during cognitively demanding tasks has been reported in the default mode network in typically developing controls and individuals with autism. However, no study has investigated the default mode network (DMN) in first-degree relatives of those with autism (such as siblings) and it is not known whether atypical activation of the DMN is specific to autism or whether it is also present in unaffected relatives. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the pattern of task-related deactivation during completion of a visual search task, the Embedded Figures Task, in teenagers with autism, their unaffected siblings and typically developing controls. FINDINGS: We identified striking reductions in deactivation during the Embedded Figures Task in unaffected siblings compared to controls in brain regions corresponding to the default mode network. Adolescents with autism and their unaffected siblings similarly failed to deactivate regions, including posterior cingulate and bilateral inferior parietal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: This suggests that a failure to deactivate these regions is a functional endophenotype of autism, related to familial risk for the condition shared between individuals with autism and their siblings.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Are interventions to promote healthy eating equally effective for all? Systematic review of socioeconomic inequalities in impact.

BACKGROUND: Interventions to promote healthy eating make a potentially powerful contribution to the primary prevention of non communicable diseases. It is not known whether healthy eating interventions are equally effective among all sections of the population, nor whether they narrow or widen the health gap between rich and poor. We undertook a systematic review of interventions to promote healthy eating to identify whether impacts differ by socioeconomic position (SEP). METHODS: We searched five bibliographic databases using a pre-piloted search strategy. Retrieved articles were screened independently by two reviewers. Healthier diets were defined as the reduced intake of salt, sugar, trans-fats, saturated fat, total fat, or total calories, or increased consumption of fruit, vegetables and wholegrain. Studies were only included if quantitative results were presented by a measure of SEP. Extracted data were categorised with a modified version of the "4Ps" marketing mix, expanded to 6 "Ps": "Price, Place, Product, Prescriptive, Promotion, and Person". RESULTS: Our search identified 31,887 articles. Following screening, 36 studies were included: 18 "Price" interventions, 6 "Place" interventions, 1 "Product" intervention, zero "Prescriptive" interventions, 4 "Promotion" interventions, and 18 "Person" interventions. "Price" interventions were most effective in groups with lower SEP, and may therefore appear likely to reduce inequalities. All interventions that combined taxes and subsidies consistently decreased inequalities. Conversely, interventions categorised as "Person" had a greater impact with increasing SEP, and may therefore appear likely to reduce inequalities. All four dietary counselling interventions appear likely to widen inequalities. We did not find any "Prescriptive" interventions and only one "Product" intervention that presented differential results and had no impact by SEP. More "Place" interventions were identified and none of these interventions were judged as likely to widen inequalities. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions categorised by a "6 Ps" framework show differential effects on healthy eating outcomes by SEP. "Upstream" interventions categorised as "Price" appeared to decrease inequalities, and "downstream" "Person" interventions, especially dietary counselling seemed to increase inequalities. However the vast majority of studies identified did not explore differential effects by SEP. Interventions aimed at improving population health should be routinely evaluated for differential socioeconomic impact

Nutrition, diet and immunosenescence

Ageing is characterized by immunosenescence and the progressive decline in immunity in association with an increased frequency of infections and chronic disease. This complex process affects both the innate and adaptive immune systems with a progressive decline in most immune cell populations and defects in activation resulting in loss of function. Although host genetics and environmental factors, such as stress, exercise and diet can impact on the onset or course of immunosenescence, the mechanisms involved are largely unknown. This review focusses on identifying the most significant aspects of immunosenescence and on the evidence that nutritional intervention might delay this process, and consequently improve the quality of life of the elderly

Macro optical projection tomography for large scale 3D imaging of plant structures and gene activity

Optical projection tomography (OPT) is a well-established method for visualising gene activity in plants and animals. However, a limitation of conventional OPT is that the specimen upper size limit precludes its application to larger structures. To address this problem we constructed a macro version called Macro OPT (M-OPT). We apply M-OPT to 3D live imaging of gene activity in growing whole plants and to visualise structural morphology in large optically cleared plant and insect specimens up to 60 mm tall and 45 mm deep. We also show how M-OPT can be used to image gene expression domains in 3D within fixed tissue and to visualise gene activity in 3D in clones of growing young whole Arabidopsis plants. A further application of M-OPT is to visualise plant-insect interactions. Thus M-OPT provides an effective 3D imaging platform that allows the study of gene activity, internal plant structures and plant-insect interactions at a macroscopic scale

Preventative Social Care and Community Development in Wales: "New" Legislation, "Old" Tensions?

Prevention is becoming ever more central in UK care policy for older people, though precisely what this entails, and how it works most effectively in social care and support, remains ambiguous. Set against the "newness" of recent social care legislation in Wales, this article explores the perspectives of professionals on prevention and community development, particularly for older people. This draws on qualitative data collected from 11 Welsh local authorities, four NHS Wales health boards, and eight regional third-sector organisations, incorporating 64 interviews with directors, executives, and senior managers. Recent research has highlighted concerns over the slipperiness of prevention as a concept, resulting in multiple interpretations and activities operating under its banner. Consistent with this, our data suggested a kaleidoscopic picture of variously named community-based initiatives working to support the intricate web of connections that sustain older people, as well as provide practical or material help. Similarly, professionals highlighted varied agendas of community resilience, individual independence, and reducing the need for state-funded health and social care, as well as a range of viewpoints on the roles of the state, private sector, and the third sector. Analysis revealed fragments of familiar themes in community development; positive hopes for community initiatives, tensions between the mixed agendas of state-instigated activities, and the practical challenges arising from systems imbued with neo-liberal ideas. Realising the promise of prevention will require deft steering through these challenges