Supporting EU, home and foreign students in London writing final year undergraduate BA English language studies dissertations

The London Metropolitan University BA English Language Studies degree (BA ELS) attracts more than 50% “non-traditional” entrants, including many with English as a second language. This paper reports on challenges of the compulsory third year Undergraduate Dissertation, and on implementing and evaluating interventions to help students meet these challenges. My colleague and I carried out pre- and post-module surveys of student perception and made use of an ongoing student diary from one student to determine student needs and experiences. We discovered that students find structuring their literature reviews challenging and need to be trained to see the applicability of some of the literature to their particular thesis situations. There is evidence that students in European institutions face similar challenges. Our action research was informed by a constructivist, dialogic, pedagogic approach which, importantly, included supporting students’ writing from within their subject area. In attempting to find solutions to these problems, we were influenced by the academic literacies with its emphasis on learner differences, but more by the genre approach. I argue that existing manuals on research Dissertations, which focus largely on topic choice, storage of notes and may need to give higher priority to structuring the literature review. Our report includes a survey of students’ attitudes and expectations regarding the Dissertation, then moves on to describe and assess changes which were made to the Dissertation in the Degree in question. The greatest focus is on the “literature review”, but we also describe changes to the module documentation (Handbook), changes to the Dissertation structure, to the process of choice of Dissertation topic, and attention to students’ time management

Anchoring the Northern Powerhouse: Understanding anchor institutions and their contribution within a complex urban and regional system

The Northern Powerhouse vision (Osborne 2014), to create thriving Northern city-regions with a re-balancing of the English economy (Martin et al 2014, pp. 3-6) is by necessity a long-term ambition (Osborne 2014). City-regional sustainable development is a complex system (Martin and Simmie 2008; Martin & Sunley 2015; RSA 2014, p15) and will rely on local leadership for policies and decision making in a devolved environment (Cox and Hunter 2015, pp. 11-12). Experience from Anchor Institutions in the United States highlights new models of place-based leadership (Dubb et al 2013, p vii; Serang, Thompson and Howard 2013, p14-17) shared value (Porter 2010; ICIC 2011; Porter and Kramer 2011), investment (Serang, Thompson and Howard 2013, pp. 4-6) and community wealth building (Dubb et al 2013, pp. 24-29) for delivering city-regional development. New forms of multi-level governance institutions, such as Combined Authorities (Sandford 2015) and Local Enterprise Partnerships (HM Government 2010 pp. 12-14) will be significant in this shaping of place and economies (Cox and Hunter 2015, p 17). This paper provides an early analysis of the role and contribution of Anchor Institutions in the Northern Powerhouse geography. These institutions have the potential in a devolved administration (House of Lords and House of Commons 2015) to make a major contribution to the sustainable development of the Northern Powerhouse and to address the economic, social and environmental factors that contribute to the sustainability of places in the long term

Co-creating recommendations to redesign and promote strength and balance service provision

Background: Awareness of physical activity guidelines are low, particularly the “forgotten guidelines” of strength and balance. Increasing awareness of guidelines, but also of appropriate local services that can be utilised, is an important step towards active ageing. Co-creation can inform tailored service provision to potentially increase uptake and adherence. The aim was to co-create recommendations to redesign and promote local leisure services, emphasising strength and balance activity provision. Method: Twenty-four ageing and older adults engaged in 10 co-creation workshops. Workshops consisted of interactive tasks, and fieldwork tasks were undertaken externally. Data were collected using field notes, worksheet tasks and facilitator reflections and were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Retention and adherence rates were 92% and 85%. Co-creators cited group cohesion, scientific input from experts and perceived knowledge development as enjoyable elements of the process. Four key themes emerged from analysis: (1) localised strategies for awareness raising, (2) recruitment of volunteer champions to increase uptake and maintenance, (3) accessibility of activities, including what they are and when they are, and (4) evaluation of impact. Conclusion: This has been the first study, to our knowledge, to utilise co-creation for informed leisure service provision improvement. Future work should aim to implement these recommendations to ascertain what impact these themes might make

Joining the Dots- Universities’ roles in integrating local, regional, national and international geographies

The inclusion of Universities and higher education in the recently adopted ‘Incheon Declaration for Education 2030’ signals recognition of the changing role of Universities in a global education, economic and social system. Universities are pivotal institutions within this complex global system for enabling sustainable development. As Anchor Institutions, institutions rooted in their local and regional geographies, Universities influence and enable economic growth, innovation, social inclusion and the development of place. This presents an evolutionary and transformative role for Universities in shaping economic and social development within local, regional, national and international geographies In this paper the role of Universities in ‘joining up the dots’ and as integrators of geographies in many distinctive ways: envisages a more fundamental role for Universities. This places Universities as equal partners with Governments, businesses and communities as designers and developers of future economies, societies and nations within a more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable global world

The next safety net? - Anchor Institutions and the end of the ‘Peak State’

With the shrinking of the English state through austerity, there is a recognised need for transformation and rebalancing of the respective roles, responsibilities and expectations of public, private, social, and community actors and institutions in the functioning of a place. This receding ‘peak state’ suggests a more fundamental social and economic role for Anchor Institutions, as major public, private and third sector/community institutions and assets anchored in local areas, to mitigate the impact on individuals and communities. This paper examines the potential of Anchor Institutions to facilitate social inclusion and tackle poverty and inequality as the ‘peak state’ in England recedes, using the Leeds City Region as a case study and drawing on experience from the United States. It concludes by questioning whether, given the pace, scale and potential impact of spending reductions, a greater reliance on Anchor Institutions can significantly impact on the challenges facing local communities without similar transformations in culture, power, policy and actors for the re-shaping of complex regional systems

Growing smart, inclusive and sustainable economies: a complex adapative ecosystem approach

The legacy of the recent financial crisis in 2009-2010 influenced the development of Europe’s ambitious ten year strategy for smart, inclusive and sustainable economies (Europe 2020, 2010). The strategy aims to create the right conditions for competitiveness in Europe with five strategic goals (employment, innovation, education, poverty reduction and climate/energy) for enabling a stronger economy over the long term, supporting high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion (Europe 2020, 2010). We know from history that economies and societies evolve bringing with them adaptations and outcomes that do not always integrate these three strands, smart, inclusive and sustainable (Viederman (1993); Shahrokhi 2011, p 199-204; Europe 2020 Stocktaking, 2014, pp 7-11). The most recent financial crisis illustrates the complexity of global financial systems with growing interdependence between countries and regions and shorter lifecycles for products and innovations (Kowalski and Shachmurove, 2011, p 245; King, 2010; Stiglitz 2014). This paper will provide an exploration of the dimensions of smart, inclusive and sustainable economies and related conceptual theories (e.g. sustainable development, sustainable communities, sustainable business, - see Table 1) to understand how these are formed and delivered. Through an integrated approach the aim is to develop our understanding of the ‘ontology’ (Scott 2006; Martin 2010) and contribute to the development of the conceptual model

Julian of Norwich and her children today: Editions, translations and versions of her revelations

The viability of such concepts as "authorial intention," "the original text," "critical edition" and, above all, "scholarly editorial objectivity" is not what it was, and a study of the textual progeny of the revelations of Julian of Norwich--editions, versions, translations and selections--does little to rehabilitate them. Rather it tends to support the view that a history of reading is indeed a history of misreading or, more positively, that texts can have an organic life of their own that allows them to reproduce and evolve quite independently of their author. Julian's texts have had a more robustly continuous life than those of any other Middle English mystic. Their history--in manuscript and print, in editions more or less approximating Middle English and in translations more or less approaching Modern English--is virtually unbroken since the fifteenth century. But on this perilous journey, many and strange are the clutches into which she and her textual progeny have fallen

Vegetation recolonisation of abandoned agricultural terraces on Antikythera, Greece

Antikythera is a small, relatively remote Mediterranean island, lying 35 km north-west of Crete, and its few contemporary inhabitants live mainly in the small village at the only port. However, an extensive network of terraces across the island bears witness to the past importance of farming on the island, although the intensity of use of these cultivated plots has changed according to fluctuating population levels. Most recently, the rural population and intensity of cultivation have dramatically declined. Our aim is to understand the recolonisation process of agricultural land by plants after terraces are no longer used for the cultivation of crops. The results demonstrate a relatively quick pace of vegetative recolonisation, with abandoned farm land covered by dense scrub within 20 to 60 years. The archaeological implications are that, following even relatively short periods of abandonment, the landscape would have required arduous reinvestment in the removal of scrub growth, as well as the repair and construction of stone terraces, to allow cultivation once again

AnglerFish: a webserver for defining the geometry of α-Helices in membrane proteins

Summary: Integral membrane proteins that form helical pores and bundles constitute major drug targets, and many of their structures have been defined by crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy. The gating of channels and ligand binding of transporters generally involves changes in orientation of one or more the constituent helices in the structures. At present there is no standard easily- accessible means for defining the orientation of a helix in a membrane protein structure. AnglerFish is a web-based tool for parameterising the angles of transmembrane helices based on PDB coordinates, with the helical orientations defined by the angles “tilt” and “swing”. AnglerFish is particularly useful for defining changes in structure between different states, including both symmetric and asymmetric transitions, and can be used to quantitate differences between related structures or different subunits within the same structure

Mfsd14a disruption causes globozoospermia

The Mfsd14a gene, previously called Hiat1, encodes a transmembrane protein of unknown function with homology to the solute carrier protein family. To study the function of the MFSD14A protein, mutant mice (Mus musculus, strain 129S6Sv/Ev) were generated with the Mfsd14a gene disrupted with a LacZ reporter gene. Homozygous mutant mice are viable and healthy, but males are sterile due to a 100-fold reduction in the number of spermatozoa in the vas deferens. Male mice have adequate levels of testosterone and show normal copulatory behaviour. The few spermatozoa that are formed show rounded head defects similar to those found in humans with globozoospermia. Spermatogenesis proceeds normally up to the round spermatid stage, but the subsequent structural changes associated with spermiogenesis are severely disrupted with failure of acrosome formation, sperm head condensation and mitochondrial localization to the mid-piece of the sperm. Staining for β-galactosidase activity as a surrogate for Mfsd14a expression indicates expression in Sertoli cells, suggesting that MFSD14A may transport a solute from the bloodstream that is required for spermiogenesis.This work was funded by a Ford Physiology Fund Endowment (WHC).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Bioscientifica via http://dx.doi.org/10.1530/REP-15-055