Remote fieldwork: using portable wireless networks and backhaul links to participate remotely in fieldwork

Fieldwork is an important means of contextualising knowledge and developing subject-specific and generic transferable skills. However, field locations are not always accessible. To address this problem we present a remote fieldwork approach that makes use of a portable wireless network and other mobile technologies to support fieldwork at a distance. As well as improving access to fieldwork, this approach can also be used to provide communication tools to fieldworkers, enabling them to share their findings and talk to their colleagues while in the field. This paper presents the portable communications toolkit we have developed and reports on three recent trials

Translations: experiments in dialogic representation of cultural diversity in three museum sound installations

Using the example of three experimental museum sound installations, this paper discusses the translation into practice of the intention to make meaningful connections between diverse social positions and experiences. We use the term ‘dialogic’ to theorise these interactive intentions and show them at work in the content, development processes and form of the sound installations. Our discussion is framed by the collaboration between the authors across the disciplines of museum studies and creative practice

Supervision and Scholarly Writing: Writing to Learn - Learning to Write

This paper describes an action research project on postgraduate students’ scholarly writing in which I employed reflective approaches to examine and enhance my postgraduate supervisory practice. My reflections on three distinct cycles of supervision illustrate a shift in thinking about scholarly writing and an evolving understanding of how to support postgraduate students’ writing. These understandings provide the foundation for a future-oriented fourth cycle of supervisory practice, which is characterised by three principles, namely the empowerment of students as writers, the technological context of contemporary writing, and ethical issues in writing

Police interviews with vulnerable people alleging sexual assault: Probing inconsistency and questioning conduct.

Reporting sexual assault to the authorities is fraught with difficulties, and these are compounded when the complainant is hindered by an intellectual disability (ID). In a study of 19 U.K. police interviews with complainants with ID alleging sexual assault and rape, we found that most interviewing officers on occasion pursued lines of questioning which not only probed inconsistencies (which is mandated by their guidelines), but implicitly questioned complainants’ conduct (which is not). We detail two main conversational practices which imply disbelief and disapproval of the complainants’ accounts and behaviour, and whose pragmatic entailments may pose problems for complainants with ID. Such practices probably emerge from interviewers’ foreshadowing of the challenges likely to be made in court by defence counsel. As a policy recommendation, we suggest providing early explanation for the motivation for such questioning, and avoiding certain question formats (especially how come you did X? and why didn't you do Y?)

Low energy pre-blended mortars: Part 2 – Production and characterisation of mortars using a novel lime drying technique

The presence of free water in mortars destined for silo or bagged storage can lead to the degradation of the binder phase. Such water may be present as a result of using wet, as-delivered sand or as a consequence of prior processes such as de-activation of Roman cement. Thus, water must be removed from the system prior to storage. Part 1 of this paper describes the control of a technique by which quicklime is added to the wet system which principally dries it by both slaking the quicklime and evaporation as a consequence of the exothermic slaking reaction. Two examples of mortars are presented in which excess water is removed from the system by the inclusion of quicklime. In the first, the water is present in the as-delivered sand and the binder is a combination of the slaked lime and ggbs. In the second, the water remains after pre-hydration of a Roman cement which is a process to retard its rapid setting characteristics. It is shown that optimally dried mortars are not subject to degradation following storage of both mortar types

Strongly Correlated Cerium Systems: Non-Kondo Mechanism for Moment Collapse

We present an ab initio based method which gives clear insight into the interplay between the hybridization, the coulomb exchange, and the crystal-field interactions, as the degree of 4f localization is varied across a series of strongly correlated cerium systems. The results for the ordered magnetic moments, magnetic structure, and ordering temperatures are in excellent agreement with experiment, including the occurence of a moment collapse of non-Kondo origin. In contrast, standard ab initio density functional calculations fail to predict, even qualitatively, the trend of the unusual magentic properties.Comment: A shorter version of this has been submitted to PR

Nitrogen enrichment alters mycorrhizal allocation at five mesic to semiarid grasslands.

Abstract. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are integral components of grasslands because most plants are associated with interconnected networks of AM hyphae. Mycorrhizae generally facilitate plant uptake of nutrients from the soil. However, mycorrhizal associations are known to vary in their mutualistic function, and there is currently no metric that links AM functioning with fungal colonization of roots. Mycorrhizal structures differ in their physiological and ecological functioning, so changes in AM allocation to intraradical (inside roots) and extraradical (in soil) structures may signal shifts in mycorrhizal function. We hypothesize that the functional equilibrium model applies to AM fungi and that fertilization should reduce allocation to arbuscules, coils, and extraradical hyphae, the fungal structures that are directly involved in nutrient acquisition and transfer to plants. This study compared AM responses to experimental N enrichment at five grasslands distributed across North America. Samples were collected from replicated N-enriched (and some P-enriched) and control plots throughout the growing season for three years. Intraradical AM structures were measured in over 1400 root samples, extraradical hyphal density was measured in over 590 soil samples, and spore biovolume was analyzed in over 400 soil samples. There were significant site ϫ N interactions for spore biovolume, extraradical hyphae, intraradical hyphae, and vesicles. Nitrogen enrichment strongly decreased AM structures at Cedar Creek, the site with the lowest soil N:P, and it increased AM structures at Konza Prairie, the site with the highest soil N:P. As predicted by the functional equilibrium model, in soils with sufficient P, relative allocation to arbuscules, coils, and extraradical hyphae was generally reduced by N enrichment. Allocation to spores and hyphae was most sensitive to fertilization. At the mesic sites, this response was associated with a shift in the relative abundance of Gigasporaceae within AM fungal communities. This study demonstrates that N enrichment impacts mycorrhizal allocation across a wide range of grassland ecosystems. Such changes are important because they suggest an alteration in mycorrhizal functioning that, in turn, may impact plant community composition and ecosystem function

Cmr1/WDR76 defines a nuclear genotoxic stress body linking genome integrity and protein quality control

DNA replication stress is a source of genomic instability. Here we identify ​changed mutation rate 1 (​Cmr1) as a factor involved in the response to DNA replication stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and show that ​Cmr1—together with ​Mrc1/​Claspin, ​Pph3, the chaperonin containing ​TCP1 (CCT) and 25 other proteins—define a novel intranuclear quality control compartment (INQ) that sequesters misfolded, ubiquitylated and sumoylated proteins in response to genotoxic stress. The diversity of proteins that localize to INQ indicates that other biological processes such as cell cycle progression, chromatin and mitotic spindle organization may also be regulated through INQ. Similar to ​Cmr1, its human orthologue ​WDR76 responds to proteasome inhibition and DNA damage by relocalizing to nuclear foci and physically associating with CCT, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved biological function. We propose that ​Cmr1/​WDR76 plays a role in the recovery from genotoxic stress through regulation of the turnover of sumoylated and phosphorylated proteins