An exploration of the relation between individual preferences and collaborative writing processes

Increased use of computer-supported collaborative learning environments (e.g. Google docs) to support collaborative writing tasks in higher education. This study aims to fill the gap in current research by studying the complex process of collaborative writing by taking into account individual, collaborative, and contextual variables and the interaction between them in order to provide appropriate support. Master students (N=50) collaborated in triads during a 90-minutes collaborative synthesis task in Etherpad, an online text editor. Individual preferences and experiences concerning collaborative writing were examined in relation to the way groups tackled the synchronous collaborative writing task

Use of the made affirmative procedure in Scotland : reflections from the pandemic

[Abstract unavailable

Parliament's one‐year review of the Coronavirus Act 2020 : another example of Parliament's marginalisation in the Covid‐19 pandemic

In this article, we consider the one-year review (OYR) by Parliament of temporary powers in the Coronavirus Act 2020 (CVA). The OYR stands as a key concession on the part of the UK government to enable scrutiny of Covid-19 law making, after the CVA was rushed through Parliament at the beginning of the pandemic. The principal argument of this article is that despite appearances, this review was another example of Parliament being marginalised during the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, there were four obstacles to meaningful scrutiny in the OYR: inadequate parliamentary time scheduled for the review; the ‘all-or-nothing’ framing of the review; late and inaccurate government reporting prior to the OYR; and the failure to address key issues regarding the operation of the CVA, including major human rights concerns. In light of such obstruction to scrutiny, it is clear that the review represents a broken promise on the part of the current government to Parliament. The review is also part of a broader pattern of marginalising Parliament during the pandemic. In presenting this analysis, we argue that two changes could be made in the upcoming and penultimate review of the CVA in September 2021, in order to enable Parliament to engage in meaningful scrutiny in this review

Rights and parliamentary oversight in the pandemic : reflections from the Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is the only devolved legislature that has passed general Coronavirus-related emergency primary legislation, and it is now debating legislation that would put emergency public health powers on a permanent footing. This paper considers whether, and if so to what effect, human rights have acted as a core concern in law-making during the pandemic in Scotland in order to draw out lessons for future crises. The analysis reveals a mixed picture. In situations where Parliament is closely involved in scrutiny, like legislative debates, human rights concerns were surfaced and in notable ways rights operated as an effective limit on desired state action. However, much of the pandemic response was executed by means of secondary legislation, as enabled by the Coronavirus Act 2020, and there was a clear pattern of making this secondary legislation using the Made Affirmative Procedure. This 'scrutiny-lite' legislative pathway is one in which there are reduced opportunities for and compulsions towards rights-based reasoning and justification, even though as a matter of democratic legitimacy and the limitation of state power such instruments are particularly in need of robust parliamentary scrutiny. Thus, while well-embedded parliamentary processes and an apparent hospitability towards rights by the Scottish Government resulted in admirable levels of rights-based scrutiny of COVID-19 related primary legislation, this was undermined by extensive recourse to scrutiny-lite modes of delegated law-making and the Scottish Parliament's failure to subject resulting Scottish Statutory Instruments to meaningful scrutiny

Quantifying Collaboration in Synchronous Document Editing

Collaborative synchronous writing tools like Google Docs and Etherpad let multiple users edit the same document and see each others edits in near real-time to simplify collaboration and avoid merge-conflicts. These tools are used extensively across many domains, including education, in both research and industry. The very nature of needing to constantly synchronize state between multiple users means that very granular editing data is automatically captured and stored. In theory, this data could provide important insights into the editing process, the contributions of the different users, how the text developed over time, and other questions relevant to researchers studying writing from different theoretical and methodological angles. However, this extreme granularity of the data (down to individual key presses), makes analysis very complex. Most of the research focused on automatic analysis of collaborative writing to date has focused on asynchronous writing, and looked at the "diffs" between one editing session and the next. In this paper, we present a method and a tool to construct informative operations from text data, as well as preliminary metrics for measuring the collaborative writing process. Additionally, our method adds to previous work in that it can be used to assess the writing during the writing process rather than just being applied to an end product

Atrial natriuretic factor

The discovery of the first well-defined natriuretic hormone, the Atrial Natriuretic Factor (ANF), has prompted research on its impact on volume regulation in health and disease. The natriuretic, diuretic, and smooth muscle-relaxing properties suggest an important role of this novel hormone in pathophysiological states with sodium or volume retention, such as congestive heart failure or cirrhosis of the liver. Investigations on the implications of ANF in liver disease have been performed for little more than 1 year, and results are still controversial in many respects. At present, it seems very likely that there is no absolute deficiency of plasma ANF in patients with cirrhosis. Moreover, elevated plasma levels in cirrhotics with ascites have been reported by several groups. However, as yet, a molecular characterization of this increased immunoreactivity is still lacking. There is disagreement on the reduced release of and renal response to ANF in subgroups of cirrhotics; however, stimulus-response-coupling might be impaired. Further studies are needed to elucidate the pathophysiological implications and therapeutical potential of ANF in patients with chronic liver disease

Lentiviral gene therapy for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) is a rare inherited disorder of phagocytic cells. We report the initial results of nine severely affected X-linked CGD (X-CGD) patients who received ex vivo autologous CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell-based lentiviral gene therapy following myeloablative conditioning in first-in-human studies (trial registry nos. NCT02234934 and NCT01855685). The primary objectives were to assess the safety and evaluate the efficacy and stability of biochemical and functional reconstitution in the progeny of engrafted cells at 12 months. The secondary objectives included the evaluation of augmented immunity against bacterial and fungal infection, as well as assessment of hematopoietic stem cell transduction and engraftment. Two enrolled patients died within 3 months of treatment from pre-existing comorbidities. At 12 months, six of the seven surviving patients demonstrated stable vector copy numbers (0.4–1.8 copies per neutrophil) and the persistence of 16–46% oxidase-positive neutrophils. There was no molecular evidence of either clonal dysregulation or transgene silencing. Surviving patients have had no new CGD-related infections, and six have been able to discontinue CGD-related antibiotic prophylaxis. The primary objective was met in six of the nine patients at 12 months follow-up, suggesting that autologous gene therapy is a promising approach for CGD patients

Post-Transcriptional Regulation of 5-Lipoxygenase mRNA Expression via Alternative Splicing and Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay

5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO) catalyzes the two initial steps in the biosynthesis of leukotrienes (LT), a group of inflammatory lipid mediators derived from arachidonic acid. Here, we investigated the regulation of 5-LO mRNA expression by alternative splicing and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). In the present study, we report the identification of 2 truncated transcripts and 4 novel 5-LO splice variants containing premature termination codons (PTC). The characterization of one of the splice variants, 5-LOΔ3, revealed that it is a target for NMD since knockdown of the NMD factors UPF1, UPF2 and UPF3b in the human monocytic cell line Mono Mac 6 (MM6) altered the expression of 5-LOΔ3 mRNA up to 2-fold in a cell differentiation-dependent manner suggesting that cell differentiation alters the composition or function of the NMD complex. In contrast, the mature 5-LO mRNA transcript was not affected by UPF knockdown. Thus, the data suggest that the coupling of alternative splicing and NMD is involved in the regulation of 5-LO gene expression

Global phylogeography and ancient evolution of the widespread human gut virus crAssphage

Microbiomes are vast communities of microorganisms and viruses that populate all natural ecosystems. Viruses have been considered to be the most variable component of microbiomes, as supported by virome surveys and examples of high genomic mosaicism. However, recent evidence suggests that the human gut virome is remarkably stable compared with that of other environments. Here, we investigate the origin, evolution and epidemiology of crAssphage, a widespread human gut virus. Through a global collaboration, we obtained DNA sequences of crAssphage from more than one-third of the world's countries and showed that the phylogeography of crAssphage is locally clustered within countries, cities and individuals. We also found fully colinear crAssphage-like genomes in both Old-World and New-World primates, suggesting that the association of crAssphage with primates may be millions of years old. Finally, by exploiting a large cohort of more than 1,000 individuals, we tested whether crAssphage is associated with bacterial taxonomic groups of the gut microbiome, diverse human health parameters and a wide range of dietary factors. We identified strong correlations with different clades of bacteria that are related to Bacteroidetes and weak associations with several diet categories, but no significant association with health or disease. We conclude that crAssphage is a benign cosmopolitan virus that may have coevolved with the human lineage and is an integral part of the normal human gut virome