Social Media Networks and Community Development in Work-based Undergraduate Students

Abstract The purpose of the study was to explore how students on two related work-based degree courses with limited opportunities for face to face interaction used social media platforms to support their experiences and learning. The students involved work as teaching assistants in a range of mainstream and special schools in the East Midlands and attend classes one day a week. It was noted by tutors that students made frequent references to using various social media platforms for sharing student-to-student information relating to the taught sessions or assignments in preference to the university’s virtual learning environment. To investigate this phenomenon, a case study approach, using focus groups and a paired interview, was adopted. The entire student population on the courses was invited to participate, so the sample was self-selecting and a total of 11% of the students volunteered, participating in either a focus group discussion or paired interview. The study found that students made extensive use of social media platforms, mainly Facebook and Whatsapp, for academic and affective support. Students found this to be an effective way to keep in touch with one another away from university, to share resources and experiences and felt that it helped with their identity as a higher education student

Case Reports1. A Late Presentation of Loeys-Dietz Syndrome: Beware of TGFβ Receptor Mutations in Benign Joint Hypermobility

Background: Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) and dissections are not uncommon causes of sudden death in young adults. Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) is a rare, recently described, autosomal dominant, connective tissue disease characterized by aggressive arterial aneurysms, resulting from mutations in the transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) receptor genes TGFBR1 and TGFBR2. Mean age at death is 26.1 years, most often due to aortic dissection. We report an unusually late presentation of LDS, diagnosed following elective surgery in a female with a long history of joint hypermobility. Methods: A 51-year-old Caucasian lady complained of chest pain and headache following a dural leak from spinal anaesthesia for an elective ankle arthroscopy. CT scan and echocardiography demonstrated a dilated aortic root and significant aortic regurgitation. MRA demonstrated aortic tortuosity, an infrarenal aortic aneurysm and aneurysms in the left renal and right internal mammary arteries. She underwent aortic root repair and aortic valve replacement. She had a background of long-standing joint pains secondary to hypermobility, easy bruising, unusual fracture susceptibility and mild bronchiectasis. She had one healthy child age 32, after which she suffered a uterine prolapse. Examination revealed mild Marfanoid features. Uvula, skin and ophthalmological examination was normal. Results: Fibrillin-1 testing for Marfan syndrome (MFS) was negative. Detection of a c.1270G > C (p.Gly424Arg) TGFBR2 mutation confirmed the diagnosis of LDS. Losartan was started for vascular protection. Conclusions: LDS is a severe inherited vasculopathy that usually presents in childhood. It is characterized by aortic root dilatation and ascending aneurysms. There is a higher risk of aortic dissection compared with MFS. Clinical features overlap with MFS and Ehlers Danlos syndrome Type IV, but differentiating dysmorphogenic features include ocular hypertelorism, bifid uvula and cleft palate. Echocardiography and MRA or CT scanning from head to pelvis is recommended to establish the extent of vascular involvement. Management involves early surgical intervention, including early valve-sparing aortic root replacement, genetic counselling and close monitoring in pregnancy. Despite being caused by loss of function mutations in either TGFβ receptor, paradoxical activation of TGFβ signalling is seen, suggesting that TGFβ antagonism may confer disease modifying effects similar to those observed in MFS. TGFβ antagonism can be achieved with angiotensin antagonists, such as Losartan, which is able to delay aortic aneurysm development in preclinical models and in patients with MFS. Our case emphasizes the importance of timely recognition of vasculopathy syndromes in patients with hypermobility and the need for early surgical intervention. It also highlights their heterogeneity and the potential for late presentation. Disclosures: The authors have declared no conflicts of interes

Observations on the Habits of Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Music Scribes

Deeming Helen. Observations on the Habits of Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Music Scribes. In: Scriptorium, Tome 60 n°1, 2006. pp. 38-59

The song and the page: experiments with form and layout in manuscripts of Medieval Latin song

The non-liturgical songs of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England were recorded, for the most part, not in dedicated song books, but on occasional pages in manuscript miscellanies. Away from the context of fully musical books, there were no fixed procedures for the layout of music, and scribes devised new approaches to layout as they worked. This article considers three Latin songs from such sources and explores the evidence for experimentation, both in scribal technique and in musical procedures, that may have contributed to their specific manuscript presentations.<br/

The songs of St Godric: a neglected context

The songs attributed to St Godric are the earliest English songs to survive with musical notation. They are preserved in manuscripts of the saint’s biography, but the precise relationship between the music and its manuscript context has never before been established. That the songs came to be written down at all, at a time when plainchant was the only music routinely recorded in writing, is testament to the significance attached by the scribes of these manuscripts to the saintliness of the songs’ authorship. Close examination of the sources has revealed new information about how and why the songs came to be copied in them, and new discoveries about their notation have facilitated new critical editions

The sources and origin of the “Agincourt Carol”

The origins of the infamous ‘Agincourt Carol’, celebrating Henry V's military campaign of 1415, have often been the subject of fanciful speculation, but very little concrete evidence has so far been discovered. This article reports the new discovery that the carol's text relates closely to other poems celebrating the event, and may have been their source. It explores in more detail the surviving accounts of the victory pageant mounted in London on the king's return, during which the carol may have been performed. New evidence concerning the carol's earliest musical source has allowed a more precise dating and possible provenance to be established, elucidating the musical and literary worlds in which this most intriguing of medieval songs was composed