The research-teaching nexus revisited

This chapter explores the idea of the research–teaching nexus, which provides the foundation for research-based approaches to education, such as UCL’s Connected Curriculum. Although this is an idea that can be traced back across two centuries, it remains controversial, and its feasibility is still questioned. However, research has developed an increasingly sophisticated account of the various strands that this ‘nexus’ consists of, and how students experience it. These strands will be reviewed to identify opportunities for building connections between research and teaching

Reflecting on things: Sociomaterial perspectives on academic development

The aims, discourse and practices of academic development in higher education rest on a series of assumptions about the nature of academic practice and student engagement, assumptions which shape its approaches to enhancement and change. In this chapter, we review and critique these, drawing on sociomaterial theory and evidence from a project that explored the academic practices of students and staff

Pre-tertiary engagement with online learning : Exploring uses of online learning environments and digital technology for progression into and through Higher Education

This report outlines work undertaken by the Institute of Education to explore how pre-tertiary experiences of online learning influences students? successful transitions into and through Higher Education. The work was commissioned by Pamoja Education, and the studies that were undertaken focused on the experiences of students and staff taking part in Pamoja Education courses offered as part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The work involved reviewing previous literature about the role of technology in preparing students for University study; undertaking a survey of International Baccalaureate students (including Pamoja Education alumni) to explore their experiences; interviewing Pamoja Education alumni as a way of explaining and elaborating these patterns of experience; and asking teachers to reflect on how they worked with learners to support them online. Each of these areas of work is reported in a separate section of this report

Lockdown literacies and semiotic assemblages: academic boundary work in the Covid-19 crisis

In March 2020, populations were forced into home quarantine to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Universities moved the majority of their operations to homeworking, with profound implications for students, academics, and professional services staff. This paper analyses interview and visual data collected as part of a study on the impact of ‘moving online’ on staff at a large UK university. Drawing on sociomaterial perspectives, it considers the status and role of academics’ literacy practices under lockdown, focusing particularly on the ways in which a range of boundaries are negotiated – spatial, temporal, material, digital, professional, personal and emotional – in a setting where conventional boundaries have been profoundly disrupted. We argue that these practices form part of emergent, restless and shifting semiotic assemblages. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this conceptual shift for academic work, meaning-making and academic subjectivities, in lockdown and beyond

Structure and Computation in Immunoreagent Design : From Diagnostics to Vaccines

Novel immunological tools for efficient diagnosis and treatment of emerging infections are urgently required. Advances in the diagnostic and vaccine development fields are continuously progressing, with reverse vaccinology and structural vaccinology (SV) methods for antigen identification and structure-based antigen (re)design playing increasingly relevant roles. SV, in particular, is predicted to be the front-runner in the future development of diagnostics and vaccines targeting challenging diseases such as AIDS and cancer. We review state-of-the-art methodologies for structure-based epitope identification and antigen design, with specific applicative examples. We highlight the implications of such methods for the engineering of biomolecules with improved immunological properties, potential diagnostic and/or therapeutic uses, and discuss the perspectives of structure-based rational design for the production of advanced immunoreagents. Immunodiagnostic-based serological tests offer rapid and high-throughput diagnosis of multiple pathogens and can ascertain disease progression.3D structures of protein antigens can be used to predict epitope location using computational biology methods.Computationally designed synthetic epitopes can provide new chemical tools with distinct applications, from diagnosis and patient profiling to therapeutic approaches based on new vaccines.Structure-based antigen design is predicted to deliver future vaccines targeting challenging diseases such as HIV and cancer.As an alternative to nanoparticle epitope presentation systems, structure-based in silico epitope grafting and design methods may be adopted to transplant epitopes onto protein scaffolds to generate antigens that stimulate more potent immune responses

Learning from the early adopters: developing the digital practitioner

This paper explores how Sharpe and Beetham’s Digital Literacies Framework which was derived to model students’ digital literacies, can be applied to lecturers’ digital literacy practices. Data from a small-scale phenomenological study of higher education lecturers who used Web 2.0 in their teaching and learning practices are used to examine if this pyramid model represents their motivations for adopting technology-enhanced learning in their pedagogic practices. The paper argues that whilst Sharpe and Beetham’s model has utility in many regards, these lecturers were mainly motivated by the desire to achieve their pedagogic goals rather than by a desire to become a digital practitioner

One step multiderivative methods for first order ordinary differential equations

A family of one-step multiderivative methods based on Padé approximants to the exponential function is developed. The methods are extrapolated and analysed for use in PECE mode. Error constants and stability intervals are calculated and the combinations compared with well known linear multi-step combinations and combinations using high accuracy Newton-Cotes quadrature formulas as correctors. w926020

Clinical performance of osteoporosis risk assessment tools in women aged 67 years and older

Clinical performance of osteoporosis risk assessment tools was studied in women aged 67 years and older. Weight was as accurate as two of the tools to detect low bone density. Discriminatory ability was slightly better for the OST risk tool, which is based only on age and weight

Widely applicable background depletion step enables transaminase evolution through solid-phase screening

Directed evolution of transaminases is a widespread technique in the development of highly sought-after biocatalysts for industrial applications. This process, however, is challenged by the limited availability of effective high-throughput protocols to evaluate mutant libraries. Here we report a rapid, reliable, and widely applicable background depletion method for solid-phase screening of transaminase variants, which was successfully applied to a transaminase from Halomonas elongata (HEWT), evolved through rounds of random mutagenesis towards a series of diverse prochiral ketones. This approach enabled the identification of transaminase variants in viable cells with significantly improved activity towards parasubstituted acetophenones (up to 60-fold), as well as tetrahydrothiophen-3-one and related substrates. Rationalisation of the mutants was assisted by determination of the high-resolution wild-type HEWT crystal structure presented herein