Producing moments of pleasure within the confines of an academic quantified self

This article was originally performed as a solo (tripartite) conference paper at the 2014 Joint Australian Association for Research in Education/New Zealand Association for Research in Education Conference, held in Brisbane, Australia, in December 2014. In preparing our contributions for publication as an article we create an assemblage of the desires and resistances shaping our academic identities which we express as sometimes piecemeal, inadequate and powerless. We assemble, through movements of falling away and coming together, the situations which almost derailed the paper’s delivery as we work back along what we had planned, what we encountered, and how three presenters became one. In the inter-meshing of our communication we explore ways of becoming academic and performing academia which open us to the productive possibilities of a stronger commitment to pleasure through re-assembling Deleuze’s desiring machine. The texts presented in this paper include online links to video clips played at the conference

Biomarker proxies for reconstructing Quaternary climate and environmental change

To reconstruct past environmental changes, a range of indirect or proxy approaches can be applied to Quaternary archives. Here, we review the complementary and novel insights which have been provided by the analysis of chemical fossils (biomarkers). Biomarkers have a biological source that can be highly specific (e.g., produced by a small group of organisms) or more general. We show that biomarkers are able to quantify key climate variables (particularly water and air temperature) and can provide qualitative evidence for changes in hydrology, vegetation, human-environment interactions and biogeochemical cycling. In many settings, biomarker proxies provide the opportunity to simultaneously reconstruct multiple climate or environmental variables, alongside complementary and long-established approaches to palaeo-environmental reconstruction. Multi-proxy studies have provided rich sets of data to explore both the drivers and impacts of palaeo-environmental change. As new biomarker proxies continue to be developed and refined, there is further potential to answer emerging questions for Quaternary science and environmental change

Conceptions of ‘research’ and their gendered impact on research activity: A UK case study

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research and Development in 2020, available online: DOI to be added when available.The last twenty years have seen an increased emphasis around the world on the quality and quantity of research in response to national research assessments, international league tables, and changes in government funding. The prevailing attitude in higher education embeds research as the ‘gold standard’ in the context of academic activity. However, a key feature of this trend is significant gender differences in research activity. We argue that research productivity is related to identification as a researcher, and that identifying as ‘research-active’ or not would appear to depend upon how an individual academic subjectively defines ‘research’. This article brings together two hitherto separate bodies of work 1) the impact of gender on academic research careers, and 2) academic conceptions of research. Through a combination of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires, we investigate the extent to which interpretations of ‘research’ and ‘research activity’ differ by gender within an institution in the UK and the potential impact of these interpretations. Although the research found that there are many similarities in the interpretations of ‘research activity’ between genders, we found one important difference between male and female participants’ conceptions of research and its relationship to teaching. Significantly, our findings suggest that there is a need to expand our existing conceptualisations of ‘research’ to include ‘research as scholarship’ in order to address the obstacles that current understanding of ‘research’ have placed on some academics. Self-definition as a researcher underlies research activity. A narrow conception of ‘research’ may prevent individuals from identifying as ‘research-active’ and therefore engaging with research

A Greek validation study of the Multiple Sclerosis Work Difficulties Questionnaire-23

The Multiple Sclerosis Work Difficulties Questionnaire-23 (MSWDQ-23) is a self-reportinstrument developed to assess barriers faced by People with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS) in theworkplace. The aim of this study was to explore the psychometric properties of the Greek versionof the MSWDQ-23. The study sample consisted of 196 PwMS, all currently working in part- orfull-time jobs. Participants underwent clinical examination and cognitive screening with the BriefInternational Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) and completed self-reportmeasures of fatigue, psychological functioning, and quality of life, along with the MSWDQ-23questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed, and goodness-of-fit measureswere used to evaluate construct validity. Convergent validity was checked by correlating MSWDQ-23scores with study measures. Cronbach’s alpha value was produced to assess internal consistency.CFA yielded a model with a fair fit confirming the three-factor structure of the instrument. Higherwork difficulties were associated with higher Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores, poorercognitive function, more fatigue, stress, anxiety, and depression, and poorer health status, supportingthe convergent validity of MSWDQ-23. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94) and test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.996, 95%, CI = 0.990–0.998) were excellent. The Greek MSWDQ-23 can beconsidered a valid patient-reported outcome measure and can be used in interventions aiming toimprove the vocational status of PwMS

Investigating student teachers’ presentations of literacy and literacy pedagogy in a complex context

The field of literacy and primary literacy education is patterned by multiple discourses and this raises challenges for those educating the next generation of primary literacy teachers. In England, the last 15 years have seen considerable levels of prescription in the primary literacy curriculum and compliance by the school and teacher education sectors has been enforced through demanding accountability regimes. In this paper, the authors draw on findings of a small-scale interview study to consider how understandings of literacies associated with different contexts may or may not inflect student teachers’ orientations towards literacy provision in school. The authors explore how five student teachers presented their experiences of literacy within and beyond the classroom and how they seemed to position themselves in relation to literacy pedagogy. The authors focus particularly on continuities and discontinuities between literacies in the student teachers’ personal and professional lives, and on tensions they identified between the teachers they felt they wanted to, and were expected to, become. Reflecting on this work, the authors consider how they can best equip pre-service primary and early years teachers to develop as critical reflective literacy practitioners in the current context

Evidence for an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene in chromosome region 22pter–22q11.2

Ependymomas are glial tumours of the brain and spinal cord. The most frequent genetic change in sporadic ependymoma is monosomy 22, suggesting the presence of an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene on that chromosome. Clustering of ependymomas has been reported to occur in some families. From an earlier study in a family in which four cousins developed an ependymoma, we concluded that an ependymoma-susceptibility gene, which is not the NF2 gene in 22q12, might be located on chromosome 22. To localize that gene, we performed a segregation analysis with chromosome 22 markers in this family. This analysis revealed that the susceptibility gene may be located proximal to marker D22S941 in 22pter–22q11.2. Comparative genomic hybridization showed that monosomy 22 was the sole detectable genetic aberration in the tumour of one of the patients. Loss of heterozygosity studies in that tumour revealed that, in accordance to Knudson’s two-hit theory of tumorigenesis, the lost chromosome 22 originated from the parent presumed to have contributed the wild-type allele of the susceptibility gene. Thus, our segregation and tumour studies collectively indicate that an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene may be present in region 22pter–22q11.2. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

A Dutch validation study of the Multiple Sclerosis Work difficulties questionnaire in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Health and self-regulatio