Intervocalic consonant sequences in Korean

This paper reports the results of an instrumental phonetic study of intervocalic consonant sequences in Korean. The study explored a putative positional neutralization produced at the phonetics/phonology interface. It was designed to determine whether Korean intervocalic laryngeal consonants are phonetically distinct from geminates, plain consonants, or laryngeal consonants in consonant clusters. The results showed that the contrast between intervocalic tensed singletons and geminates was neutralized, and that both of these patterned with heterorganic consonant sequences rather than plain singletons. Moreover, we found that this neutralization persisted across (limited) variation in speaking rate, although intervocalic tense consonants were more compressible in faster speech than were post-consonantal tense consonants

Threshold concepts: Impacts on teaching and learning at tertiary level

This project explored teaching and learning of hard-to-learn threshold concepts in first-year English, an electrical engineering course, leadership courses, and in doctoral writing. The project was envisioned to produce disciplinary case studies that lecturers could use to reflect on and refine their curriculum and pedagogy, thereby contributing to discussion about the relationship between theory and methodology in higher education research (Shay, Ashwin, & Case, 2009). A team of seven academics investigated lecturers’ awareness and emergent knowledge of threshold concepts and associated pedagogies and how such pedagogies can afford opportunities for learning. As part of this examination the lecturers also explored the role of threshold concept theory in designing curricula and sought to find the commonalities in threshold concepts and their teaching and learning across the four disciplines. The research highlights new ways of teaching threshold concepts to help students learn concepts that are fundamental to the disciplines they are studying and expand their educational experiences. Given that much of the international research in this field focuses on the identification of threshold concepts and debates their characteristics (Barradell, 2013; Flanagan, 2014; Knight, Callaghan, Baldock, & Meyer, 2013), our exploration of what happens when lecturers use threshold concept theory to re-envision their curriculum and teaching helps to address a gap within the field. By addressing an important theoretical and practical approach the project makes a considerable contribution to teaching and learning at the tertiary level in general and to each discipline in particular

An Irish Spiritual Pilgrimage and the Potential for Transformation

This paper discusses spiritual pilgrimage from a cultural-spiritual perspective on transformative learning, and analyzes the experiences of the three co-authors via an autoethnography methodology

Efavirenz directly modulates the oestrogen receptor and induces breast cancer cell growth

Efavirenz-based HIV therapy is associated with breast hypertrophy and gynaecomastia. Here, we tested the hypothesis that efavirenz induces gynaecomastia through direct binding and modulation of the oestrogen receptor (ER).To determine the effect of efavirenz on growth, the oestrogen-dependent, ER-positive breast cancer cell lines MCF-7, T47D and ZR-75-1 were treated with efavirenz under oestrogen-free conditions in the presence or absence of the anti-oestrogen ICI 182,780. Cells treated with 17β-oestradiol in the absence or presence of ICI 182,780 served as positive and negative controls, respectively. Cellular growth was assayed using the crystal violet staining method and an in vitro receptor binding assay was used to measure the ER binding affinity of efavirenz.Efavirenz induced growth in MCF-7 cells with an estimated effective concentration for half-maximal growth (EC 50 ) of 15.7 μM. This growth was reversed by ICI 182,780. Further, efavirenz binds directly to the ER [inhibitory concentration for half maximal binding (IC 50 ) of ∼52 μM] at a roughly 1000-fold higher concentration than observed with 17β-oestradiol.Our data suggest that efavirenz-induced gynaecomastia may be caused, at least in part, by drug-induced ER activation in breast tissues.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79275/1/j.1468-1293.2010.00831.x.pd

Environmental shaping of codon usage and functional adaptation across microbial communities.

Microbial communities represent the largest portion of the Earth's biomass. Metagenomics projects use high-throughput sequencing to survey these communities and shed light on genetic capabilities that enable microbes to inhabit every corner of the biosphere. Metagenome studies are generally based on (i) classifying and ranking functions of identified genes; and (ii) estimating the phyletic distribution of constituent microbial species. To understand microbial communities at the systems level, it is necessary to extend these studies beyond the species' boundaries and capture higher levels of metabolic complexity. We evaluated 11 metagenome samples and demonstrated that microbes inhabiting the same ecological niche share common preferences for synonymous codons, regardless of their phylogeny. By exploring concepts of translational optimization through codon usage adaptation, we demonstrated that community-wide bias in codon usage can be used as a prediction tool for lifestyle-specific genes across the entire microbial community, effectively considering microbial communities as meta-genomes. These findings set up a 'functional metagenomics' platform for the identification of genes relevant for adaptations of entire microbial communities to environments. Our results provide valuable arguments in defining the concept of microbial species through the context of their interactions within the community

The fables of pity: Rousseau, Mandeville and the animal-fable

Copyright @ 2012 Edinburgh University PressPrompted by Derrida’s work on the animal-fable in eighteenth-century debates about political power, this article examines the role played by the fiction of the animal in thinking of pity as either a natural virtue (in Rousseau’s Second Discourse) or as a natural passion (in Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees). The war of fables between Rousseau and Mandeville – and their hostile reception by Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith – reinforce that the animal-fable illustrates not so much the proper of man as the possibilities and limitations of a moral philosophy that is unable to address the political realities of the state

An analysis on the convergence of equal-time commutators and the closure of the BRST algebra in Yang-Mills theories

In renormalizable theories, we define equal-time commutators (ETC'S) in terms of the equal-time limit and investigate its convergence in perturbation theory. We find that the equal-time limit vanishes for amplitudes with the effective dimension d_{\em eff} \leq -2 and is finite for those with d_{\em eff} =-1 but without nontrivial discontinuity. Otherwise we expect divergent equal-time limits. We also find that, if the ETC's involved in verifying an Jacobi identity exist, the identity is satisfied. Under these circumstances, we show in the Yang-Mills theory that the ETC of the $0$ component of the BRST current with each other vanishes to all orders in perturbation theory if the theory is free from the chiral anomaly, from which we conclude that $[\, Q\,,\,Q\,]=0$, where $Q$ is the BRST charge. For the case that the chiral anomaly is not canceled, we use various broken Ward identities to show that $[\, Q\,,\,Q\,]$ is finite and $[\,Q\,,\,[\, Q\,,\,Q]\,]$ vanishes at the one-loop level and that they start to diverge at the two-loop level unless there is some unexpected cancellation mechanism that improves the degree of convergence.Comment: 35 page

Policies and Opportunities for Physical Activity in Middle School Environments

This study examined physical activity opportunities and barriers at 36 geographically diverse middle schools participating in the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls