Unequal relationships in high and low power distance societies: a comparative study of tutor - student role relations in Britain and China

This study investigated people's conceptions of an unequal role relationship in two different types of society: a high power distance society and a low power distance society. The study focuses on the role relationship of tutor and student. British and Chinese tutors and postgraduate students completed a questionnaire that probed their conceptions of degrees of power differential and social distance/closeness in this role relationship. ANOVA results yielded a significant nationality effect for both aspects. Chinese respondents judged the relationship to be closer and to have a greater power differential than did British respondents. Written comments on the questionnaire and interviews with 9 Chinese academics who had experienced both British and Chinese academic environments supported the statistical findings and indicated that there are fundamental ideological differences associated with the differing conceptions. The results are discussed in relation to Western and Asian concepts of leadership and differing perspectives on the compatibility/incompatibility of power and distance/closeness

Second Order Perturbations in the Randall-Sundrum Infinite Brane-World Model

We discuss the non-linear gravitational interactions in the Randall-Sundrum single brane model. If we naively write down the 4-dimensional effective action integrating over the fifth dimension with the aid of the decomposition with respect to eigen modes of 4-dimensional d'Alembertian, the Kaluza-Klein mode coupling seems to be ill-defined. We carefully analyze second order perturbations of the gravitational field induced on the 3-brane under the assumption of the static and axial-symmetric 5-dimensional metric. It is shown that there remains no pathological feature in the Kaluza-Klein mode coupling after the summation over all different mass modes. Furthermore, the leading Kaluza-Klein corrections are shown to be sufficiently suppressed in comparison with the leading order term which is obtained by the zero mode truncation. We confirm that the 4-dimensional Einstein gravity is approximately recovered on the 3-brane up to second order perturbations.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, comment and reference added, typos correcte

‘I can’t … I won’t?’ International students at the threshold of social interaction

This mixed-method study tracked social interaction and adaptation among 20 international postgraduates on a 1-year programme in the UK, examining assumptions that language proficiency and interactional engagement directly underpin sociocultural adaptation. Participants remained frustrated by a perceived ‘threshold’ barring successful interaction with English speakers, while reporting reluctance to take up available opportunities, independent of language proficiency and sociocultural adaptation. We challenge linear models of adaptation and call for assistance to international students in crossing the threshold to successful interaction

Thinking globally, working locally: employability and internationalization at home

As an approach to the internationalization of higher education, Internationalization at Home (IaH) looks beyond the mobility of a minority of students, emphasizing instead the delivery to all students of an internationally focused curriculum and the embedding of intercultural communication. This can be expanded to include extracurricular activities and building relationships with local cultural and ethnic community groups. The MA in international development at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom, has implemented this approach, looking beyond both mobility and curriculum to apply IaH directly to student employability, embracing intercultural competence as a key professional skill. This article explores the efficacy of this combination in the MA’s professional development pathway, which requires students to complete a placement, which demonstrates international and intercultural engagement, usually undertaken “at home,” and to critically reflect not just on their professional skills, but on their ability to engage in the ethical practice, which is a key element of IaH

Isosorbide Mononitrate and Cilostazol Treatment in Patients With Symptomatic Cerebral Small Vessel Disease: The Lacunar Intervention Trial-2 (LACI-2) Randomized Clinical Trial

IMPORTANCE: Cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) is a common cause of stroke (lacunar stroke), is the most common cause of vascular cognitive impairment, and impairs mobility and mood but has no specific treatment. OBJECTIVE: To test the feasibility, drug tolerability, safety, and effects of 1-year isosorbide mononitrate (ISMN) and cilostazol treatment on vascular, functional, and cognitive outcomes in patients with lacunar stroke. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Lacunar Intervention Trial-2 (LACI-2) was an investigator-initiated, open-label, blinded end-point, randomized clinical trial with a 2 × 2 factorial design. The trial aimed to recruit 400 participants from 26 UK hospital stroke centers between February 5, 2018, and May 31, 2021, with 12-month follow-up. Included participants had clinical lacunar ischemic stroke, were independent, were aged older than 30 years, had compatible brain imaging findings, had capacity to consent, and had no contraindications to (or indications for) the study drugs. Data analysis was performed on August 12, 2022. INTERVENTIONS: All patients received guideline stroke prevention treatment and were randomized to ISMN (40-60 mg/d), cilostazol (200 mg/d), ISMN-cilostazol (40-60 and 200 mg/d, respectively), or no study drug. MAIN OUTCOMES: The primary outcome was recruitment feasibility, including retention at 12 months. Secondary outcomes were safety (death), efficacy (composite of vascular events, dependence, cognition, and death), drug adherence, tolerability, recurrent stroke, dependence, cognitive impairment, quality of life (QOL), and hemorrhage. RESULTS: Of the 400 participants planned for this trial, 363 (90.8%) were recruited. Their median age was 64 (IQR, 56.0-72.0) years; 251 (69.1%) were men. The median time between stroke and randomization was 79 (IQR, 27.0-244.0) days. A total of 358 patients (98.6%) were retained in the study at 12 months, with 257 of 272 (94.5%) taking 50% or more of the allocated drug. Compared with those participants not receiving that particular drug, neither ISMN (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.80 [95% CI, 0.59 to 1.09]; P = .16) nor cilostazol (aHR, 0.77 [95% CI, 0.57 to 1.05]; P = .10) alone reduced the composite outcome in 297 patients. Isosorbide mononitrate reduced recurrent stroke in 353 patients (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.23 [95% CI, 0.07 to 0.74]; P = .01) and cognitive impairment in 308 patients (aOR, 0.55 [95% CI, 0.36 to 0.86]; P = .008). Cilostazol reduced dependence in 320 patients (aHR, 0.31 [95% CI, 0.14 to 0.72]; P = .006). Combination ISMN-cilostazol reduced the composite (aHR, 0.58 [95% CI, 0.36 to 0.92]; P = .02), dependence (aOR, 0.14 [95% CI, 0.03 to 0.59]; P = .008), and any cognitive impairment (aOR, 0.44 [95% CI, 0.23 to 0.85]; P = .02) and improved QOL (adjusted mean difference, 0.10 [95% CI, 0.03 to 0.17]; P = .005) in 153 patients. There were no safety concerns. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These results show that the LACI-2 trial was feasible and ISMN and cilostazol were well tolerated and safe. These agents may reduce recurrent stroke, dependence, and cognitive impairment after lacunar stroke, and they could prevent other adverse outcomes in cSVD. Therefore, both agents should be tested in large phase 3 trials. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03451591

Connected parents: combining online and off-line parenthood in vlogs and blogs

This article explores evaluative discourse in a corpus sample of parents' vlogs (video blogs) and blogs (henceforth v/ blogs) dealing with family tasks and responsibilities, as a reflection of underlying values concerning parenthood. It pays special attention to the important role played by the expression of attitude, understood as "ways of feeling" and including the meanings of affect, judgement and appreciation, together with positive politeness in the social practices of the discursive construction of online and off-line parenthood. Analysis and description of the data show two main patterns in parents' practices, either aiming at perfection through juggling and multi-tasking or building resistance to the demands of families and society. Results show that parents frequently exploit the system of affect for building positive face and rapport, while indirectly expressing judgement of social esteem and social sanction, which construct their identities as mothers and fathers and those of the members of their communities of practice. The corpus for the study consists of a random sample of 400 evaluative units in posts and comments on v/ blogs dealing with family tasks and responsibilities (200 in English and 200 in Spanish, with half the sample being drawn from fathers' and the other half from mothers' v/ blogs). I will approach the analysis of the data from appraisal (Martin and White 2005, Bednarek 2008) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987) in order to explore the features of evaluative discourse and the management of face. The methodology for processing the data borrows quantitative techniques from Corpus Linguistics, including the coding and statistical treatment of the sample with UAM Corpus Tools (O'Donnell 2011), together with Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis (DA), as done in some previous research (Santamaría-García 2011, 2014).Project "EMO-FUNDETT: EMOtion and language at work", I+D FFI2013-47792-C2-1-P, sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovatio

Focal Adhesion Kinase contributes to insulin-induced actin reorganization into a mesh harboring Glucose transporter-4 in insulin resistant skeletal muscle cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) is recently reported to regulate insulin resistance by regulating glucose uptake in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells. However, the underlying mechanism for FAK-mediated glucose transporter-4 translocation (Glut-4), responsible for glucose uptake, remains unknown. Recently actin remodeling was reported to be essential for Glut-4 translocation. Therefore, we investigated whether FAK contributes to insulin-induced actin remodeling and harbor Glut-4 for glucose transport and whether downregulation of FAK affects the remodeling and causes insulin resistance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To address the issue we employed two approaches: gain of function by overexpressing FAK and loss of function by siRNA-mediated silencing of FAK. We observed that overexpression of FAK induces actin remodeling in skeletal muscle cells in presence of insulin. Concomitant to this Glut-4 molecules were also observed to be present in the vicinity of remodeled actin, as indicated by the colocalization studies. FAK-mediated actin remodeling resulted into subsequent glucose uptake via PI3K-dependent pathway. On the other hand FAK silencing reduced actin remodeling affecting Glut-4 translocation resulting into insulin resistance.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data confirms that FAK regulates glucose uptake through actin reorganization in skeletal muscle. FAK overexpression supports actin remodeling and subsequent glucose uptake in a PI3K dependent manner. Inhibition of FAK prevents insulin-stimulated remodeling of actin filaments resulting into decreased Glut-4 translocation and glucose uptake generating insulin resistance. To our knowledge this is the first study relating FAK, actin remodeling, Glut-4 translocation and glucose uptake and their interrelationship in generating insulin resistance.</p