Doctoral students’ access to non-academic support for mental health

Increased doctoral student numbers has led to a growth in studies dedicated to doctoral experience. These studies have raised a range of mental health concerns around workload, supervision processes and student well-being. Despite these challenges being well documented, few studies have looked at doctoral student’s experiences of accessing non-academic support services. This article presents the findings of a mixed-method study to investigate doctoral experiences of non-academic support, conducted at one British university with a large postgraduate research population. Drawing on focus groups and a student survey, the article concludes that many doctoral students are not accessing institutional support when they could benefit from it, with many turning to external support mechanisms including family, personal doctor and online resources. Five institutional recommendations are proposed to develop improved dedicated doctoral student mental health support: clear signposting, online self-help, workshops, parity of support and supervisor training

A Dependent Type Theory with Abstractable Names

This paper describes a version of Martin-Löf's dependent type theory extended with names and constructs for freshness and name-abstraction derived from the theory of nominal sets. We aim for a type theory for computing and proving (via a Curry-Howard correspondence) with syntactic structures which captures familiar, but informal, ‘nameful’ practices when dealing with binders.Partially supported by the UK EPSRC program grant EP/K008528/1, Rigorous Engineering for Mainstream Systems (REMS). Supported by the UK EPSRC leadership fellowship (Peter Sewell) grant EP/H005633/1, Semantic Foundations for Real-World Systems.This is the final published version of the article. It was originally published in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (Pitts AM, Matthiesen J, Derikx J, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 2015, 312, 19–50, doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2015.04.003) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.entcs.2015.04.00

Bending-stiffness Properties of a Prestressed Segmented Ceramic Plate

Bending, twisting, and Poisson stiffness of prestressed segmented ceramic plat

Into the depths of C: Elaborating the de facto standards

C remains central to our computing infrastructure. It is notionally defined by ISO standards, but in reality the properties of C assumed by systems code and those implemented by compilers have diverged, both from the ISO standards and from each other, and none of these are clearly understood. We make two contributions to help improve this error-prone situation. First, we describe an in-depth analysis of the design space for the semantics of pointers and memory in C as it is used in practice. We articulate many specific questions, build a suite of semantic test cases, gather experimental data from multiple implementations, and survey what C experts believe about the de facto standards. We identify questions where there is a consensus (either following ISO or differing) and where there are conflicts. We apply all this to an experimental C implemented above capability hardware. Second, we describe a formal model, Cerberus, for large parts of C. Cerberus is parameterised on its memory model; it is linkable either with a candidate de facto memory object model, under construction, or with an operational C11 concurrency model; it is defined by elaboration to a much simpler Core language for accessibility, and it is executable as a test oracle on small examples. This should provide a solid basis for discussion of what mainstream C is now: what programmers and analysis tools can assume and what compilers aim to implement. Ultimately we hope it will be a step towards clear, consistent, and accepted semantics for the various use-cases of C.We acknowledge funding from EPSRC grants EP/H005633 (Leadership Fellowship, Sewell) and EP/K008528 (REMS Programme Grant), and a Gates Cambridge Scholarship (Nienhuis). This work is also part of the CTSRD projects sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), under contract FA8750-10-C-0237.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Association for Computing Machinery via http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2908080.290808

Spectral library search for improved TMTpro labelled peptide assignment in human plasma proteomics

Funding Information: This work was supported by a research grant from the Danish Cardiovascular Academy, which is funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, grant number NNF20SA0067242 and the Danish Heart Foundation. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Proteomics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.Clinical biomarker discovery is often based on the analysis of human plasma samples. However, the high dynamic range and complexity of plasma pose significant challenges to mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Current methods for improving protein identifications require laborious pre-analytical sample preparation. In this study, we developed and evaluated a TMTpro-specific spectral library for improved protein identification in human plasma proteomics. The library was constructed by LC-MS/MS analysis of highly fractionated TMTpro-tagged human plasma, human cell lysates, and relevant arterial tissues. The library was curated using several quality filters to ensure reliable peptide identifications. Our results show that spectral library searching using the TMTpro spectral library improves the identification of proteins in plasma samples compared to conventional sequence database searching. Protein identifications made by the spectral library search engine demonstrated a high degree of complementarity with the sequence database search engine, indicating the feasibility of increasing the number of protein identifications without additional pre-analytical sample preparation. The TMTpro-specific spectral library provides a resource for future plasma proteomics research and optimization of search algorithms for greater accuracy and speed in protein identifications in human plasma proteomics, and is made publicly available to the research community via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD042546.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

A Method for Combining Isolates of Phytophthora sojae to Screen for Novel Sources of Resistance to Phytophthora Stem and Root Rot in Soybean

Soybean cultivars with specific single resistance genes (Rps) are grown to reduce yield loss due to Phytophthora stem and root rot caused by the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora sojae. To identify novel Rps loci, soybean lines are often screened several times, each time with an isolate of P. sojae that differs in virulence on various Rps genes. The goal of this study was to determine whether several isolates of P. sojae that differ in virulence on Rpsgenes could be combined into a single source of inoculum and used to screen soybean lines for novel Rps genes. A set of 14 soybean differential lines, each carrying a specific Rps gene, was inoculated with three isolates of P. sojae, which differed in virulence on 6 to 10 Rps genes, individually or in a 1:1:1 mixture. Inoculum containing the 1:1:1 mixture of isolates was virulent on 13 Rps genes. The mixed-inoculum method was used to screen 1,019 soybean accessions in a blind assay for novel sources of resistance. In all, 17% of Glycine max accessions and 11% of G. soja accessions were resistant (≤30% dead plants), suggesting that these accessions may carry a novel Rps gene or genes. Advantages of combining isolates into a single source of inoculum include reduced cost, ability to screen soybean germplasm with inoculum virulent on all known Rps genes, and ease of identifying novel sources of resistance. This study is a precursor to identifying novel sources of resistance to P. sojae in soybean using RXLR effectors

Direct photonic coupling of a semiconductor quantum dot and a trapped ion.

Coupling individual quantum systems lies at the heart of building scalable quantum networks. Here, we report the first direct photonic coupling between a semiconductor quantum dot and a trapped ion and we demonstrate that single photons generated by a quantum dot controllably change the internal state of a Yb^{+} ion. We ameliorate the effect of the 60-fold mismatch of the radiative linewidths with coherent photon generation and a high-finesse fiber-based optical cavity enhancing the coupling between the single photon and the ion. The transfer of information presented here via the classical correlations between the σ_{z} projection of the quantum-dot spin and the internal state of the ion provides a promising step towards quantum-state transfer in a hybrid photonic network.We acknowledge support by the University of Cambridge, the Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung, EPSRC (EP/H005676/1), the European Research Council (Grant numbers 240335 and 617985), EU-FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Networks COMIQ and S3NANO.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.123001

Mitigating Urban Wetland Impacts on Downstream Water Resources

Proceedings of the 2011 Georgia Water Resources Conference, April 11, 12, and 13, 2011, Athens, Georgia.Wetlands in older urban areas have often been integrated into stormwater management systems and exhibit severe degradation from receiving decades of untreated and uncontrolled urban runoff. Vegetative diversity is often poor and dominated by a few hardy species such as cattail (Typha latifolia) or reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea). These wetlands may also be affected by legacy impacts from agricultural uses that predate the urban development. Heavily impacted urban wetlands can become nutrient exporters, potentially degrading downstream water resources. Wetland 639W in Crystal, Minnesota, lies just upstream of Upper Twin Lake, which is an Impaired Water (EPA 303(d) list) for excess nutrients. The wetland receives stormwater from a 1,010 acre urban watershed. The concentration of total phosphorus at the wetland outlet is roughly double the concentration at the wetland inlet, indicating the wetland is exporting phosphorus. Evapotranspiration by the dense cattail stands in the wetland basin significantly draws down surficial groundwater levels during the summer growing months, speeding soil mineralization and leaving the soil surface friable. Sheet flow over the wetland during storm events releases dissolved phosphorus from the mineralized soil and detaches and mobilizes soil particles and plant detritus. In winter 2010-2011 the City of Crystal will modify the wetland outlet to limit outflow and restore a more natural wetland hydrology. This will reduce the periods of extended soil dryness and limit the direct discharge of phosphorus during smaller storm events. An upstream weir and overflow channel will provide a bypass for overflow and higher flows. The project is expected to reduce phosphorus export by an average 300 pounds per year.Sponsored by: Georgia Environmental Protection Division U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Water Science Center U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Water Resources Institute The University of Georgia, Water Resources FacultyThis book was published by Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2152. The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Research Institutes Authorization Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-307) or the other conference sponsors