El uso de L1 en el aula de L2: el español como recurso en la adquisición del inglés como segunda lengua

Este estudio explora las percepciones y actitudes de los profesores de inglés como lengua extranjera con respecto al uso de la lengua materna, en este caso el español, en el aula de inglés monolingüe y analiza los motivos para excluir o incluir su uso como recurso didáctico. Este estudio se ha enfocado desde un punto de vista sociolingüístico teniendo en cuenta las identidades de los alumnos. Para la investigación se han empleado métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos, obteniendo los datos mediante un cuestionario, entrevistas semiestructuradas y preguntas cortas de narrativa. Los resultados indican que, a pesar de la suposición generalizada de que el uso de la lengua materna dificulta el proceso de aprendizaje de la secunda lengua, la mayoría de los profesores de inglés en España tienen una gran tendencia a incluir el español en sus clases para abordar problemas personales de los alumnos, enseñar las similitudes y diferencias entre ambos idiomas y explicar o aclarar nueva terminología. En conclusión, este estudio desafía el punto de vista de que el uso de la L1 impide el aprendizaje de la L2. Hay un consenso general de que, aunque los estudiantes deben de estar expuestos a la lengua meta lo máximo posible, un uso apropiado de la L1 es un recurso positivo que facilita el aprendizaje de la L2 por parte del alumno y, por lo tanto, puede ser un enfoque más efectivo en comparación con las clases ‘English only’.This study explores English teachers’ perceptions and attitudes regarding the use of the mother tongue, in this case, Spanish, in the monolingual English classroom and analyzes the motives for excluding or including it in their teaching practice. This study has been approached from a sociolinguistic perspective, taking into account students’ language identities. Research has been conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods and empirical data was obtained by means of a questionnaire, semistructured interviews and short-answer written narratives. The results indicate that in spite of the common held assumption that the mother tongue hinders the second language learning process, the majority of English teachers in Spain have a strong tendency to include Spanish in their teaching practice to address students’ personal problems, show similarities and differences between the two languages and introduce or clarify new lexical items. In conclusion, this study challenges the notion that L1 impedes L2 learning. There is a general consensus that although students must be exposed to the target language as much as possible, an appropriate use of the L1 is a positive resource which facilitates students’ L2 learning and therefore, may be a more effective approach as opposed to the ‘English only’ classroom.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Educación Primari

A Triangular Bargain: Narration and Power in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace

This thesis analyzes reader-writer relationships in two novels by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace. The plots of both these novels revolve around scenes of storytelling, in which tensions arise between the narrator and her audience. In The Blind Assassin, the elderly protagonist tells her granddaughter the truth about their family\u27s past in an effort to achieve redemption. In Alias Grace, a convicted murderess tells her story to a psychiatrist who hopes to prove either her guilt or innocence. In my thesis, I examine how each of these narrative relationships reflects the relative powers of narrator and audience to define truth, shape identities, and assign meaning. Both parties have specific motivations for entering the relationship, and so each one vies for control of the story, sometimes to disastrous effect. Drawing on contemporary literary theory, this research explores the respective powers of reader, writer, and the text itself, and discusses how each one shapes the meaning of narrative. The thesis finally concludes that successfully navigating the narrative relationship can lead to personal empowerment and social connection, while failing to do so can be destructive. Ultimately, this project hopes to provide insight for real-world readers and writers as they enter into narrative relationships of their own

Who does what now? How physics lab instruction impacts student behaviors

While laboratory instruction is a cornerstone of physics education, the impact of student behaviours in labs on retention, persistence in the field, and the formation of students' physics identity remains an open question. In this study, we performed in-lab observations of student actions over two semesters in two pedagogically different sections of the same introductory physics course. We used a cluster analysis to identify different categories of student behaviour and analyzed how they correlate with lab structure and gender. We find that, in lab structures which fostered collaborative group work and promoted decision making, there was a task division along gender lines with respect to laptop and equipment usage (and found no such divide among students in guided verification labs).Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

Pain Assessment In Students Who Cannot Self-Report: A Pilot Study

This is a pilot study in students who cannot self report pain due to intellectual disabilities

Alterations in the phase behaviour of human γD-crystallin due to mutagenesis and chemical modification of the protein surface

Proteins are inherently anisotropic macromolecules due to the variation in the surface-exposed amino acid side-chains on the protein surface. Protein phase diagrams describe the solution conditions where phase transitions, such as liquidsolid and liquid-liquid, occur. The position of these phase boundaries is dependent on both the intrinsic characteristics of the protein and on its environment. As a result, changes to the protein or its environment can significantly alter its phase diagram. Human γD-crystallin (HGD) is a protein found in the eye lens and is remarkably stable at high concentrations. HGD exhibits short-ranged attractive interactions, i.e. shorter than a quarter of the protein diameter. As a result, HGD undergoes liquidliquid phase separation (LLPS). The temperature (Tph) at which LLPS occurs can be used as a measure of the strength of attractive interactions between proteins in solution. The effects of chemically modifying specific amino acids (Lys-2 and Cys-110) on the surface of HGD with a (hydrophobic) small molecule fluorescent label were examined using both experiments and simulations. By measuring the LLPS temperature for modified proteins in mixtures with native protein, it was possible to determine how surface anisotropy and the chemical properties of the modifier changed the protein’s phase behaviour. Very low modified protein compositions (as low as xm = 0.0001) were sufficient to increase Tph significantly (~14 K), but both the position and type of fluorescent dye used influenced Tph. A numerical model was designed to explain the experimental observations and revealed that the increase in LLPS in the presence of modified protein was due to a new increase in attraction in the system. The effects of chemical modification were further examined by modifying HGD with PEGylated biotin at both the Cys and Lys positions on the protein surface. Even at high modified protein compositions (xm ~ 0.9), there was little change in Tph relative to unmodified HGD when the modification was performed at the Lys position. However, Tph increased significantly for thiol modified protein at a similar modified protein composition (~10 K). Neither modification had any impact on the structure of the protein relative to unmodified HGD. This study further highlighted how both the specific chemical modification and its position on the protein surface can change the impact to a phase boundary. Finally, the nucleation and growth of protein aggregates in solution and in cells was probed using double mutants of HGD. For solution based measurements of the P23VR58H mutant of HGD, it appears that aggregate growth produces monodisperse particle sizes, which appear to grow via monomer addition. When measurements are made in smaller volumes, surface effects lead to heterogeneous nucleation and polydisperse aggregates emerge. However, heterogeneous nucleation can be suppressed by surface treatments. Aggregate growth in cells was demonstrated for the P23TR36S mutant of HGD. Heterogeneous aggregates of GFP labelled protein were observed in cells for up to 4 days and these particles sizes were predominantly 1-2 µm in size. While some larger particle sizes were observed, these were very few in number. Significant cell death was associated with later particle growth stages, which warrants future investigation

Inference of single-cell phylogenies from lineage tracing data using Cassiopeia.

The pairing of CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing with massively parallel single-cell readouts now enables large-scale lineage tracing. However, the rapid growth in complexity of data from these assays has outpaced our ability to accurately infer phylogenetic relationships. First, we introduce Cassiopeia-a suite of scalable maximum parsimony approaches for tree reconstruction. Second, we provide a simulation framework for evaluating algorithms and exploring lineage tracer design principles. Finally, we generate the most complex experimental lineage tracing dataset to date, 34,557 human cells continuously traced over 15 generations, and use it for benchmarking phylogenetic inference approaches. We show that Cassiopeia outperforms traditional methods by several metrics and under a wide variety of parameter regimes, and provide insight into the principles for the design of improved Cas9-enabled recorders. Together, these should broadly enable large-scale mammalian lineage tracing efforts. Cassiopeia and its benchmarking resources are publicly available at www.github.com/YosefLab/Cassiopeia

Mining Milk for Factors which Increase the Adherence of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis to Intestinal Cells

peer-reviewedBifidobacteria play a vital role in human nutrition and health by shaping and maintaining the gut ecosystem. In order to exert a beneficial effect, a sufficient population of bifidobacteria must colonise the host. In this study, we developed a miniaturised high-throughput in vitro assay for assessing the colonising ability of bacterial strains in human cells. We also investigated a variety of components isolated from different milk sources for their ability to increase the adherence of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis ATCC 15697, a common member of the gastrointestinal microbiota of breastfed infants, to HT-29 cells. Both conventional and miniaturised colonisation assays were employed to examine the effect of 13 different milk-derived powders on bacterial adherence, including positive controls which had previously resulted in increased bifidobacterial adherence (human milk oligosaccharides and a combination of 3′- and 6′-sialylactose) to intestinal cells. Immunoglobulin G enriched from bovine whey and goat milk oligosaccharides resulted in increased adhesion (3.3- and 8.3-fold, respectively) of B. infantis to the intestinal cells and the miniaturised and conventional assays were found to yield comparable and reproducible results. This study highlights the potential of certain milk components to favourably modulate adhesion of bifidobacteria to human intestinal cells

Molecular recording of mammalian embryogenesis.

Ontogeny describes the emergence of complex multicellular organisms from single totipotent cells. This field is particularly challenging in mammals, owing to the indeterminate relationship between self-renewal and differentiation, variation in progenitor field sizes, and internal gestation in these animals. Here we present a flexible, high-information, multi-channel molecular recorder with a single-cell readout and apply it as an evolving lineage tracer to assemble mouse cell-fate maps from fertilization through gastrulation. By combining lineage information with single-cell RNA sequencing profiles, we recapitulate canonical developmental relationships between different tissue types and reveal the nearly complete transcriptional convergence of endodermal cells of extra-embryonic and embryonic origins. Finally, we apply our cell-fate maps to estimate the number of embryonic progenitor cells and their degree of asymmetric partitioning during specification. Our approach enables massively parallel, high-resolution recording of lineage and other information in mammalian systems, which will facilitate the construction of a quantitative framework for understanding developmental processes