Developing graduate employability skills and attributes: Curriculum enhancement through work-integrated learning

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is considered a key strategy for promoting graduate employability. Graduate employability is a complex concept, one which has broadened in recent years to encapsulate a diverse range of skills, attributes, and other measures such as networks, professional-identity and active citizenship. This special issue presents recent scholarship on WIL and employability, addressing the question of how WIL contributes to enhancing employability outcomes for students and graduates. The importance of embedding WIL experiences in the curriculum so they are effectively supported by appropriate pedagogical strategies is emphasized, as well as the provision of quality assessment to support employability outcomes. Such supports, while critical, have resourcing implications for higher education, including impacts on staff workload which also need to be considered. Employability is considered in relation to the related construct of employment outcomes, pointing to ways in which these two perspectives can be better integrated. Recommendations are made for future research

Research-informed curriculum and advancing innovative practices in work-integrated learning

Work-integrated learning (WIL) continues to be seen as an important strategy for enhancing graduate employability. While work placements continue to be the dominant approach, there has been a focus on diversifying the types of WIL offerings in recent years, and in particular, the development of innovative models. This is partly in response to calls for universities to be more flexible and responsive in order to better cater for industry and student needs. This Special Issue, stemming from the 2018 Australian Collaborative Education Network National Conference, integrates a number of perspectives and approaches to WIL and employability, with a focus on innovative models, curriculum and research. A number of areas are identified as posing particular challenges and opportunities in WIL. These include: scaffolding of WIL through the curriculum; student preparation for WIL; wellbeing, resilience, persistence, and motivation; and developing quality measures of WIL. It is timely to develop and research more integrated and holistic approaches to WIL and other related areas such as employability and career development learning, both to account for the inherent complexity and diversity of WIL itself and to utilize the new research findings in the WIL literature

Responding to an international crisis: The adaptability of the practice of work-integrated learning

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the practice of work-integrated learning (WIL) has been significant, with many active WIL activities pivoting to remote offerings where students engage with the workplace through online platforms from their homes. The pandemic has also caused significant and ongoing disruption to the economy, likely causing less work placement opportunities for upcoming years within the context of limited institutional budgets and resourcing. It is, therefore, vitally important that institutions develop diverse practices of WIL and shift away from a heavy reliance on work placements. Developing diverse WIL practices across educational institutions is an important strategy to build 'institutional WIL resilience' during times of disrupted economies with limited WIL opportunities. During the pandemic, the use of simulations had increased, in particular, in relation to preparing students for WIL, however, caution is needed in considering simulations as a comparable alternative to WIL

Reliability of dynamic causal modelling of resting‐state magnetoencephalography

This study assesses the reliability of resting‐state dynamic causal modelling (DCM) of magnetoencephalography (MEG) under conductance‐based canonical microcircuit models, in terms of both posterior parameter estimates and model evidence. We use resting‐state MEG data from two sessions, acquired 2 weeks apart, from a cohort with high between‐subject variance arising from Alzheimer's disease. Our focus is not on the effect of disease, but on the reliability of the methods (as within‐subject between‐session agreement), which is crucial for future studies of disease progression and drug intervention. To assess the reliability of first‐level DCMs, we compare model evidence associated with the covariance among subject‐specific free energies (i.e., the ‘quality’ of the models) with versus without interclass correlations. We then used parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) to investigate the differences between the inferred DCM parameter probability distributions at the between subject level. Specifically, we examined the evidence for or against parameter differences (i) within‐subject, within‐session, and between‐epochs; (ii) within‐subject between‐session; and (iii) within‐site between‐subjects, accommodating the conditional dependency among parameter estimates. We show that for data acquired close in time, and under similar circumstances, more than 95% of inferred DCM parameters are unlikely to differ, speaking to mutual predictability over sessions. Using PEB, we show a reciprocal relationship between a conventional definition of ‘reliability’ and the conditional dependency among inferred model parameters. Our analyses confirm the reliability and reproducibility of the conductance‐based DCMs for resting‐state neurophysiological data. In this respect, the implicit generative modelling is suitable for interventional and longitudinal studies of neurological and psychiatric disorders

Mental Health of Parents and Life Satisfaction of Children: A Within-Family Analysis of Intergenerational Transmission of Well-Being

This paper addresses the extent to which there is an intergenerational transmission of mental health and subjective well-being within families. Specifically it asks whether parents’ own mental distress influences their child’s life satisfaction, and vice versa. Whilst the evidence on daily contagion of stress and strain between members of the same family is substantial, the evidence on the transmission between parental distress and children’s well-being over a longer period of time is sparse. We tested this idea by examining the within-family transmission of mental distress from parent to child’s life satisfaction, and vice versa, using rich longitudinal data on 1,175 British youths. Results show that parental distress at year t-1 is an important determinant of child’s life satisfaction in the current year. This is true for boys and girls, although boys do not appear to be affected by maternal distress levels. The results also indicated that the child’s own life satisfaction is related with their father’s distress levels in the following year, regardless of the gender of the child. Finally, we examined whether the underlying transmission correlation is due to shared social environment, empathic reactions, or transmission via parent-child interaction

Distinct patterns of brain atrophy in Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI) cohort revealed by visual rating scales.

BACKGROUND: In patients with frontotemporal dementia, it has been shown that brain atrophy occurs earliest in the anterior cingulate, insula and frontal lobes. We used visual rating scales to investigate whether identifying atrophy in these areas may be helpful in distinguishing symptomatic patients carrying different causal mutations in the microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT), progranulin (GRN) and chromosome 9 open reading frame (C9ORF72) genes. We also analysed asymptomatic carriers to see whether it was possible to visually identify brain atrophy before the appearance of symptoms. METHODS: Magnetic resonance imaging of 343 subjects (63 symptomatic mutation carriers, 132 presymptomatic mutation carriers and 148 control subjects) from the Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative study were analysed by two trained raters using a protocol of six visual rating scales that identified atrophy in key regions of the brain (orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate, frontoinsula, anterior and medial temporal lobes and posterior cortical areas). RESULTS: Intra- and interrater agreement were greater than 0.73 for all the scales. Voxel-based morphometric analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between the visual rating scale scores and grey matter atrophy in the same region for each of the scales. Typical patterns of atrophy were identified: symmetric anterior and medial temporal lobe involvement for MAPT, asymmetric frontal and parietal loss for GRN, and a more widespread pattern for C9ORF72. Presymptomatic MAPT carriers showed greater atrophy in the medial temporal region than control subjects, but the visual rating scales could not identify presymptomatic atrophy in GRN or C9ORF72 carriers. CONCLUSIONS: These simple-to-use and reproducible scales may be useful tools in the clinical setting for the discrimination of different mutations of frontotemporal dementia, and they may even help to identify atrophy prior to onset in those with MAPT mutations

Anti-Apoptotic Machinery Protects the Necrotrophic Fungus Botrytis cinerea from Host-Induced Apoptotic-Like Cell Death during Plant Infection

Necrotrophic fungi are unable to occupy living plant cells. How such pathogens survive first contact with living host tissue and initiate infection is therefore unclear. Here, we show that the necrotrophic grey mold fungus Botrytis cinerea undergoes massive apoptotic-like programmed cell death (PCD) following germination on the host plant. Manipulation of an anti-apoptotic gene BcBIR1 modified fungal response to PCD-inducing conditions. As a consequence, strains with reduced sensitivity to PCD were hyper virulent, while strains in which PCD was over-stimulated showed reduced pathogenicity. Similarly, reduced levels of PCD in the fungus were recorded following infection of Arabidopsis mutants that show enhanced susceptibility to B. cinerea. When considered together, these results suggest that Botrytis PCD machinery is targeted by plant defense molecules, and that the fungal anti-apoptotic machinery is essential for overcoming this host-induced PCD and hence, for establishment of infection. As such, fungal PCD machinery represents a novel target for fungicides and antifungal drugs

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Conceptual framework for the definition of preclinical and prodromal frontotemporal dementia

The presymptomatic stages of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are still poorly defined and encompass a long accrual of progressive biological (preclinical) and then clinical (prodromal) changes, antedating the onset of dementia. The heterogeneity of clinical presentations and the different neuropathological phenotypes have prevented a prior clear description of either preclinical or prodromal FTD. Recent advances in therapeutic approaches, at least in monogenic disease, demand a proper definition of these predementia stages. It has become clear that a consensus lexicon is needed to comprehensively describe the stages that anticipate dementia. The goal of the present work is to review existing literature on the preclinical and prodromal phases of FTD, providing recommendations to address the unmet questions, therefore laying out a strategy for operationalizing and better characterizing these presymptomatic disease stages