Integrated optical directional coupler biosensor

We present measurements on biomolecular binding reactions, using a new type of integrated optical biosensor based on a planar directional coupler structure. The device is fabricated by Ag+-Na+ ion-exchange in glass and definition of the sensing region is achieved by use of transparent fluoropolymer isolation layers formed by thermal evaporation. The suitability of the sensor for application to the detection of environmental pollutants is considered

A comparative evaluation of modern English corpus grammatical annotation schemes

Many English Corpus Linguistics projects reported in ICAME Journal and elsewhere involve grammatical analysis or tagging of English texts (eg Atwell 1983, Leech et al 1983, Booth 1985, Owen 1987, Souter 1989a, O’Donoghue 1991, Belmore 1991, Kytö and Voutilainen 1995, Aarts 1996, Qiao and Huang 1998). Each new project has to review existing tagging schemes, and decide which to adopt and/or adapt. The AMALGAM project can help in this decision, by providing descriptions and analyses of a range of tagging schemes, and an internet-based service for researchers to try out the range of tagging schemes on their own data. The project AMALGAM (Automatic Mapping Among Lexico-Grammatical Annotation Models) explored a range of Part-of-Speech tagsets and phrase structure parsing schemes used in modern English corpus-based research. The PoS-tagging schemes include: Brown (Greene and Rubin 1981), LOB (Atwell 1982, Johansson et al 1986), Parts (man 1986), SEC (Taylor and Knowles 1988), POW (Souter 1989b), UPenn (Santorini 1990), LLC (Eeg-Olofsson 1991), ICE (Greenbaum 1993), and BNC (Garside 1996). The parsing schemes include some which have been used for hand annotation of corpora or manual post-editing of automatic parsers, and others which are unedited output of a parsing program. Project deliverables include: – a detailed description of each PoS-tagging scheme, at a comparable level of detail. This includes a list of PoS-tags with descriptions and example uses from the source Corpus. The description of the use of PoS-tags is also illustrated in a multi-tagged corpus: a set of sample texts PoS-tagged in parallel with each PoS-tagset (and proofread by experts), for comparative studies – an analysis of the different lexical tokenization rules used in the source Corpora, to arrive at a ‘Corpus-neutral’ tokenization scheme (and consequent adjustments to the PoS-tagsets in our study to accept modified tokenization) – an implementation of each PoS-tagset in conjunction with our standardised tokenizer, as a family of PoS-taggers, one for each PoS-tagset – a method for ‘PoS-tagset conversion’, taking a text tagged according to one PoS-tagset and outputting the text annotated with another PoS-tagset – a sample of texts parsed according to a range a parsing schemes: a Multi-Treebank resource for comparative studies – an Internet service allowing researchers worldwide free access to the above resources, including a simple email-based method for PoS-tagging any English text with any or all PoS-tagset(s)

'If you had only listened carefully...':the discursive construction of emerging leadership in a UK all-women management team

Increasingly, feminist linguistic research has adopted a discursive perspective to learn how women and men 'do' leadership in gendered ways. 'Women' as a social category is made relevant to this study by virtue of the lack of female senior leaders in UK businesses (Sealy and Vinnicombe, 2013). Much previous research has analysed leadership discourse in mixed gender groups, relying on theories that imply comparisons between men and women. Using an Interactional Sociolinguistic approach, this study aims to learn more about how women perform leadership in the absence of men by analysing the spoken interactions of a women-only team who were engaged in a competitive leadership task. The analysis reveals that the women accomplish leadership in multiple and complex ways that defy binary gendered classifications. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive gendered dynamic to the team's interactions which, it is argued, might be disadvantageous to women aspiring to senior positions

Analytic frameworks for assessing dialogic argumentation in online learning environments

Over the last decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online learning environments to support students engaging in argumentation. This review first considers the range of functionalities incorporated within these online environments. The review then presents five categories of analytic frameworks focusing on (1) formal argumentation structure, (2) normative quality, (3) nature and function of contributions within the dialog, (4) epistemic nature of reasoning, and (5) patterns and trajectories of participant interaction. Example analytic frameworks from each category are presented in detail rich enough to illustrate their nature and structure. This rich detail is intended to facilitate researchers’ identification of possible frameworks to draw upon in developing or adopting analytic methods for their own work. Each framework is applied to a shared segment of student dialog to facilitate this illustration and comparison process. Synthetic discussions of each category consider the frameworks in light of the underlying theoretical perspectives on argumentation, pedagogical goals, and online environmental structures. Ultimately the review underscores the diversity of perspectives represented in this research, the importance of clearly specifying theoretical and environmental commitments throughout the process of developing or adopting an analytic framework, and the role of analytic frameworks in the future development of online learning environments for argumentation

Literary ethnography of evidence-based healthcare : accessing the emotions of rational-technical discourse

In this article I revisit the idea of literary ethnography (proposed by Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus, 1994) as a method for investigating social phenomena constituted principally through literature. I report the use of this method to investigate the topic of evidence-based healthcare, EBHC. EBHC is a field of discourse much built upon a dichotomy between rationality and emotionality. In this context literary ethnography, a particular type of discourse analysis, is valuable for allowing researchers to bring the emotional currents of technical-rational discourse into conscious awareness. In such discourses, emotions are not written out by name. The researcher must discern emotional phenomena by experiencing the discourse, and (try to) bring them into intelligible expression. As I clarify this process I develop Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus’ method theoretically, look to destabilise the rationalityemotionality dichotomy foundational to discourse around EBHC, and so transgress its conventional lines of thought.PostprintPeer reviewe

Impaired flow-induced arterial remodeling in DOCA-salt hypertensive rats

Arteries from young healthy animals respond to chronic changes in blood flow and blood pressure by structural remodeling. We tested whether the ability to respond to decreased (-90%) or increased (+100%) blood flow is impaired during the development of deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA)-salt hypertension in rats, a model for an upregulated endothelin-1 system. Mesenteric small arteries (MrA) were exposed to low blood flow (LF) or high blood flow (HF) for 4 or 7 weeks. The bioavailability of vasoactive peptides was modified by chronic treatment of the rats with the dual neutral endopeptidase (NEP)/endothelin-converting enzyme (ECE) inhibitor SOL1. After 3 or 6 weeks of hypertension, the MrA showed hypertrophic arterial remodeling (3 weeks: media cross-sectional area (mCSA): 10 +/- 1 x 10(3) to 17 +/- 2 x 10(3) mu m(2); 6 weeks: 13 +/- 2 x 10(3) to 24 +/- 3 x 10(3) mu m(2)). After 3, but not 6, weeks of hypertension, the arterial diameter was increased (empty set: 385 +/- 13 to 463 +/- 14 mu m). SOL1 reduced hypertrophy after 3 weeks of hypertension (mCSA: 6 x 10(3) +/- 1 x 10(3) mu m(2)). The diameter of the HF arteries of normotensive rats increased (empty set: 463 +/- 22 mu m) but no expansion occurred in the HF arteries of hypertensive rats (empty set: 471 +/- 16 mu m). MrA from SOL1-treated hypertensive rats did show a significant diameter increase (empty set: 419 +/- 13 to 475 +/- 16 mu m). Arteries exposed to LF showed inward remodeling in normotensive and hypertensive rats (mean empty set between 235 and 290 mu m), and infiltration of monocyte/ macrophages. SOL1 treatment did not affect the arterial diameter of LF arteries but reduced the infiltration of monocyte/ macrophages. We show for the first time that flow-induced remodeling is impaired during the development of DOCA-salt hypertension and that this can be prevented by chronic NEP/ECE inhibition. Hypertension Research (2012) 35, 1093-1101; doi:10.1038/hr.2012.94; published online 12 July 201

‘Working with the media taught us a lot’: Understanding The Guardian’s Katine initiative

One of the more important ventures in the world of media and development over the past decade has been The Guardian newspaper’s ‘Katine’ project in Uganda. The newspaper, with funding from its readers and Barclays Bank, put more than 2.5 million pounds into a Ugandan sub-county over the course of 4 years. The project was profiled on a dedicated Guardian microsite, with regular updates in the printed edition of the newspaper. In this article, I look at the relationship that developed between journalists and the non-governmental organisation and show that the experience was both disorienting and reorienting for the development project that was being implemented. The scrutiny of the project that appeared on the microsite disoriented the non-governmental organisation, making its work the subject of public criticism. The particular issues explored by journalists also reoriented what the non-governmental organisation did on the ground. I also point to the ways the relationship grew more settled as the project moved along, suggesting the amount of work that sometimes goes into what is often characterised as the relatively uncritical relationship between journalists and non-governmental organisations

Communicative competence and institutional affiliation: interactional processes of identity construction by immigrant students in Catalonia

The growing presence of children of immigrant families in the public school system in the bilingual region of Catalonia provides us with an opportunity to study how young multilingual and multicultural speakers construct their social competencies and their identity within the specific context of a gate-keeping social institution such as the school. The study reported in this paper approaches language learning as a process of socialisation that involves not only learning how to make sense of linguistic signs but also learning how to enact different social roles in particular institutions. The analysis focuses on the interactional profiles of two immigrant students in two types of communicative activities that are representative of the school context: responding to questions from an adult and cooperating with a peer in the resolution of a learning task. By shifting the focus of analysis from a decontextualised notion of communicative competence to the notion of 'institutionally affiliated communicative competence' and concentrating on issues such as the (1) the relationship between knowledge and participation, (2) language choice inside and outside school and (3) definitions of correctness in language use, the study reveals how the two students construct a highly 'affiliated' identit

An introduction to video methods in organizational research

Video has become a methodological tool of choice for many researchers in social science, but video methods are relatively new to the field of organization studies. This article is an introduction to video methods. First, we situate video methods relative to other kinds of research, suggesting that video recordings and analyses can be used to replace or supplement other approaches, not only observational studies but also retrospective methods such as interviews and surveys. Second, we describe and discuss various features of video data in relation to ontological assumptions that researchers may bring to their research design. Video involves both opportunities and pitfalls for researchers, who ought to use video methods in ways that are consistent with their assumptions about the world and human activity. Third, we take a critical look at video methods by reporting progress that has been made while acknowledging gaps and work that remains to be done. Our critical considerations point repeatedly at articles in this special issue, which represent recent and important advances in video method

Irreversible renal damage after transient renin-angiotensin system stimulation:involvement of an AT1-receptor mediated immune response

Transient activation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) induces irreversible renal damage causing sustained elevation in blood pressure (BP) in Cyp1a1-Ren2 transgenic rats. In our current study we hypothesized that activation of the AT1-receptor (AT1R) leads to a T-cell response causing irreversible impairment of renal function and hypertension. Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats harbor a construct for activation of the RAS by indole-3-carbinol (I3C). Rats were fed a I3C diet between 4-8 weeks of age to induce hypertension. Next, I3C was withdrawn and rats were followed-up for another 12 weeks. Additional groups received losartan (20 mg/kg/day) or hydralazine (100 mg/kg/day) treatment between 4-8 weeks. Rats were placed for 24h in metabolic cages before determining BP at week 8, 12 and 20. At these ages, subsets of animals were sacrificed and the presence of kidney T-cell subpopulations was investigated by immunohistochemistry and molecular marker analysis. The development of sustained hypertension was completely prevented by losartan, whereas hydralazine only caused a partial decrease in BP. Markers of renal damage: KIM-1 and osteopontin were highly expressed in urine and kidney samples of I3C-treated rats, even until 20 weeks of age. Additionally, renal expression of regulatory-T cells (Tregs) was highly increased in I3C-treated rats, whereas the expression of T-helper 1 (Th1) cells demonstrated a strong decrease. Losartan prevented these effects completely, whereas hydralazine was unable to affect these changes. In young Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats AT1R activation leads to induction of an immune response, causing a shift from Th1-cells to Tregs, contributing to the development of irreversible renal damage and hypertension