The threats of social networking : old wine in new bottles?

Despite the many potential benefits to its users, social networking appears to provide a rich setting for criminal activities and other misdeeds. In this paper we consider whether the risks of social networking are unique and novel to this context. Having considered the nature and range of applications to which social networks may be applied, we conclude that there are no exploits or fundamental threats inherent to the social networking setting. Rather, the risks and associated threats treat this communicative and social context as an enabler for existing, long established and well-recognised exploits and activities

The regulation of PARP proteins by the m⁶A methyltransferase machinery

RNA methylation is an important regulator of RNA metabolism. The most common form of internal mRNA methylation is N6-methyladenosine (m⁶A), which is deposited by the m6A methyltransferase complex (MTC). This occurs co-transcriptionally, meaning the MTC must interact with components within the broader chromatin environment, in order to rapidly and selectively access nascent RNA. My thesis is a step towards a better understanding of those interactions. In the first part of my thesis, I examine the cellular response to UV-C irradiation, which has recently been demonstrated to induce dynamic m6A deposition. Not only do I find limited evidence to support this model, I also show this discrepancy partly arises from the cross-reactivity of m6A antibodies with poly (ADP-ribose) (PAR), which confounds imaging data. I then identify a previously uncharacterised regulatory relationship between the core MTC protein, METTL3, and the synthesis of PAR (PARylation). In the second part of the thesis, I utilise a range of experimental techniques in an attempt to describe how PARylation is affected by the loss of METTL3. These experiments give no single answer, but indicate several contexts in which PARylation and METTL3 may be linked. In the third section, I present a study of how PARP-1 and PARylation is regulated by METTL3 during the exit from pluripotency, and in the context of MEK/ERK signalling. At the heart of this section is a proteomic dataset that measures changes to the PARP-1 chromatin-associated interactome, in the presence and absence of METTL3. This identifies several interesting candidate proteins, on which further research can be based. In summary, I have identified, and begun the characterisation of, a regulatory relationship between two important processes: the m⁶A modification of RNA and PARylation. This may have important consequences for understanding several aspects of cell homeostasis and disease

Parent Strategies for Improving Joint Engagement and Language in a Diverse Sample of Limited Language Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children’s early language, communication, and social skills are often learned through social interactions with their caregivers. Being jointly engaged with caregivers provides the referential context for children to learn these early skills; however, many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impaired in their ability to share experiences with others and can thereby miss out on crucial opportunities for language and social development. There are many interventions for young children with ASD that teach children to share attention with others, from those that are more adult-driven and structured (e.g., Discrete Trial Training (DTT)) to child-led and naturalistic (e.g., Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation (JASPER)). Training parents in intervention strategies is effective for improving a wide range of children’s outcomes. This study aimed to: a) examine changes in parents’ use of four ABA-based strategies during parent-child free play interactions over the course of intervention (entry, 2 months into the intervention, 4 months into the intervention, and exit) and b) explore the relationship between parents’ use of strategies and children’s joint engagement and language outcomes over time. The current study was a secondary data analysis of a randomized controlled trial that compared two different interventions for children with ASD. Children (n=156) with limited expressive language ability received either 6 months of DTT or JASPER from an interventionist. In the last 8 weeks of intervention, parents received weekly parent training in whichever intervention their children were randomized to. Parent strategies (responsiveness, pacing, prompting, and environmental arrangement), child joint engagement, and child language were coded from a 10-minute free-play assessment that was collected at each timepoint. Results indicated that parents increased in their appropriate use of parent strategies over time. Parents’ pacing and environmental arrangement were related to children’s joint engagement across time and across treatment groups, while only parents’ pacing was related to children’s language outcomes. Implications for parent-child interactions and for parent trainings within early intervention contexts are discussed

Why write stylistic analyses of Munro’s stories?

What is a stylistic approach to a literary text? It is a textual analysis and a commentary articulated in linguistic terms. It assumes that the descriptive and explanatory systems of one linguistic model or another should be a good way of enhancing our understanding of how the text works. And not just ‘should’ but ‘must’; and not just for a literary text, but any text. As Michael Burke reminds us in his Introduction to the recently-published Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2014), the origi..

Peter Black, Christopher Stevens, <i>class</i> and inequality in the <i>Daily Mail</i>

This article is part of a larger study of changes in British newspaper representations of wealth inequality in the United Kingdom from 1971 to the present day. Selected findings are reported from a corpus-linguistically based comparative critical discourse analysis of large samples (approximately 55,000 words each) of TV programme reviews that appeared in the Daily Mail, written by the TV critics Peter Black (in 1971) and Christopher Stevens (in 2013). Occurrences of class and its collocates and co-texts are a particular focus of attention. In Black’s reviews, it is a recurrent contemporary concern and recognised as indicative of inequality of opportunity. In Stevens’ much longer stories, class has largely disappeared from the discursive agenda of contemporary Britain and is only mentioned in relation to the past or other countries. By 2013, it seems to have become ‘natural’ not to discuss class and present-day wealth inequality in Mail TV reviews. The part-quantitative, part-qualitative methodology adopted here suggests that the tracing of something as masked as the discursive acceptance of wealth inequality must inevitably be more piecemeal and multi-factorial than other more sharply and overtly categorised forms of discrimination (based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, for example). </jats:p

Is Style in Short Fiction Different from Style in Long Fiction?

Is style in short fiction different from style in long fiction? More specifically: are short stories different stylistically from novels (even if we talk only of some types of short stories, vs some types of novels; and differing in degree rather than in kind)? In the context of a symposium on Style in Fiction, this essay makes some points about style in short fiction, and a particular respect in which it may differ from style in novels. I begin with some observations about some domains where it is hard to see a short story/novel stylistic contrast; I then make some points about what are widely accepted as features characteristic of stories; thereafter I focus on the occurrence in some stories (but not, I hypothesize, in novels) of what I call High Emotional Involvement Passages, which are distinct in form and function from ambient story text.Le style des fictions brèves est-il le même que celui des fictions longues ? Plus précisément, les nouvelles diffèrent-elles stylistiquement des romans (même si on ne considère que quelques types de nouvelles et quelques types de romans et que l’écart soit plus une question de degré que de nature) ? Dans le contexte d’un colloque sur le Style dans la Fiction, cet article définit quelques traits spécifiques à la nouvelle, en particulier quand ils diffèrent de ceux que l’on observe dans le roman. L’article débute avec des exemples dans lesquels il est difficile d’observer des différences notables entre nouvelles et romans. Je rappelle ensuite quelques caractéristiques généralement associées à la nouvelle. Enfin, mon étude se porte sur l’utilisation, dans certaines nouvelles (mais pas, telle est ma thèse, dans les romans) de ce que je nomme des passages de Grande Implication Emotionnelle qui diffèrent du reste de la nouvelle d’un point de vue formel et fonctionnel

Girl power in ‘A Trip to the Coast’

Focussing particularly on stylistic tendencies in ‘A Trip to the Coast’, this article situates that story within the collection as a whole, and discusses the interests of the story and the collection in the struggles of girls and women, and of girls against women, in a world often controlled by men. The girl vs woman fights are neo-gothic in intensity, and, figuratively or otherwise, ‘to the death’. For the girl to become a free and independent person, the matriarch’s power must be broken. While there is a mythic or folktale core to this story arc, this is submerged in the absorbing physical and psychological depiction of the girl, her grandmother, and a travelling salesman, and the women’s conversational ‘wrestling’, full of feints and blocks and traps, as they strive to emerge from life’s inconsequentialities unvanquished. My article introduces some simple corpus linguistic methods for extracting, with a degree of objectivity, words and meanings that are prominent in the story text; these stylistically prominent features are then used in story interpretation. Several of the narrative preoccupations of ‘A Trip to the Coast’, which is focalised by the teenage girl, are discussed at length: body shapes and smells, conversational resistance, and uncertainty of narrative interpretation

Strategies for Improving Retention in Online Learning.

This research seeks to determine if methods exist to identify students in online education who are a retention risk and to develop solutions to help prevent said students from exiting the course prematurely. In order to do this effectively, this study addresses three specific questions: • What data is provided by VLEs that might help educators to measure student engagement? • To what extent are educators able to identify those students who are in danger of exiting a course prematurely in the online learning environment? • What preventative measures are being used by educators to attempt to improve student retention in the online learning environment? A qualitative approach is used to answer the above questions. Initially the documentation for the most popular VLEs is analysed to identify the information present that would allow educators measure student engagement. Following this online educators are interviewed in order to harness their thoughts and experiences in the identification of students who are a retention risk. The participants are also asked about their preferred strategies for preventing the early drop out of students in online learning. The result of this primary research is to develop a set of recommendations, both for higher education institutions, and also for educators which aid in the identification of at-risk students. Additionally recommendations are provided for strategies that can be used, both proactively and reactively, in online learning to improve student retention