The power of imagination? Aesthetic autonomy and critique in contemporary art

The need for the flexibility of “aesthetic frameworks”, and to expand this framework beyond the Western notion of aesthetic autonomy and/or universality in contemporary art, has become more emphatically transparent in the past two decades. One of the problems of the contemporary art scene is that the inherited framework of the Western notion of art seems too narrow, and does not suffice to account for art’s present scope and varied forms. The art practices of the “global contemporary” challenge the Western concept of art as a universal given, and also pose the question of how widely understood the boundaries of “art” can be. Thus, there is the recognition that aesthetic autonomy is not a given, but rather a socially constructed reality dependent on its post 18th century institutional background. In search for a more inclusive and relevant framework, then, art theory and art practice turn to the “imaginary” and to art as a form of critique in defining contemporary art and imagining new forms of citizenship claiming social relevance for art.peer-reviewe

An overview of digital tools to support Hybrid Active Learning

Presentation slides giving an overview of core technologies to support Hybrid Active Learning at the University of Liverpool, including Canvas, VITAL / Blackboard, Microsoft O365 / Teams and other third party tools. Grouped by ABC learning design activity types (e.g. collaboration, discussion, investigation)

Designing curricula to develop digitally capable professionals in engineering and management:the case in two universities

The development of digital capabilities has received significant attention in higher education (HE) in recent years, with numerous attempts made to develop digital frameworks to support curriculum design. However, few studies have articulated these generic capabilities in terms of specific disciplines. This thesis addresses the gap of disciplinary conceptualisations of digital capabilities by exploring how they are planned and experienced in HE curricula in two professional disciplines at two UK universities. Originality of the study is achieved in part through a conceptual framework that weaves together a theoretical perspective - Shulman’s signature pedagogies, with JISC’s Digital Capability Framework. Underpinned by a human capabilities approach, the study employed a multiple-case study methodology with each discipline as a case, and four undergraduate/postgraduate modules as the units of analysis, drawing on documentary sources, and academic, professional and student perspectives via interviews, focus groups and observation. My findings indicate that the development of digital capabilities is aligned with the respective discipline’s signature pedagogy. In engineering, digital problem-solving and collaboration/communication, followed by data and information literacy, appear to be most prominent. In management, data and information literacy overlap with problem-solving, and, together with digital content communication, form its signature digital capabilities. The thesis highlights similarities, differences and gaps in the way digital capabilities are developed in engineering and management curricula. In addition, the research process itself offers a major theoretical contribution, together with the identification of management’s overarching signature pedagogy. Practical and theoretical implications of the study include the need to extend signature pedagogies to ‘signature assessments’, and articulating a link between signature digital capabilities and authentic assessments. Future research could explore potential solutions to a tension between mapping digital capabilities and constructive alignment. A methodological contribution of this study was using poems as a way of synthesising findings. Finally, using William Blake’s art as illustration, it is suggested that harnessing a passion for creativity could be a starting point for supporting the digital capabilities of tomorrow’s professionals

Learning Literacies through collaborative enquiry; collaborative enquiry through learning literacies

The extent to which university departments foster learning literacies that equip students with the diverse skills required for employment in a digital world is an issue that is under increased scrutiny in British higher education. The Learning Literacies in the Digital Age report (LLiDA by Beetham et al. 2009) offers a framework of learning literacies, which encompasses a range of literacies including academic, information, digital and media literacies. Building on the LLiDA framework, this article outlines and discusses an approach that aimed to extend the development of information literacies of first-year undergraduate students along with digital and media literacies. The central characteristics of this approach involved students working collaboratively, in teams, on an enquiry-based learning task using the institutional virtual learning environment’s wiki tool. The task involved developing and creating a wiki on exactly the kind of learning literacies that students were meant to acquire during this enquiry. This dual development was underpinned by the collaborative input of staff from academic and central services departments. Student survey feedback and observation were used to map the various gains in the areas of 1) collaboration and communication skills, 2) information literacy (IL), academic practice (study skills) and employability skills, 3) media and digital/computer literacies and, finally, 4) disciplinary skills. The findings confirm the usefulness of the LLiDA framework as well as point to its potential for further development to map literacies specific to the discipline.</jats:p

The eLearning place: progress report on a complete systems for learning and assessment

This short paper outlines the main features of The eLearning Place and describes the development of TestMaker by The eLearning Place partnership. TestMaker is an assessment creation tool written in Java adhering to QTI standards. It separates item- and test-development, and pools items by Learning Provider in an Oracle database

Probing pattern and dynamics of disulfide bridges using synthesis and NMR of an ion channel blocker peptide toxin with multiple diselenide bonds

Anuroctoxin (AnTx), a 35-amino-acid scorpion toxin containing four disulfide bridges, is a high affinity blocker of the voltage-gated potassium channel Kv1.3, but also blocks Kv1.2. To improve potential therapeutic use of the toxin, we have designed a double substituted analog, N17A/F32T-AnTx{,} which showed comparable Kv1.3 affinity to the wild-type peptide{,} but also a 2500-fold increase in the selectivity for Kv1.3 over Kv1.2. In the present study we have achieved the chemical synthesis of a Sec-analog in which all cysteine (Cys) residues have been replaced by selenocysteine (Sec) forming four diselenide bonds. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time to replace{,} by chemical synthesis{,} all disulfide bonds with isosteric diselenides in a peptide/protein. Gratifyingly{,} the key pharmacological properties of the Sec-N17A/F32T-AnTx are retained since the peptide is functionally active. We also propose here a combined experimental and theoretical approach including NOE- and 77Se-based NMR supplemented by MD simulations for conformational and dynamic characterization of the Sec-N17A/F32T-AnTx. Using this combined approach allowed us to attain unequivocal assignment of all four diselenide bonds and supplemental MD simulations allowed characterization of the conformational dynamics around each disulfide/diselenide bridge

Discriminating physiological from non-physiological interfaces in structures of protein complexes: A community-wide study

Reliably scoring and ranking candidate models of protein complexes and assigning their oligomeric state from the structure of the crystal lattice represent outstanding challenges. A community-wide effort was launched to tackle these challenges. The latest resources on protein complexes and interfaces were exploited to derive a benchmark dataset consisting of 1677 homodimer protein crystal structures, including a balanced mix of physiological and non-physiological complexes. The non-physiological complexes in the benchmark were selected to bury a similar or larger interface area than their physiological counterparts, making it more difficult for scoring functions to differentiate between them. Next, 252 functions for scoring protein-protein interfaces previously developed by 13 groups were collected and evaluated for their ability to discriminate between physiological and non-physiological complexes. A simple consensus score generated using the best performing score of each of the 13 groups, and a cross-validated Random Forest (RF) classifier were created. Both approaches showed excellent performance, with an area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.93 and 0.94, respectively, outperforming individual scores developed by different groups. Additionally, AlphaFold2 engines recalled the physiological dimers with significantly higher accuracy than the non-physiological set, lending support to the reliability of our benchmark dataset annotations. Optimizing the combined power of interface scoring functions and evaluating it on challenging benchmark datasets appears to be a promising strategy

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms