The powerful student consumer and the commodified academic: A depiction of the marketised UK Higher Education system through a textual analysis of the ITV drama Cheat.

Through a textual analysis of four episodes comprising the 2019 ITV 1 psychological thriller Cheat, this paper explores a fictional representation of the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) setting in the television drama. We discuss our analysis in the context of growing marketisation of UK HE, where academics are increasingly viewing students as powerful consumers. We focus on one of the central characters, final-year undergraduate student Rose Vaughan, and the staff with whom she interacts in a fictional HE institution – St. Helen’s College. This paper engages with the following themes: ‘The powerful student consumer’; and ‘The commodified academic’. Insight gleaned through the textual analysis of this dramatised depiction of UK HE allows us to attempt to understand how both students and academics might be navigating the neoliberal university and negotiating place and status as (paying) students and (commercial) academics. Though heralded as powerful student-consumers in much literature, our analysis of this television drama shows how students can potentially disrupt the united front often attempted by HE institutions, but ultimately are faced with a ‘the house always wins’i scenario. Our paper offers an important contribution to the psycho-sociological literature into how the television drama depicts that the student experience has been transformed and impacted by HE's marketisation. This includes a reconsideration of how the television drama portrays what it means to be a student, by exploring how one student is conceptualised, understood, and represented in the psychological thriller

Further uses for Grounded Theory: A methodology for psychological studies of the visual arts and written media

Grounded Theory remains a popular qualitative methodology even after half-a-century of existence. Recent years have seen a renaissance in the use of the methodology, and it is increasingly being utilised in innovative ways. These have included the application of Grounded Theory to ‘non-traditional’ data such as those derived from the performing arts, literature, and visual media. Most published Grounded Theory analyses using these data appear experimental and/or tentative when drawing their conclusions, and little guidance is published on how to conduct Grounded Theory on visual and textual media. With this article, we go some way towards redressing this issue and further explore the adaptability and utility of Grounded Theory as a qualitative methodology. Further, we offer a methodological approach derived from the ‘Classical’ school, to be used by Psychologists and other Social Science Researchers who wish to explore psychological phenomena in the context of the performing arts, literature, and visual media

Re-Os dating of pyrite confirms an early diagenetic onset and extended duration of mineralization in the Irish Zn-Pb ore field

0000-0002-7706-6003The Irish Midlands region contains one of the world’s largest hydrothermal Zn-Pb ore districts, but uncertainty exists in the timing of mineralization relative to host rock ages. Consequently, genetic models for ore formation are poorly constrained and remain controversial. Here we use Re-Os geochronology to show that ore-stage pyrite from the Lisheen deposit formed at 346.6 ± 3.0 Ma, shortly after host rock deposition. Pyrite from the Silvermines deposit returns an age of 334.0 ± 6.1 Ma, indicating that at least some mineralization occurred during later burial. These age determinations show that the much younger paleomagnetic ages reported for the Irish Zn-Pb deposits reflect remagnetization during the Variscan orogeny, a process that we suggest affects paleomagnetic dating more widely. The Re-Os ages overlap with the ages of lower Carboniferous volcanic rocks in the Midlands, which are the product of magmatism that has been invoked as the driving force for hydrothermal activity. The relatively low initial Os ratios for both Lisheen (0.253 ± 0.045) and Silvermines (0.453 ± 0.006) are compatible with derivation of Os from these magmas, or from the Caledonian basement that underlies the ore deposits.This journal is published under the terms of Green Open Access. Authors may post a copy of the accepted (i.e., post-peer review) version of their paper (https://doi.org/10.1130/G36296.1) in a repository of their choice or to their personal website after the relevant embargo period has passed. The embargo period will be 12 months from formal online publication

The Male Gaze or Male Gays? From Romance to Bromance through Performances of Gender and Sexuality by two of Love Island’s Favourite Characters

This paper draws on two favourite characters from British reality television show, Love Island 2018: Jack Fincham, a former stationery sales manager, and Alex George, an Accident & Emergency [A&E] doctor, to explore how heterosexual norms are constructed and challenged. We study the romantic on-screen relationships these characters have with the female contestants, and between the two male characters themselves through the notion of ‘bromance’. Through a textual analysis of the spoken words and physical interactions between characters in episodes forming the fourth series of Love Island and analysis of social media posts and articles in popular press outlets, we use the notion of gender performativity to explore how these characters perform both hegemonic and, what we argue is, ‘threatened’ masculinity. We use the ‘Male Gaze’ to methodologically lens the performances by characters and their romantic interactions on the television show. In particular, we focus on Jack and Alex’s budding relationship and the condemning of this relationship by the public amid Alex’s termination of his romantic relationship. The decision by Alex to end this relationship led to many viewers questioning his sexuality, with specific reference to his adoration for Jack. Whilst broadly, this paper contributes to debates on the sociological potential of reality television shows, such as Love Island, its specific contribution is to a small, but growing body of international scholarship on homosocial relationships and male love stories in television and film. With this paper, we also contribute towards redressing the marginalization of women within the study of bromance

The neoliberal university and the neurotic academic: A textual analysis of ITV drama Cheat

Through a textual analysis of four episodes comprising the ITV 1 psychological thriller Cheat, this paper explores depictions of the English Higher Education [HE] landscape and of the lived experiences of being an academic in the television drama. We achieve this through a focus on the fictional HE institution where the drama is set–St. Helen’s College–and the central character, university Lecturer: Dr Leah Dale; who is employed on a fixed-term contract and is applying for tenure. This paper engages with the following themes: Emotional Labour; Precarity of Fixed-Term Contracts; and Imposter Syndrome. Insight gleaned through the textual analysis contributes to the understanding of how academics might be navigating and negotiating the neoliberal university. In particular, we highlight the implications of contractual precarity in HE and the fragility of identity which is experienced by some academics. As such, this paper goes some way towards remedying the deficit of scholarship on the lived experiences of being a contemporary academic. © 2020, © 2020 UCU

Key points to facilitate the adoption of computer-based assessments.

here are strong pedagogical arguments in favor of adopting computer-based assessment. The risks of technical failure can be managed and are offset by improvements in cost-effectiveness and quality assurance capability. Academic, administrative, and technical leads at an appropriately senior level within an institution need to be identified, so that they can act as effective advocates. All stakeholder groups need to be represented in undertaking a detailed appraisal of requirements and shortlisting software based on core functionality, summative assessment life cycle needs, external compatibility, security, and usability. Any software that is a candidate for adoption should be trialed under simulated summative conditions, with all stakeholders having a voice in agreeing the optimum solution. Transfer to a new system should be carefully planned and communicated, with a programme of training established to maximize the success of adoption

The effect of exercise training interventions in adult kidney transplant recipients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised control trials

Background: Kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) are characterised by adverse changes in physical fitness and body composition. Post-transplant management involves being physically active, although evidence for the effect of exercise is limited. Objective: To assess the effects of exercise training interventions in KTRs. Methods: NCBI PubMed (MEDLINE) and CENTRAL (EMBASE, WHO ICTRP) databases were searched up to March 2021 to identify eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that studied exercise training in adult KTRs. Outcomes included exercise capacity, strength, blood pressure, body composition, heart rate, markers of dyslipidaemia and renal function, and health-related quality of life (QoL). Results: Sixteen RCTs, containing 827 KTRs, were included. The median intervention length was 14-weeks with participants exercising between 2–7x/week. Most studies used a mixture of aerobic and resistance exercise. Significant improvements were observed in cardiorespiratory function (VO2peak) (3.21 ml/kg/min, p = 0.003), 6MWT (76.3 meters, p = 0.009), physical function (STS-60, 4.8 repetitions, p = 0.04), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (0.13 mg/dL, p = 0.03). A moderate increase in maximum heart rate was seen (p = 0.06). A moderate reduction in creatinine was also observed (0.14 mg/dl, p = 0.05). Isolated studies reported improvements in strength, bone health, lean mass, and QoL. Overall, studies had high risk of bias suggestive of publication bias. Conclusions: Exercise training may confer several benefits in adult KTRs, particularly by increasing cardiorespiratory function and exercise capacity, strength, HDL levels, maximum heart rate, and improving QoL. Additional long-term large sampled RCTs, incorporating complex interventions requiring both exercise and dietary behaviour change, are needed to fully understand the effects of exercise in KTRs

Functional characterisation of the methionine sulfoxide reductase repertoire in Trypanosoma brucei

We thank Guy Hanke (QMUL) for their critical review of this manuscript. We acknowledge the members of the T. brucei genome (http://tritrypdb.org/tritrypdb/) and TrypTag (http://tryptag.org) projects for sequence and localisation data, respectively. A component of this work was supported by grants from ANPCyT (PICT-2015-1149; PICT-2014-2103). SAG, and DGA are investigator career members from CONICET. AK was a recipient of a Queen Mary University of London PhD studentshi

A Workflow for Probabilistic Calibration of Models of Left Atrial Electrophysiology

Atrial fibrillation is an increasingly common condition. Computational models that describe left atrial electrophysiology have the potential to be used to guide interventions such as catheter ablation. Calibration of these models to faithfully represent left atrial structure and function in a particular patient is challenging because electrophysiology observations obtained in the clinical setting are typically sparse and noisy, and can be difficult to register to a mesh obtained from imaging. Probabilistic approaches show promise as a way to obtain personalised models while taking account of noise, sparseness, and uncertainty. We have developed a workflow in which parameter fields are represented as Gaussian processes, and the posterior distribution is inferred using MCMC. Our workflow has been tested using synthetic data, generated from simulations where the spatial variation in model parameters is known, and we have shown that both features and parameters can be recovered from simulated sparse measurements