The Dog that Finally Barked:England as an Emerging Political Community

This report presents evidence which suggests the emergence of a new kind of Anglo-British identity in which the English component is increasingly the primary source of attachment for English people. It also suggests that English identity is becoming more politicised: that is, the more English a person feels, the more likely they are to believe that the current structure of the UK is unfair and to support a particularly English dimension to the governance of England

Brexit dilemmas: new opportunities and tough choices in unsettled times

Concluding the British Journal of Politics and International Relations’ (BJPIR) Brexit Special Issue, this article seeks to set the unsettled times and unexpected events associated with the Brexit in historic context and tease out the prospects for a ‘bespoke’ UK exit agreement. Drawing on classics of social science history—by Barrington Moore, Gourevitch and Davis—it reflects on ‘suppressed historic choices’ and historical periodisations. Three key dilemmas are interrogated: the Brexit dilemma (control of immigration/regaining of sovereignty vs European Union (EU) market access), the Brexiteers’ dilemma (sustaining economic prosperity while restricting immigration) and the Remainers/soft Brexit dilemma (of weakening Parliamentary democracy by staying in the Single Market)

Building educational confidence and affinity through Online Induction Activities

We aim to demonstrate the support and development steps taken throughout a week-long online induction. From application, through to enrolment and becoming an online student, often returning to education after many years, our students are likely to experience many emotions over this induction period. We recognise the different key foundation areas required to strengthen personal confidence and determination as an individual remote student. The intention is to help students overcome their initial personal apprehension by building intrinsic trust in the capabilities of BU from all standpoints including technical, educational and pastoral. By the end of the induction week, students have the opportunity to formulate a clear picture of the environment in which they will be learning, establish an initial impression of degree level study, recognise the levels of support available to them and begin to identify their own personal resolve and how to make this work for them whilst studying from a remote location

Irish Viking Age silks and their place in Hiberno-Norse society

The context: From the beginning of the ninth century AD people from Scandinavia, many from present-day Norway began to settle in Ireland. They founded the modern Irish cities and towns of Dublin, Waterford, Cork. Limerick and Wexford and developed lively and successful trading settlements that flourished until the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169 AD. We know from the literature that the Irish prized and used silk cloth at that time but at present excavations have not disclosed any remains of silk in what can be identified as specifically vernacular contexts. The situation is different for the Viking Age settlements. In particular Dublin and Waterford over the last twenty-five years or so have yielded up enormously rich organic remains including textiles that have illuminated in an amazing way the lifestyle of these incomers. They were enthusiastic traders and their wealth was well known in Ireland. Probably slave-trading played a major role but there was also much commerce in silver, furs, perhaps foodstuffs, silk and other cloth. An Irish account of the sack of Viking Limerick by local people in The Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill contains this passage. \u27They followed them also into the fort and slaughtered them... They carried off their jewels and their best property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign; their gold and silver; their beautifully woven cloth of all colors and of all kinds; their satins and silk cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green, and all sorts of cloth in like manner. They carried away their soft, youthful bright, matchless girls; their blooming silk-clad young women; and their active, large and wellformed boys.... everyone that was fit for a slave was enslaved.\u27 It is interesting that there are so many references in the passage to silks and beautifully woven cloth; they must have made a deep impression on the Irish fighters and chroniclers The material: Finds of silk from Dublin are far less numerous than those of wool; this is a pattern that is repeated in excavations in other Irish towns, and indeed in Europe generally at this time. There are however remains of compound weave cloth, of tablet woven braids, thread, ribbons, cords and filets. Three types of plain silk cloth were found, some were made up into bands, scarves and caps. There are at least twenty-five fragments of weft-faced compound twill of 2/1 construction, with paired Z-twisted main warps, single Z-twisted binder warps and untwisted wefts. Many are made with red or natural color silk probably patterned, and survive in narrow strips that seemingly were used to trim other garments. Four tablet woven braids use gold metal thread with a silk core as does one silver braid. A second silver braid does not seem to have a silk core but some of the brocading was executed in silk. Four tablet woven braids use gold metal thread with a silk core as does one silver braid. A second silver braid does not seem to have a silk core but some of the brocading was executed in silk. Silk thread to be used for sewing or embroidery was found; some in a small amount tied to a cylindrical needlecase. Other lengths were wound around thin pieces of wood or in small skeins. Thread was made up into plyed and plaited cords. At least seven knotted filets or hairnets were found. What may be the earliest example of sprang made from silk was found in Dublin in single S-twisted silk thread with alternate rows of 1/1 and 2/2 interlinking. This example of interlinked mesh sprang has a finished width of 130mm. Bands, scarves and caps: The plain silk items, together with similar pieces in wool, all in tabby weave, make up very interesting, cohesive group of finds. For example, Viking literary sources record that headbands were worn by men as well as women. When Skarp-Hedin in Njal\u27s Saga rides to the Althing \u27his hair was well combed back and held in place by a silk headband. He looked every inch a warrior\u27. Earlier in the same saga Gunnar was given by King Harold Gormsson in Haithabu \u27his own robes, a pair of gold embroidered gloves, a headband studded with gold and a Russian fur cap\u27

Cellular barcoding of protozoan pathogens for within-host population dynamics and in vivo drug discovery

The obligate intracellular apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii has broad infectious ability causing disease in humans and animals, some of which can be fatal. Existing treatments for T. gondii infections have notable side effects, and the emergence of resistance to first-line therapies is a growing concern. Understanding the fundamental aspects of T. gondii biology necessitates studying in vivo host-pathogen interactions. However, tracking parasite populations without artificially influencing infection dynamics has posed significant challenges. To address this, we propose a cellular barcoding technique combined with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology to genetically identify and assess the representation of parasite populations. This approach can be applied not only to T. gondii but also to T. brucei and holds potential for future application to other pathogens. Using our cellular barcoding methodology, we conducted population dynamics studies to investigate T. gondii colonisation of the brain parenchyma. Surprisingly, we discovered that the blood-brain barrier (BBB) allows relatively unrestricted traversal by T. gondii, imposing a less stringent bottleneck than anticipated. Moreover, we observed the dynamic nature of chronic T. gondii infection, as brain cyst numbers continued to decrease over several months. Furthermore, we employed the cellular barcoding methodology to facilitate multiplexed in vivo drug screening. Through this approach, we successfully identified small molecule fragments with anti-parasitic effects. Our proof-of-concept data supports the use of this screening platform for iterative drug molecule development. Additionally, in concurrent studies, one of the identified hit fragments exhibited selective inhibition of translation in T. gondii compared to HEK293 cells, prompting further characterisation efforts.Open Acces

Call for Content: Crafted Audio, Narrative Podcasting and the Global South

We’re seeking contributions for a special edition of RadioDoc Review on audio documentary, narrative podcasting or crafted audio in the Global South

European integration and the social science of EU studies: the disciplinary politics of a subfield

This article takes the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome as an opportunity to reflect upon half a century of academic discourse about the EU and its antecedents. In particular, it illuminates the theoretical analysis of European integration that has developed within political science and international studies broadly defined. It asks whether it is appropriate to map, as might be tempting, the intellectual 'progress' of the field of study against the empirical evolution of its object (European integration/the EU). The argument to be presented here is that while we can, to some extent, comprehend the evolution of academic thinking about the EU as a reflex to critical shifts in the 'real world' of European integration ('externalist' drivers), it is also necessary to understand 'internalist' drivers of theoretical discourse on European integration/the EU. The article contemplates two such 'internalist' components that have shaped and continue to shape the course of EU studies: scholarly contingency (the fact that scholarship does not proceed with free agency, but is bound by various conditions) and disciplinary politics (the idea that the course of academic work is governed by power games and that there are likely significant disagreements about best practice and progress in a field). In terms of EU studies, the thrust of disciplinary politics tends towards an opposition between 'mainstreaming' and 'pluralist versions' of the political science of EU studies. The final section explores how, in the face of emerging monistic claims about propriety in the field, an effective pluralist political science of the EU might be enhanced

Activity- and reactivity-based proteomics: Recent technological advances and applications in drug discovery.

Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is recognized as a powerful and versatile chemoproteomic technology in drug discovery. Central to ABPP is the use of activity-based probes to report the activity of specific enzymes or reactivity of amino acid types in complex biological systems. Over the last two decades, ABPP has facilitated the identification of new drug targets and discovery of lead compounds in human and infectious disease. Furthermore, as part of a sustained global effort to illuminate the druggable proteome, the repertoire of target classes addressable with activity-based probes has vastly expanded in recent years. Here, we provide an overview of ABPP and summarise the major technological advances with an emphasis on probe development

Understanding Complex Design Models through Bayesian Networks and Network Theory

Like the design of many large and complex systems, modern ship design often involves the automated creation of thousands of viable design alternatives developed through computer driven design models and optimizations. The models used to develop these designs are often multi-disciplinary and contain highly interconnected engineering systems. Consequently, even the most experienced designer has a limited ability to develop complete mental models for a large number of complex and varied design alternatives. Furthermore, when design decisions are made and need to be communicated to non-technical stakeholders, the complex relationships driving the design model become even more difficult to effectively communicate. Automated learning of Bayesian networks can offer designers an opportunity to quickly analyze a large set of designs with the efficiency with which they are created. As sets of nodes, edges and conditional probabilities, Bayesian networks can identify and quantify the influential relationships between design parameters. Transforming the learned Bayesian networks into simpler weighted edge networks further aids communication of the driving factors of a complex design model to all stakeholders by presenting the learned information visually and through simple to understand network metrics. This dissertation presents a framework for learning Bayesian networks, transforming them into weighted edge networks and analyzing those networks with metrics from network science. Additionally, an algorithm for identifying and chunking redundant variables is presented. Two case studies, a simple multi-objective function from Osyczka and Kundu and more complex ship design model from Sen and Yang, are presented and analyzed with the proposed framework. Each is sampled with a Latin hypercube to develop ten design trials of 100,000 design alternatives each. The variables of the more complex ship design model are analyzed for redundancy and chunked using the proposed chunking algorithm. Bayesian networks are learned from each design database and transformed into weighted edge networks using two scoring methods, derived from log gamma K2 and match distance. Finally the weighted edge networks are analyzed to identify communities and compute degree, betweenness, closeness and Eigenvector centralities. These metrics identify disciplines and driving factors of the design space at progressive stages of design.PHDNaval Architecture & Marine EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169959/1/cwincott_1.pd