Negotiating the popular, the sacred and the political:an extended case study of three UK-based youth Christian social justice initiatives

The engagement of young people of religious faith with global injustice has been little explored in studies either of youth religiosity or youth political participation. The recently established youth initiatives of Christian Aid and Tearfund—two of the UK’s most widely recognized Christian non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—offer a way to explore this, alongside the SPEAK Network, a grassroots Christian student and youth movement that campaigns on social justice issues. Analyzing the blog posts of these three initiatives, this article will focus particularly upon the ways in which Tearfund Rhythms, the Christian Aid Collective and SPEAK use popular culture, categorizing their various uses as either innovation, appropriation, resistance or reclamation. It will then explain the groups’ differing emphases by considering their varying relationships with their members and their different religious positioning, before critically assessing what it means for young adults to ‘do’ religion and politics online

Wool Sells Itself: tracing the movement of Navajo-raised wools

Every June for the last eight years, a coalition of commercial wool buyers, the Diné College Land Grant Office, and the Black Mesa Water Coalition has hosted a multi-site wool buy in the Navajo Nation of New Mexico/Arizona. Historically, the primary outlets for Navajos to sell their wool were trading posts and border towns, which paid far below market price. Over the last several years, the wool buy has effectively doubled the price per pound paid to Navajo producers by bringing them into direct contact with buyers. In June 2019, an estimated 160,000 pounds of wool were purchased from over 800 producers and shipped to Ohio for the next step in processing. Beginning with the 2019 wool buy, I have been conducting a commodity chain analysis, following the wool as it travels across the United States, through grading, scouring, spinning, and weaving. Grounded in site visits, interviews, and conversations with members of the supply chain, this project fleshes out the mechanics by which the historically-, regionally-, and culturally-specific Navajo wool is transformed into anonymous commodity. The material and its circulation become an anchor for understanding the embodiment of people, labor, and landscape in material. The process by which raw material becomes commodity is uneven and opaque, but this site-specific, fieldwork-based project begins to break open that black box and lay out the seemingly-endless threads which make up this complex tangle of history, material, culture, and politics, questioning the rhetoric of transparency that has become so prevalent in our conversations around the ethics of production

The Accuracies of Assessment-based Grading Compared with Total-points Grading Practices in Secondary Math Education

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the correlational relationship between classroom grades and standardized test scores for Grade 8 math students. Grading plays a central role in the field of education; this study was significant as it addressed a gap in grading research comparing two current grading methods, and provided an evidence-based discussion on grading practices. The classroom grades for 56 Grade 8 math students were calculated from the same classroom assignment and assessment scores using two grading strategies, a total-points method and an assessment-based grading method, with consideration of summative test retake scores. The assessment-based grading method explicitly employs tenets of Bloom’s (1968) theory of learning for mastery. A correlational analysis found a positive relationship between all classroom grades from both total-points and assessment-based grading methods and standardized MAP math test scores. A Pearson correlation analysis determined the strongest statistically significant relationship was between total-points classroom grades and standardized MAP math test scores. Of the grading systems analyzed, the traditional total-points grades were the best representation of student learning when measured against standardized test scores

The phenology of seaward migration of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) in two European populations

Brown trout (Salmo trutta) exhibit facultative partial migration and the factors regulating spring downstream smolt migrations have been well documented in many river systems. Comparatively few studies have investigated movement outside the typical smolt migration period, but recent evidence supports the existence of an alternative autumn downstream migratory phenotype. This study is the first to provide a direct comparison of juvenile autumn downstream migration between two populations. The phenology of downstream migration of wild juvenile trout was examined using passive integrated transponder (PIT) telemetry over an eight month period in two European rivers; the River Deerness, England, and the River Villestrup, Denmark, exhibiting contrasting proximity to the marine environment. Additionally on the Deerness, indices of trout population dynamics were monitored using repeat sample and mark-recapture techniques. Site fidelity was strong (83%) for Deerness trout in summer 2014, but a large degree of local redistribution was evident by March 2015. The incidence of autumn-winter seaward migration was greater in the Deerness (46 % of migrating juveniles detected prior to spring smoltification) than the Villestrup (25 %). In both systems, the probability of migration was positively correlated with water level. While autumn and spring downstream migrants did not differ in size at the time of tagging in either system, evidence that spring migrants were of better condition, travelled faster (autumn: 11.0 km day-1; spring: 24.3 km day-1) and were more likely to leave the Deerness than autumn migrants suggests autumn and spring migrant conspecifics responded to different behavioural motivations. Variation in migration timing and overwintering habitat use could have ecological consequences relating to trophic cascades. Further investigation into the sex of autumn migrant juveniles, as well as the temporal and geographical variability in the incidence and fitness consequences of autumn migration by juvenile trout would be beneficial to salmonid population management

Efficient Far-Red/Near-IR Absorbing BODIPY Photocages by Blocking Unproductive Conical Intersections

Photocages are light-sensitive chemical protecting groups that give investigators control over activation of biomolecules using targeted light irradiation. A compelling application of far-red/near-IR absorbing photocages is their potential for deep tissue activation of biomolecules and phototherapeutics. Towards this goal, we recently reported BODIPY photocages that absorb near-IR light. However, these photocages have reduced photorelease efficiencies compared to shorter-wavelength absorbing photocages, which has hindered their application. Because photochemistry is a zero-sum competition of rates, improving the quantum yield of a photoreaction can be achieved either by making the desired photoreaction more efficient or by hobbling competitive decay channels. This latter strategy of inhibiting unproductive decay channels was pursued to improve the release efficiency of long-wavelength absorbing BODIPY photocages by synthesizing structures that block access to unproductive singlet internal conversion conical intersections, which have recently been located for simple BODIPY structures from excited state dynamic simulations. This strategy led to the synthesis of new conformationally-restrained boron-methylated BODIPY photocages that absorb light strongly around 700 nm. In the best case, a photocage was identified with an extinction coefficient of 124,000 M-1cm-1, a quantum yield of photorelease of 3.8%, and an overall quantum efficiency of 4650 M-1cm-1 at 680 nm. This derivative has a quantum efficiency that is 50-fold higher than the best known BODIPY photocages absorbing \u3e600 nm, validating the effectiveness of a strategy for designing efficient photoreactions by thwarting competitive excited state decay channels. Furthermore, 1,7-diaryl substitutions were found to improve the quantum yields of photorelease by excited state participation and blocking ion pair recombination by internal nucleophilic trapping. No cellular toxicity (trypan blue exclusion) was observed at 20 μM, and photoactivation was demonstrated in HeLa cells using red light

Self-Immolative Phthalate Esters Sensitive to Hydrogen Peroxide and Light

Self-immolative aryl phthalate esters were conjugated with cleavable masking groups sensitive to light and hydrogen peroxide. The phthalate linker releases the fluorescent dye 7-hydroxycoumarin upon exposure to light or H2O2, respectively, leading to an increase in fluorescence. The light-sensitive aryl phthalate ester is demonstrated as a pro- fluorophore in cultured S2 cell

Pale Fire Upon the Page: the book as object, mutilation, and the transformative touch of the reader

I’ve selected Pale Fire as a representative work through which to view issues of materiality that arise when we posit the reader’s interaction with the book object as meaningful context to their experience of the text. Because the novel invites readers to think meaningfully about their role in actively reconstructing the narrative in conjunction and allows them to author their own experience, it thereby prompts inquiries about the reader’s physical interaction with the text. Additionally, the existence of two editions of Pale Fire that significantly change the form of the book provides interesting avenues into the reader’s experience when that interaction is limited or decided for them.No embargoAcademic Major: Englis

An activist religiosity?:exploring Christian support for the Occupy movement

While Christian involvement in progressive social movements and activism is increasingly recognized, this literature has rarely gone beyond conceptualising religion as a resource to consider instead the ways in which individual activists may articulate their religious identity and how this intersects with the political. Based on ten in-depth interviews with Christian supporters of the London Occupy movement, this study offers an opportunity to respond to this gap by exploring the rich meaning-making processes of these activists. The article suggests that the location of the Occupy camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral was of central importance in bringing the Christian Occupiers’ religio-political identities to the foreground, their Christianity being defined in opposition to that represented by St Paul’s. The article then explores the religio-political meaning-making of the Christian Occupiers and introduces the term ‘activist religiosity’ as a way of understanding how religion and politics were articulated, and enacted, in similar ways. Indeed, religion and politics became considerably entangled and intertwined, rendering theoretical frameworks that conceptualise religion as a resource increasingly inappropriate. The features of this activist religiosity include post-institutional identities, a dislike of categorisation, and, centrally, the notion of ‘doings’—a predominant focus on engaged, active involvement

Direct Photorelease of Alcohols from Boron-Alkylated BODIPY Photocages

BODIPY photocages allow release of substrates us-ing visible light irradiation. They have the drawback of requiring reasonably good leaving groups for photorelease. Photorelease of alcohols is often accomplished by attachment with carbonate linkages, which upon photorelease liberate CO2 and gen-erate the alcohol. Here, we show that boron-alkylated BODIPY photocages are capable of directly photoreleasing both aliphatic alcohols and phenols upon irradiation via photocleavage of ether linkages. Direct photorelease of a hydroxycoumarin dye was demonstrated in living HeLa cells