The relationship between civic attitudes and voting intention : an analysis of vocational upper secondary schools in England and Singapore

From 2009 to 2011, a team from the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies carried out a mixedmethods study of young people in England and Singapore. With regard to civic attitudes, the study showed that there was a greater sense of political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy in Singapore than in England. In addition, the group in Singapore scored higher on future voting relative to the group in England. Further, while both political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy were correlated with future voting in England, only the latter was correlated in the case of Singapore. For some, the results may seem counter-intuitive. The article reflects on these results, particularly those relating to democratic outcomes

Cognitive metaphor in the West and the East : A comparison of metaphors in the speeches of Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao

The thesis discusses the metaphors used in the speeches of US President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The framework is Cognitive Metaphor Theory, which introduces the idea that cognitive metaphors are conceptualizations or patterns of thought, not lingusitic phenomena, although these metaphors give rise to linguistic metaphors. The metaphorical mapping, the relations between conceptual metaphors and our experience, the differences between conceptual metaphors and poetic metaphors, as well as the functions of metaphors are also discussed. It is the purpose of the thesis to show the ubiquity of metaphor by analyzing the metaphors used in the West (represented by Obama) and the East (represented by Wen). A comparison of the similarities and differences of the conceptual metaphors used by the two politicians is made. The topics of speeches vary, from internal affairs (such as economy and domestic politics) to international affairs. The findings show that the conceptual metaphors TO PURSUE WELL-BEING IS A JOURNEY, PERSONIFICATION and POLITICS IS WAR are found to be the most dominant in both the English and the Chinese corpus, but some details or linguistic expressions in the same conceptual metaphors differ. Some specific American and Chinese metaphors are also highlighted, for instance, the American Dream and the Chinese flag. Metaphors are extensively used in both Obama and Wen’s speeches, and in fact among politicians as well, since metaphors not only have rhetoric functions, but also the power function of legitimization and delegitimization

Cultural Norms as a Source of Law: The Example of Bottled Water

As a metaphor for the interaction of law and culture, bottled water is striking in its simplicity and clarity. Bottled water consumers form a surprisingly loyal subculture of beverage drinkers, united by the water truths and water myths that they embrace. More recently, an equally fervent subculture of bottled water protestors has begun to coalesce. Notably, the cultural norms associated with both supporters and detractors extend beyond mere hydration and encompass such fundamental and varied notions as health, taste, convenience, status, morality, anti-privatization, sustainability, and truth-telling. In contrast to the cultural story, the legal narrative is surprisingly sparse, overlooking an important opportunity to engage in a cultural-legal dialogue on the evolving norms of water use. This Article argues that the states\u27 laws of water allocation -- evolved over more than a century from the customs of water users -- are uniquely suited to stimulate this unrealized dialectic and to translate social values into law. In particular, the Article identifies four discrete principles of water law that are especially relevant to the discourse, including reasonable use, beneficial use, preferred uses, and the public interes

Cultural Norms as a Source of Law: The Example of Bottled Water

As a metaphor for the interaction of law and culture, bottled water is striking in its simplicity and clarity. Bottled water consumers form a surprisingly loyal subculture of beverage drinkers, united by the water truths and water myths that they embrace. More recently, an equally fervent subculture of bottled water protestors has begun to coalesce. Notably, the cultural norms associated with both supporters and detractors extend beyond mere hydration and encompass such fundamental and varied notions as health, taste, convenience, status, morality, anti-privatization, sustainability, and truth-telling. In contrast to the cultural story, the legal narrative is surprisingly sparse, overlooking an important opportunity to engage in a cultural-legal dialogue on the evolving norms of water use. This Article argues that the states\u27 laws of water allocation -- evolved over more than a century from the customs of water users -- are uniquely suited to stimulate this unrealized dialectic and to translate social values into law. In particular, the Article identifies four discrete principles of water law that are especially relevant to the discourse, including reasonable use, beneficial use, preferred uses, and the public interes

Cognitive control moderates parenting stress effects on children's diurnal cortisol

This study investigated associations between parenting stress in parents and self-reported stress in children with children's diurnal cortisol secretion and whether these associations are moderated by known stress-regulating capacities, namely child cognitive control. Salivary cortisol concentrations were assessed from awakening to evening on two weekend days from 53 6-to-7-year-old children. Children completed a cognitive control task and a self-report stress questionnaire with an experimenter, while parents completed a parenting stress inventory. Hierarchical, linear mixed effects models revealed that higher parenting stress was associated with overall reduced cortisol secretion in children, and this effect was moderated by cognitive control. Specifically, parenting stress was associated with reduced diurnal cortisol levels in children with lower cognitive control ability and not in children with higher cognitive control ability. There were no effects of self-reported stress in children on their cortisol secretion, presumably because 6-to-7-year-old children cannot yet self-report on stress experiences. Our results suggest that higher cognitive control skills may buffer the effects of parenting stress in parents on their children’s stress regulation in middle childhood. This could indicate that training cognitive control skills in early life could be a target to prevent stress-related disorders

Study on lipid droplet dynamics in live cells and fluidity changes in model bacterial membranes using optical microscopy techniques

In this thesis optical microscopy techniques are used to consider aspects of viral and bacterial infections. In part 1, the physical effects of cytomegalovirus on lipid droplet dynamics in live cells are studied; in part 2, the effects of an antimicrobial peptide on the fluidity of model bacterial membranes are studied. The optical microscopy techniques used to study the effects of murine-cytomegalovirus (mCMV) on lipid droplets in live NIH/3T3 fibroblast cells in real-time are coherent anti- Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), two-photon fluorescence (TPF) and differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopies. Using a multimodal CARS and TPF imaging system, the infection process was monitored by imaging the TPF signal caused by a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing strain of mCMV, where the amount of TPF detected allowed distinct stages of infection to be identified. Meanwhile, changes to lipid droplet configuration were observed using CARS microscopy. Quantitative analysis of lipid droplet numbers and size distributions were obtained from live cells, which showed significant perturbations as the infection progressed. The CARS and TPF images were acquired simultaneously and the experimental design allowed incorporation of an environmental control chamber to maintain cell viability. Photodamage to the live cell population was also assessed, which indicated that alternative imaging methods must be adopted to study a single cell over longer periods of time. To this end, DIC microscopy was used to study the lipid droplet dynamics, allowing lipid droplet motion to be tracked during infection. In this way, the effects of viral infection on the mobility and arrangement of the lipid droplets were analysed and quantified. It was found that the diffusion coefficient of the lipid droplets undergoing diffusive motion increased, and the droplets undergoing directed motion tended to move at greater speeds as the infection progressed. In addition, the droplets were found to accumulate and cluster in infected cells. The second part of this thesis presents a study on the effects of an antimicrobial peptide on model bacterial membranes. Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) were produced as a simple model of E. Coli membrane using a 3:1 mixture of DPPC and POPG lipids. Incorporating Laurdan fluorescent dye into the lipid membrane of the GUVs allowed the membrane fluidity to be probed and visualised using TPF microscopy, whereby the fluidity was quantified by determining the general polarization (GP) values. Studying GUVs comprising single lipid and mixed lipid compositions over a temperature range from 25 C to 55 C enabled the lipid phase bands to be identified on the basis of GP value as gel phase and liquid crystalline phase. As such, the changes in lipid phase as a result of interaction with AMP were quantified, and phase domains were identified. It was found that the amount of liquid crystalline phase domains increased significantly as a result of AMP interaction