Academic literacies twenty years on: a community-sourced literature review

In 1998, the paper ‘Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach’ by Mary Lea and Brian Street reinvigorated debate concerning ‘what it means to be academically literate’ (1998, p.158). It proposed a new way of examining how students learn at university and introduced the term ‘academic literacies’. Subsequently, a body of literature has emerged reflecting the significant theoretical and practical impact Lea and Street’s paper has had on a range of academic and professional fields. This literature review covers articles selected by colleagues in our professional communities of the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE), BALEAP the global forum for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) professionals, and the European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing (EATAW). As a community-sourced literature review, this text brings together reviews of wide range of texts and a diverse range of voices reflecting a multiplicity of perspectives and understandings of academic literacies. We have organised the material according to the themes: Modality, Identity, Focus on text, Implications for research, and Implications for practice. We conclude with observations relevant to these themes, which we hope will stimulate further debate, research and professional collaborations between our members and subscribers

Equity and Me: My Life as an Employment Equity Practitioner

The perspective of equity practitioners is distinct and offers unparalleled insight into the actual effectiveness of employment equity policy. As an employment equity practitioner within an engineering firm and its parent company, I achieved only marginal success for two main reasons. First, executives and managers refused to recognize and deal with employment equity, especially equity for women, as a business issue. Second, our efforts were hampered by the lack of effective equity legislation.La perspective des praticiens en matière d'équité est distincte et permet de pénétrer l'efficacité de la politique de l'équité en matière d'emploi de façon hors pair. En tant que praticien de l'équité en matière d'emploi dans une firme d’ingénieurs et de sa maison mère, je n’ai eu qu’un succès négligeable pour deux raisons principales. D’abord, les cadres et les gestionaires ont refusé de reconnaître et de se charger de l’équité en matière d’emploi, surtout lorsqu'il s'agissait de l'équité pour les femmes, en tant que question d'affaire Deuxièmement, nos effort sont été entravés par le manque d'efficacité de la loi sur l'équité

Implementation of a Continuing Education Module on Triage Practices for Pediatric Emergency Room Nurses

BACKGROUND: More than 35 million U.S. children visit the emergency department (ED) each year. Triage is the family’s first interaction with the healthcare team and a crucial component of care that directs the course of the ED visit. The use of standardized triage protocols, like the Emergency Severity Index (ESI) algorithm, is shown to improve overall patient health outcomes in the pediatric ED. For triage algorithms to be safe and effective, continuing education for pediatric ED nurses is important. LOCAL PROBLEM: Patients at a local pediatric emergency department are being inaccurately triaged - assigned a higher or lower acuity level than their condition warrants. This leads to patient decompensation while waiting to be seen by a provider, increased department wait times, and decreased family satisfaction. METHODS: The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model for improvement was used to guide project development and implementation. Patient charts were audited using an EMR scoring tool developed by the project team reflecting anticipated resources, initial vital signs, and patient condition change during ED course. INTERVENTIONS: A continuing education module (CBL) on triage practices was developed and implemented. The module was open for all pediatric ED nurses to complete at the project site. Components of the CBL module included a review of the ESI algorithm, pediatric triage practices, department resources, stable and unstable vital signs, and patient case studies. RESULTS: Emergency department triage accuracy improved from 83.6% accuracy to 87.7% accuracy. This 4.1% increase demonstrates clinical significance of practice improvement. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of a continuing education module on triage practices in the pediatric emergency department leads to improved triage accuracy among pediatric emergency room nurses. Regular implementation of a CBL may continue to improve triage accuracy and lead to decreased ED wait times and improved family satisfaction

An examination of the relationship between depression, autobiographical memory specificity and executive function

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool. It focuses on the frequently reported finding of reduced specificity of autobiographical memory in participants diagnosed with depression (Williams & Broadbent; 1986, van Vreeswijk & de Wilde; 2004). That is, difficulty recalling the who, what, where and when, of a remembered event. The focus of investigation particularly within the thesis is that of executive functioning; a term describing a range of higher order cognitive functions that control and integrate other activities such as planning, sequencing, initiation. It is examined in relation to depression. The thesis is presented in paper form; Chapter 1 contains a systematic review of 9 research studies related to executive function in the memory specificity of participants with a diagnosis of depression. While executive functioning does appear to be related to reduced specificity the findings in the literature are not consistent highlighting the need for further research. The original empirical paper presented in Chapter 2 tests out hypotheses related to the claims of reduced specificity and executive functioning in participants with a diagnosis of depression (Burt, Zembar, & Niederehe, 1995). These hypotheses are based on the conclusions drawn from the review paper in Chapter 1. It concludes that while overall participants with a diagnosis of depression produce fewer memories overall, and particularly fewer specific memories, this difference can be reduced with modified materials which are more concrete and imaginable. These modified materials can also produce more specific memories overall. In addition, regardless of depression status, executive functioning has a significant impact on autobiographical memory specificity. These key findings are developed in an extended discussion in Chapter 3 and discussed in terms of their value and application to practices in clinical psychology. Chapter 3 also contains research dissemination for participants and a future research proposal expanding the scope of investigation from depression to trauma

Modeling Accuracy and Variability of Motor Timing in Treated and Untreated Parkinson’s Disease and Healthy Controls

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by difficulty with the timing of movements. Data collected using the synchronization–continuation paradigm, an established motor timing paradigm, have produced varying results but with most studies finding impairment. Some of this inconsistency comes from variation in the medication state tested, in the inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) selected, and in changeable focus on either the synchronization (tapping in time with a tone) or continuation (maintaining the rhythm in the absence of the tone) phase. We sought to re-visit the paradigm by testing across four groups of participants: healthy controls, medication naïve de novo PD patients, and treated PD patients both “on” and “off” dopaminergic medication. Four finger tapping intervals (ISI) were used: 250, 500, 1000, and 2000 ms. Categorical predictors (group, ISI, and phase) were used to predict accuracy and variability using a linear mixed model. Accuracy was defined as the relative error of a tap, and variability as the deviation of the participant’s tap from group predicted relative error. Our primary finding is that the treated PD group (PD patients “on” and “off” dopaminergic therapy) showed a significantly different pattern of accuracy compared to the de novo group and the healthy controls at the 250-ms interval. At this interval, the treated PD patients performed “ahead” of the beat whilst the other groups performed “behind” the beat. We speculate that this “hastening” relates to the clinical phenomenon of motor festination. Across all groups, variability was smallest for both phases at the 500-ms interval, suggesting an innate preference for finger tapping within this range. Tapping variability for the two phases became increasingly divergent at the longer intervals, with worse performance in the continuation phase. The data suggest that patients with PD can be best discriminated from healthy controls on measures of motor timing accuracy, rather than variability

2020 Perennial Grass Variety Trial

In 2019, the University of Vermont Extension Northwest Crops and Soils Program initiated a trial evaluating forage yield and quality of an array of cool season perennial grass species and varieties planted in monocultures. The grass species selected were Kentucky bluegrass, meadow brome, meadow fescue, orchardgrass, perennial ryegrass, and timothy. The 2020 growing season was the first full season after establishment for these stands. These stands will continue to be monitored over multiple years to evaluate yield, quality, survivability, pest resistance, persistence, and other characteristics that will help identify the most suitable forage species and varieties in our region over a variety of weather conditions

Recombinant vacuolar iron transporter family homologue PfVIT from human malaria-causing Plasmodium falciparum is a Fe2+/H+ exchanger

This work was funded in part by a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (to J.P.D). It was also supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant number WT079272AIA) which funded the MALDI TOF-TOF analyser at the BSRC Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility, University of St Andrews. P.L was supported by a Northern Ireland Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) postgraduate studentship.Vacuolar iron transporters (VITs) are a poorly understood family of integral membrane proteins that can function in iron homeostasis via sequestration of labile Fe2+ into vacuolar compartments. Here we report on the heterologous overexpression and purification of PfVIT, a vacuolar iron transporter homologue from the human malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Use of synthetic, codon-optimised DNA enabled overexpression of functional PfVIT in the inner membrane of Escherichia coli which, in turn, conferred iron tolerance to the bacterial cells. Cells that expressed PfVIT had decreased levels of total cellular iron compared with cells that did not express the protein. Qualitative transport assays performed on inverted vesicles enriched with PfVIT revealed that the transporter catalysed Fe2+/H+ exchange driven by the proton electrochemical gradient. Furthermore, the PfVIT transport function in this system did not require the presence of any Plasmodium-specific factor such as post-translational phosphorylation. PfVIT purified as a monomer and, as measured by intrinsic protein fluorescence quenching, bound Fe2+ in detergent solution with low micromolar affinity. This study of PfVIT provides material for future detailed biochemical, biophysical and structural studies to advance understanding of the vacuolar iron transporter family of membrane proteins from important human pathogens.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe