Mitochondrial DNA transfer: some reflections from the United Kingdom

Recent medical advances and subsequent law reform in the United Kingdom have reignited debate about the ethics of mitochondrial DNA donation and transfer. The potential personal and societal benefits of permitting such practices must be considered against the ethical issues raised by them. It is argued that each objection is defeasible, assuming that safety and efficacy issues can be resolved. A brief description of the new provisions in the UK is provided

The Predictive Approach to Teaching Statistics.

Statistics is commonly taught as a set of techniques to aid in decision making, by extracting information from data. It is argued here that the underlying purpose, often implicit rather than explicit, of every statistical analysis is to establish a set of probability models which can be used to predict values of one or more variables. Such a model constitutes 'information' only in the sense, and to the extent, that it provides predictions of sufficient quality to be useful for decision making. The quality of the decision making is determined by the quality of the predictions, and hence by that of the models used. Using natural criteria, the 'best predictions' for nominal and numeric variables are respectively the mode and mean. For a nominal variable, the quality of a prediction is measured by the probability of error; for a numeric variable, it is specified using a prediction interval. Presenting statistical analysis in this way provides students with a clearer understanding of what a statistical analysis is, and its role in decision making.Statistics, teaching, prediction, probability model, prediction interval.

Wireworm Control using Fodder Rape and Mustard – evaluating the use of brassica green manures for the control of wireworm (Agriotes spp.) in organic crops

In a field experiment at ADAS Pwllpeiran in 2001, brassica green manures were grown for 6 weeks and dug in before planting King Edward potatoes, to see if they suppressed wireworm in the crop. There was a trend for potatoes grown after mustard to suffer less damage from both wireworms and slugs than potatoes grown after fodder rape or no green manure, but the differences were not significant. Further trials, with longer green manuring periods, are needed to establish if there is a benefit, and whether the breakdown products of brassica green manures are toxic to wireworms

Sociological Knowledge and Transformation at ‘Diversity University’, UK

This chapter is based on a case study of one UK university sociology department and shows how sociology knowledge can transform the lives of ‘non-traditional’ students. The research from which the case is drawn focused on four departments teaching sociology-related subjects in universities positioned differently in UK league tables. It explored the question of the relationship between university reputation, pedagogic quality and curriculum knowledge, challenging taken-for-granted judgements about ‘quality’ and in conceptualising ‘just’ university pedagogy by taking Basil Bernstein’s ideas about how ‘powerful’ knowledge is distributed in society to illuminate pedagogy and curriculum. The project took the view that ‘power’ lies in the acquisition of specific (inter)disciplinary knowledges which allows the formation of disciplinary identities by way of developing the means to think about and act in the world in specific ways. We chose to focus on sociology because (1) university sociology is taken up by all socio-economic classes in the UK and is increasingly taught in courses in which the discipline is applied to practice; (2) it is a discipline that historically pursues social and moral ambition which assists exploration of the contribution of pedagogic quality to individuals and society beyond economic goals; (3) the researchers teach and research sociology or sociology of education - an understanding of the subjects under discussion is essential to make judgements about quality. ‘Diversity’ was one of four case study universities. It ranks low in university league tables; is located in a large, multi-cultural English inner city; and, its students are likely to come from lower socio-economic and/or ethnic minority groups, as well as being the first in their families to attend university. To make a case for transformative teaching at Diversity, the chapter draws on longitudinal interviews with students, interviews with tutors, curriculum documents, recordings of teaching, examples of student work, and a survey. It establishes what we can learn from the case of sociology at Diversity, arguing that equality, quality and transformation for individuals and society are served by a university curriculum which is research led and challenging combined with pedagogical practices which give access to difficult-to-acquire and powerful knowledge

ICI optical data storage tape

Optical data storage tape is now a commercial reality. The world's first successful development of a digital optical tape system is complete. This is based on the Creo 1003 optical tape recorder with ICI 1012 write-once optical tape media. Several other optical tape drive development programs are underway, including one using the IBM 3480 style cartridge at LaserTape Systems. In order to understand the significance and potential of this step change in recording technology, it is useful to review the historical progress of optical storage. This has been slow to encroach on magnetic storage, and has not made any serious dent on the world's mountains of paper and microfilm. Some of the reasons for this are the long time needed for applications developers, systems integrators, and end users to take advantage of the potential storage capacity; access time and data transfer rate have traditionally been too slow for high-performance applications; and optical disk media has been expensive compared with magnetic tape. ICI's strategy in response to these concerns was to concentrate its efforts on flexible optical media; in particular optical tape. The manufacturing achievements, media characteristics, and media lifetime of optical media are discussed

ICI optical data storage tape

Optical data storage tape is now a commercial reality. The world's first successful development of a digital optical tape system is complete. This is based on the Creo 1003 optical tape recorder with ICI 1012 write-once optical tape media. Flexible optical media offers many benefits in terms of manufacture; for a given capital investment, continuous, web-coating techniques produce more square meters of media than batch coating. The coated layers consist of a backcoat on the non-active side; on the active side there is a subbing layer, then reflector, dye/polymer, and transparent protective overcoat. All these layers have been tailored for ease of manufacture and specific functional characteristics

The DART-Europe project: towards developing a European theses portal

This paper will report on the new European theses project DART-Europe. The purpose of this project is to align institutional and national e-theses developments across Europe with the wider open archives movement by the construction of a European portal for research theses, thus enabling a global view of European institutional research assets. This project is driven through an innovative partnership between an information provider and an international body of university libraries and open access consortia. The project’s goal is to explore the creation of a European model for the deposit, discovery, use and long-term care of research theses in an open access environment. The paper will outline the projected outcomes of DART-Europe, which is an active group of institutions in addition to a technical service. To this end, DART-Europe is engaged with disciplines and institutions that are widening the definition of research by redefining the formats of theses. For institutions and countries without a repository infrastructure, DART-Europe will enable the creation of a depository. Institutions and countries with a repository infrastructure can engage with DART-Europe to deliver their e-theses. DART-Europe acts as a technology bridge for researchers between those who have existing infrastructures and those who do not. The DART-Europe architecture assumes free at point of use access to full text theses, whether held on the DART-Europe server or by institutional repositories. This paper will provide session attendees with the current progress of this initiative, including a report on the 5 strands of the project, including: architecture; creation of a management tool kit; content acquisition; digital preservation and an investigation of business models

Rest Frame Optical Spectra of Lyman Break Galaxies: Other Lensing Arcs around MS1512-cB58

We have obtained near-infrared spectra of two images of the galaxy at z=2.72 which is gravitationally lensed by the foreground cluster MS1512+36. The brighter arc, cB58, is an image of only the nucleus and the southern half of the background galaxy, while the fainter image, A2, encompasses the entire background galaxy. Thus the gravitational lensing provides spatial resolution on a smaller scale than is routinely available by other methods. Our observations indicate no evidence for any systematic rotational velocity gradient across the face of this galaxy. The nucleus and outer regions of the galaxy do not differ in their gas reddening or excitation level, based on the identical Hα/5007 ratios. cB58 (which is more dominated by the nucleus) has relatively stronger continuum emission, perhaps because of a higher ratio of old to young stars, compared to the outer parts of the galaxy. A second emission line source, denoted as K1, at a slightly lower redshift was serendipitously detected in the slit. It appears to be the gravitationally lensed image of another background galaxy in the same group as cB58