Developing researchers in the arts and humanities: lessons from a pilot programme to develop discipline-specific research skills

Although increasing emphasis is placed on the provision of research training for doctoral students, much of the support currently available is generic in nature, rather than tailored to the student’s particular field(s) of study. In this paper, I briefly review UK graduate education for arts and humanities research students, and some of the ways in which the distinctive demands of their discipline(s) shape the research student experience and hence their development needs. I describe the design and delivery of a pilot programme of discipline-specific research skills development, co-ordinated by the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies, which aims to address such needs; and I evaluate its success. I conclude with some recommendations for future practice; in particular, I argue that doctoral training provision is more effective when it involves a subject-specific approach in which practising academics from the discipline(s) play a significant role – both in terms of fostering an improved level of student engagement with the programme, and of delivering training and development opportunities which are tailored to the student’s particular context and needs

Development of the [beta]-glucuronidase reporter gene system to study Acremonium endophyte interactions with perennial ryegrass : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Genetics at Massey University

A transformant of the fungal endophyte Acremonium lolii, strain Lp19, containing the gusA gene under the control of the constitutive Pgpd promoter was generated, and assigned the name KS1. Analytical digests and Southern hybridisation showed that this transformant contained a single chromosomally integrated copy of the gusA gene. The transformation frequency of Lp19 was found to be very low, and attempts to increase the transformation frequency were unsuccessful. KS1 was used to artificially infect seedlings of several different genotypes of Lolium perenne, all of a single cultivar, 'Nui'. These seedlings were grown into mature plants, and the endophytically produced GUS enzyme was extracted from individual plant tissues. Assays were performed on the enzyme extracts, and the levels determined were used as a measure of endophyte metabolic activity. Alterations of the gusA gene in some plants was detected by Southern hybridisation. One alteration was found to result in loss of GUS activity, the other did not appear to alter gusA expression. Levels of transformed endophyte GUS activity were initially compared between clonal plant material of a single genotype. Statistical analysis revealed that no significant differences were detectable for a particular tissue between the different plants. This showed that plant material of identical genotype could be pooled for analysis without the pooling of the individual plants having an affect on the outcome of the analysis. Next, levels of the transformed endophyte GUS activity were compared between genetically diverse perennial ryegrass plants of cultivar 'Nui'. Significant differences in GUS activity were detected in most tissues tested between the different genotypes, with only the most mature tissue displaying no detectable differences. Finally, a single plant of each of two individual genotypes was divided into several clonal plants, and the resulting mature plants were pooled in their genotypes for analysis of GUS, peramine, ergovaline and lolitrem B levels. The F test was not particularly sensitive in this experiment, and only one major difference between genotypes could be detected. Despite this, some trends emerged which were found to be consistent with those found in other studies. Metabolic activity and peramine levels were shown to be highest in the leaf sheath tissue, with levels generally decreasing with increasing tissue age. Lolitrem B was found to be highest in leaf sheath tissue also, but with levels increasing in general with tissue age. Ergovaline levels were very low in all tissues. The results presented show the potential of the use of the GUS reporter gene system to study endophyte gene expression in planta, and pooling of plants can be carried out to allow simultaneous study of toxin expression

PILOT and cosmic shear

Cosmic shear offers a remarkbly clean way to measure the equation of state of the Universe and its evolution. Resolution over a wide field is paramount, and Antarctica offers unique possibilities in this respect. There is an order of magnitude gain in speed over temperate sites, or a factor three in surface density. This means that PILOT outperforms much larger telescopes elsewhere, and can compete with the proposed DUNE space mission. Keywords: Antarctic astronomy, Surveys, Adaptive optics, Weak lensingComment: 6 pages, Proceedings of 2nd ARENA conference 'The Astrophysical Science Cases at Dome C', Potsdam, 17-21 September 200

Minimal Faithful Permutation Degrees for Irreducible Coxeter Groups and Binary Polyhedral Groups

In this article we calculate the minimal faithful permutation degree for all of the irreducible Coxeter groups. We also exhibit new examples of finite groups that possess a quotient whose minimal degree is strictly greater than that of the group.Comment: 22 page

What is Probability?

Probabilities may be subjective or objective; we are concerned with both kinds of probability, and the relationship between them. The fundamental theory of objective probability is quantum mechanics: it is argued that neither Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, nor the pilot-wave theory, nor stochastic state-reduction theories, give a satisfactory answer to the question of what objective probabilities are in quantum mechanics, or why they should satisfy the Born rule; nor do they give any reason why subjective probabilities should track objective ones. But it is shown that if probability only arises with decoherence, then they must be given by the Born rule. That further, on the Everett interpretation, we have a clear statement of what probabilities are, in terms of purely categorical physical properties; and finally, along lines laid out by Deutsch and Wallace, that there is a clear basis in the axioms of decision theory as to why subjective probabilities should track these objective ones. These results hinge critically on the absence of hidden-variables or any other mechanism (such as state-reduction) from the physical interpretation of the theory. The account of probability has traditionally been considered the principal weakness of the Everett interpretation; on the contrary it emerges as one of its principal strengths