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The role of extracurricular activity in higher education is receiving increasing international attention as a means for developing social and cultural resources for steering social and employment networks. The focus of this paper is on a post-1992 English university partnership with an orchestra, enabling students to attend free concerts. The initiative aspired to extend the student experience, break down barriers, and encourage students to try a new musical experience. This study explores students' experiences and contrasts these with the aspirations of the vice chancellor. In view of studies establishing relationships between extracurricular activity and inequality of opportunity, this paper also investigates whether financial subsidies widen participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a variety of methods available for determining ethanol tolerance phenotypes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Many of these methods are limited in through-put and/or application. We describe here a microtiter-plate, growth-based, liquid-culture, rapid ethanol tolerance assay (RETA) that overcomes these limitations. Determinations of ethanol tolerance gave results that were comparable to shake-flask cultures, and there was a high level of intra- and inter-plate reproducibility. We report the successful application of this assay to determining the segregation pattern of ethanol tolerance in backcrosses of two ethanol-tolerant mutants (SM and CM) to a non-tolerant parent (W303-1A); RETA was used to determine ethanol tolerance in numerous progeny resulting from these crosses. This assay, or variations thereof, will prove be of great value for anyone attempting to develop quantitative, high-throughput growth assays for yeast or other microorganisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a deconstructivesurvolof the term ‘standards' suggests that the concept contributes to an ‘outside-in' professionalism masquerading as ‘inside-out' professionalism. In examining a case of ‘standards' in action, the authors point out the inadequacy of ‘standards' as tools of appraisal with remainders, reductions, displacements, elisions and embellishments –mistranslations– being inevitable. The second part of the article addresses the external world of standards, as a form of power applied by state agencies to professional work and identity, in which the application of standards typically strip out subjectivity, and with it much of the immeasurable dimensions that constitute professional action. Rather than writing off ‘standards' as yet another bureaucratic self-delusion, the authors take note of Strathern's call for a ‘new political and managerial discourse of uncertainty' and suggest that professional or peer review would benefit if parties to the appraisal process,inter alia, undertake the ‘risk' of decision, acknowledge the inevitability of ‘incomplete evidence', engage in extended empathy and avoid overly reductive quantification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on a virtual research environment (VRE) and how it facilitated the networking of teacher educators participating in an Economic and Social Research Council-funded research capacity-building project. Using the theoretical lenses of situated learning and socio-cultural approaches to literacy, participants’ ways of engaging with this technology are described, and the reasons why their existing technical expertise did not unproblematically transfer to the new technology are explored. We argue that three main factors affected the use of the VRE, and in particular its wiki tool: the individual’s motivation to learn and to engage with (more) new technologies; the emerging dynamics of each research group as they developed shared working practices; and the institutional climates, which supported or discouraged the individuals’ engagement with both the technology and a regional Teacher Education Research Network that used this technology. In conclusion, we suggest that successful engagement with new technologies in future academic communities of practice might well benefit from a shared commitment to agreed working practices across the group and the provision of brokerage and championing of the technology by key individuals who are in the position to inspire, motivate and support others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010, which grants schools increased autonomy in curriculum development and implementation, heralded a new era of curriculum reform in England. This article critically examines how this process took place in a Catholic secondary school that decided to use the RSA Opening Minds (OM) curriculum with its Year 7 students. The discussion will be shaped by a range of perspectives, including the RSA point of view, literature on cross-curricular learning and Catholic education, student responses to a post-transition questionnaire, and the experiences and perceptions of the school’s OM coordinator. From this, the following aspects have been identified as warranting critical consideration and further investigation: adequate staffing and resourcing; staff expertise to ensure teaching competence across a wide range of subject areas; achieving a balance between creative approaches to learning that promote engagement and a focus on in-depth subject knowledge and academic achievement. Finally, we pose the question whether the implementation of the OM curriculum as practised in this particular school can assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who may have limited access to life-transforming educational experiences outside of school, to acquire cultural capital and ‘high status knowledge’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the Teacher Education Research Network (TERN) initiative, which piloted a model for research capacity building in teacher education in the North West of England with the aim of providing early and mid career researchers from seven regional universities with opportunities for professional learning and development. It explores the intricate dynamics of the learning journeys undertaken by the participants and critically examines the structural, social and cultural factors involved in the navigation of the complex ecologies in which they were embedded as teacher educators and how this impacted on their learning. It concludes that initiatives such as TERN can result in academic learning and professional development, but in view of the internal and external pressures confronting education departments today it also raises pertinent issues with regard to the sustainability of such projects. As such the paper makes a strong contribution to the growing international literature on academic learning and professional development within a research capacity-building context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saccharomyces spp. are widely used for ethanol production; however, fermentation productivity is negatively affected by the impact of ethanol accumulation on yeast metabolic rate and viability. This study used microarray and statistical two-way ANOVA analysis to compare and evaluate gene expression profiles of two previously generated ethanol-tolerant mutants, CM1 and SM1, with their parent, Saccharomyces cerevisiae W303-1A, in the presence and absence of ethanol stress. Although sharing the same parentage, the mutants were created differently: SM1 by adaptive evolution involving long-term exposure to ethanol stress and CM1 using chemical mutagenesis followed by adaptive evolution-based screening. Compared to the parent, differences in the expression levels of genes associated with a number of gene ontology categories in the mutants suggest that their improved ethanol stress response is a consequence of increased mitochondrial and NADH oxidation activities, stimulating glycolysis and other energy-yielding pathways. This leads to increased activity of energy-demanding processes associated with the production of proteins and plasma membrane components, which are necessary for acclimation to ethanol stress. It is suggested that a key function of the ethanol stress response is restoration of the NAD+/NADH redox balance, which increases glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase activity, and higher glycolytic flux in the ethanol-stressed cell. Both mutants achieved this by a constitutive increase in carbon flux in the glycerol pathway as a means of increasing NADH oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are five retrotransposon families in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, three (Ty1, Ty2, and Ty3) of which are known to be transcriptionally active. Early investigations reported yeast retrotransposons to be stress-induced; however, microarray-based studies do not report retrotransposition-related Gene Ontology (GO) categories in the ethanol stress response of S. cerevisiae. In this study, microarray technology was used to investigate the ethanol stress response of S. cerevisiae W303-1A, and the highest stress-induced GO categories, based on z-score, were found to be retrotransposition-related, namely, Retrotransposition Nucleocapsid and Transposition, RNA-Mediated. Further investigation, involving reanalysis of previously published results on the stress response of S. cerevisiae, identified the absence of annotation for retrotransposon genes and associated GO categories and their omission during the printing of spotted arrays as two reasons why these categories in previous gene expression studies on the ethanol stress response of yeast were not reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising standards in education has been the mantra for educational stakeholders in England for the past two decades and has informed national, regional and local agendas for school improvement. In the relentless pursuit of finding solutions to pedagogical problems, action research has been promoted as an effective strategy. Informed by an emancipatory agenda, action research provides a framework for the generation of knowledge through different perspectives. However, the relentless drive for school effectiveness and the commodification of research impose external and internal pressures on those conducting the research. This paper provides a critical appraisal of leading such a project by making explicit the cocktail of potential tensions that have remained largely disregarded. It posits the claim that educational action research conceived as a critical collaborative inquiry has surrendered its democratic values to an all-pervading performativity culture. Finally, we conclude that collaborative action research conducted in the politicized educational contexts of today cannot be true to its ideal and that in order to preserve its moral integrity, it needs to come clean by acknowledging the mess inherent in all collaborative enterprises conducted in the real micro-political worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trehalose is known to protect cells from various environmental assaults; however, its role in the ethanol tolerance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae remains controversial. Many previous studies report correlations between trehalose levels and ethanol tolerance across a variety of strains, yet variations in genetic background make it difficult to separate the impact of trehalose from other stress response factors. In the current study, investigations were conducted on the ethanol tolerance of S. cerevisiae BY4742 and BY4742 deletion strains, tsl1Δ and nth1Δ, across a range of ethanol concentrations. It was found that trehalose does play a role in ethanol tolerance at lethal ethanol concentrations, but not at sublethal ethanol concentrations; differences of 20–40% in the intracellular trehalose concentration did not provide any growth advantage for cells incubated in the presence of sublethal ethanol concentrations. It was speculated that the ethanol concentration-dependent nature of the trehalose effect supports a mechanism for trehalose in protecting cellular proteins from the damaging effects of ethanol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an initial account of the Teacher Education Research Network (TERN), a pilot education research capacity building project funded by the ESRC and designed to test a 'social practices' model for building an educational research infrastructure across England. The TERN project is still running at the time of writing, so it is not yet possible to offer a full evaluation or a theorised analysis of the project. Setting the initiative within the regional context of teacher education in the North West of England, the article describes elements of the project and begins to explore their significance, drawing on early evaluation data. The article adapts Charles Desforges' equation of research capacity building as 'Capacity = expertise × motivation × opportunities' as a frame for this exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing emphasis on teachers as 'reflective' and 'expert practitioners' has led to a noticeable increase in action research involving a wide range of educational practitioners as well as professionals from the academic community. In the light of the complex demands frequently faced by action researchers, this article examines the ethical considerations involved in conducting a collaborative action research project which is concerned with children's experiences of transition from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3. By exploring a range of theoretical and practical perspectives the discussion focuses on the problematic issue of 'informed consent'. The article argues that, as a result of having to comply with the regulations imposed by institutional ethics committees, educational researchers, particularly when working with children, are often restricted in exercising the moral autonomy and professional discretion required to negotiate the complex, potentially conflicting imperatives confronting them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cellulase, Spezyme CP from Genencor, widely used for the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of cellulose to ethanol, contained substances inhibitory to the growth of Klebsiella oxytoca P2, emphasising the need to check for inhibition effects in SSF experimentation. Also, the preparation contained enough β-glucosidase activity to prevent cellobiose accumulation in SSF with a conventional non-cellobiose fermenting yeast: this finding is relevant to attempts to evaluate novel recombinant cellobiose-fermenting microbial strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]