Adaptive teaching for GCSE and A level classical literature

The new ITT Common Core Framework (CCF) for teachers expects trainee and early-career teachers to adapt their teaching to support all students in class (Department for Education, 2021). What used to be called ‘differentiation’ is now referred to as ‘adaptive teaching’ and full details of what it consists of, as far as the Department for Education in England is concerned, can be found on pages 19–20 of the CCF document. Much of the advice of that document is about supporting students with special educational needs and disabilities, about teachers’ need to recognise that different students have different levels of prior attainment and may have barriers to learning, and how different types of student grouping may affect learning in different ways. It dismisses as a ‘common misconception’ that students have different learning styles and warns against teachers creating ‘distinct tasks for different groups of pupils’ or ‘setting lower expectations for particular pupils’.

A C-to-O atom-swapping reaction sequence enabled by Ni-catalyzed decarbonylation of lactones

Advances in site-selective functionalization reactions have enabled single atom changes on the periphery of a complex molecule, but reaction manifolds that enable such changes on the core framework of the...

Recent highlights from GENIE v3

The release of GENIE v3.0.0 was a major milestone in the long history of the GENIE project, delivering several alternative comprehensive neutrino interaction models, improved charged-lepton scattering simulations, a range of beyond the Standard Model simulation capabilities, improved experimental interfaces, expanded core framework capabilities, and advanced new frameworks for the global analysis of neutrino scattering data and tuning of neutrino interaction models. Steady progress continued following the release of GENIE v3.0.0. New tools and a large number of new physics models, comprehensive model configurations, and tunes have been made publicly available and planned for release in v3.2.0. This article highlights some of the most recent technical and physics developments in the GENIE v3 series.

Transforming data-centric eXtensible markup language into relational databases using hybrid approach

eXtensible markup language (XML) appeared internationally as the format for data representation over the web. Yet, most organizations are still utilising relational databases as their database solutions. As such, it is crucial to provide seamless integration via effective transformation between these database infrastructures. In this paper, we propose XML-REG to bridge these two technologies based on node-based and path-based approaches. The node-based approach is good to annotate each positional node uniquely, while the path-based approach provides summarised path information to join the nodes. On top of that, a new range labelling is also proposed to annotate nodes uniquely by ensuring the structural relationships are maintained between nodes. If a new node is to be added to the document, re-labelling is not required as the new label will be assigned to the node via the new proposed labelling scheme. Experimental evaluations indicated that the performance of XML-REG exceeded XMap, XRecursive, XAncestor and Mini-XML concerning storing time, query retrieval time and scalability. This research produces a core framework for XML to relational databases (RDB) mapping, which could be adopted in various industries.

Strategies for the De Novo Synthesis of Highly Substituted Pyridine Scaffolds: Unified Total Synthesis of the Limonoid Alkaloids

Highly substituted pyridine scaffolds are found in many biologically active natural products and therapeutics. Accordingly, numerous complementary de novo approaches to obtain differentially substituted pyridines have been disclosed. This article delineates the evolution of the synthetic strategies designed to assemble the demanding tetrasubstituted pyridine core present in the limonoid alkaloids isolated from Xylocarpus granatum, including xylogranatopyridine B, granatumine A and related congeners. The most efficient and convergent construction of the core framework present in xylogranatopyridine B involved a Liebeskind pyridine synthesis and late-stage benzylic oxidation. By contrast, the synthesis of the bislactone limonoid alkaloids, such as granatumine A which exhibited moderate PTP1B-inhibitory activities, necessitated the development of a novel pyran-to-pyridine conversion. In addition, NMR calculations suggested structural misassignment of several limonoid alkaloids, and predicted their C3-epimers as the correct structures, which was further validated unequivocally through chemical synthesis. While preliminary results of the pNPP assays showed that these bislactone limonoid alkaloids were only weakly inhibitory against PTP1B, C3-deoxy-xylogranatin F, an unnatural synthetic analog, was demonstrated to be more potent than the other congeners.

Photo-mediated ring contraction of saturated heterocycles

Saturated heterocycles are found in numerous therapeutics as well as bioactive natural products and are abundant in many medicinal and agrochemical compound libraries. To access new chemical space and function, many methods for functionalization on the periphery of these structures have been developed. Comparatively fewer methods are known for restructuring their core framework. Herein, we describe a visible light-mediated ring contraction of α-acylated saturated heterocycles. This unconventional transformation is orthogonal to traditional ring contractions, challenging the paradigm for diversification of heterocycles including piperidine, morpholine, thiane, tetrahydropyran, and tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives. The success of this Norrish Type II variant rests on reactivity differences between photoreactive ketone groups in specific chemical environments. This strategy was applied to late-stage remodeling of pharmaceutical derivatives, peptides, and sugars.

Universal API for wellness and fitness BLE sensors

Background A number of Bluetooth wellness and fitness devices were analysed to explore ways to access their raw data, using Bluetooth and the Generic Attribute Profile specification, while developing a Rest API using the .Net Core framework to provide a way to easily access said data in real time, in order to provide it to other uses, like dashboards or data science applications. Methods Two Bluetooth Low Energy devices were chosen for this experiment for their ability to record and transmit heart rate data in real-time, and as such our primary focus during development would be in obtaining this raw data. After collecting all the services and characteristics of the device, a method was implemented to read a value from a particular characteristic uuid, in our case the heart rate measurement. The resulting values obtained from the API follows the format specified in the corresponding XML file of the Bluetooth-SIG specification. Results The developed API worked as expected and provided useful information to advance its development to cover more devices, services, and features. We were able to obtain data not only from Heart Rate Monitoring, but also from the Battery Service and Device Information. Conclusions With these results it will be possible to expand the compatibility of the API to other devices, and also to other services present on the devices analysed, which were not considered in this preliminary analysis. The ultimate goal is the integration of this API on a rehabilitation oriented device being developed for this project.

Semantic modelling of Common Data Elements for Rare Disease registries, and a prototype workflow for their deployment over registry data

Background: The European Platform on Rare Disease Registration (EU RD Platform) aims to address the fragmentation of European rare disease (RD) patient data, scattered among hundreds of independent and non-coordinating registries, by establishing standards for integration and interoperability. The first practical output of this effort was a set of 16 Common Data Elements (CDEs) that should be implemented by all RD registries. Interoperability, however, requires decisions beyond data elements - including data models, formats, and semantics. Within the European Joint Programme on Rare Disease (EJP RD), we aim to further the goals of the EU RD Platform by generating reusable RD semantic model templates that follow the FAIR Data Principles. Results: Through a team-based iterative approach, we created semantically grounded models to represent each of the CDEs, using the SemanticScience Integrated Ontology as the core framework for representing the entities and their relationships. Within that framework, we mapped the concepts represented in the CDEs, and their possible values, into domain ontologies such as the Orphanet Rare Disease Ontology, Human Phenotype Ontology and National Cancer Institute Thesaurus. Finally, we created an exemplar, reusable ETL pipeline that we will be deploying over these non-coordinating data repositories to assist them in creating model-compliant FAIR data without requiring site-specific coding nor expertise in Linked Data or FAIR. Conclusions: Within the EJP RD project, we determined that creating reusable, expert-designed templates reduced or eliminated the requirement for our participating biomedical domain experts and rare disease data hosts to understand OWL semantics. This enabled them to publish highly expressive FAIR data using tools and approaches that were already familiar to them.

Epidemic interventions: insights from classic results

Analytical expressions and approximations from simple models have performed a pivotal role in our understanding of infectious disease epidemiology. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, while there has been proliferation of increasingly complex models, still the most basic models have provided the core framework for our thinking and interpreting policy decisions. Here, classic results are presented that give insights into both the role of transmission-reducing interventions (such as social distancing) in controlling an emerging epidemic, and also what would happen if insufficient control is applied. Though these are simple results from the most basic of epidemic models, they give valuable benchmarks for comparison with the outputs of more complex modelling approaches. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Modelling that shaped the early COVID-19 pandemic response in the UK’.