University of Oxford

The Effects of Different Approaches to Teaching Chinese Orthography on Character Acquisition and Reading Performance in Learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language: A Systematic Review

There is growing evidence investigating the effects of different instructional methods on character acquisition and reading performance in contexts where students are learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). However, efforts to present a comprehensive and transparent synthes...

Prediagnostic circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D and prostate cancer-specific survival: a collaborative pooled analysis of 13 prospective studies

Abstract Background Previous research suggests higher risk of prostate cancer diagnosis in men with high vitamin D serology, but there are limited data related to prostate cancer survival. In this study, we examine the associations between prediagnostic circulating levels of 25-h...

Single-photon double ionization of ozone: experiment and theory

Abstract The triatomic molecule ozone (O3) is of outmost physical and chemical importance in the atmospheres of our Earth and other planets. Beyond its environmental significance, a detailed understanding of the electronic structure and ionization dynamics of ozone is essential f...

Fuelling the top – Metabolic control of shoot apical meristem function and plant development

Plant development relies on a complex network of transcription factors and hormone signalling pathways that guide pattern formation and developmental transitions in the meristems. Yet, how this core network is regulated to enable developmental plasticity remains poorly understood...

Dual-oxygen pancreatic cancer organoids recapitulate basal–classical heterogeneity validated by spatial transcriptomics

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) comprises heterogeneous classical and basal-like subtypes. Although pancreatic cancer organoids (PCOs) are widely used, normoxic cultures preferentially maintain the classical subtype, limiting their ability to represent intrinsic intratumo...

What Jobs Do Workers Want? Worker Preferences in Global Value Chains

ABSTRACT What do workers in global value chains (GVCs) consider a good job? Research on work in GVCs largely studies compliance with standards set from the top‐down rather than worker preferences. Understanding worker preferences is crucial because workers are the intended benefi...

A proteomic analysis of the PHF-forming tau fragment (tau297-391) following uptake into differentiated human neuronal SHSY5Y cells

Tau self-assembly and intracellular deposition is associated with a group of neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies, which include Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Pick's disease. Here, we measured the proteome response in human neuronal cells (differentiated SH-SY5Y) followin...

Modular Transformations of Tau Functions and Conformal Blocks on the Torus

Abstract The connection problem for isomonodromic tau functions on the one-punctured torus concerns the ratio between the tau function and its modular transform, associated to dual pants decompositions of the torus. In this paper, we study the modular transformations of the tau f...

Emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants keeps slowing down

Abstract Background Although COVID-19 pandemic has no longer been classified as an international public health emergency of concern after May 2023, multiple variants with different characteristics keep emerging. Given the complex spatial-temporal characteristics of epidemics, res...

The profinite rigidity of torsion-free lamplighter groups

Abstract We prove that the torsion-free lamplighter group $$\Gamma = \mathbb {Z}^n \wr \mathbb {Z}$$ Γ = Z n ≀ Z of any rank $$n \in \mathbb {N}$$ n ∈ N is profinitely rigid in the absolute sense: the finite quotients of $$\Gamma $$ Γ determine its isomorphism type uniquely among...

Porphyrin-based molecular wires: From polaron delocalization to phase-coherent single-molecule transport — a Woodward Career Award paper

Molecular wires are the most fundamental type of single-molecule electronic device and they are the components of organic semiconductors. Porphyrins are excellent building blocks for constructing molecular wires because their small reorganization energies and rich redox activity...

Ingroup bias is prevalent in user reports of hate and abuse online

Abstract The prevalence of online hate and abuse is a pressing global problem. While tackling such societal harms is a priority for research across the social sciences, it is a difficult task, in part, because of the magnitude of the problem. People's engagement with reporting me...

PPAD-Membership for Problems With Exact Rational Solutions: A General Approach via Convex Optimization

Abstract. We introduce a general technique for proving membership of search problems with exact rational solutions in PPAD, one of the most well-known classes containing total search problems with polynomial-time verifiable solutions. In particular, we construct a “pseudogate,” c...

Cost-Effectiveness of an Artificial Intelligence as a Medical Device (AIaMD) for Triaging Patients Presenting to Primary Care with Concerns that They Have a Skin Cancer: A Modelling Study

Health services are struggling to cope with the growing numbers of people coming with skin lesions they are worried could be cancer. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the triage process is one potential approach. Deep Ensemble for the Recognition of Melanoma (DERM)...

Approaches to sharing trial results with adult patients and the public: a qualitative interview and focus group study

<title>Abstract</title> Background Sharing trial results with participants is increasingly recognised as an ethical obligation that fosters trust, respect, and engagement. Yet in practice, results are rarely shared. Researchers often lack guidance on what information to include o...

Evaluating the Uptake, Safety and Effectiveness of the Maternal RSV Vaccine (RSVpreF) Against Infant Bronchiolitis: Preliminary Real-World Evidence

BACKGROUND: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of infant hospitalization globally. On September 1, 2024, England introduced the bivalent RSVpreF vaccine for maternal immunization following trial evidence of safety and efficacy. However, real-world data on uptake...

Identifying phenotype-genotype-function coupling in 3D organoid imaging using Shape, Appearance and Motion Phenotype Observation Tool (SPOT)

Abstract Live cells in tissue are plastic, phenotypically dynamic, and modify their function in response to genetic and environmental perturbations. To unleash the power of live-cell imaging to identify phenotype-genotype-function coupling over time, we report the development of...

LazyHMC: Hamiltonian Monte Carlo Simulation for Lazy, Infinite Dimensional Probabilistic Programs

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is a successful generic inference method in probabilistic programming, but in its ordinary formulation it needs gradients and finite-dimensional parameter spaces. In Haskell, lazy evaluation lets probabilistic programs express stochastic processes an...

The Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party: Iran’s Maoists and the Global New Left

In 1964, a group of Iranian students in Europe, inspired by the proliferation of armed, anticolonial movements around the world, split from Iran’s Tudeh Party and formed the Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party (ROTP). The ROTP promoted guerrilla warfare along Maoist lin...

Defining ‘psychedelic’

Humphry Osmond coined the term ‘psychedelic’ in 1956, conjoining ‘psyche’ for ‘soul’ and ‘delic’ for ‘to manifest’ or ‘illuminate’. Soul-illumination is a compound noun that describes a psychological state or process. Osmond intended for it to be a taxonomic noun—naming, not just...