Cambridge University Research Articles

On Drawing the Tensed-Tenseless Divide in Philosophy of Time in the Analytic Tradition

Abstract Since McTaggart’s seminal argument (McTaggart, J. M. E. 1908. “The Unreality of Time.” Mind 17 (68), McTaggart, J. M. E. 1927. The Nature of Existence, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), philosophers of time have been split within the tensed and tenseless camps. This division presumes that there are criteria in virtue of which philosophers of time have belonged to either camp. Yet, the criteria presented in time-related literature are frequently inaccurate. The paper addresses this issue by laying down what is common to all philosophers that since the publication of McTaggart’s argument have belonged to the tensed/tenseless camp, and in virtue of which they should be considering as belonging to this camp. It considers and rejects three ways in which the tensed-tenseless divide has frequently been characterised; in terms of shared views regarding the meaning or truth of tokens of tensed sentences, of whether one believes in passage or in terms of whether one believes in tensed facts. It finally suggests two criteria which adequately serve to mark the chasm-lines between the two camps.

Book review: Dawood Ahmed and Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, Democracy Under God: Constitutions, Islam and Human Rights in the Muslim World (Cambridge University Press 2023) 232 pp.

Book review: Dawood Ahmed and Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, Democracy Under God: Constitutions, Islam and Human Rights in the Muslim World (Cambridge University Press 2023) 232 pp.

Book Review: Speech acts in English: From research to instruction and textbook development. Cambridge University Press.

Developing the pragmatic competence of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners is one of the most challenging areas in second/foreign language (L2) acquisition (Ellis, 2013). One crucial reason is that the language input EFL learners receive is mostly from teaching materials (Andrews, 2007), which have, unfortunately, been found to be problematic in the treatment of pragmatic knowledge. As such, relevant research has found numerous problems concerning the distribution of pragmatic information in EFL textbooks, especially the unbalanced and unsystematic representation of different speech acts, and this strand of research continues. Few existing studies, however, provide practical solutions to the problems from the perspective of EFL instruction and materials development. Pérez-Hernández’s monograph puts forward a new cognitive pedagogical grammar approach and offers innovative activities and practice materials for teaching directive speech acts, with a focus on advanced Spanish EFL learners.

How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the Islamic Republic, by Mehran Kamrava, Cambridge University Press, 2024, 354 pp.

How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the Islamic Republic, by Mehran Kamrava, Cambridge University Press, 2024, 354 pp.

Unlocking Interaction: A Deep Dive into Meta-Discourse in Indonesian and International EFL and ESL Textbooks for Senior High School

This study presents a comparative corpus analysis of interactional metadiscourse features in two English textbooks used in Indonesian senior high schools: an EFL textbook published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (Bahasa Inggris: Work in Progress) and an ESL textbook published by Cambridge University Press (English as a Second Language: Second Edition). Despite the central role textbooks play in shaping classroom discourse and developing students’ communicative competence, limited attention has been paid to how interactional metadiscourse is utilized in these materials, especially in EFL contexts like Indonesia, where textbooks often serve as the primary source of English input. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates how interactional metadiscourse, features that guide readers through the text and engage them, differ between a locally produced EFL textbook and an internationally published ESL textbook. The analysis was conducted using a corpus-based approach, drawing on Hyland’s (2005) model of interactional metadiscourse to manually identify and categorize features, including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers. The results revealed notable differences in the frequency and types of interactional metadiscourse employed in the two materials. These findings support the alternative hypothesis (H1), which posits that the international ESL textbook contains more interactional metadiscourse features than the Indonesian EFL textbook. The study contributes to the limited body of empirical research on metadiscourse in English textbooks and offers insights relevant to improving textbook design and English language instruction in the Indonesian context.

Ethicists in Animal Welfare Policy: Ideal–Typical Roles for Democratic Engagement

Animal welfare policy presents complex ethical challenges, requiring the careful balancing of diverse perspectives on issues such as animal housing, transport, and slaughter. As a policy domain shaped by societal pluralism, it demands reasoned debate and informed decision-making. Ethicists contribute to these discussions in different ways, assuming distinct professional roles in public policy-making. Building on Roger Pielke’s The Honest Broker (The honest broker: Making sense of science in policy and politics, Cambridge University Press, 2007), four roles for ethicists are developed: The Pure Philosopher, who develops ethical theory without direct policy engagement; The Ethics Advocate, who aligns with a specific position based on a foundational ethical theory; The Ethics Facilitator, who clarifies ethical disagreements to enable reasoned debate; and The Engaged Philosopher, who reframes discussions to expand policy options. Ethical advising in public policy depends on a democratic public ethos, where debates remain reasonable and open to reflection. This ethos is increasingly threatened by populism, which portrays politics as an antagonistic struggle rather than a deliberative process. In such a polarized context, ethicists face the risk of having their work instrumentalized in divisive narratives, potentially undermining meaningful engagement. The case of ritual slaughter highlights these challenges, demonstrating how ethics advice can become entangled in contentious debates. To uphold democratic pluralism, ethicists must ensure that their contributions to policy-making foster an open, inclusive, and reflective deliberative process.

Shifting Paradigms of Cultural Expression: Toward a Critical Framework for Arab Digital Cultural Studies ... by,Dr Reham Hosny Lecturer at Minia University, Associate Fellow at the University of Cambridge,

Shifting Paradigms of Cultural Expression: Toward a Critical Framework for Arab Digital Cultural Studies ... by,Dr Reham Hosny Lecturer at Minia University, Associate Fellow at the University of Cambridge,

Book review: Entrepreneurs in Contemporary China: Wealth, Connections, and Crisis by Xiaoying Qi QiXiaoying, Entrepreneurs in Contemporary China: Wealth, Connections, and Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024; x + 208 pp. with appendix, references, and index: 9781009316101, US$110.00 (hbk)

Book review: <i>Entrepreneurs in Contemporary China: Wealth, Connections, and Crisis</i> by Xiaoying Qi QiXiaoying, Entrepreneurs in Contemporary China: Wealth, Connections, and Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024; x + 208 pp. with appendix, references, and index: 9781009316101, US$110.00 (hbk)

Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel, as an Ion Channel in Therapeutics: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Trends (1984–2023)

Voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) play a critical role in generating and propagating electrical signals in excitable cells. To date, the technology has gained much attention for its therapeutic potential in treating various diseases, including cancer. This study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of VGSC research trends over 40 years (1984–2023) using the Scopus database. A total of 3,170 articles were analysed to explore publication productivity, authorship, key research topics, and collaboration patterns. The analysis identified the leading countries according to the number of articles contributed and determined that the USA, China, and Germany were the most productive. In fact, the USA alone accounts for 41.6% of global VGSC research on therapeutics. Additionally, based on the number of published articles, institutions such as Harvard Medical School and the University of Cambridge were found to be at the forefront of this field. Overall, the performed research focused on the therapeutic applications of VGSCs in conditions like atrial fibrillation, chronic pain, cancer, and genetic diseases. The study also highlights a growing interest in VGSC-related research in the past decade as a result of the advancements in molecular techniques such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) and small interfering RNA (siRNA). These findings suggest that VGSCs will remain a central point in therapeutic research for years to come, with a greater interest in international collaboration to drive further progress.

Agents of Empire: English Imperial Governance and the Making of American Political Institutions. By Sean Gailmard. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 336p.

Agents of Empire: English Imperial Governance and the Making of American Political Institutions. By Sean Gailmard. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 336p.

Why Does a Responsible Climate Action AI Need the Arts and Humanities?

Cambridge University’s Ramit Debnath explores the potential of Responsible AI (RAI) in addressing global challenges, and explains why social sciences, philosophy, the arts and humanities have a critical role to play in shaping AI system design and presenting us with the best chance of securing a sustainable planetary future.

Production and consumption in Bibliotherapy for the Anthropocene

This paper will span a timeline from the online meeting Art, Ecology, Emergency: Sustaining Practice, coordinated by the Eden Project, that took place under lockdown in 2020, through to the summer of 2021 and an event in a series of fields on the Lizard in Cornwall. This paper will draw on the methodological development of Bibliotherapy for the Anthropocene, which is a performance in the guise of a reading group, a cross between a Quaker meeting and a reconvening of the Dead Poets Society, and subsequently a collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Throughout this paper, the author will evidence how arts practices that are cyclical and performative can embed creativity and democracy into conversations taking place in and around landscape decision-making.

Validation of PREdiction of DELIRium in ICu patients (PRE-DELIRIC) model for ICU delirium in general ICU and patients with liver disease: a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundDelirium, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by disturbances in attention, cognition, and awareness, is a common complication among intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Several predictive models have been developed that aim to identify patients at high risk of delirium. PRE-DELIRIC (PREdiction of DELIRium in ICu) and its recalibrated version, have been externally validated in several studies, but modest sample sizes have meant uncertainty remains, particularly in patient subgroups. Of particular relevance to our population (as a tertiary liver disease centre), performance in patients with liver disease has not been specifically assessed.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study evaluated the PRE-DELIRIC model using data from 3312 adult ICU patients at Cambridge University Hospital, between February 2017 and September 2021. Delirium was primarily defined as either a positive Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (CAM-ICU) or any new administration of antipsychotic medication. Predictive performance was assessed according to discrimination, measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) and precision-recall curves; and calibration, as quantified by calibration slope and intercept. We also conducted subgroup analyses in patients with liver disease, sedated patients, and across varying opioid dosing.ResultsDelirium occurred in 32.9% of patients. Overall, PRE-DELIRIC demonstrated moderate-to-good discriminative performance (AUROC 0.74; 95% CI 0.72–0.76); but the model significantly underpredicted delirium incidence for those patients predicted to have moderate-to-high delirium risk (PRE-DELIRIC score 0.2–0.6); and overpredicted for those predicted to be at very high risk (PRE-DELIRIC score > 0.6). Among patients with liver disease (41.6% delirium incidence), discrimination was similar to the overall cohort (AUROC 0.73; 95% CI 0.66–0.81), but calibration was poor, with significant under-prediction of delirium. Discrimination was significantly poorer in both sedated patients and patients receiving high opioid dosing.ConclusionThis is the largest validation study of the PRE-DELIRIC model to date, and the first to specifically consider patients with liver disease. We found moderate-to-good discriminative predictive performance both overall and in liver disease patients, but calibration was only moderate overall, and significantly under-predicted risk in patients with liver disease. Recalibration of the model and further subgroup-specific adjustments may enhance its utility in clinical practice.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40560-025-00800-3.

The people behind the papers - Anna Philpott and William Beckman.

Achaete-Scute homolog 1 (ASCL1) is a proneural transcriptional regulator that modulates both cell proliferation and differentiation of neuroblasts (immature nerve cells) during development. In their study, Anna Philpott and colleagues show that ASCL1 performs distinct functions related to proliferation or differentiation in neuroblastoma cells in a cell cycle stage-dependent manner. To know more about their work, we spoke to the first author, William Beckman, and the corresponding author, Anna Philpott, Professor of Cancer and Developmental Biology at Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and Head of the School of the Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge, UK.

First person – Joe Tyler

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Joe Tyler is first author on ‘ A role for class I p21-activated kinases in the regulation of the excitability of the actin cytoskeleton’, published in JCS. Joe conducted the research described in this article while a postdoc in Vassilis Koronakis's lab at the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, UK. He is now a postdoc in the lab of Jason King at The University of Sheffield, investigating excitable transitions in membrane identity and how these are coupled to the state of the actin cytoskeleton.

Dolly’s Laugh

This creative response is an attempt to understand our long-standing obsession with the moments that shouldn’t be in song recordings but somehow remain. Written while we were physically apart over the course of a few months, our dialogue responds to a desire to understand whether there is any meaning in these obsessions, whether they can teach us about sound and the musicians that produce them. We want to call attention to what is usually discarded – what happens before, after or in-between, what happens on top of – moments in excess of the track which break the performative bargain and reveal the multiple possibilities always contained within performance. The piece is accompanied by a soundpiece putting some of the recorded moments mentioned in dialogue with each other. Notes on Contributors Ruari Paterson-Achenbach is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, currently undertaking their PhD in Music at the University of Cambridge. Their work thinks about sound and performance as vehicles for memory, resistance and temporal antagonism. Through a critical engagement with ‘Outsider Music,’ their PhD uncovers radical potential for creativity within and through non-normative social life. More broadly, their research interests include queer temporality, critical listening, and creative anarchism. Ruari was also a ‘New Creative’ and has produced works with and for the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the BBC and NTS Radio. Sophie Marie Niang is a black feminist researcher from Paris, working at the intersection of cultural studies, black studies, and queer theory. She is currently a Junior Research Fellow in European Cultural Studies at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. Her first book project explores black refusal and worldmaking in contemporary France, through a focus on rap, black women’s self narratives in film and literature, afrofeminist performance, and literary fiction. Her work is published in Sociology Compass, Feminist Review, and Modern &amp; Contemporary France.

Situated peer-assisted learning: one-on-one peer tutoring with EFL low-achievers

ABSTRACT Purposes Ramifications of a one-on-one 18-week peer tutoring program involving 26 low-achieving English freshman learners and 26 upper-class tutors at a Taiwanese military institution and tutors’ roles were examined. Design/Methodology/Approach A mixed methods design within a conceptual framework comprising social constructivist learning theory (Vygotsky 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) and legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice (Lave and Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355) was used. Data from multiple sources were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings Tutees’ pre- and post- English tests showed significant improvement, and their survey responses as well as interviews with tutors and tutees indicated that both groups perceived the activity positively. The distinctive characteristics of military culture, such as hierarchical relationships and conformity, generated potential contradiction in the peer tutors’ role as both authority and facilitator, which required mediation in the tutor-tutee relationship. Originality/Value As the first investigation of how the unique features of military culture impacted the interactions between learners and more capable peers in an apprenticeship model, this study contributes to social constructivist learning theory by bringing in the notion of situated community of practice and demonstrating the adaptation of peer tutoring to a special institutional culture in higher education.

Diagnostic overshadowing in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE): A qualitative study

ObjectivesSLE diagnostic journeys can be protracted, with negative impacts on long-term health. This study explored the role of diagnostic overshadowing (DOS) in delaying SLE diagnoses.MethodsA qualitative analysis of 268 completed SLE patient surveys and 25 in-depth interviews purposively selected from the 2018-2021 Cambridge University Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Disease (SARD) studies.ResultsThe majority of participants appear to have experienced DOS and there were indications that sustained DOS (S-DOS) may add years to some SLE diagnostic journeys. Symptom misattributions which contributed to S-DOS included: (1) “Medical mystery”, particularly when the clinician indicated that it was too expensive to keep investigating. (2) Negative misattributions (e.g. “nothing seriously wrong”), often due to a failure to connect multiple symptoms as possible indicators of an underlying condition. (3) Diagnostic roadblocks, including, in the case of some participants, a mental health, psychosomatic, ME/CFS or fibromyalgia (mis)diagnosis. (4) Moral misattributions, such as to “malingering”, which could undermine patient help-seeking and/or clinician help-giving.ConclusionOur data suggests that DOS may be an important factor in diagnostic delay in patients with SLE.

The Milton Vargas Lecture 2023 - Shallow tunnels in cohesionless soils: ground behavior and building damage risks

The demand for tunnels in densely populated urban areas is growing rapidly to address mobility challenges. Mechanized tunneling is widely adopted in urban environments due to its high productivity and the relatively small ground deformations it induces. However, urban tunneling is highly complex because of the typically shallow depths and interactions with aboveground structures. Therefore, accurately predicting ground deformations induced by mechanized tunneling at the design stage is crucial for assessing potential building damage. To investigate these deformations, a series of centrifuge tunnel tests have been conducted at academic institutions such as the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham to study the behavior of shallow mechanized tunnels in cohesionless soil. These tests serve as excellent benchmarks for numerical model calibration. Once calibrated to replicate centrifuge test results, numerical models can efficiently analyze a wide range of scenarios at a fraction of the time and cost. This paper investigates ground deformations induced by shallow tunneling in cohesionless soil using numerical models calibrated against selected centrifuge tunnel tests, which encompass varying tunnel diameters, depths, and sand relative densities. The numerical modeling results presented in this paper provide extensive insights into tunnel behavior, illustrating how tunnels respond to different relative densities and depths under tunnel volume losses of up to 5%, approaching failure conditions. Additionally, a comprehensive analysis of ground deformations caused by shallow tunnels in sandy soils and their potential impact on buildings is presented.

The Book Review Column

The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (The MIT Press, 2025) by Elliot Lichtman (Yale University, '27) is an accessible introduction to advanced computing concepts for young coders. Quantum Algorithms: A Survey of Applications and End-to-End Complexities (Cambridge University Press, 2025) by Alexander M. Dalzell et al. (AWS Center for Quantum Computing) summarizes the most common quantum algorithmic primitives and demonstrates their various applications. Guide to Distributed Algorithms: Design, Analysis and Implementation Using Python (Springer, 2025) by K. Erciyes (Ya¸sar University, T¨urkiye) is a textbook on distributed algorithms with working Python implementations. Algorithm Design: A Methodological Approach - 150 Problems and Detailed Solutions (Routledge, 2023) by Patrick Bosc, Marc Guyomard, Laurent Miclet (all at Universit´e de Rennes, France) is the English edition of the French best-selling textbook that aims to teach algorithm design methodologies and analysis through examples.