Improving Students’ Listening Comprehension by Teaching Connected Speech

This present research was conducted in order to find out students’ improvement in listening comprehension and to figure out students’ interest in listening increase after being taught the aspects of connected speech. This research used a quantitative method with pre-experimental design, namely one group pretest-posttest model design. The population of this research was all students of the eleventh-grade students who study at MAS Darul Ihsan Islamic Boarding School which amount to 184 students. In addition, the sample of this research was 30 students of class XI.F that was chosen purposively. Moreover, this research used pre-test and post-test as well as questionnaires as data collection instruments. The research found that teaching connected speech in the listening classroom can improve students’ listening comprehension. This was revealed through the comparison of t-score is higher than t-table, (3,61 > 2,04). Therefore, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected. Furthermore, the result of students’ response sheets indicated that students have positive perception toward the teaching connected speech can increase their interest in learning listening

Biofuels for Transportation

The world is on the verge of an unprecedented increase in the production and use of biofuels. Rising oil prices, national security concerns, the desire to increase farm incomes, and a host of new and improved technologies are propelling many governments to enact powerful incentives for the use of these fuels, which is in turn sparking a new wave of investment in production facilities. Today, the question is not whether renewable biofuels will play a significant role in providing energy for transportation, but rather what the implications of their use will be -- for the economy, for the environment, for global security, and for the health of societies. Decisions made in the next few years will help determine whether biofuels have a largely positive impact or whether the gains from biofuel use will be coupled with equally daunting consequences

THE EFFORTS IN LEARNING VOCABULARY BY THE FOURTH-YEAR STUDENTS OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF MALANG

Since the need of having adequate amount of vocabulary is increasing, learners of English are supposed to have certain ways for expanding their vocabulary. In this case, the investigation was concerned with the ways of the English Department students learned vocabulary with and without instruction, and the ways they persistently practiced the words they had gained. The research design employed in this study was descriptive-qualitative. The target population was the fourth-year English Department Students of Muhammadiyah University of Malang. They all belonged to the 2001-2002 English Department Senior. The number of population was 200 students. The writer used a simple random sampling procedure and the total number of the sample was 40. In collecting data, the writer used questionnaire as the instrument to get the data. The questionnaire consisted of thirty-three items, which were divided into 13 parts. From the findings, when reading textbooks, the students often consulted their dictionaries, either the monolingual one or the bilingual, to obtain good marks. When reading for pleasure, students rarely consulted dictionaries. Then, when reading for instructional purposes, students did not rely on their guessing strategies because they were not quite sure about the result. Short stories, films, songs, newspapers, magazines, and poems were made use of as the source of expanding students’ vocabulary besides reading text to learn. Of the 40 respondents, there were merely 11 (27.5%) students who still put the new words they have gained into practice through some activities such as, make a small conversation with their friends, make an English writing like poems, short stories, letters, essays, etc. In summary, the findings gained in the present study overall indicate that most of the students (29=72.5 %) are considered having average to low degree of efforts in learning vocabulary

Reduced-Order Modeling of Diffusive Effects on the Dynamics of Bubbles

The Rayleigh-Plesset equation and its extensions have been used extensively to model spherical bubble dynamics, yet radial diffusion equations must be solved to correctly capture damping effects due to mass and thermal diffusion. The latter are too computationally intensive to implement into a continuum model for bubbly cavitating flows, since the diffusion equations must be solved at each position in the flow. The goal of the present research is to derive a reduced-order model that accounts for thermal and mass diffusion. Motivated by results of applying the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition to data from full radial computations, we derive a model based upon estimates of the average heat transfer coefficients. The model captures the damping effects of the diffusion processes in two ordinary differential equations, and gives better results than previous models

Cricket, migration and diasporic communities

Ever since different communities began processes of global migration, sport has been an integral feature in how we conceptualise and experience the notion of being part of a diaspora. Sport provides diasporic communities with a powerful means for creating transnational ties, but also shapes ideas of their ethnic and racial identities. In spite of this, theories of diaspora have been applied sparingly to sporting discourses. Due mainly to its central role in spreading dominant white racial narratives within the British Empire, and the various ways different ethnic groups have ‘played’ with the meanings and associations of the sport in the (post-)colonial period, cricket is an interesting focus for academic research. Despite W.G. Grace’s claim that cricket advances civilisation by promoting a common bond, binding together peoples of vastly different backgrounds, to this day cricket operates strict symbolic boundaries; defining those who do, and equally, do not belong. C.L.R. James’ now famous metaphor of looking ‘beyond the boundary’ captures the belief that, to fully understand the significance of cricket, and the sport’s roles in changing and shaping society, one must consider the wider social and political contexts within which the game is played. The collection of papers in this special issue does just that. Cricket acts as the point of departure in each, but the way in which ideas of power, representation and inequality are ‘played out’ is unique in each

The listening room, Camden Arts Centre

This version of The Listening Room is minimal, one microphone and two loudspeakers in the Reading Room of Camden Arts Centre, a relatively small space for this work. The Reading Room is the former entrance to the building, this entrance has been bricked over to create three highly reflective wall surfaces in the room. The room resonance is so pronounced that my usual placement of microphone and speakers would tend to fix on one pitch and stay there - to introduce more of the available frequencies from the space I left the Reading Room table in the space to allow an additional reflective element and used an asymmetric placement of loudspeakers, one at the side and one under the table

Integration and Participation in Rural Development: the Case of Ireland

Rural development initiatives in recent years, in Ireland and elsewhere in western Europe, have placed great emphasis on ideas of integration, participation and empowerment. As a consequence, at both national and European Union levels, there have been a range of territorially-based programmes which, to a greater or lesser extent, espouse the idea of a more locally attuned ‘bottom-up’ approach to rural development. This approach is seen as a more appropriate mechanism than traditional 'top-down' strategies. While current strategies might be seen as offering new possibilities for those living in rural areas, this paper presents some evidence from on-going research in Ireland suggesting that there are a number of issues which need to be teased out. Two key themes are highlighted. Firstly, there are a number of what can be seen as ‘technical’ considerations centring on the mechanics of co-ordination and integration. Secondly, there are issues pertaining to power relationships at both national and local levels which need to be explored

A platelet alpha-granule membrane protein (GMP-140) is expressed on the plasma membrane after activation.

We have previously characterized a monoclonal antibody, S12, that binds only to activated platelets (McEver, R.P., and M.N. Martin, 1984, J. Biol. Chem., 259:9799-9804). It identifies a platelet membrane protein of Mr 140,000, which we have designated as GMP-140. Using immunocytochemical techniques we have now localized this protein in unstimulated and thrombin-stimulated platelets. Polyclonal antibodies to purified GMP-140 were used to enhance the sensitivity of detection. Nonpermeabilized, unstimulated platelets, incubated with anti-GMP-140 antibodies, and then with IgG-gold probes, showed very little label for GMP-140 along their plasma membranes. In contrast, thrombin-stimulated platelets exhibited at least a 50-fold increase in the amount of label along the plasma membrane. On frozen thin sections of unstimulated platelets we observed immunogold label along the alpha-granule membranes. We also employed the more sensitive technique of permeabilizing with saponin unstimulated platelets in suspension, and then incubating the cells with polyclonal anti-GMP-140 antibodies and Fab-peroxidase conjugate. Alpha-granule membranes showed heavy reaction product, but no other intracellular organelles were specifically labeled. These results demonstrate that GMP-140 is an alpha-granule membrane protein that is expressed on the platelet plasma membrane during degranulation

State-based business licensing in Australia: the Constitution, economics and international perspectives

This paper considers the potential for s92 of the Commonwealth Constitution to invalidate inconsistent State-based licensing requirements in relation to the carrying out of particular occupations