6,049 research outputs found

    Ab Initio Language Teaching in British Higher Education

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    Drawing extensively on the expertise of teachers of German in universities across the UK, this volume offers an overview of recent trends, new pedagogical approaches and practical guidance for teaching at beginners level in the higher education classroom. At a time when entries for UK school exams in modern foreign languages are decreasing, this book serves the urgent need for research and guidance on ab initio learning and teaching in HE. Using the example of teaching German, it offers theoretical reflections on teaching ab initio and practice-oriented approaches that will be useful for teachers of both German and other languages in higher education. The first chapters assess the role of ab initio provision within the wider context of modern languages departments and language centres. They are followed by sections on teaching methods and innovative approaches in the ab initio classroom that include chapters on the use of music, textbook evaluation, the effective use of a flipped classroom and the contribution of language apps. Finally, the book focuses on the learner in the ab initio context and explores issues around autonomy and learner strengths. The whole builds into a theoretically grounded guide that sketches out perspectives for teaching and learning ab initio languages that will benefit current and future generations of students

    Binocular strategies in reading and non-reading visual tasks: from oculomotor behaviours to higher cognition

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    Humans use two eyes to extract selected information from the real world and deliver it to the human brain for higher cognition and the perceptual system. However, the two eyes are not always aligned. Eye movements are produced and the eyes accommodate in response to different visual stimuli. Studies on binocularity have reported its importance in accord with specific visual processing requirements. The main aim of this thesis is: how does binocular performance correspond to higher cognition in visual perception? This thesis explores how the two eyes coordinate their efforts to respond and adapt to cognitive activity, through oculomotor behaviours. The physical disposition of the eyes can be a part of cognitive processing, as an ‘embodied’ process of visual perception, that facilitates visual information processing. Therefore, we investigate binocular strategies in both reading and non-reading visual tasks, from oculomotor behaviours to higher cognition, to understand its implications for systematic and strategic processing in visual perception. In the reading part, we first investigate the two left-to-right orthographies, English and Chinese. We analyse small temporal non-alignments between the two eyes’ with nine patterns of temporal disjugacy and find that the distribution of small asynchronies of binocular fixation accord with ocular prevalence (Chapter 2). Such asynchronies are predictive of ocular prevalence, in which input to the left eye is prioritised in conscious perception of a fused visual stimulus for targets in the left visual field and right-eye input is prioritised for targets in the right visual field. Then, this typology is further explored in two right-to-left orthographies, Arabic and Hebrew (Chapter 3). We found reading behaviours of these Semitic languages resemble this advantageous switching of ocular prevalence, but mirror the pattern of left-to-right orthographies due to the change of reading direction. In the non-reading tasks, we first investigate binocular adaptive behaviours in two reading-like tasks (i.e. reading lines of numbers). We specifically explore how the visual system reacts and adapts to continuous text-background contrast (chapter 4) and how the visual system reacts and adapts to the level of faintness of the stimulus (chapter 5). In the contrast experiment (chapter 4), we found systematic adaptation of binocular vision in response to the contrast change, with an overall crossed tendency of binocular fixations (i.e. right eye’s fixation to the left of the left eye’s), as well as disparity-related behaviours as the contrast became lower and reading difficulty increased. On the other hand, in the experiment with variation of the level of faintness of the stimulus (chapter 5), we also found systematic adaptive binocular behaviours with an overall crossed tendency of fixations, but with increasing distribution of uncrossed fixation pairs (i.e. right eye’s fixation to the right of the left eye’s) as the level of blurriness of the text stimulus increases and reading difficulty increases. Our findings are consistent with previous research but reveal that the adaptation is a strategy rather than the effect of fatigue, and that this strategy operates very flexibly and specifically with respect to location. The overall effect of the visually adaptive behaviours in these two experiments suggests that the two eyes coordinate to adjust through very peripheral muscle-driven movements of the eyes and all the way to higher cognitive processing, in response to contrast change and blurring of the stimuli, for better visual quality and performance in different conditions for visual perception. Finally, we conducted two illusion-related experiments, including a visual illusion created by depth information (chapter 6) and a motion-based illusion with Plateau’s Spiral (chapter 7). We replicated Murray et al.’s (2006) experiment with far and near spheres and investigated how the visual system reacts and responds to a visual illusion created by depth information as a cue for judgement of perceived size (chapter 6). Our results support Murray et al.’s (2006) interpretation of their data only partially and suggest an alternative interpretation to their influential experiment: Murray et al.’s apparent VI correlate of the size illusion may be partially attributable to larger binocular fixation disparities on the back sphere (i.e. sizeable non-overlap between the retinotopic mappings from the left and right eye). In another visual illusion experiment, we investigate how the two eyes would respond to stimuli that produce a motion-based illusion of depth, given that such stimuli produce not just an aftereffect but different perceptions during the stimulus. We found general similarities in processing clockwise and anticlockwise spinning spirals, in terms of vergence movements. However, our experiment shows a remarkable difference in the binocular strategies in processing at different spatial locations. It indicated hemispheric specialisation and projection during viewing an illusional stimulus, and corresponding binocular strategies for visual processing. Perception can be manipulated by hemisphere-based higher cognition controlling the oculomotor musculature, allowing the hemispheres to generate their own most appropriate input, when viewing a visually challenging stimulus, Plateau’s Spiral. In summary, this thesis investigates binocular strategies in visual perception in response to different stimuli and conditions in both reading and non-reading tasks. We found systematic and harmonious behaviours from peripheral muscle-driven movements of the eyes that correspond to the cortical processing that contributes to cognition, showing the flexibility of the visual system in different modes of operation, from peripheral binocular movement all the way to higher cognitive processing

    Examples of works to practice staccato technique in clarinet instrument

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    Klarnetin staccato tekniğini güçlendirme aşamaları eser çalışmalarıyla uygulanmıştır. Staccato geçişlerini hızlandıracak ritim ve nüans çalışmalarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın en önemli amacı sadece staccato çalışması değil parmak-dilin eş zamanlı uyumunun hassasiyeti üzerinde de durulmasıdır. Staccato çalışmalarını daha verimli hale getirmek için eser çalışmasının içinde etüt çalışmasına da yer verilmiştir. Çalışmaların üzerinde titizlikle durulması staccato çalışmasının ilham verici etkisi ile müzikal kimliğe yeni bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Sekiz özgün eser çalışmasının her aşaması anlatılmıştır. Her aşamanın bir sonraki performans ve tekniği güçlendirmesi esas alınmıştır. Bu çalışmada staccato tekniğinin hangi alanlarda kullanıldığı, nasıl sonuçlar elde edildiği bilgisine yer verilmiştir. Notaların parmak ve dil uyumu ile nasıl şekilleneceği ve nasıl bir çalışma disiplini içinde gerçekleşeceği planlanmıştır. Kamış-nota-diyafram-parmak-dil-nüans ve disiplin kavramlarının staccato tekniğinde ayrılmaz bir bütün olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırmada literatür taraması yapılarak staccato ile ilgili çalışmalar taranmıştır. Tarama sonucunda klarnet tekniğin de kullanılan staccato eser çalışmasının az olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Metot taramasında da etüt çalışmasının daha çok olduğu saptanmıştır. Böylelikle klarnetin staccato tekniğini hızlandırma ve güçlendirme çalışmaları sunulmuştur. Staccato etüt çalışmaları yapılırken, araya eser çalışmasının girmesi beyni rahatlattığı ve istekliliği daha arttırdığı gözlemlenmiştir. Staccato çalışmasını yaparken doğru bir kamış seçimi üzerinde de durulmuştur. Staccato tekniğini doğru çalışmak için doğru bir kamışın dil hızını arttırdığı saptanmıştır. Doğru bir kamış seçimi kamıştan rahat ses çıkmasına bağlıdır. Kamış, dil atma gücünü vermiyorsa daha doğru bir kamış seçiminin yapılması gerekliliği vurgulanmıştır. Staccato çalışmalarında baştan sona bir eseri yorumlamak zor olabilir. Bu açıdan çalışma, verilen müzikal nüanslara uymanın, dil atış performansını rahatlattığını ortaya koymuştur. Gelecek nesillere edinilen bilgi ve birikimlerin aktarılması ve geliştirici olması teşvik edilmiştir. Çıkacak eserlerin nasıl çözüleceği, staccato tekniğinin nasıl üstesinden gelinebileceği anlatılmıştır. Staccato tekniğinin daha kısa sürede çözüme kavuşturulması amaç edinilmiştir. Parmakların yerlerini öğrettiğimiz kadar belleğimize de çalışmaların kaydedilmesi önemlidir. Gösterilen azmin ve sabrın sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan yapıt başarıyı daha da yukarı seviyelere çıkaracaktır

    On the Principles of Evaluation for Natural Language Generation

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    Natural language processing is concerned with the ability of computers to understand natural language texts, which is, arguably, one of the major bottlenecks in the course of chasing the holy grail of general Artificial Intelligence. Given the unprecedented success of deep learning technology, the natural language processing community has been almost entirely in favor of practical applications with state-of-the-art systems emerging and competing for human-parity performance at an ever-increasing pace. For that reason, fair and adequate evaluation and comparison, responsible for ensuring trustworthy, reproducible and unbiased results, have fascinated the scientific community for long, not only in natural language but also in other fields. A popular example is the ISO-9126 evaluation standard for software products, which outlines a wide range of evaluation concerns, such as cost, reliability, scalability, security, and so forth. The European project EAGLES-1996, being the acclaimed extension to ISO-9126, depicted the fundamental principles specifically for evaluating natural language technologies, which underpins succeeding methodologies in the evaluation of natural language. Natural language processing encompasses an enormous range of applications, each with its own evaluation concerns, criteria and measures. This thesis cannot hope to be comprehensive but particularly addresses the evaluation in natural language generation (NLG), which touches on, arguably, one of the most human-like natural language applications. In this context, research on quantifying day-to-day progress with evaluation metrics lays the foundation of the fast-growing NLG community. However, previous works have failed to address high-quality metrics in multiple scenarios such as evaluating long texts and when human references are not available, and, more prominently, these studies are limited in scope, given the lack of a holistic view sketched for principled NLG evaluation. In this thesis, we aim for a holistic view of NLG evaluation from three complementary perspectives, driven by the evaluation principles in EAGLES-1996: (i) high-quality evaluation metrics, (ii) rigorous comparison of NLG systems for properly tracking the progress, and (iii) understanding evaluation metrics. To this end, we identify the current state of challenges derived from the inherent characteristics of these perspectives, and then present novel metrics, rigorous comparison approaches, and explainability techniques for metrics to address the identified issues. We hope that our work on evaluation metrics, system comparison and explainability for metrics inspires more research towards principled NLG evaluation, and contributes to the fair and adequate evaluation and comparison in natural language processing

    The Anthropocene Hypothesis

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    Advanced Modeling and Research in Hybrid Microgrid Control and Optimization

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    This book presents the latest solutions in fuel cell (FC) and renewable energy implementation in mobile and stationary applications. The implementation of advanced energy management and optimization strategies are detailed for fuel cell and renewable microgrids, and for the multi-FC stack architecture of FC/electric vehicles to enhance the reliability of these systems and to reduce the costs related to energy production and maintenance. Cyber-security methods based on blockchain technology to increase the resilience of FC renewable hybrid microgrids are also presented. Therefore, this book is for all readers interested in these challenging directions of research

    Green Energy Technology

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    This book, entitled “The Green Energy Technology”, covers technologies, products, equipment, and devices, as well as energy services, based on software and data protected by patents and/or trademarks. The recent trends underline the principles of a circular economy such as sustainable product design, extending the product’s lifecycle, reusability, and recycling. These are highly related to climate change and environmental impact, and limited natural resources require scientific research and novel technical solutions. This book will serve as a collection of the latest scientific and technological approaches to “green”—i.e., environmentally friendly and sustainable—technologies. While the focus is on energy and bioenergy, it also covers "green" solutions in all aspects of industrial engineering. Green Energy Technology addresses researchers, advanced students, technical consultants and decision-makers in industries and politics. This book is a comprehensive overview and in-depth technical research paper addressing recent progress in Green Energy Technology. We hope that readers will enjoy reading this book

    Brachial Plexus Injury

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    In this book, specialists from different countries and continents share their knowledge and experience in brachial plexus surgery. It discusses the different types of brachial plexus injury and advances in surgical treatments
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