25,266 research outputs found
Reducing cultural barriers via Internet courses
A web-based learning environment has been developed to support students from China who are studying in the UK and are confronted by many cultural barriers, which may impede their academic studies.The electronic environment incorporates a number of approaches to support learning, ranging from a simple text-based presentation to more active methods, including opportunities to use search-based learning strategies. Experimental results demonstrate a clear advantage for these active approaches.Internet support was also provided for students in the form of an E-learning course for academic writing, which featured extensive opportunities for interactions with English peers. The experimental results demonstrated that the group with access to the E-course successfully acquired skills, resulting in their academic writing being indistinguishable from native English speakers
The Decay Properties of the 1^{-+} Hybrid State
Within the framework of the QCD sum rules, we consider the three-point
correlation function, work at the limit q^2 -> 0 and m_\pi -> 0, and pick out
the singular term ~ {1\over q^2} to extract the pionic coupling constants of
the 1^{-+} hybrid meson. Then we calculate the decay widths of different modes.
The decay width of the S-wave modes b_1 \pi, f_1\pi increases quickly as the
hybrid meson mass and decay momentum increase. But for the low mass hybrid
meson around 1.6 GeV, the P-wave decay mode \rho \pi is very important and its
width is around 180 MeV, while the widths of \eta \pi and \eta^\prime \pi are
strongly suppressed. We suggest the experimental search of \pi_1(1600) through
the decay chains at BESIII: e^+e^- -> J/\psi(\psi') -> \pi_1 +\gamma or e^+e^-
-> J/\psi(\psi') -> \pi_1 +\rho where the \pi_1 state can be reconstructed
through the decay modes \pi_1 -> \rho\pi -> \pi^+\pi^-\pi^0 or \pi_1 ->
f_1(1285)\pi^0. It is also interesting to look for \pi_1 using the available
BELLE/BABAR data through the process e^+e^- -> \gamma^\ast -> \rho\pi_1,
b_1\pi_1, \gamma \pi_1 etc.Comment: one reference correcte
First-principles investigation of dynamical properties of molecular devices under a steplike pulse
We report a computationally tractable approach to first principles
investigation of time-dependent current of molecular devices under a step-like
pulse. For molecular devices, all the resonant states below Fermi level
contribute to the time-dependent current. Hence calculation beyond wideband
limit must be carried out for a quantitative analysis of transient dynamics of
molecules devices. Based on the exact non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF)
formalism of calculating the transient current in Ref.\onlinecite{Maciejko}, we
develop two approximate schemes going beyond the wideband limit, they are all
suitable for first principles calculation using the NEGF combined with density
functional theory. Benchmark test has been done by comparing with the exact
solution of a single level quantum dot system. Good agreement has been reached
for two approximate schemes. As an application, we calculate the transient
current using the first approximated formula with opposite voltage
in two molecular structures: Al--Al and Al--Al. As illustrated in these examples, our formalism can be easily
implemented for real molecular devices. Importantly, our new formula has
captured the essential physics of dynamical properties of molecular devices and
gives the correct steady state current at and .Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Therapies in the Treatment of Meniere's Syndrome: Illness Narratives
Colonnade interior, glass wall, from above, depicting brise-soleil; The building today commonly referred to as the Old City Hall was the building that served as Ottawa's city hall from 1958 to 2000. Today it is officially known as 111 Sussex Drive and is owned by the Federal Government of Canada. The building is located on Green Island at the point where the Rideau River empties into the Ottawa. The International Style building was opened on August 2, 1958 by Princess Margaret as a member of the Canadian Royal Family. It is noted for the first building in Ottawa to be fully air conditioned. It was designed by John Bland of the firm of Rother, Bland and Trudeau and is considered one of the most important International Style buildings in Canada. Winning the Massey Medal for design in 1959, modifications were made by Moshe Safdie in 1992-1993. Today the building mainly houses foreign affairs employees. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 1/10/2008
GP-GAN: Gender Preserving GAN for Synthesizing Faces from Landmarks
Facial landmarks constitute the most compressed representation of faces and
are known to preserve information such as pose, gender and facial structure
present in the faces. Several works exist that attempt to perform high-level
face-related analysis tasks based on landmarks. In contrast, in this work, an
attempt is made to tackle the inverse problem of synthesizing faces from their
respective landmarks. The primary aim of this work is to demonstrate that
information preserved by landmarks (gender in particular) can be further
accentuated by leveraging generative models to synthesize corresponding faces.
Though the problem is particularly challenging due to its ill-posed nature, we
believe that successful synthesis will enable several applications such as
boosting performance of high-level face related tasks using landmark points and
performing dataset augmentation. To this end, a novel face-synthesis method
known as Gender Preserving Generative Adversarial Network (GP-GAN) that is
guided by adversarial loss, perceptual loss and a gender preserving loss is
presented. Further, we propose a novel generator sub-network UDeNet for GP-GAN
that leverages advantages of U-Net and DenseNet architectures. Extensive
experiments and comparison with recent methods are performed to verify the
effectiveness of the proposed method.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, this paper is accepted as 2018 24th International
Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR2018
Exploring the evidence base for acupuncture in the treatment of Meniere’s Syndrome — A systematic review
Meniere’s syndrome is a long-term, progressive disease that damages the balance and hearing
parts of the inner ear. To address the paucity of information on which evidence-based treatment
decisions should be made, a systematic review of acupuncture for Meniere’s syndrome was
undertaken. The method used was a systematic review of English and Chinese literature, from
six databases for randomized, non-randomized and observational studies. All studies were
critically appraised and a narrative approach to data synthesis was adopted. Twenty-seven
studies were included in this review (9 in English and 18 in Chinese languages): three randomized
controlled trials, three non-randomized controlled studies and four pre-test, post-test
designs. All but one of the studies was conducted in China. The studies covered body acupuncture,
ear acupuncture, scalp acupuncture, fluid acupuncture point injection and moxibustion.
The studies were of varying quality. The weight of evidence, across all study types, is of beneficial
effect from acupuncture, for those in an acute phase or those who have had Meniere’s
syndrome for a number of years. The review reinforces the importance of searching for studies
from English and Chinese literature. The transferability of the findings from China to a
Western context needs confirmation. Further research is also needed to clarify questions
around the appropriate frequency and number of treatment/courses of acupuncture. The
weight of evidence suggests a potential benefit of acupuncture for persons with Meniere’s
disease, including those in an acute phase and reinforces the importance of searching for
published studies in the Chinese language
Massive and Massless Neutrinos on Unbalanced Seesaws
The observation of neutrino oscillations requires new physics beyond the
standard model (SM). A SM-like gauge theory with p lepton families can be
extended by introducing q heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos but preserving
its SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y gauge symmetry. The overall neutrino mass matrix M turns
out to be a symmetric (p+q) x (p+q) matrix. Given p>q, the rank of M is in
general equal to 2q, corresponding to 2q non-zero mass eigenvalues. The
existence of (p-q) massless left-handed Majorana neutrinos is an exact
consequence of the model, independent of the usual approximation made in
deriving the Type-I seesaw relation between the effective p x p light Majorana
neutrino mass matrix M_\nu and the q x q heavy Majorana neutrino mass matrix
M_R. In other words, the numbers of massive left- and right-handed neutrinos
are fairly matched. A good example to illustrate this seesaw fair play rule is
the minimal seesaw model with p=3 and q=2, in which one massless neutrino sits
on the unbalanced seesaw.Comment: RevTex 8 pages, 1 PS figure. Two crucial references adde
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