A Study of Language Socialization: Learning and Making Sense in a Second Language Classroom

This paper is about children's second language socialization. It is about how a child, a Japanese eight year old boy, tries to make sense of his world in a second language classroom. A justification for the title and the content of this paper is my belief that language acquisition does not happen in isolation. The way in which children develop their skills and competence in a second language, and the way they display them, are greatly affected by their classrooms, peers, teachers, family, etc., as well as by their personalities (Wong-Fillmore, 1979). To have a more hollistic understanding of the process of second language leaming, therefore, it is not sufficient to observe learners producing utterances in isolation, but it is necessary to take into consideration the social context as well. The present study, a description of a child's sociocultural development, is a complementary analysis to a linguistically oriented one. It is not intended to be better not more complete, but rather, to address issues that are more commonly left untouched

Anti-Neoliberal Struggles in the 21st Century: Gramsci Revised

The dominance of neoliberalism in the past three decades suggests the capacity of capitalism to adapt and restructure itself in periods of crisis and to curb progressive movements that threaten its hegemony. Yet social movements that challenge neoliberalism continue to emerge, sending hopeful signs of its potential demise by ushering in progressive governments that often appear to fall short of expectations. Building off the growing body of research that utilizes Gramscian theory to categorize neoliberalism as a passive revolution, I examine the concept of anti-passive revolution with empirical data to propose a theory of resistance against neoliberalism. The empirical data comes from two movements against neoliberalism: the coalition that challenged the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2000; and, the movement that challenged the results of the Mexican presidential election in 2006. By examining the trajectories of these movements over a timespan of several years, I identify the empirical conditions for a theory of anti-passive revolution, and the potential for such processes to challenge the hegemony of the passive revolution represented by neoliberalis

How Common Citizens Transform Politics: the Cases of Mexico and Bolivia

In this dissertation I compare the trajectories of two social movements against neoliberalism: the 2000 movement that successfully challenged the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and the movement that unsuccessfully challenged the results of the Mexican presidential election in 2006. I utilize Gramscis theory to examine neoliberalism as a passive revolution, and I apply concepts drawn from Buci-Glucksman\u27s work on Gramsci\u27s understanding of the State to examine these movements as \u27anti-passive revolutions\u27 and projects of radical democracy. My core argument holds that, despite emerging from quite divergent historical settings and socio-political contexts, these two movements against neoliberalism converged on similar structural outcomes: organized, mobilized and politically educated movements rooted in civil society, that seek the greater common good by changing the dynamics of state-civil society relationships in ways that will generate greater accountability of political actors and thus radically transform politics. They do so largely by generating spaces of solidarity which foster political engagement of common people and the development of new forms of participatory democracy. However, there are important ways in which the two movements differ, including in their approach to reshaping the political culture of civil society. I offer a perspective of how these movements are carrying on their democratic struggles, the structures of accountability that they are developing or can potentially develop, and what they can teach democratic struggles all over the world. Finally, I relate these movements to the other struggles worldwide that irrupted in 2011. I conclude that there are two important parallels between these new movements and my two case studies: They are fundamentally revolts against the neoliberal economic model and for the democratization of the political system, and they all underscore the need for rethinking and redefining the roles of the State and of civil society, and the relationship between them

Microwave heating processing as alternative of pretreatment in second-generation biorefinery: An overview

The development of a feasible biorefinery is in need of alternative technologies to improve lignocellulosic biomass conversion by the suitable use of energy. Microwave heating processing (MHP) is emerging as promising unconventional pretreatment of lignocellulosic materials (LCMs). MHP applied as pretreatment induces LCMs breakdown through the molecular collision caused by the dielectric polarization. Polar particles movement generates a quick heating consequently the temperatures and times of process are lower. In this way, MHP has positioned as green technology in comparison with other types of heating. Microwave technology represents an excellent option to obtain susceptible substrates to enzymatic saccharification and subsequently in the production of bioethanol and high-added compounds. However, it is still necessary to study the dielectric properties of materials, and conduct economic studies to achieve development in pilot and industrial scale. This work aims to provide an overview of recent progress and alternative configurations for combining the application of microwave technology on the pretreatment of LCMs in terms of biorefinery.Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the Energy Sustainability Fund 2014-05 (CONACYT-SENER), Mexican Centre for Innovation in Bioenergy (Cemie-Bio), Cluster of Bioalcohols (Ref. 249564). This study was supported by the Secretary of Public Education of Mexico PROMEP project/103.5/13/6595 – UACOAH-PTC-292 and PROMEP project/DSA/103.5/14/10442 – UACOAH-PTC-312. We gratefully acknowledge support for this research by the Mexican Science and Technology Council (CONACYT, Mexico) for the infrastructure project - INFR201601 (Ref. 269461) and CB-2015-01 (Ref. 254808). The author A. Aguilar-Reynosa thanks to Mexican Science and Technology Council (CONACY, Mexico) for master fellowship support

Identification and evaluation of fungal strains with fucoidan degradation potential

Ten fungal strains isolated of Mexican semi-desert were screened for ability to hydrolyze fucoidan in order to search microorganism capable to produce sulfated fucans-degrading enzymes. Plate assay and liquid fermentation experiments were carried out using Laminaria japonica fucoidan as only carbon source, testing three nitrogen sources. Growth was observed only in Aspergillus niger PSH, Mucor sp., and Penicillum purpurogenum GH2 in fucoidan-urea medium. The activity of fucoidanases was determined by reduced sugars. Aspergillus niger PSH showed the highest activity titles. This research indicate that filamentous fungi, using specific medium, are sources enable to induce active metabolism that act toward this class of polysaccharide

Production of mexican brown macroalgae fucoidan and fucosidases under an integral green technology bioproceses by the biorefinery concept

Marine ecosystem can be considered a rather exploited source of natural substances with enormous bioactive potential. In Mexico macro-algae study remain forgotten for research and economic purposes besides the high amount of this resource along the west and east coast. For that reason the Bioferinery Group of the Autonomous University of Coahuila, have been studying the biorefinery concept in order to recover high value byproducts of Mexican brown macro-algae including polysaccharides and enzymes to be applied in food, pharmaceutical and energy industry. Brown macroalgae are an important source of fucoidan, alginate and laminarin which comprise a complex group of macromolecules with a wide range of important biological properties such as anticoagulant, antioxidant, antitumoral and antiviral and also as rich source of fermentable sugars for enzymes production. Additionally, specific enzymes able to degrade algae matrix (fucosidases, sulfatases, aliginases, etc) are important tools to establish structural characteristics and biological functions of these polysaccharides. The aims of the present work were the integral study of bioprocess for macroalgae biomass exploitation by the use of green technologies as hydrothermal extraction and solid state fermentation in order to produce polysaccharides and enzymes (fucoidan and fucoidan hydrolytic enzymes). This work comprises the use of the different bioprocess phases in order to produce high value products with lower time and wastes

Potential of agave bagasse feedstock for biorefinery hydrothermal pretreatment

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Kinetic and morphometric evaluation of fucoidan‐degrading fungal strains

Fucoidan is a sulfated fucose hetero‐polysaccharide found in brown algae. This compound has a wide variety of biological activities including anticoagulant, antithrombotic, antitumoral and antiviral (Alexeeva et al. 2002; Ellouali et al. 1993; McClure et al. 1992). Specific enzymes able to degrade fucoidan matrix are important tools to establish structural characteristics and biological functions of this polysaccharide. Such enzymes, called fucoidanases, have been only isolated from marine organisms (Sakai et al. 2004; Giordano et al. 2006). Reports of fungal microorganisms with enzymatic activity over this sulfated‐polysaccharide are scarce. Mycelial growth and morphology of filamentous fungi can be mathematically described by kinetic models, through the estimation of specific growth rate of molds on plates containing target polysaccharide as sole carbon source, using image processing techniques (Loera and Viniegra 1998). In this sense, the aim of this work was to identify fungal strains able to growth over fucoidan media as sources of active fucoidanases, by quantification of kinetic and morphology features, to establish the influence of media composition on growth patterns. Aspergillus niger PSH, Penicillium purpurogenum GH2 and Mucor sp. 3P were the screened strains. Different culture media with and without mineral salts were tested for microbial growth. Fucoidan of Laminaria japonica and urea were used as carbon and nitrogen source. Radial growth rate (Ur) was kinetically monitored measuring colony diameters. Hyphal length (Lav) and diameter (Dh) were quantified by image analyses measurements. All the evaluated strains were able to growth on different fucoidan‐urea media, and their plate invasion capacity and radial growth rate were directly proportional to measured morphometric parameters. The three fungi strains synthesize acting metabolites toward fucoidan matrix, and are important tools for the synthesis of sulfated fucan‐degrading enzymes. These results are, until now, the first report of enzymes able to growth and degrade fucoidan obtained by terrestrial fungus

Microwave-assisted extraction of sulfated fucans from brown seaweed and evaluation of fungal strains for enzymesactive production toward this class of polysaccharide

Sulphated polysaccharides from brown seaweedss comprise a complex group of macromolecules with a wide range of important biological properties such as anticoagulant, antioxidant, antiproliferative, antitumoral, anticomplementary, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antipeptic and antiadhesive activities. Fucoidan is one of the main sulphated fucan, mostly interesting for their biological activities specially the potential to inhibit HIV reverse transcriptase and the possible application as active compound in antiretroviral drugs. However, algae remain largely unexploited and seaweeds can be found in sufficient amount for the commercial exploitation. Usually, most of the processes to recover sulfated polysaccharides from natural sources consist in acid extractions during long reaction times. Specific enzymes able to degrade fucoidan matrix (fucoidanases) are important tools to establish structural characteristics and biological functions of this polysaccharide. Such enzymes, have been only isolated from marine organisms. Reports of fungal microorganisms with enzymatic activity over this sulfated-polysaccharide are scarce. The aims of the present work were: 1) to recovery of sulphated polysaccharides (fucoidan) by microwave-assisted extraction under different operational conditions and 2) the identification of fungal strains able to growth over fucoidan-based media and to produce active fucoidanases