The Mind-body problem

The mind-body problem clarifies different key concepts and issues about the mind and the body interaction and contains different theories about the mind-body problem. Jonathan Westphal proposes his approach to mind-body problem in this book and gives detail information about this problem. He expresses his approach that is narrower than the other propositions about the mind-body problem. He answers the question of the interaction between mind and body. He believes that his approach (neutral monism) can help us to solve the mind-body problem

The Role of EFL Teacher’s Talk and Identity in Iranian Classroom Context

Identity is a comprehensive and complicated concept in the process of language teaching and learning. The present study attempted to examine the effect of teachers’ talk and identity in the classroom context on EFL learners’ achievements. The Conversation Analysis (CA) approach was applied to gather and analyze naturally-occurring spoken interaction. The teachers’ interactions with their learners were audio-recorded and analyzed in terms of the IRF cycle (Initiation-Response-Feedback), turn-taking and renovate. The findings indicated that the plenty of interaction was assembled and retained through dissymmetrical and privileged relations. The teacher identified, and regulated most of the social actions that happened in the classroom context, most of which were also completely designed on a goal-oriented basis .It was concluded that it is time to re-assert the role of teacher as a dominant individual who controls learning inside and outside the classroom; educators and teachers should develop an instructional design that focuses on incorporating active learning and student-centered pedagogy into the traditional lecture-based courses

On the Relationship between EFL Learners’ Grammar Learning Strategy Use and Their Grammar Performance: Learners’ Gender in Focus

This study sought to investigate the interplay between grammar strategies employed by intermediate EFL learner and their performance on a grammar test. To undertake the study, eighty homogenized intermediate students, comprising 37 males and 29 females, took part in the study. Having been homogenized via quick placement test (QPT), the participants were asked to respond to Oxford’s (1990) grammar learning strategies questionnaire (hereafter, GLSQ). Next, the participants were asked to take a grammar test. The findings revealed a significant relationship among six subscales of GLSs and EFL learners’ performance on the grammar test. In addition, the results indicated a significant difference between male and female students in term of their performance on the grammar test. More precisely, female students outperformed the male counterpart as far as their performance on grammar test was concerned. In addition, the results attested that cognitive strategy and compensation learning strategy were the most and the least strategy types employed by the participants. The findings have pedagogical implication for both English as a foreign or second language

Duality relations in finite queueing models

Motivated by applications in multimedia streaming and in energy systems, we study duality relations in fi nite queues. Dual of a queue is de fined to be a queue in which the arrival and service processes are interchanged. In other words, dual of the G1/G2/1/K queue is the G2/G1/1/K queue, a queue in which the inter-arrival times have the same distribution as the service times of the primal queue and vice versa. Similarly, dual of a fluid flow queue with cumulative input C(t) and available processing S(t) is a fluid queue with cumulative input S(t) and available processing C(t). We are primarily interested in finding relations between the overflow and underflow of the primal and dual queues. Then, using existing results in the literature regarding the probability of loss and the stationary probability of queue being full, we can obtain estimates on the probability of starvation and the probability of the queue being empty. The probability of starvation corresponds to the probability that a queue becomes empty, i.e., the end of a busy period. We study the relations between arrival and departure Palm distributions and their relations to stationary distributions. We consider both the case of point process inputs as well as fluid inputs. We obtain inequalities between the probability of the queue being empty and the probability of the queue being full for both the time stationary and Palm distributions by interchanging arrival and service processes. In the fluid queue case, we show that there is an equality between arrival and departure distributions that leads to an equality between the probability of starvation in the primal queue and the probability of overflow in the dual queue. The techniques are based on monotonicity arguments and coupling. The usefulness of the bounds is illustrated via numerical results.1 yea

SHARING THE READING SECRET: USING THINK-ALOUD TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION OF L2 TEXTS

This study investigates the effects of thinking-aloud on L2 reading inrelation with the type of task Iranian EFL readers engage in whilereading activity. In so doing, 360 students were selected and assignedto experimental and comparison groups. The subjects in experimentalgroups were instructed to verbalize whatever they were thinking astheir thought naturally came to mind while reading and doing theassigned tasks. The results indicated that the instructional procedurehad contributed to the improvement of the EFL students’ readingcomprehension. By and large, the analysis of think-aloud protocol canprovide language learners with a means for monitoring their readingprocess. Moreover, it gives an opportunity for language teachers tobecome more sensitized to various comprehension problems thatstudents encounter and offers clues to understand potential weaknessthat students may have in their L2 reading

LANGUAGE AWARENESS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGING PERSPECTIVES ON GRAMMAR PEDAGOGY

In 1970s, Language Awareness (LA) was put forward, primarily by modern linguists, as a new ‘bridging’ element in the UK school curriculum. It was viewed as a solution to several of the failures in the UK schools: illiteracy in English, failure to learn foreign languages, and divisive prejudices. To Van Lier (2001) current interest in LA stems from three sources: Pedagogically oriented LA, Consciousness raising, and critical perspective. This paper concentrates on psycholinguistic focus on consciousness-raising (hereafter C-R activities) and explicit attention to language form or grammar. Three relevant issues are discussed here. Firstly, the nature of LA, its principles, objectives and procedures are discussed. Secondly, this study delves into the main justifications and implications of LA. Last but not the least, this paper tries to present an overview of the rationale behind the use of C-R activities in teaching grammar and current perspectives in grammar teaching. Key words: Language Awareness, Grammar pedagogy, Consciousness Raising, Critical Perspective

SUCCESS WITH ENGLISH: THREE WHO ACHIEVED IT AND WHAT WORKED FOR THEM

Good language learner studies show that attending to form is associated with successful learning. This paper reports interviews with three university English majors who had been the best students in a talk show program and got a score band of 7 or beyond in IELTS. The interviewees regarded text memorization and imitation as the most effective methods of learning English. They had been initially forced to use these methods but gradually came to appreciate them. The practice enabled them to attend to and learn collocations and sequences, to borrow these sequences for productive use, to improve pronunciation, and to develop the habit of attending to details of language in the context of language input. The paper concludes that such practice enhances noticing and rehearsal and hence facilitates second language acquisition

Distinct miRNA profile of cellular and extracellular vesicles released from chicken tracheal cells following avian influenza virus infection

Innate responses provide the first line of defense against viral infections, including the influenza virus at mucosal surfaces. Communication and interaction between different host cells at the early stage of viral infections determine the quality and magnitude of immune responses against the invading virus. The release of membrane-encapsulated extracellular vesicles (EVs), from host cells, is defined as a refined system of cell-to-cell communication. EVs contain a diverse array of biomolecules, including microRNAs (miRNAs). We hypothesized that the activation of the tracheal cells with different stimuli impacts the cellular and EV miRNA profiles. Chicken tracheal rings were stimulated with polyI:C and LPS from Escherichia coli 026:B6 or infected with low pathogenic avian influenza virus H4N6. Subsequently, miRNAs were isolated from chicken tracheal cells or from EVs released from chicken tracheal cells. Differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs were identified in treated groups when compared to the control group. Our results demonstrated that there were 67 up-regulated miRNAs, 157 down-regulated miRNAs across all cellular and EV samples. In the next step, several genes or pathways targeted by DE miRNAs were predicted. Overall, this study presented a global miRNA expression profile in chicken tracheas in response to avian influenza viruses (AIV) and toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands. The results presented predicted the possible roles of some DE miRNAs in the induction of antiviral responses. The DE candidate miRNAs, including miR-146a, miR-146b, miR-205a, miR-205b and miR-449, can be investigated further for functional validation studies and to be used as novel prophylactic and therapeutic targets in tailoring or enhancing antiviral responses against AIV

Host immune response modulation in avian coronavirus infection : tracheal transcriptome profiling in vitro and in vivo

Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is a highly contagious Gammacoronavirus causing moderate to severe respiratory infection in chickens. Understanding the initial antiviral response in the respiratory mucosa is crucial for controlling viral spread. We aimed to characterize the impact of IBV Delmarva (DMV)/1639 and IBV Massachusetts (Mass) 41 at the primary site of infection, namely, in chicken tracheal epithelial cells (cTECs) in vitro and the trachea in vivo. We hypothesized that some elements of the induced antiviral responses are distinct in both infection models. We inoculated cTECs and infected young specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens with IBV DMV/1639 or IBV Mass41, along with mock-inoculated controls, and studied the transcriptome using RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) at 3 and 18 h post-infection (hpi) for cTECs and at 4 and 11 days post-infection (dpi) in the trachea. We showed that IBV DMV/1639 and IBV Mass41 replicate in cTECs in vitro and the trachea in vivo, inducing host mRNA expression profiles that are strain- and time-dependent. We demonstrated the different gene expression patterns between in vitro and in vivo tracheal IBV infection. Ultimately, characterizing host–pathogen interactions with various IBV strains reveals potential mechanisms for inducing and modulating the immune response during IBV infection in the chicken trachea

BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase sustained MECOM expression in chronic myeloid leukaemia

MECOM oncogene expression correlates with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) progression. Here we show that the knockdown of MECOM (E) and MECOM (ME) isoforms reduces cell division at low cell density, inhibits colony-forming cells by 34% and moderately reduces BCR-ABL1 mRNA and protein expression but not tyrosine kinase catalytic activity in K562 cells. We also show that both E and ME are expressed in CD34<sup>+</sup> selected cells of both CML chronic phase (CML-CP), and non-CML (normal) origin. Furthermore, MECOM mRNA and protein expression were repressed by imatinib mesylate treatment of CML-CP CD34<sup>+</sup> cells, K562 and KY01 cell lines whereas imatinib had no effect in non-CML BCR-ABL1 −ve CD34<sup>+</sup> cells. Together these results suggest that BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase catalytic activity regulates MECOM gene expression in CML-CP progenitor cells and that the BCR-ABL1 oncoprotein partially mediates its biological activity through MECOM. MECOM gene expression in CML-CP progenitor cells would provide an in vivo selective advantage, contributing to CML pathogenesis