Historical Development of English Learning Motivation Research: Cases of Korea and Its Neighboring Countries in East Asia. Kim, T. Y. (2021). Springer Singapore, 318 Pages, ISBN: 9789811625121

Considering such intricate history regarding English learning in Korea and its neighboring nations in East Asia, Kim publishes the book Historical Development of English Learning Motivation Research: Cases of Korea and Its Neighboring Countries in East Asia in hope of contributing to L2 motivation research by analyzing Korean students’ English learning motivation not from synchronic but from macro, diachronic viewpoints

Conjugate gradient-boundary element solution for distributed elliptic optimal control problems

AbstractAn optimality system of equations for the optimal control problem governed by Helmholtz-type equations is derived. By the associated first-order necessary optimality condition, we obtain the conjugate gradient method (CGM) in the continuous case. Introducing the sequence of higher-order fundamental solutions, we propose an iterative algorithm based on the conjugate gradient-boundary element method using the multiple reciprocity method (CGM+MRBEM) for solving the discrete control input. This algorithm has an advantage over that of the existing literatures because the main attribute (the reduced dimensionality) of the boundary element method is fully utilized. Finally, the local error estimates for this scheme are obtained, and a test problem is given to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method

Linguistic Landscape of China: A Case Study of the Language Use of Shop Signs in Wuhan

This study with a focus on the shop signs of Wuhan, investigates the linguistic landscape in China. By taking and processing photos of 147 commercial shops, it aims to analyze the language use of shop signs in Han Street, Wuhan, China and provides feasible explanations for such language choice from three new perspectives, namely commercial drive, English as lingua franca and current Chinese language policy.

Genetic properties of feed efficiency and related traits in dairy cattle

Feed accounts for the largest proportion of operating costs in dairy production. Improving feed efficiency (FE) is expected to increase the profits of dairy farmers and reduce the ecological footprint of dairy production. The aim of this thesis is to study the genetic properties of alternative FE definitions and FE-related traits in several dairy breeds in order to investigate the possibility of including FE in Nordic dairy cattle breeding. In Papers I–IV, we discuss two FE traits, dry matter intake (DMI) and residual feed intake (RFI), to investigate the genetic properties of these traits across lactation. In Papers I and II, we study genetic parameters for DMI, energy-corrected milk (ECM), and body weight (BW) across lactation for Holstein, Nordic Red (RDC), and Jersey cows. Further, in Paper II, we study the genetic heterogeneity of DMI, ECM, and BW across lactation stages and genetic correlations among these traits by random regression models. In Papers III and IV, we focus on alternative modelling methods for RFI. In Paper III, we investigate the influence of lactation stages in modelling RFI, and in Paper IV, we employ multivariate analyses as a novel way to derive RFI of dairy cattle. We found moderate heritability for DMI in Holstein, RDC, and Jersey cows. The heritability for DMI was in a similar range as that for ECM and was lower than that for BW. Further, we found that DMI has a positive genetic correlation with ECM and BW across lactation stages. Cows of different breeds generally shared a similar pattern of genetic parameters of DMI. Different modelling strategies for RFI affected the genetic properties of RFI and yielded different rankings of animals for RFI efficiency. The genetic variance and heritability for RFI were both lower than those for DMI. Genetically, DMI or RFI were not the same across lactation stages. Thus, the genetic heterogeneity for DMI and RFI across lactation stages should be carefully considered in the recording and selection of FE in dairy cattle