Professional development of EFL lecturers in Vietnam : a cultural-historical activity theory perspective

Professional development (PD) of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and lecturers in Vietnam has drawn great interest from stakeholders and the public over the past decade, as it is a key aspect of the National Foreign Language 2020 Project. However, the literature shows that this activity has been under-examined both regionally and nationally. This study examines the nature of PD for EFL Vietnamese lecturers of non-English specialized students. The study was theoretically underpinned by Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and employed a sequential mixed-methods approach. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected from EFL lecturers and academic managers at 14 public universities across the country, and national educational policies were also examined. Quantitative data was descriptively and inferentially analyzed, while qualitative data was thematically analyzed, and policy documents were scrutinized using Ball’s (1993) policy analysis framework. The findings show that EFL lecturer PD in Vietnam is a politically, socially, culturally and historically shaped activity that is fraught with many contradictions. Applying CHAT as the theoretical lens through which to view PD in this context reveals that Vietnamese lecturers are influenced by cultural expectations and regulated policies that require them to be ethical and knowledgeable exemplars, and this shapes their participation in PD. Lecturers appear to be confident as change agents in enacting reforms and actively manage to respond to growing demands placed on them. The formulation and implementation of national policies show heavy top-down impositions, with institutional PD management seriously challenging lecturers’ capacity to be authors of their own PD. Access to PD by many lecturers, particularly female lecturers, is limited due to the absence of gender considerations and poor enactment of many national policies, inadequate remuneration and excessive workloads, and the cultural notion of women taking major responsibility for family commitments. The rising demands on lecturers’ competencies and accountability in an increasingly globalized and free-market driven world, where the English language has become an indispensable currency, pose tough challenges for lecturers in terms of their PD

Modélisation 3D d'un composite UD par la Méthode des Eléments Discrets

Dans ces travaux, la Méthode des Eléments Discrets (MED) est mise à profit pour la modélisation 3D d'un matériau composite unidirectionnel. %L'intérêt d'introduire les Eléments Discrets (ED) à l'échelle des constituants (fibre et matrice) est de pouvoir, à terme, rendre compte de mécanismes de dégradation locaux (micro-fissuration matricielle, décohésion fibre/matrice, rupture de fibre) propres à ce type de matériau. L'objectif à court terme est d'utiliser cette méthode pour traiter localement les endommagements induits par un choc tout en l'associant, au delà de la zone endommagée à une modélisation plus conventionnelle de type Eléments Finis (EF) [1]. Les modélisations géométriques de la fibre et de la matrice sont d'abord présentées. La phase de calibration des paramètres intrinsèques du modèle par ED régissant le comportement matériel des milieux fibre et matrice d'une part, et de l'interface fibre/matrice d'autre part, est ensuite détaillée. Le comportement de chaque constituant est à ce stade supposé élastique fragile. Une analyse, à la fois qualitative et quantitative, est finalement réalisée sur les cas tests de traction longitudinale et transverse, et de cisaillement dans le plan des fibres et hors plan, pour une cellule élémentaire représentative. Les résultats sont comparés à ceux connus de la littérature [2].Dans ces travaux, la Méthode des Eléments Discrets (MED) est mise à profit pour la modélisation 3D d'un matériau composite unidirectionnel. %L'intérêt d'introduire les Eléments Discrets (ED) à l'échelle des constituants (fibre et matrice) est de pouvoir, à terme, rendre compte de mécanismes de dégradation locaux (micro-fissuration matricielle, décohésion fibre/matrice, rupture de fibre) propres à ce type de matériau. L'objectif à court terme est d'utiliser cette méthode pour traiter localement les endommagements induits par un choc tout en l'associant, au delà de la zone endommagée à une modélisation plus conventionnelle de type Eléments Finis (EF) [1]. Les modélisations géométriques de la fibre et de la matrice sont d'abord présentées. La phase de calibration des paramètres intrinsèques du modèle par ED régissant le comportement matériel des milieux fibre et matrice d'une part, et de l'interface fibre/matrice d'autre part, est ensuite détaillée. Le comportement de chaque constituant est à ce stade supposé élastique fragile. Une analyse, à la fois qualitative et quantitative, est finalement réalisée sur les cas tests de traction longitudinale et transverse, et de cisaillement dans le plan des fibres et hors plan, pour une cellule élémentaire représentative. Les résultats sont comparés à ceux connus de la littérature [2]

Lost in Translation: The Economic Analysis of Law in the United States and Europe

In this Essay, we examine the reasons why the economic analysis of law has not flourished in European countries as it has in the United States. In particular, we focus on three European countries-the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. We argue that differences in culture, the legal system, and the academy have led to differing degrees of success of the law and economics movement in each country. We speculate that, although there is currently less interest in the economic analysis of the law in Europe than in the United States, European interest could dramatically increase if scholars adopt more communitarian analyses aimed at analyzing legislative polices rather than judicial decisions

DocChecker: Bootstrapping Code Large Language Model for Detecting and Resolving Code-Comment Inconsistencies

Comments within source code are essential for developers to comprehend the code's purpose and ensure its correct usage. However, as codebases evolve, maintaining an accurate alignment between the comments and the code becomes increasingly challenging. Recognizing the growing interest in automated solutions for detecting and correcting differences between code and its accompanying comments, current methods rely primarily on heuristic rules. In contrast, this paper presents DocChecker, a tool powered by deep learning. DocChecker is adept at identifying inconsistencies between code and comments, and it can also generate synthetic comments. This capability enables the tool to detect and correct instances where comments do not accurately reflect their corresponding code segments. We demonstrate the effectiveness of DocChecker using the Just-In-Time and CodeXGlue datasets in different settings. Particularly, DocChecker achieves a new State-of-the-art result of 72.3% accuracy on the Inconsistency Code-Comment Detection (ICCD) task and 33.64 BLEU-4 on the code summarization task against other Large Language Models (LLMs), even surpassing GPT 3.5 and CodeLlama. DocChecker is accessible for use and evaluation. It can be found on our GitHub https://github.com/FSoft-AI4Code/DocChecker and as an Online Tool http://4.193.50.237:5000/. For a more comprehensive understanding of its functionality, a demonstration video is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/FqnPmd531xw

Department of Justice Antitrust Enforcement, 1955-1997: An Empirical Study

This is an empirical study of Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement of the antitrust laws. Its purpose is fourfold: 1.To update Posner\u27s study A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement (Posner, 1970, pp. 365-419). 2.To provide consistent and comparable measures of antitrust enforcement effort by the Department of Justice. 3.To report these measurements in a concise and systematic way in order to encourage empirical studies of antitrust issues. 4.To explore some implications for antitrust issues. The purpose is to present the overall historical record of DOJ antitrust activity as well as some patterns in that history. More detailed analysis is left for future work. The following information for cases undertaken by the DOJ are reported: number of cases, choice of civil or criminal remedies, alleged violations, corporate officials prosecuted, won-loss record, civil and criminal sanctions imposed, and length of the proceedings. The principal source of data is the CCH Trade Regulation Reporter, commonly referred to as the CCH Bluebook which contains brief summaries of all DOJ antitrust cases in order of their filing

Fixed-point elimination in the intuitionistic propositional calculus

It is a consequence of existing literature that least and greatest fixed-points of monotone polynomials on Heyting algebras-that is, the algebraic models of the Intuitionistic Propositional Calculus-always exist, even when these algebras are not complete as lattices. The reason is that these extremal fixed-points are definable by formulas of the IPC. Consequently, the $\mu$-calculus based on intuitionistic logic is trivial, every $\mu$-formula being equivalent to a fixed-point free formula. We give in this paper an axiomatization of least and greatest fixed-points of formulas, and an algorithm to compute a fixed-point free formula equivalent to a given $\mu$-formula. The axiomatization of the greatest fixed-point is simple. The axiomatization of the least fixed-point is more complex, in particular every monotone formula converges to its least fixed-point by Kleene's iteration in a finite number of steps, but there is no uniform upper bound on the number of iterations. We extract, out of the algorithm, upper bounds for such n, depending on the size of the formula. For some formulas, we show that these upper bounds are polynomial and optimal

Experimental investigations and variability considerations on 3D interlock textile composites used in low velocity soft impact loading

This study investigates the performance of three-dimensional (3-D) woven interlock composite plates subjected to impact loading. Low velocity (lower than 10 m s 1) impacts with highly deformable rubber impactor are addressed. Response variability is investigated by conducting several impact tests in the same conditions. The effect of mass and velocity on damage tolerance is studied by varying the impact conditions. Force–time, displacement–time and force–displacement curves are first analyzed in such various impact conditions. Secondly, damage mechanisms are highlighted through microscopic observations. The large geometrical deformation of the rubber impactor during impact leads to a loading less localized than for a hard impactor which induces a wide spread damage distribution. Comments on the relations between damage states and mass–velocity conditions are proposed

Investigation of damage mechanisms in 3D interlock textile composites under low velocity soft impact loading

Performances of a three-dimensional (3-D) woven composites subjected to impact loading are investigated in this study. Low velocity (lower than 10 m.s-1) impacts with largely deformable rubber impactors are adressed. Variability issues by performing repeated impact tests in the same conditions and the mass velocity effect on damage tolerance by varying the impact conditions are the main points of interest. Force-time and force-displacement curves and damage mechanisms observed on micrographies are particularly commented.AN