Factors that affect generalization of adaptation

As there is a growing population of non-native speakers worldwide, facilitating communication involving native and non-native speakers has become increasingly important. While one way to help communication involving native and non-native speakers is to help non-native speakers improve proficiency in their target language, another way is to help native listeners better understand non-native speech. Specifically, while it may be initially difficult for native listeners to understand non-native speech, the listeners may become better at this skill after short training sessions (i.e., adaptation) and they may better understand novel non-native speakers (i.e., generalization). However, it is not well-understood how native listeners adapt and generalize to a novel speaker. This dissertation investigates how speaker and listener characteristics affect generalization to a novel speaker. Specifically, we examine how acoustic characteristics and talker information interact in generalization of adaptation, how accentedness of non-native speech affects generalization to a novel speaker, and how listeners’ linguistic experience affects generalization of adaptation. The results suggest that acoustic similarity between speakers may help generalization and that listeners’ reliance on talker information is down-weighted, as long as speakers that listeners are trained with and tested with have similar acoustic characteristics. Furthermore, the results show that exposure to more accented non-native speech disrupts generalization of adaptation compared to exposure to less accented non-native speech, suggesting that having exposure to non-native speakers does not always help generalization. The results also show that having extended linguistic experience with non-native speakers may disrupt generalization to a novel non-native speaker. The results of the present study have implications for how speaker- and listener-related factors affect generalization of adaptation. Specifically, we suggest that, at least in the early stages of learning, generalization of adaptation is constrained by acoustic similarity and that generalization to a non-native speaker utilizes mechanisms that are general to speech perception, rather than specific to this type of adaptation. We suggest that exposure to non-native accented speech that is too different from the speech that listeners are familiar with may disrupt generalization. Further, we suggest that the representation of non-native accents becomes less malleable with extended linguistic experience

Neuroprotective Effects of Astaxanthin in Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation in SH-SY5Y Cells and Global Cerebral Ischemia in Rat

Astaxanthin (ATX), a naturally occurring carotenoid pigment, is a powerful biological antioxidant. In the present study, we investigated whether ATX pharmacologically offers neuroprotection against oxidative stress by cerebral ischemia. We found that the neuroprotective efficacy of ATX at the dose of 30 mg/kg (n = 8) was 59.5% compared with the control group (n = 3). In order to make clear the mechanism of ATX neuroprotection, the up-regulation inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and heat shock proteins (HSPs) together with the oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD) in SH-SY5Y cells were also investigated. The induction of various factors involved in oxidative stress processes such as iNOS was suppressed by the treatment of ATX at 25 and 50 µM after OGD-induced oxidative stress. In addition, Western blots showed that ATX elevated of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1; Hsp32) and Hsp70 protein levels in in vitro. These results suggest that the neuroprotective effects of ATX were related to anti-oxidant activities in global ischemia

A Design and Development of the Learning Contents Management based on the Personalized Online Learning

Teaching-learning methods are undergoing rapid transformation in terms of new information and communication technology and in accordance with onset of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The educational environment is being transformed into various forms, with examples being found not only in the existing traditional educational environment, but also in online education and blended learning. Existing online learning (LMS, LCMS) is offered in a limited contents transmission online educational environment, and has been limited but the level of support offered to a learner’s personalized learning. This study will overview existing flexible model of contents, suggest possible problems, and attempt to solve these problems. LCMS was designed and realized based on the open source Moodle platform, offering personalized contents to learners. LCMS is composed of the following 3 functions: contents registration of metadata inputted by administrator; search functionality for personalized learner contents; and personalized contents automatically being recommended to learners. As a result of the research, we made online learning environment that can provide customized learning recommendation and self - directed learning by increasing the continuity and efficiency of learning by automatically providing customized online contents to learners. Through this study, the learning of students promises to be effectively initiated by being based on available LCMS functions related to personalized educational contents in online education

In Vitro Chemosensitivity Using the Histoculture Drug Response Assay in Human Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

The choice of chemotherapeutic drugs to treat patients with epithelial ovarian cancer has not depended on individual patient characteristics. We have investigated the correlation between in vitro chemosensitivity, as determined by the histoculture drug response assay (HDRA), and clinical responses in epithelial ovarian cancer. Fresh tissue samples were obtained from 79 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. The sensitivity of these samples to 11 chemotherapeutic agents was tested using the HDRA method according to established methods, and we analyzed the results retrospectively. HDRA showed that they were more chemosensitive to carboplatin, topotecan and belotecan, with inhibition rates of 49.2%, 44.7%, and 39.7%, respectively, than to cisplatin, the traditional drug of choice in epithelial ovarian cancer. Among the 37 patients with FIGO stage Ⅲ/Ⅳ serous adenocarcinoma who were receiving carboplatin combined with paclitaxel, those with carboplatin-sensitive samples on HDRA had a significantly longer median disease-free interval than patients with carboplatin- resistant samples (23.2 vs. 13.8 months, p＜0.05), but median overall survival did not differ significantly (60.4 vs. 37.3 months, p＝0.621). In conclusion, this study indicates that HDRA could provide useful information for designing individual treatment strategies in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer