CHAT framework to study affordances in CALL environments

[EN] This paper proposes to explore the theory of affordances in the light of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) to study affordances in complex Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environments. The term ‘affordance’ designates an action possibility that is offered by an environment or an object to an actor in the environment either “for good or ill” (Gibson, 1979). It depends not only on the inherent characteristics of the environment but also on the users’ perception and action capabilities. CALL affordances are said to be a unique combination of social, educational, linguistic, and technological affordances (Blin, 2016a). However, there is limited research to date that looks at affordances from an ecological perspective linking the micro moment-to-moment interaction levels with the macro level within which they are embedded in educational contexts (Blin, 2016a). 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Designed and emerging affordances in tutor-learner multimodal interactions via videoconferencing for second language learning and teaching: an activity theoretical approach

Videoconferencing for L2 learning affords the unique possibility of online synchronous interaction with L2 expert speakers using web-camera, microphone and text chat; pin marking students’ errors on the oral recordings; generating online feedback, etc. However, distance learning mediated by technology also presents inherent complexities due to multiple spaces, timescales, cultures and norms that are different from a classroom environment. This makes the study of affordances important to inform videoconference embedded L2 pedagogy. An affordance designates an action possibility, positive or negative, that is offered by an object or environment to an actor in the environment. Few studies have analysed the emergence and realisation of affordances in learning environments with substantial socio-cultural, pedagogical and technological components. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory, this thesis investigates the emergence and realisation of linguistic, pedagogical, technological and socio-cultural affordances in tutor-tutee multimodal interactions via videoconferencing. Master’s students (teacher-trainees) of French as a foreign language from a French University interacted online via videoconferencing with undergraduate Business students learning French at an Irish University over a period of 6 weeks. The tutor-tutee online interactions generated a multimodal corpus that provided the data for this activity-theoretical study. Activity systems at the macro, meso and micro levels were modelled, and the designed and emerging affordances were identified. Furthermore, new actions emerged to overcome manifestations of contradictions at the macro inter-institutional interaction level and at the micro level of moment-to-moment tutor-tutee interactions. The findings reveal that the design of pedagogical and technological tools, institutional norms and the division of labour within and between institutions triggered multi-level intra and inter-systemic contradictions. These were resolved by the creation of novel mediating tools and models as well as more learner-centred pedagogical interactions. Consequently, a taxonomy of technological, pedagogical and social affordances is suggested to help inform videoconference embedded L2 pedagogical design and teacher training

Perception of prevention of Japanese Encephalitis with emphasis on its vaccination programme: a community based study in a slum of Kolkata

Introduction Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito borne disease with epidemic potential. There is no specific treatment available till date and apart from vector control, vaccination of individuals is considered as a safe and effective measure for prevention. Vaccination campaign among 1-15 years is being carried out with full vigour from 2015 onwards in West Bengal. Objectives This study was conducted to assess the knowledge of the care givers of 1-15 years old children about JE and its prevention and to find out the factors associated with vaccination status of the children. Methods A cross sectional, community based study was conducted from May-June 2016 in a slum of Chetla, Kolkata, which is within the service area of Urban Health Unit and Training Centre (UHU&TC), Chetla of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata, where the campaign prior to the study was completed in March 2016. Care givers of 90 children of aged 1-15 years were interviewed with a pre-designed, pre-tested, structured schedule. Results Mean age of the surveyed children was 6.34 years (SD 3.76) and 88% of them were vaccinated during the campaign. 56.7% of the caregivers had poor knowledge about JE and 84.95% were sensitized about the campaign by relatives/friends followed by health workers (33.7%). Low socio-economic status and good knowledge of JE had significant association with vaccination of the child after adjusting with other factors (age and sex of the child, education and occupation of parents, type of family). Conclusions Enhancement of knowledge and awareness about JE with appropriate health education programmes and special emphasis on sensitization campaigns for JE vaccination at both mass and individual level would prevent emergence of JE epidemics in future

The L2L System for Second Language Learning Using Visualised Zoom Calls Among Students

An important part of second language learning is conversation which is best practised with speakers whose native language is the language being learned. We facilitate this by pairing students from different countries learning each others' native language. Mixed groups of students have Zoom calls, half in one language and half in the other, in order to practice and improve their conversation skills. We use Zoom video recordings with audio transcripts enabled which generates recognised speech from which we extract timestamped utterances and calculate and visualise conversation metrics on a dashboard. A timeline highlights each utterance, colour coded per student, with links to the video in a playback window. L2L was deployed for a semester and recorded almost 250 hours of zoom meetings. The conversation metrics visualised on the dashboard are a beneficial asset for both students and lecturers.Comment: 16th European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL), Bozen-Bolzano, Italy (online), September 202

Study of Dissipative Collisions of 20^{20}Ne (∼\sim7-11 MeV/nucleon) + 27^{27}Al

The inclusive energy distributions of complex fragments (3 $\leq$Z $\leq$ 9) emitted in the reactions $^{20}$Ne (145, 158, 200, 218 MeV) + $^{27}$Al have been measured in the angular range 10$^{o}$ - 50$^{o}$. The fusion-fission and the deep-inelastic components of the fragment yield have been extracted using multiple Gaussian functions from the experimental fragment energy spectra. The elemental yields of the fusion-fission component have been found to be fairly well exlained in the framework of standard statistical model. It is found that there is strong competition between the fusion-fission and the deep-inelastic processes at these energies. The time scale of the deep-inelastic process was estimated to be typically in the range of $\sim$ 10$^{-21}$ - 10$^{-22}$ sec., and it was found to decrease with increasing fragment mass. The angular momentum dissipations in fully energy damped deep-inelastic process have been estimated from the average energies of the deep-inelastic components of the fragment energy spectra. It has been found that, the estimated angular momentum dissipations, for lighter fragments in particular, are more than those predicted by the empirical sticking limit.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure

Evidence of large nuclear deformation of 32^{32}S∗^{*} formed in 20^{20}Ne + 12^{12}C reaction

Deformations of hot composite $^{32}$S$^{*}$ formed in the reaction $^{20}$Ne ($\sim$ 7 -- 10 MeV/nucleon) + $^{12}$C have been estimated from the respective inclusive $\alpha$-particle evaporation spectra. The estimated deformations for $^{32}$S$^{*}$ have been found to be much larger than the `normal' deformations of hot, rotating composites at similar excitations. This further confirms the formation of highly deformed long-lived configuration of $^{20}$Ne + $^{12}$C at high excitations ($\sim$ 70 -- 100 MeV) -- which was recently indicated from the analysis of the complex fragment emission data for the same system. Exclusive $\alpha$-particle evaporation spectra from the decay of hot composite $^{32}$S$^{*}$ also show similar behaviour.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

The effects of changes in glutathione levels through exogenous agents on intracellular cysteine content and protein adduct formation in chronic alcohol-treated VL17A cells

Alcohol-mediated liver injury is associated with changes in the level of the major cellular antioxidant glutathione (GSH). It is interesting to investigate if the changes in intracellular GSH level through exogenous agents affect the intracellular cysteine content and the protein adduct formation indicative of oxidative insult in chronic alcohol treated liver cells. In VL-17A cells treated with 2mM N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or 0.1mM ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) plus 100mM ethanol, an increase in cysteine concentration which was accompanied by decreases in hydroxynonenal (HNE) and glutathionylated protein adducts were observed. Pretreatment of 100mM ethanol treated VL-17A cells with 0.4mM buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) or 1mM diethyl maleate (DEM) had opposite effects. Thus, altered GSH level through exogenous agents may either potentiate or ameliorate chronic alcohol-mediated protein adduct formation and change the cysteine level in chronic alcohol treated VL-17A cells. The gene expression of non-treated and ethanol-treated hepatocytes in 2 microarray datasets was also compared to locate differentially expressed genes involved in cysteine metabolism. The study demonstrates that increased protein adducts formation and changes in cysteine concentration occur under chronic alcohol condition in liver cells which may increase alcohol-mediated oxidative injury

Analysis of individual conversational volatility in tandem telecollaboration for second language learning

Second language (L2) learning can be enabled by tandem collaboration where students are grouped in video conference calls while learning the native language of other student(s) on the calls. This places students in an online environment where the more outgoing can actively contribute and engage in dialogue while those more shy and unsure of their second language language skills can sit back and coast through the calls. We have built and deployed the L2L system which records timings of conversational utterances from all participants in a call. We generate visualisations including participation rates and timelines for each student in each call and present these on a dashboard. Students can self-reflect and perhaps target improving their levels of engagement for subsequent calls. We have recently developed a measure called personal conversational volatility for how dynamic has been each student’s contribution to the dialogue in each call. This measures whether a student’s contribution was interactive with a mixture of interjections perhaps interrupting and agreeing with others combined with longer contributions, or whether it consisted of regular duration contributions with not much mixing. We present an analysis of conversational volatility measures of a sample of 19 individual English-speaking students from our University at lower intermediate-intermediate level (B1/B2) in their target language which was French, in each of 86 tandem telecollaboration calls over one teaching semester. Our analysis shows that students varied considerably in how their individual levels of engagement changed as their telecollaboration meetings progressed. Some students got more involved in the dialogue from one meeting to the next while others did not change their interaction levels at all. The reasons for this are not clear from the data we have and point to a need for further investigation into the nature of online tandem telecollaboration meetings. In particular there is a need to look into the nature of the interactions and see if the choices of discussion topics were too difficult for some lower intermediate students and that may have influenced their engagement in some way

Characterization of fragment emission in ^{20}Ne (7 - 10 MeV/nucleon) + ^{12}C reactions

The inclusive energy distributions of the complex fragments (3 $\leq$ Z $\leq$ 7) emitted from the bombardment of ^{12}C by ^{20}Ne beams with incident energies between 145 and 200 MeV have been measured in the angular range 10$^{o} \leq \theta_{lab} \leq$ 50^{o}. Damped fragment yields in all the cases have been found to be the characteristic of emission from fully energy equilibrated composites. The binary fragment yields are compared with the standard statistical model predictions. Enhanced yields of entrance channel fragments (5 $\leq$ Z $\leq$ 7) indicate the survival of orbiting-like process in ^{20}Ne + ^{12}C system at these energies.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figure

Out-of-pocket Expenditure and its Impact on the Quality of Life among Patients Attending the Anti-retroviral Therapy Centre of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Kolkata

Introduction: Out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) has a negative impact on Quality of life (QoL) of People Living with HIV (PLHIV)which can increase the risk of slipping into poverty. Objectives: Primary Objective of this study was to estimate the burden of OOPE in seeking health care among HIV patients attending the Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centre of a tertiary care hospital; and secondary objectives were to assess their QoL, to identify the association of socio-demographic characteristics with the OOPE & QoL and to find out the correlation between OOPE and QoL. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 232 patients attending ART centre of a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata using a pre-designed, pre-tested, structured schedule. Multivariable binary logistic regression was done to identify the association of their socio-demographic characteristics and clinical profile with the OOPE and QoL. Results: About 41.4% of the study population rated their QoL as neither poor nor good, 18.9% as ‘good’. All the participants reported OOPE; 20.7% in the form of direct health expenditure. Participants belonging to the age group 18-39 years, residing in a joint family, had family member infected with HIV and had associated co-morbidity were statistically significant covariates of direct health expenditure; whereas participants belonging to the age group ≥40 years, living in a joint family, involved in an unskilled occupation, and belonging to middle and lower middle were statistically significant covariates of poor QoL. Conclusion: OOPE was experienced by all participants. As per the study findings Qol was neither poor nor good among participants. With increase in OOPE, the QoL worsened