A Study of the Humor Aspect of English Puns: Views from the Relevance Theory

A distinctive rhetorical device, puns are wittily applied in advertisements, daily conversations, riddles, etc. Formed by the combination in certain contexts with polysemic or homophonic words, puns naturally lead to more than one interpretation in an actual communication. Puns have many different functions in utterances as well. In this paper Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory is used to analyze how the humor effects of puns are constructed. In the process of comprehending a pun, the audience decodes the communicator’s ostensive utterance in its a context. If the context contradicts the usual interpretation, the audience rebuilds a new assumption with their encyclopedic knowledge, logical and lexical information, and deduces the real implication of the utterance—and appreciates the great humor effects of English pun

A Survey on Self-efficacy of English Majors: Exploring Its Correlation with Time Management and Strategy Use

The present study seeks to investigate the self-efficacy of English majors and its relationship with time management and strategy use during their English learning. The study reported in this paper was conducted to examine self-efficacy of students passing TEM-4 (Test for English Majors -- Band 4) and their self-regulating time management. The data were collected via student questionnaires & interviews. The findings of this case study revealed that there is a gender difference in English majors’ self-efficacy. Meanwhile, a positive correlation between the self-efficacy of students passing TEM -4 & their strategy use as well as self-regulating time management was demonstrated. Implications of the findings to language teaching and learning are discussed

Multiple Dimensions of Effective Assessment in Graded College English Teaching Classroom

Teaching assessment refers to the process of assessing the teaching effect and implementation of the teaching goal, it aims to make corresponding value judgment through systematic detection and assessment of teaching activities according to certain teaching criteria. An effective teaching assessment not only brings teachers feedback and improves the teaching administration, but also provides students with an effective means to optimize the learning strategies to achieve better learning efficiency and desired effects. So a comprehensive and accurate assessment is of vital significance to propel the course goals into accomplishment. In college English graded teaching practice, it is prerequisite to adhere to the assessment principle of development and diversification of assessment dimensions in order to arrive at an effective classroom evaluation

Validation of the Chinese version of the "Mood Disorder Questionnaire" for screening bipolar disorder among patients with a current depressive episode

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) is a well-recognized screening tool for bipolar disorder, but its Chinese version needs further validation. This study aims to measure the accuracy of the Chinese version of the MDQ as a screening instrument for bipolar disorder (BPD) in a group of patients with a current major depressive episode.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>142 consecutive patients with an initial DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of a major depressive episode were screened for BPD using the Chinese translation of the MDQ and followed up for one year. The final diagnosis, determined by a special committee consisting of three trained senior psychiatrists, was used as a 'gold standard' and ROC was plotted to evaluate the performance of the MDQ. The optimal cut-off was chosen by maximizing the Younden's index.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 142 patients, 122 (85.9%) finished the one year follow-up. On the basis of a semi-structured clinical interview 48.4% (59/122) received a diagnosis of unipolar depression (UPD), 36.9% (45/122) BPDII and 14.8% (18/122) BPDI. At the end of the one year follow-up,9 moved from UPD to BPD, 2 from BPDII to UPD, 1 from BPDII to BPDI, the overall rate of initial misdiagnosis was 16.4%. MDQ showed a good accuracy for BPD: the optimal cut-off was 4, with a sensitivity of 0.72 and a specificity of 0.73. When BPDII and BPDI were calculated independently, the optimal cut-off for BPDII was 4, with a sensitivity of 0.70 and a specificity of 0.73; while the optimal cut-off for BPDI was 5, with a sensitivity of 0.67 and a specificity of 0.86.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results show that the Chinese version of MDQ is a valid tool for screening BPD in a group of patients with current depressive episode on the Chinese mainland.</p

Functional identification of the prnABCD operon and its regulation in Serratia plymuthica

The antibiotic pyrrolnitrin (PRN) is a tryptophan-derived secondary metabolite that plays an important role in the biocontrol of plant diseases due to its broad-spectrum of antimicrobial activities. The PRN biosynthetic gene cluster remains to be characterised in Serratia plymuthica, though it is highly conserved in PRN-producing bacteria. To better understand PRN biosynthesis and its regulation in Serratia, the prnABCD operon from S. plymuthica G3 was cloned, sequenced and expressed in Escherichia coli DH5α. Furthermore, an engineered strain prnind which is a conditional mutant of G3 prnABCD under the control of the Ptac promoter was constructed. This mutant was able to overproduce PRN with isopropylthiogalactoside (IPTG) induction by overexpressing prnABCD, whilst behaving as a conditional mutant of G3 prnABCD in the absence of IPTG. These results confirmed that prnABCD is responsible for PRN biosynthesis in strain G3. Further experiments involving lux-/dsRed-based promoter fusions, combined with site-directed mutagenesis of the putative σS extended -10 region in the prnA promoter, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis extended our previous knowledge about G3, revealing that quorum sensing (QS) regulates PRN biosynthesis through cross talk with RpoS, which may directly activated prnABCD transcription. These findings suggest that PRN in S. plymuthica G3 is produced in a tightly controlled manner, and has diverse functions, such as modulation of cell motility, in addition to antimicrobial activities. Meanwhile, the construction of inducible mutants could be a powerful tool to improve PRN production, beyond its potential use for the investigation of the biological function of PRN

Exogenously Applied Nitric Oxide Enhances the Drought Tolerance in Hulless Barley

Drought stress is a severe threat to high altitude hulless barley production, which causes oxidative damage, disturbs water relations and photosynthesis, while exogenously applied nitric oxide (NO) has the potential to alleviate these effects. In the present study, the role of NO in improving drought tolerance of hulless barley was evaluated. At the three leaf stage, sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a NO donor, was applied at 50, 100 and 150 μmol l–1 under drought stress, the controls, were kept at full field water capacity without NO treatment. The results showed that drought stress seriously reduced the hulless barley growth and physiological attributes, but NO application alleviated the stress effects. Drought tolerance in hulless barley was strongly related to the maintenance of water content and enhanced capacity of antioxidants, improved stability of cellular membranes and enhanced photosynthetic capacity, plausibly by signaling action of NO. Among the NO treatments, 100 μmol l–1 SNP was the most effective

Path Planning for Ferry Crossing Inland Waterways Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning

Path planning is a key issue for safe navigation of inland ferries. With the development of ship intelligence, how to enhance the decision&ndash;support system of a ferry in a complex navigation environment is one of the key issues. The inland ferries need to cross the channel frequently and, thus, risky encounters with target ships in the waterway are more frequent, so they need an intelligent decision&ndash;support system that can deal with complex situations. In this study, a reinforced deep learning method is proposed for path planning of inland ferries during crossing of the waterways. In the study, the state space, action space and reward function of the Deep Q-network (DQN) model are designed and improved to establish an autonomous navigation method for ferries considering both economy and safety. The DQN model also takes into account the crossing behavior, navigation economy and safety. Finally, the model is applied to case studies to verify its effectiveness