English Vocabulary: tests and tasks

Studies show that native English speaking undergraduates are considered to have a vocabulary level of around 17,000 - 20,000 words (Goulden et al, 1990). Pilot studies at HKU suggest that many incoming students to this university have English vocabulary levels below 5,000 words; and some know fewer than 3,000. Research has indicated that vocabulary learning is closely correlated with language competence, particularly reading performance (Laufer, 1997) and the ability to comprehend academic texts is a fundamental part of academic study. In an ideal world, taught courses could focus on developing students' vocabulary levels. There is, however, not enough time to include a substantial word learning component in English enhancement programs. It is simply not feasible to increase class time for English due to students' busy schedules with their other academic studies at tertiary level. One solution is to take vocabulary learning out of the classroom and direct students to web based resources, specifically designed for Chinese learners of English at tertiary level. This project focuses on assessing the vocabulary levels of incoming students to Hong Kong and then identifying which types of tasks are most effective in on-line learning. Based on the research, a range of self-learning web based vocabulary materials is being developed to help learners increase their academic word level. Recommendations will be made regarding teaching academic and discipline-specific lexis and assisting students to increase their vocabulary in their own time and at their own pace.published_or_final_versionCentre for Information Technology in Education, University of Hong Kon

In Search of an " Authentic " women's medicine : the strange fates of Trota of Salerno and Hildegard of Bingen

Despite centuries of debate about the medieval medical writers Trota and Hildegard, there still remain widely disparate views of them in both popular and scholarly discourses. Their alternate dismissal or romanticization is not due to a simple contest between antifeminist and feminist tendencies. Rather, issues of gender have intersected in varying ways with other agendas (intellectual, nationalist, etc.). Recent philological researches have helped not only to clarify why these earlier interpretations were created in the first place, but also to raise our understanding of these women and their work to a new, higher level

Books as a source of medical education for women in the middle ages

The development of philosophical medicine in the high and late Middle Ages brought with it a powerful association of medical knowledge with the written word. To possess books, or at least to have access to books, was both a prerequisite for and a symbol of the kind of theoretical learning that distinguished the learned practitioner from the empiric. This study examines evidence for women's access to medical books, raising the question of what difference gender made. I argue that, for the most part, women did not own medical books, whether they were laywomen or religious. I suggest that this was largely due to the limits on advanced education for women, a factor that would have effected both laywomen and nuns

An assessment of the frequency and cause of concentrated flow on agricultural fields in the Virginia Coastal Plain portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Agricultural lands are the largest non-point source of nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment that is delivered to Chesapeake Bay. There has been an increase in the amount of these nutrients and sediment being delivered to the Bay over the last century, which has caused extensive eutrophication and subsequent anoxic zones in the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Act attempted to mitigate this problem by mandating 100-foot riparian buffer zones between agricultural fields and perennial streams in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. Previous studies have shown that riparian buffers increase infiltration of runoff into the groundwater system, where nutrients and sediment can be removed from the water before it discharges into perennial streams. However, riparian buffers require flow to be widely disseminated throughout the buffer area in order for them to be effective. No declining trends have been noted in the amounts of nutrients and sediment being delivered to Chesapeake Bay since 1990, when buffers were required to be maintained in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. I hypothesized that flow concentration, which can promote channel incision and allow agricultural runoff to bypass riparian buffers, is widespread in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia and may be one reason why reductions of nutrients and sediment in Bay waters have not been as great as expected. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to determine flow accumulation patterns across 74 agricultural fields in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. The percentage of each field drained by the 5 field margin points of greatest flow accumulation area was used as a proxy for measuring flow concentration. The cell size for points along each field margin was 3 m by 3 m. Further, 4 field indexes that related topographic and soil parameters on a field (wetness index, topographic index, water retention index, sediment transport index) were calculated for each field. These indexes were analyzed to determine if any were correlated with and could be used to easily predict places of flow concentration over a large geographic area, such as the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. Flow concentration occurred on all 74 study fields. On average, 70% of a field was drained through just 5 points along its field margin. The strongest field index relationship existed between the Wetness Index and flow concentration (R2 = 0.323). The field indexes were not good predictors of areas of high flow concentration because for any given value of an index, there was a large range of possible flow concentrations. Of the 6 topographic/soil property characteristics analyzed by these 4 field indexes (specific catchment area, runoff source area, slope, saturated hydraulic conductivity, depth to impermeable subsurface layer, and rainfall erosivity), the field slope showed the strongest relationship with flow concentration (R2 = 0.270). Principle component analysis on these 6 topographic/soil property characteristics had a first component that described 47% of the variance among these 6 variables and displayed the strongest relationship with flow concentration (R2 = 0.403). Rather than being attributable to characteristics of the topography or soil that vary from place to place, flow concentration seems to be a phenomenon that is of widespread occurrence in all areas of the Coastal Plain region of Virginia. I recommend requiring farmers to maintain riparian buffers on their land yearly. Future research should focus on determining how to reduce flow concentration through and increase the effectiveness of riparian buffers in the Coastal Plain region of Virginia

Editor\u27s Introduction to Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death

Extraction of the genetic material of the causative organism of plague, Yersinia pestis, from the remains of persons who died during the Black Death has confirmed that pathogen’s role in one of the largest pandemics of human history. This then opens up historical research to investigations based on modern science, which has studied Yersinia pestis from a variety of perspectives, most importantly its evolutionary history and its complex ecology of transmission. The contributors to this special issue argue for the benefits of a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to the many remaining mysteries associated with the plague’s geographical extent, rapid transmission, deadly outcomes, and persistence

Taking Pandemic Seriously: Making the Black Death Global

This essay introduces the inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe, “Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death”. It suggests that the history of the pathogen Yersinia pestis, as it has now been reconstructed by molecular biology, allows for an expanded definition of the Second Plague Pandemic. Historiography of the Black Death has hitherto focused on a limited number of vector and host species, and on Western Europe and those parts of the Islamicate world touching the Mediterranean littoral. Biological considerations suggest the value of a broadened framework, one that encompasses an enlarged range of host species and draws on new archeological, genetic, and historical researches to look for the presence of plague in the premodern Indian Ocean basin and East Africa, areas where it has previously not been suspected