La politique linguistique et l'avenir du Francais au Mexique:etude du cas de l'universite de Veracruz

In a linguistic context where it seems the entire world is only interested in learning English, it is worth considering the idea of whether French still has a place in Mexico. In spite of the predominance of English, there is nevertheless a feeling that French remains alive in Mexico, and indeed in certain areas has retained its strength and appeal. This hypothesis was to put to the test by exploring the current linguistic environment prevalent in the state of Veracruz. An investigation in the form of questionnaires and interviews of all those connected to the teaching of French (including students, teachers and employees and directors of language schools) shows that the desire of the Mexican government of promoting English for everyone is not necessarily consistent with the desire and expectations of the general populace. This in turn suggest the need of adopting a policy that enables us not only to take into consideration what people seem to be telling us regarding the learning of foreign learning but also of what they are not telling us. If the teaching and learning of French as a foreign language remains strong in Veracruz, it is explained much more by the long and friendly relationship that people in the state have had with French people (and their culture) than it is by any instrumental needs of learning their language. This is seen in the fact that students here consistently describe their motivation for learning French from an emotional or affective standpoint rather than from professional one. It seems that the ties between the Mexican and French people remain solid. Another interesting characteristic of students of French in Veracruz is the positive attitude they seem to have regarding languages in general, which in turn enables them to take further advantage of the benefits made available from globalization. In reality, there exists no rivalry between French and English and therefore it is unnecessary to adopt measures that would address such struggle. It is however a matter of great urgency that authorities in the arenas of politics and academia take a closer look at the policies they design regarding the study of foreign languages in general, and that they consider, specifically, a wholly alternative to the one language model of teaching and learning of foreign language – in this case English-, a model that for all intents and purposes has failed. In the midst of a globalized world, and during this current period of increased linguistic activity, the aforementioned assertions serve not only to support my initial hypothesis, but also to help shake off the dust of some out-dated belief systems and lay down the framework for a new, better informed and well thought-out policy of foreign languages planning

A low complexity iterative channel estimation and equalisation scheme for (data-dependent) superimposed training

Channel estimation/symbol detection methods based on superimposed training (ST) are known to bemore bandwidth efficient than those based on traditional time-multiplexed training. In this paper we present an iterative version of the ST methodwhere the equalised symbols obtained via ST are used in a second step to improve the channel estimation, approaching the performance of the more recent (and improved) data dependent ST (DDST), but now with less complexity. This iterative ST method (IST) is then compared to a different iterative superimposed training method of Meng and Tugnait (LSST).We show via simulations that the BER of our IST algorithm is very close to that of the LSST but with a reduced computational burden of the order of the channel length. Furthermore, if the LSST iterative approach (originally based on ST) is now implemented using DDST, a faster convergence rate can be achieved for the MSE of the channel estimates

A test of the instanton vacuum chiral quark model with axial anomaly low-energy theorems

The QCD + QED axial anomaly low-energy theorems are applied to estimate the accuracy of an instanton vacuum - based chiral quark model. The low-energy theorems give an exact relation between the matrix elements of the gluon and photon parts of the QCD + QED axial anomaly operator equation. The matrix elements between vacuum and two photon states and between vacuum and two gluon states are calculated for arbitrary N_f. It is shown that this model does satisfy the low-energy theorems with an accuracy of $\sim 17$. We estimate also the contribution of the nonperturbative conversion of gluons into photons to the decay $\eta ' \rightarrow 2 \gamma$ and compare with experimental data.Comment: uudecode, gzip, latex, 11 pages, the text and the list of references was slightly change

Evaluating Scalable Distributed Erlang for Scalability and Reliability

Large scale servers with hundreds of hosts and tens of thousands of cores are becoming common. To exploit these platforms software must be both scalable and reliable, and distributed actor languages like Erlang are a proven technology in this area. While distributed Erlang conceptually supports the engineering of large scale reliable systems, in practice it has some scalability limits that force developers to depart from the standard language mechanisms at scale. In earlier work we have explored these scalability limitations, and addressed them by providing a Scalable Distributed (SD) Erlang library that partitions the network of Erlang Virtual Machines (VMs) into scalable groups (s_groups). This paper presents the first systematic evaluation of SD Erlang s_groups and associated tools, and how they can be used. We present a comprehensive evaluation of the scalability and reliability of SD Erlang using three typical benchmarks and a case study. We demonstrate that s_groups improve the scalability of reliable and unreliable Erlang applications on up to 256 hosts (6,144 cores). We show that SD Erlang preserves the class-leading distributed Erlang reliability model, but scales far better than the standard model. We present a novel, systematic, and tool-supported approach for refactoring distributed Erlang applications into SD Erlang. We outline the new and improved monitoring, debugging and deployment tools for large scale SD Erlang applications. We demonstrate the scaling characteristics of key tools on systems comprising up to 10 K Erlang VMs

Phylogeny and taxonomy of Circinotrichum, Gyrothrix, Vermiculariopsiella and other setose hyphomycetes

Circinotrichum, Gyrothrix and Vermiculariopsiella represent a complex of dematiaceous, setose, saprobic hyphomycetes that are commonly collected on plant litters in tropical, subtropical to temperate climates. Multi-locus analysis (ITS, LSU, rpb2) and morphological studies revealed that Gyrothrix and Circinotrichum are polyphyletic and species belong to 10 genera grouping in three different clades within Xylariales, named Coniocessiaceae (Circinotrichum and Pirozynskiomyces gen. nov.), Microdochiaceae (Selenodriella and the resurrected genus Peglionia) and the new family Gyrothricaceae (Gyrothrix, Xenoanthostomella, Neogyrothrix gen. nov., Pseudocircinotrichum gen. nov., and Pseudoceratocladium gen. nov.). Vermiculariopsiella (Vermiculariopsiellales, Vermiculariopsiellaceae) is emended for species with setose sporodochia with simple setae (V. dichapetali, V. eucalypticola, V. immersa, V. pini, V. spiralis, V. australiensis sp. nov.) while Vermiculariopsis is resurrected and includes setose fungi with branched setae (Vs. dunni, Vs. eucalypti, Vs. eucalyptigena, Vs. lauracearum, Vs. microsperma, Vs. pediculata and Vs. castanedae sp. nov.).http://www.persoonia.orgam2023BiochemistryForestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI)GeneticsMicrobiology and Plant Patholog

A Study of the 't Hooft Model with the Overlap Dirac Operator

We present the results of an exploratory numerical study of two dimensional QCD with overlap fermions. We have performed extensive simulations for U(N_c) and SU(N_c) color groups with N_c=2, 3, 4 and coupling constants chosen to satisfy the 't Hooft condition g^2 N_c =const=4/3. We have computed the meson spectrum and decay constants, the topological susceptibility and the chiral condensate. For U(N_c) gauge groups, our results indicate that the Witten-Veneziano relation is satisfied within our statistical errors and that the chiral condensate for N_f=1 is compatible with a non-zero value. Our results exhibit universality in N_c and confirm once more the excellent chiral properties of the overlap-Dirac operator.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Staggered versus overlap fermions: a study in the Schwinger model with Nf=0,1,2N_f=0,1,2

We study the scalar condensate and the topological susceptibility for a continuous range of quark masses in the Schwinger model with $N_f=0,1,2$ dynamical flavors, using both the overlap and the staggered discretization. At finite lattice spacing the differences between the two formulations become rather dramatic near the chiral limit, but they get severely reduced, at the coupling considered, after a few smearing steps.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, v2: 1 ref corrected, minor change