CHALLENGES FOR CHINESE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDENTS IN CANADIAN ANGLOPHONE CLASSROOMS

As globalization is affecting all aspects of civilization in the first decade of the 21st century, global higher education is on the cusp of a transformation period. University students from Mainland China encounter a great many challenges in cross-cultural communications while studying in Western countries like Canada. This thesis explores and analyzes the challenges that Chinese international university graduate students (CIUGSs) at Master’s level are encountering in Canadian Anglophone classrooms by identifying the challenges, causes of these challenges and the impacts of these challenges. I address the above three research questions through the lens of a multi-method qualitative approach that includes participant observation, individual interviews and a study of my own experiences. To answer the above three research questions, the six-dimensions of culture (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010) and the theory of capital (Bourdieu,1986) are employed to analyze the findings. The findings of this study identify that different features of the six-dimensions of culture between Canada and Mainland China cause considerable challenges for CIUGSs in participating in class activities. Furthermore, this study aligns with five of the six-dimensions but does not agree with the judgment of Hofstede et al. (2010), which categorized Chinese culture as having weak uncertainty avoidance. Additionally, it is asserted that the lack of a decent quality of various forms of Canadian capital generates difficulties for CIUGSs and may engender inequity in Canadian classrooms. This study indicates that Chinese features in the six-dimensions of culture engender obstacles for CIUGSs in obtaining Canadian capitals. To better participate in cross-cultural communications in Canadian classrooms, CIUGSs have to obtain sufficient quality of Canadian forms of capital, in this way, their Canadian habitus is cultivated gradually. Eventually their cultural attributes in the six-dimensions can be altered to approach Canadian style and, as a result, their performance in class activities can be enhanced. To better help CIUGSs to improve their performance in Canadian university Anglophone classrooms, suggestions for CIUGSs, instructors and university administrators are provided in this study

Absolute frequency measurements with a robust, transportable ^{40}Ca^{+} optical clock

We constructed a transportable 40Ca+ optical clock (with an estimated minimum systematic shift uncertainty of 1.3*10^(-17) and a stability of 5*10^(-15)/sqrt{tau} ) that can operate outside the laboratory. We transported it from the Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan to the National Institute of Metrology, Beijing. The absolute frequency of the 729 nm clock transition was measured for up to 35 days by tracing its frequency to the second of International System of Units. Some improvements were implemented in the measurement process, such as the increased effective up-time of 91.3 % of the 40Ca+ optical clock over a 35-day-period, the reduced statistical uncertainty of the comparison between the optical clock and hydrogen maser, and the use of longer measurement times to reduce the uncertainty of the frequency traceability link. The absolute frequency measurement of the 40Ca+ optical clock yielded a value of 411042129776400.26 (13) Hz with an uncertainty of 3.2*10^(-16), which is reduced by a factor of 1.7 compared with our previous results. As a result of the increase in the operating rate of the optical clock, the accuracy of 35 days of absolute frequency measurement can be comparable to the best results of different institutions in the world based on different optical frequency measurements.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Secure Analysis of Multi-Antenna Cooperative Networks with Residual Transceiver HIs and CEEs

In this paper, we investigate the secure performance of multi-antenna decode-and-forward (DF) relaying networks where the Nakagami-m fading channel is taken into account. In practice, the joint impact of residual transceiver hardware impairments (HIs) and channel estimation errors (CEEs) on the outage probability and intercept probability is taken into account. Considering HIs and CEEs, an optimal transmit antenna selection (OTAS) scheme is proposed to enhance the secure performance and then a collaborative eavesdropping scheme is proposed. Additionally, we present main channel capacity and intercept capacity of the multi-antenna DF relaying networks. More specifically, we derive exact closed-form expressions for the outage and intercept probabilities. To obtain useful insights into implications of parameters on the secure performance, the asymptotic behaviors for the outage probability are examined in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime and the diversity orders are obtained and discussed. Simulation results confirm the analytical derivations and demonstrate that: 1) As the power distribution coefficient increases, OP decreases, while IP increases; 2) There exist error floors for the outage probability at high SNRs, which is determined by CEEs; 3) The secure performance can be improved by increasing the number of source antennas and artificial noise quantization coefficient, while as the number of eavesdropping increases, the security performance of the system is reduced; 4) There is a trade-off between the outage probability and intercept probability

Natural Coevolution of Tumor and Immunoenvironment in Glioblastoma.

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) wild-type glioblastoma (GBM) has a dismal prognosis. A better understanding of tumor evolution holds the key to developing more effective treatment. Here we study GBM\u27s natural evolutionary trajectory by using rare multifocal samples. We sequenced 61,062 single cells from eight multifocal IDH wild-type primary GBMs and defined a natural evolution signature (NES) of the tumor. We show that the NES significantly associates with the activation of transcription factors that regulate brain development, including MYBL2 and FOSL2. Hypoxia is involved in inducing NES transition potentially via activation of the HIF1A-FOSL2 axis. High-NES tumor cells could recruit and polarize bone marrow-derived macrophages through activation of the FOSL2-ANXA1-FPR1/3 axis. These polarized macrophages can efficiently suppress T-cell activity and accelerate NES transition in tumor cells. Moreover, the polarized macrophages could upregulate CCL2 to induce tumor cell migration. SIGNIFICANCE: GBM progression could be induced by hypoxia via the HIF1A-FOSL2 axis. Tumor-derived ANXA1 is associated with recruitment and polarization of bone marrow-derived macrophages to suppress the immunoenvironment. The polarized macrophages promote tumor cell NES transition and migration. This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 2711

The COVID-19 Pandemic's Impacts On Post-Secondary International Students' Public Transit Usage In The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and The Greater Vancouver Area (GVA)

This master's thesis investigates the profound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public transit usage of post-secondary international students (PSIS) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA). The research aims to understand the diverse experiences of PSIS while using public transit in these two regions, explore their specific needs and challenges in transit utilization, and assess how universities can support PSIS by facilitating their use of public transit. The study adopts transportation studies, education, and sociology disciplines, employing a mixed-methods research approach, incorporating qualitative and quantitative research methods. The findings indicate that PSIS have concerns about long travel duration, safety, and expensive transit fees. The GVA's U-Pass program makes public transit access more affordable than that in the GTA. These insights underscore the tailored support from universities and policymakers to enhance PSIS experiences with public transit, which is significant in PSIS development

Crafting a Job among Chinese Employees: The Role of Empowering Leadership and the Links to Work-Related Outcomes

The present study aims to examine the process through which empowering leadership shapes employees’ work engagement and in-role performance by facilitating job-crafting behaviors, specifically seeking resources, seeking challenges, and reducing demands. Based on the extensive data from 733 Chinese employees across various organizations located predominantly in Chongqing and Xi’an, China, we carried out different types of statistical analysis such as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationships among empowering leadership, specific job-crafting behaviors, work engagement and in-role performance, test our hypothesis and our conceptual model. The results from structural equation modeling (SEM) suggested that empowering leadership was positively related to employees’ work engagement and in-role performance; empowering leadership was positively related to employees’ job crafting (seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands); seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands were positively related to in-role performance, and seeking challenges and reducing demands were positively related to work engagement. In the relationship between empowering leadership and in-role performance, seeking resources serves as a mediating factor. Similarly, seeking challenges mediates the association between empowering leadership and both work engagement and in-role performance. Furthermore, reducing demands mediates the links between empowering leadership and both work engagement and in-role performance. The implications of these findings are subsequently discussed

Effects of Interlaminar Failure on the Scratch Damage of Automotive Coatings: Cohesive Zone Modeling

Interlaminar failure caused by scratches is a common damage mode in automotive coatings and is considered the potential trigger for irreversible destruction, i.e., plowing. This work strives to numerically investigate the mechanisms responsible for the complex scratch behavior of an automotive coating system, considering the interfacial failure. A finite element model is developed by incorporating a large deformation cohesive zone model for scratch-induced debonding simulation, where the mass scaling technique is utilized to minimize computational burden while ensuring accuracy. The delamination phenomenon of the automotive coating is reproduced, and its effects on scratch damage behavior are analyzed. Accordingly, it is revealed that the interlaminar delamination would produce significant stress redistribution, which leads to brittle and ductile damage of the coating and consequently affects the formation of plowing. Eventually, parametric studies on the effects of interfacial properties are performed. They demonstrate that the shear strength and shear fracture energy dominate scratch-induced delamination

Security and Reliability Performance Analysis of Cooperative Multi-Relay Systems With Nonlinear Energy Harvesters and Hardware Impairments

In this paper, we investigate the reliability and security performance of cooperative multi-relay systems, where both source and relay nodes are energy-constrained nonlinear energy harvesters, scavenging energy from a power beacon nearby. Our analysis is based on practical model since residual hardware impairments (RHIs) and channel estimation errors (CEEs) are considered. Aiming at improving the system efficiency, three representative relay selection strategies are considered: 1) random relay selection (RRS); 2) suboptimal relay selection (SRS); and 3) optimal relay selection (ORS). To characterize the security performance of the considered strategies, we derive closed-form analytical expressions of the reliability and security in terms of outage probability (OP) and intercept probability (IP). We further discuss the asymptotic expressions and scaling laws of OP with the number of relays. The IP is analyzed for non-colluding and colluding scenarios. The numerical results illustrate that: 1) There is a tradeoff between reliability and security, that is when the outage constraint is relaxed, the IP can be enhanced, and vice versa; ii) The outage performance of the ORS and SRS schemes outperform RRS, indicating that relay selection can enhance reliability performance; iii) There are error floors for the OP due to the CEEs; iv) Colluding eavesdroppers can enhance eavesdropping attacks by sharing their intercepted information; and v) Although RHIs and CEEs have deleterious effects on the OP, they can protect the information transmission against eavesdropping attacks