Situated Learning: Learn to Tell English Stories

For students in a perspective English teacher program, enhancing language proficiency and teaching knowledge is essential so that they can participate in the teaching community. This study investigated the acquisition of an unfamiliar discursive practice by four undergraduate students in a perspective EFL teacher training program. The practice is storytelling which is often overlooked in teacher-training programs in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context such as in Taiwan. In this study, four undergraduate students in a teacher-training program of a medium-sized university in southern Taiwan were provided an opportunity to tell stories to primary-school children. Qualitative data were collected, including students’ teaching experiences and reflective journals throughout the entire project, videotapes of four storytelling rehearsals and the real storytelling episodes, and interviews. By using situated learning as the theoretical framework, this study depicts the change in the students and instructor as well as in the students’ co-participation patterns by which the students moved from peripheral to fuller participation. This study provides EFL teacher educators a perspective that considers teacher training as co-constructed development in situated discursive practices

Purchasing power parity in G-7 countries: Further evidence based on ADL test for threshold cointegration

This study applies a newly-developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ADL) test for threshold cointegration, proposed by Li and Lee (2010) to test the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) for G-7 countries over the January 1994 to April 2010. The empirical results indicate that PPP only holds true for Canada and France two countries. Our results have important policy implications for the G-7 countries under study.Purchasing Power Parity; G-7 Countries; ADL Test; Threshold Cointegration

Condensation of the atomic relaxation vibrations in lead-magnesium-niobate at T=T∗T=T^*

We present neutron diffraction, dielectric permittivity and photoconductivity measurements, evidencing that lead-magnesium niobate experiences a diffuse phase transformation between the spherical glass and quadrupole glass phases, in the temperature interval between 400 K and 500 K, with the quadrupole phase possessing extremely high magnitudes of dielectric permittivity. Our analysis shows that the integral diffuse scattering intensity may serve as an order parameter for this transformation. Our experimental dielectric permittivity data support this choice. These data are important for the aplications desiring giant dielectric responses, in a wide temperature intervals and not related to electron's excitations.Comment: 6 figure

Chinese Herbal Medicine Therapy and the Risk of Mortality for Chronic Hepatitis B Patients with Concurrent Liver Cirrhosis: a Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is increasingly recognized as a public health problem in Taiwan. After affected patients are diagnosed with contaminant liver cirrhosis (LC), adverse clinical outcomes, especially death, are common. This study aimed to investigate the effect of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), an essential branch of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), on the mortality risk among CHB patients with contaminant LC. This longitudinal cohort study used the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database to identify 1522 patients 20–70 years of age with newly diagnosed CHB with LC during 1998–2007. Among them, 508 (33.37%) had received CHM products after the onset of CHB (CHM users), and the remaining 1014 patients (66.63%) were designated as a control group (non-CHM users). All enrollees were followed until the end of 2012 to determine deaths during the study period. We applied the Cox proportional hazards regression model to compute the hazard ratio for the association of CHM use and the subsequent risk of death. During the follow-up period, 156 CHM users and 493 non-CHM users died. After controlling for potential confounders, CHM users were found to have a significantly reduced risk of death compared with non-CHM users by 56%, and the effect was predominantly observed among those treated with CHM for \u3e 180 days. CHM therapy lowered the risk of death among CHB patients with contaminant LC, which supported CHM might provide further treatment options for those with chronic liver diseases

Layers of Metal Nanoparticles on Semiconductors Deposited by Electrophoresis from Solutions with Reverse Micelles

Pd nanoparticles were prepared with reverse micelles of water/AOT/isooctane solution and deposited onto silicon or InP substrates by electrophoresis. A large change of capacitance-voltage characteristics of mercury contacts on a semiconductor was found after Pd deposition. This change could be modified when the Pd deposition is followed by a partial removal of the deposited AOT. The deposited Pd nanoparticles were investigated by optical mictroscopy, SIMS and SEM. Finally, Schottky diodes with barrier height as high as 1.07 eV were prepared by deposition of Pd nanoparticles on n-type InP and by a partial removal of superfluous AOT. These diodes are prospective structures for further testing as hydrogen sensors

Elevated BCRP/ABCG2 Expression Confers Acquired Resistance to Gefitinib in Wild-Type EGFR-Expressing Cells

The sensitivity of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) is strongly associated with activating EGFR mutations. Although not as sensitive as patients harboring these mutations, some patients with wild-type EGFR (wtEGFR) remain responsive to EGFR TKIs, suggesting that the existence of unexplored mechanisms renders most of wtEGFR-expressing cancer cells insensitive.Here, we show that acquired resistance of wtEGFR-expressing cancer cells to an EGFR TKI, gefitinib, is associated with elevated expression of breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP/ABCG2), which in turn leads to gefitinib efflux from cells. In addition, BCRP/ABCG2 expression correlates with poor response to gefitinib in both cancer cell lines and lung cancer patients with wtEGFR. Co-treatment with BCRP/ABCG2 inhibitors enhanced the anti-tumor activity of gefitinib.Thus, BCRP/ABCG2 expression may be a predictor for poor efficacy of gefitinib treatment, and targeting BCRP/ABCG2 may broaden the use of gefitinib in patients with wtEGFR

Intraoperative hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy as adjuvant chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer patients with serosal invasion

AbstractBackgroundTo evaluate hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) as an adjuvant chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer (AGC) patients with serosal invasion.MethodsPatients who received radical surgery and palliative surgery between January 2002 and December 2010 were retrospectively examined. Patients were divided into two groups, namely, one group that underwent surgery and another group that underwent surgery with HIPEC. All patients who received HIPEC had suspected serosal invasion on an abdominal computed tomography or by the surgeon's assessment during the operation.ResultsThe prophylactic groups included 83 patients who underwent gastrectomy alone. A total of 29 patients underwent gastrectomy with HIPEC. The 5-year survival rates were 10.7% and 43.9%, respectively. The 5-year mean survival times were 22.66 (17.55–25.78) and 34.81 (24.97–44.66) months (p = 0.029), respectively. There were 52 patients who had a recurrence of carcinomatosis among 133 patients who had resections (52/133, 39.1%). The 3-year disease-free survival rate for carcinomatosis was 28.87% in the group that received surgery alone, whereas it was 66.03% in the group that received HIPEC. There was no significant difference in the rate of complication between the two groups in the prophylactic group (p = 0.542). Thus, curative surgery with HIPEC had a better prognosis for AGC with serosal invasion. The carcinomatosis recurrence time was longer in patients who underwent gastrectomy with HIPEC and received R0 resection.ConclusionThe survival benefit of HIPEC as an adjuvant therapy for gastric cancer patients with serosal invasion should be validated in a large cohort