Mediating Language Fluency Development: An Action Research Study In A High-School AP Chinese Second-or-Foreign-Language Task-Based Language Teaching Classroom

Fluency development is critical in language learning; however, the teacher’s role as a mediator in a learner’s fluency development rarely has been explored in Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) classrooms. This study investigated how a teacher, as the human mediator who can be certain that stimuli in the learning environment will be available and benefit the learners, implemented mediation under the guidance of Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) theory in aiding learners’ speaking cognitive and utterance fluency development in one AP Chinese high-school TBLT classroom in the Bay Area. MLE theory, developed by psychologist Reuven Feuerstein, provided a mediation framework for this study. This study used action research and mixed methods. Its design followed the test-intervention-test procedure and collected data from 10 days of mediation interaction audio-recording transcripts, teacher’s observation and reflection log, lesson plans, unit plans, MLE teacher self-rating checklists, and pre- and posttest speaking samples from 21 participants. The study\u27s results first suggest what types of mediation might influence fluency development after finding mediation of intentionality and mediation of feeling of competence were practiced most and much more frequently than other mediation types during the whole mediation period. Second, this study indicated that questioning could be used as a mediation technique across different types of mediations. Finally, the study highlighted two possible factors ii 3 that affect mediation implementation. One is if the mediator can modify lesson plans to meet mediation needs; the other is that the mediator’s personality can affect their mediation strategy choices. To investigate whether mediation is effective, this study measured three utterance fluency variables that correlate to cognitive fluency development: the number of silent pauses, the number of self-corrections, and mean syllable duration (MSD). The pre- and posttests data showed that both the learners’ number of silent pauses and MSD statistically significantly decreased in the posttests, which suggests that meditation intervention improved learners’ utterance and cognitive fluency development. Although the decrease in the number of self-corrections on the posttest was not statistically significant in this study, it does not invalidate the research findings because self-correction is a variable that may require a much longer time to change

Altered Achilles Tendon Morphology in Individuals With Chronic Post-Stroke Hemiparesis: A Case Report

Background: Individuals post-stroke walk slowly and with more effort, which puts them at higher risks for falls. The slow walking speed results from insufficient propulsive forces generated by the paretic leg. Current rehabilitative efforts to improve walking function target increasing propulsive forces, but overlook the muscle-tendon unit. Case presentations: Two individuals with chronic post-stroke hemiparesis are presented. In both individuals post-stroke, paretic ankle plantarflexors presented with increased muscle tone. Gait kinetics revealed asymmetric propulsive forces, specifically, insufficient propulsive forces by the paretic legs, consistent with previous literature. Sonography revealed increased thickness of paretic Achilles tendon at the calcaneal insertion, in both stroke cases, in contrast to comparable Achilles tendon thickness between limbs in the non-neurologically impaired controls. Conclusion: Tendon unit integrity should be considered in individuals post-stroke who demonstrate abnormal muscle tone and insufficient propulsion during gait

Three essays on food safety and foodborne illness

This dissertation explores economic impacts of food related illness on agricultural industries and models the performance of food safety programs on supply chain participants. Three stand-alone studies are dedicated to economic analysis on food safety issues from different approaches analytically, empirically, and in simulation. In response to recent outbreaks of food-borne illness, the fresh produce and fruit industries have adopted marketing agreements to ensure the consistency of food safety. Chapter 2 presents a theoretical framework and simulation analysis to illustrate farmers\u27 behavior on implementing Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), and the design of monitoring strategies in setting marketing agreements. It reveals that, if the monitoring resources are not high enough to achieve full compliance on GAPs, the general rule is to allocate resources so that the total amount of decreased fraud in terms of safety effort is the same for all farms. When auditing resources are very low, the size effect is dominant and larger farms are inspected first; when auditing resources are large enough, the cost effect is dominant and smaller farms are inspected first. The optimal auditing probability for smaller farms increases faster than that for larger farms. Contracts now are widely used between processors and growers to specify product quality and safety attributes. Chapter 3 employs a multitask principal-agent model to analyze the optimal incentive structure in contract food production. It offers guidance on understanding contractual relations for both food quality and food safety, and how the inclusion of a traceability system influences the provisions of the contract. Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Asia, Europe, and Africa have caused severe impacts on the broiler sector through production loss, trade restrictions and negative demand shocks. Chapter 4 presents a multimarket econometric model to conduct simulation analyses on the spread and market implications of a potential HPAI outbreak in U.S. broiler industry. It takes into account market power that might exist within the livestock and meat sectors and makes endogenous the optimal production conditions in the model system. Findings from the analysis imply that the HPAI shocks impact prices at different marketing levels unequally and change the price margin along the supply chain with the existence of market power. However, the change in the price margin is quite small in absolute value

Foldable Device with Dynamic User Interface for Search Engine and Chatbot

Current chatbots, e.g., powered by a large language model (LLM) respond to a user query via a conversational user interface. The user interface is not optimized for portable devices that have smaller screen size and may be foldable. Also, while chatbots can answer certain types of questions well, their answers are not always reliable. This disclosure describes a dynamic user interface that combines the advantages of a chatbot and a search engine in the context of a foldable device. The display area of the foldable device is split into two portions, one for query responses from an index-based search engine and the other for responses from a chatbot

Marketing Agreement, Food Safety and Contract Design

Recent outbreaks of food-borne illness related to fruit and vegetables have led to increased concerns about the safety of produce. In response, the industry has adopted marketing agreements to ensure consistency of product safety. Contracts now are widely used between processors and growers to specify product safety attributes. This paper uses a principal-agent model to examine how the inclusion of a marketing agreement influences the behavior of growers and processors under processor-grower contracts. We conclude that: (1) the processor offers a contract with a higher premium and a lower base payment under the contract with a marketing agreement (2) contract parameters change in similar manner under the two contracts (3) under a contract with a marketing agreement the processor earns less profit. The individual contract scenarios are discussed in detail.contract, food safety, principal-agent, market agreements, GAPs, on-farm inspection, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Gamma-Ray Burst Jet Breaks Revisited

Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) collimation has been inferred with the observations of achromatic steepening in GRB light curves, known as jet breaks. Identifying a jet break from a GRB afterglow light curve allows a measurement of the jet opening angle and true energetics of GRBs. In this paper, we re-investigate this problem using a large sample of GRBs that have an optical jet break that is consistent with being achromatic in the X-ray band. Our sample includes 99 GRBs from 1997 February to 2015 March that have optical and, for Swift GRBs, X-ray light curves that are consistent with the jet break interpretation. Out of the 99 GRBs we have studied, 55 GRBs are found to have temporal and spectral behaviors both before and after the break, consistent with the theoretical predictions of the jet break models, respectively. These include 53 long/soft (Type II) and 2 short/hard (Type I) GRBs. Only 1 GRB is classified as the candidate of a jet break with energy injection. Another 41 and 3 GRBs are classified as the candidates with the lower and upper limits of the jet break time, respectively. Most jet breaks occur at 90 ks, with a typical opening angle θj = (2.5 ± 1.0)°. This gives a typical beaming correction factor ${f}_{b}^{-1}\sim 1000$ for Type II GRBs, suggesting an even higher total GRB event rate density in the universe. Both isotropic and jet-corrected energies have a wide span in their distributions: log(Eγ,iso/erg) = 53.11 with σ = 0.84; log(EK,iso/erg) = 54.82 with σ = 0.56; log(Eγ/erg) = 49.54 with σ = 1.29; and log(EK/erg) = 51.33 with σ = 0.58. We also investigate several empirical correlations (Amati, Frail, Ghirlanda, and Liang–Zhang) previously discussed in the literature. We find that in general most of these relations are less tight than before. The existence of early jet breaks and hence small opening angle jets, which were detected in the Swfit era, is most likely the source of scatter. If one limits the sample to jet breaks later than 104 s, the Liang–Zhang relation remains tight and the Ghirlanda relation still exists. These relations are derived from Type II GRBs, and Type I GRBs usually deviate from them