Central Asian students' adjustment experiences at a ""globalized"" Korean University

This study investigated the academic and cultural experiences of undergraduate Central Asian students at a university in Ulsan, South Korea. The study was designed to examine the experiences of Central Asian students both in their adjustment to academic work, and to the cultural environment created by the internationalization policy of the university. Using ethnographic methods that included participant observation, an open-ended questionnaire, and interviews, we examined the policies for internationalization of higher education, and we described how the stakeholders are responding to the policies with their own adjustment strategies. The stakeholders featured in this study are students from the Central Asian republics enrolled at a Korean engineering university. We conclude with suggestions on the ways that institutions of higher education can better serve international students' integration into their new community.open

The Effect of Fashion Information Characteristics on Commitment and Intention of Instagram Users

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of perceived fashion information characteristics on commitment and intention to use fashion Instagram. Additionally, the study segmented Instagram users and analyzed the differences among the segments

Key Components of Luxury Fashion Brand Identity

It is crucial to understand the brand identity as a corporate strategy, and various dimensions and elements of luxury fashion brand identity perceived by consumers at the brand-consumer interface. Therefore it would be meaningful to have in-depth interviews with professional brand managers from prestigious luxury labels to determine the key components to the brand identity of a luxury fashion brand

English for university administrative work: English officialization policy and foreign language learning motivation

This study examines how the English officialization policy of higher education in an EFL context interplays with administrative workers' motivational orientations towards English learning. The data consisted of questionnaire responses of 117 administrative members with undergraduate degrees and qualitative interviews with 9 who answered the questionnaires. The descriptive and correlation analyses showed that the participants interested in learning English-speaking countries' cultures did not perceive much benefit of the English officialization policy (EOP) in increasing their motivation to learn English. On the contrary, those who appreciated the EOP tended to be motivated to learn English for external rewards. A striking finding was that those who related the EOP to increased motivation also showed a lack of motivation to learn English. Also noteworthy was that their motivation correlated significantly with their own perceived English speaking competence. The results corroborate the significant role of the perception of English speaking competence and the context of English use in language learning motivation at the post-tertiary level. The participants expressed feelings of confusion regarding the role of English in everyday work performance. The implications of these findings are discussed with a view toward the enhanced implementation of EOP policy in an EFL context.open

Dialogic interactions in the English-mediated classroom: A case study of a social science class for engineering students in Korea

In this paper, we explore the role of dialogic interactions in enhancing L2 undergraduate students' classroom participation at a university in South Korea. Previous studies on English-mediated instruction (EMI) have focused primarily on the efficiency of instruction, as evaluated in terms of the skills and proficiency levels of the students or instructors, based on the assumption that L2 linguistic competence is the primary prerequisite for successful EMI classes. However, drawing upon survey and interview data of students' perceptions of dialogic teaching and classroom observation data, we demonstrate the success of dialogic teaching. Our findings suggest that L2 speakers can participate effectively in interactions in English when the class is designed systematically to allow multiple responses built upon their previous knowledge.open

The Role of Bounded Rationality in Macro-Finance Affine Term-Structure Models

Our goal in this paper is two-fold. First, we develop a class of term structure models that allow for the role of bounded rationality by incorporating either information-processing constraint or fear for mis-specification into affine term structure models. We indentify a set of sufficient conditions to generate the observational equivalence between affine term-structure models with rational inattention and a fear for model misspecification. The presence of bounded rationality creates a new additional factor that is not spanned by conventional factors such as level, slope, and curvature factors. Second, our empirical results indicate that substantial amounts of information capacity constraint and robustness preference for model misspecification are needed to explain the observed behavior of yields

Optogenetic mapping of cerebellar inhibitory circuitry reveals spatially biased coordination of interneurons via electrical synapses

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cell 7 (2014): 1601–1613, doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2014.04.047.We used high-speed optogenetic mapping technology to examine the spatial organization of local inhibitory circuits formed by cerebellar interneurons. Transgenic mice expressing channelrhodopsin-2 exclusively in molecular layer interneurons allowed us to focally photostimulate these neurons, while measuring resulting responses in postsynaptic Purkinje cells. This approach revealed that interneurons converge upon Purkinje cells over a broad area and that at least seven interneurons form functional synapses with a single Purkinje cell. The number of converging interneurons was reduced by treatment with gap junction blockers, revealing that electrical synapses between interneurons contribute substantially to the spatial convergence. Remarkably, gap junction blockers affected convergence in sagittal slices, but not in coronal slices, indicating a sagittal bias in electrical coupling between interneurons. We conclude that electrical synapse networks spatially coordinate interneurons in the cerebellum and may also serve this function in other brain regions.This work was supported by a CRP grant from the National Research Foundation of Singapore and by the World Class Institute (WCI) Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea (NRF grant number WCI 2009-003)