Mandarin For All: Book 2

The course is intended for general public who wish to learn to speak Mandarin for everyday conversation purposes. The course module has been specially edited for non-native undergraduate students. The course module designed is based on the format of the Chinese Proficiency Test named as Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) level 2, China

Tetra­aqua­bis(5-hydroxy­nicotinato-κN)cadmium(II)

The title compound, [Cd(C6H4NO3)2(H2O)4], was obtained by the reaction of cadmium chloride with 5-hydroxy­nicotinic acid. The CdII atom is located on an inversion centre and is coordinated by two N atoms from two 5-hydroxy­nicotinic acid ligands and four water mol­ecules in a distorted octa­hedral geometry. The structure is stabilized by inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network

ONLINE ROLE PLAY IN MANDARIN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING BY USING GLOBAL CLASSROOM METHOD

The paper reports a study on online role play in Mandarin as a Foreign Language(MFL) learning by using global classroom method. “Zoom” is the chosen videoconferencing tool for role play activity between Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP). The participants of the study included 37 students who were enrolled in elementary MFL course from UNIMAS and UMP. The data were collected through an online questionnaire and students’ testimonial videos. The results indicated that even though there were some technological issues occurred, in overall, participants were satisfied with the activity. They were able to construct new knowledge and enhance their language skills

Mandarin virtual winter camp 2022 – two worlds connected online

6 March 2022 – Universiti Malaysia Pahang through its Centre for Modern Languages (CML) and Centre for International Relations (CIR) successfully organized a two-day virtual winter camp in collaboration with Tianjin Normal University (TNU), which was held from 5 to 6 March 2022 via Voov. The camp was joined by 31 students from Universiti Malaysia Pahang who are currently doing their dual degree programme. These students need to pass their Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) level 3 in order for them to pursue their studies in China

Mid-infrared Self-Similar Pulse Compression in a Tapered Tellurite Photonic Crystal Fiber and Its Application in Supercontinuum Generation

In this paper, we design a tapered tellurite photonic crystal fiber (TTPCF) with nonlinear coefficient increasing along the propagation direction, and demonstrate the mid-infrared self-similar pulse compression of the fundamental soliton in such a TTPCF. When the variation of group-velocity dispersion, higher-order dispersion, higher-order nonlinearity, and linear loss are considered, a 1 ps pulse at wavelength 2.5 μm can be compressed to 62.16 fs after a 1.63-m long propagation, along with the negligible pedestal, compression factor Fc of 16.09, and quality factor Qc of 83.16%. Then the compressed pulse is launched into another uniform tellurite PCF designed, and highly coherent and octave-spanning supercontinuum (SC) is generated. Compared to the initial picosecond pulse, the compressed pulse has much larger tolerance of noise level for the SC generation. Our research results provide a promising solution to realize the fiber-based mid-infrared femtosecond pulse source for nonlinear photonics and spectroscopy

Mid-Infrared Self-Similar Pulse Compression in a Tapered Tellurite Photonic Crystal Fiber and Its Application in Supercontinuum Generation

In this paper, we design a tapered tellurite photonic crystal fiber (TTPCF) with nonlinear coefficient increasing along the propagation direction, and demonstrate the mid-infrared self-similar pulse compression of the fundamental soliton in such a TTPCF. When the variation of group-velocity dispersion, higher-order dispersion, higher-order nonlinearity, and linear loss are considered, a 1 ps pulse at wavelength 2.5 μm can be compressed to 62.16 fs after a 1.63-m long propagation, along with the negligible pedestal, compression factor Fc of 16.09, and quality factor Qc of 83.16%. Then the compressed pulse is launched into another uniform tellurite PCF, where highly coherent and octave-spanning supercontinuum (SC) is generated. Compared to the initial picosecond pulse, the compressed pulse has much larger tolerance of noise level for the SC generation. Our research results provide a promising solution to realize the fiber-based mid-infrared femtosecond pulse source for nonlinear photonics and spectroscopy

Cell nucleus elastography with the adjoint-based inverse solver

Background and Objectives: The mechanics of the nucleus depends on cellular structures and architecture, and impact a number of diseases. Nuclear mechanics is yet rather complex due to heterogeneous distribution of dense heterochromatin and loose euchromatin domains, giving rise to spatially variable stiffness properties. Methods: In this study, we propose to use the adjoint-based inverse solver to identify for the first time the nonhomogeneous elastic property distribution of the nucleus. Inputs of the inverse solver are deformation fields measured with microscopic imaging in contracting cardiomyocytes. Results: The feasibility of the proposed method is first demonstrated using simulated data. Results indicate accurate identification of the assumed heterochromatin region, with a maximum relative error of less than 5%. We also investigate the influence of unknown Poisson's ratio on the reconstruction and find that variations of the Poisson's ratio in the range [0.3-0.5] result in uncertainties of less than 15% in the identified stiffness. Finally, we apply the inverse solver on actual deformation fields acquired within the nuclei of two cardiomyocytes. The obtained results are in good agreement with the density maps obtained from microscopy images. Conclusions: Overall, the proposed approach shows great potential for nuclear elastography, with promising value for emerging fields of mechanobiology and mechanogenetics

Minutiae Matching with Privacy Protection Based on the Combination of Garbled Circuit and Homomorphic Encryption

Biometrics plays an important role in authentication applications since they are strongly linked to holders. With an increasing growth of e-commerce and e-government, one can expect that biometric-based authentication systems are possibly deployed over the open networks in the near future. However, due to its openness, the Internet poses a great challenge to the security and privacy of biometric authentication. Biometric data cannot be revoked, so it is of paramount importance that biometric data should be handled in a secure way. In this paper we present a scheme achieving privacy-preserving fingerprint authentication between two parties, in which fingerprint minutiae matching algorithm is completed in the encrypted domain. To improve the efficiency, we exploit homomorphic encryption as well as garbled circuits to design the protocol. Our goal is to provide protection for the security of template in storage and data privacy of two parties in transaction. The experimental results show that the proposed authentication protocol runs efficiently. Therefore, the protocol can run over open networks and help to alleviate the concerns on security and privacy of biometric applications over the open networks