The underlying factors of foreign language reading anxiety: Their effects on strategy use and orientation toward reading

Both positive and negative emotions have been the focus of a wealth of language learning research in recent years. This can mostly be attributed to the established links between an individual’s psychological responses, existing and emerging from learning, the learning processes they engage in, and the outcomes they achieve. A look at advanced research on language anxiety, a negative emotion that appears to be strongly involved in learning, has shown that specific information about reading anxiety is comparatively insufficient. This study, therefore, examines the underlying factors of reading anxiety in Korean university students, using the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale. Subsequently, it explores how these anxiety factors are related to strategy use (i.e., metacognitive, cognitive, and support strategies) and orientation toward reading, which demonstrates a reader’s active involvement while reading. Three sub-factors of reading anxiety were found: anxiety experienced during the process of reading English, confidence in reading, and anxiety when reading English characters. Interestingly, confidence or positive emotion was found to be a far more powerful positive contributor to Korean EFL university readers’ use of metacognitive strategies and the degree of orientation to reading than was anxiety experienced while reading. Pedagogical implications are discussed

Miniaturized ISFET Glucose Sensor Including a New Structure Actuation System

A new principle of an amperometric actuation technique was incorporated in the ISFET glucose sensor. The ISFET is fabricated by the CMOS process and the platinum working electrode is deposited by the lift-off process. A sensor with a specially designed ladder type working electrode exhibits improved operation in response time, response magnitude and detection range. An expectation concerning the reduction of sensor size is also discussed

Multilobular tumor of the mandible in a Pekingese dog

Multilobular tumor of bone detected in a 2.5-year-old male Pekingese dog is reported. Grossly, the neoplasm consisted of multiple, variably sized, gritty, grayish-white to yellow nodules separated by thick collagenous septa. Histologically, these nodules contained multiple lobules of irregularly shaped and sized islands of well-differentiated osteoid and cartilage, separated by anastomosing fibrovascular septa. Chondrocytes and osteocytes were observed in the lacunae and in more osseous islands in the lobule, respectively. These lobules were surrounded by mesenchymal spindle cells. Mitotic figures were not evident. The neoplastic pattern was consistent with that of a multilobular bone tumor. Diagnosis was based on gross and light microscopic findings. The cause of this neoplasm was not determined.This work was supported through BK 21 Program for Veterinary Science and Korea Research Foundation (KRF- 005-E00077)

Hepatocellular adenoma in a Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra)

A 7-year-old female Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) at the Seoul Grand Park, Korea, died after displaying depression, anorexia, weight loss and rough skin for several days. At necropsy, a solitary friable round mass, which was approximately 12 × 9 × 5 cm and mottled dark red and yellow, was found bulging from the right hepatic lobe. Microscopically, the nonencapsulated, poorly circumscribed mass was composed of solid sheets of neoplastic hepatocytes. In addition, numerous small tan foci, ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 cm in diameter, were evenly scattered throughout the pancreatic tissue. These foci were found to be nonencapsulated, well-demarcated hyperplastic nodules of the exocrine pancreatic gland. We observed neither intrahepatic nor extrahepatic metastases. Based on the gross and microscopic changes, we diagnosed the animal as having a hepatocellular adenoma accompanied by exocrine pancreatic nodular hyperplasia

Retrospective study of canine cutaneous tumors in Korea

Over the 42 month period from January 2003 to June 2006, a total of 2,952 canine biopsy specimens were received from the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital of Seoul National University and from veterinary practitioners across the nation. Out of these, 748 (25.34%) cases were diagnosed as canine cutaneous tumors in the Department of Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Korea. Thirty-eight different types of cutaneous tumors were identified and categorized into epithelial and melanocytic tumors (56.95%), mesenchymal tumors (38.90%), and hematopoietic tumors (4.14%) located in the skin. Among these, 69.25% were benign and 30.74% were malignant. The top ten most frequently diagnosed cutaneous tumors were epidermal and follicular cysts (12.70%), lipoma (11.36%), mast cell tumors (8.82%), cutaneous histiocytoma (7.49%), basal cell tumors (6.82%), sebaceous gland adenoma (6.68%), sebaceous gland hyperplasia (5.08%), hepatoid gland adenoma (3.61%), apocrine adenocarcinoma (3.07%), and fibroma (2.81%), in order of prevalence. They comprised 68.45% of all cutaneous tumors. These top ten cutaneous tumors were distributed on the trunk (30.08%), head and neck (20.9%), extremities (19.14%), anal and perianal area (8.59%), and tail (3.91%). The age of the dogs with the ten most frequent tumors had a mean age of 8.3 years, with a range of 2 months to 19 years. When all types of tumors were considered together in the entire population, there was no difference in incidence according to sex.This study was supported by the Brain Korea 21 Program for Veterinary Science

Liverome: a curated database of liver cancer-related gene signatures with self-contained context information

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide. A number of molecular profiling studies have investigated the changes in gene and protein expression that are associated with various clinicopathological characteristics of HCC and generated a wealth of scattered information, usually in the form of gene signature tables. A database of the published HCC gene signatures would be useful to liver cancer researchers seeking to retrieve existing differential expression information on a candidate gene and to make comparisons between signatures for prioritization of common genes. A challenge in constructing such database is that a direct import of the signatures as appeared in articles would lead to a loss or ambiguity of their context information that is essential for a correct biological interpretation of a gene’s expression change. This challenge arises because designation of compared sample groups is most often abbreviated, <it>ad hoc</it>, or even missing from published signature tables. Without manual curation, the context information becomes lost, leading to uninformative database contents. Although several databases of gene signatures are available, none of them contains informative form of signatures nor shows comprehensive coverage on liver cancer. Thus we constructed Liverome, a curated database of liver cancer-related gene signatures with self-contained context information.</p> <p>Description</p> <p>Liverome’s data coverage is more than three times larger than any other signature database, consisting of 143 signatures taken from 98 HCC studies, mostly microarray and proteome, and involving 6,927 genes. The signatures were post-processed into an informative and uniform representation and annotated with an itemized summary so that all context information is unambiguously self-contained within the database. The signatures were further informatively named and meaningfully organized according to ten functional categories for guided browsing. Its web interface enables a straightforward retrieval of known differential expression information on a query gene and a comparison of signatures to prioritize common genes. The utility of Liverome-collected data is shown by case studies in which useful biological insights on HCC are produced.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Liverome database provides a comprehensive collection of well-curated HCC gene signatures and straightforward interfaces for gene search and signature comparison as well. Liverome is available at <url>http://liverome.kobic.re.kr</url>.</p

Long-Term Exercise Training Attenuates Age-Related Diastolic Dysfunction: Association of Myocardial Collagen Cross-Linking

The incidence of diastolic heart failure increases dramatically with age. We investigated the impact of long-term exercise training on age-related diastolic dysfunction. Old (25-month-old) male Fischer 344 rats were studied after 12 weeks of treadmill exercise training or sedentary cage life (N=7, in each group). We determined cardiac performance using a pressure-volume conductance catheter and magnetic resonance imaging. Collagen volume fraction (CVF) and myocardial collagen solubility by pepsin as an index of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) cross-linked collagen were measured. The maximal slope of systolic pressure increment (+dP/dt) and the slope of end-systolic pressure-volume relation were higher, and end diastolic volume (EDV), ΔEDV (the percentage of the EDV increment-to-baseline EDV) and the slope of end-diastolic pressure-volume relation were lower in training group. The maximal slope of diastolic pressure decrement (-dP/dt) and time constant of LV pressure decay (τ) had no difference. AGEs cross-linked collagen, not CVF was reduced by exercise training. Long-term exercise training appears to attenuate age-related deterioration in cardiac systolic function and myocardial stiffness and could be reduce in pathologic AGEs cross-linked collagen in myocardium

Les déterminants des performances scolaires des élèves marocains

Le Maroc fait partie des pays en développement dont le niveau des acquis des élèves reste relativement faible. En dépit des efforts engagés en vue d’améliorer en partie la qualité des apprentissages, les résultats des enquêtes internationales et nationales révèlent de faibles niveaux des acquis. Dès lors, l’objectif de cet article est de revenir sur les facteurs qui influencent les performances scolaires des élèves. Nous nous intéressons plus spécifiquement aux déterminants microéconomiques de la qualité de l’éducation à travers les performances des élèves. Les études sur les déterminants des performances scolaires sont riches d’enseignement. Les premières contributions se sont focalisées sur le rôle de l’environnement familial dans l’explication de la réussite des élèves (Coleman, 1966, par exemple). D’autres, plus récemment, ont abordé les facteurs liés à l’établissement scolaire. Pour autant, les contributions récentes mettent en avant l’importance à la fois de l’environnement familial et de l’école (Hanushek, 2003). Des travaux plus récents oulignent également l’influence des pairs sur les performances scolaires. Le présent travail s’inscrit dans cette logique. Son originalité se situe à un double niveau. La première réside dans la mise en évidence de l’ensemble des facteurs explicatifs des performances des élèves et des inégalités scolaires. Malgré l’existence d’une littérature abondante sur le sujet, cette question n’a pas été abordée, à notre connaissance, dans le cas marocain. La seconde cherche à corriger les problèmes d’endogénéité dans les modèles multiniveaux. Enfin, La technique d’imputation adoptée permet de traiter de façon pertinente les valeurs manquantes dans les bases de données. Cet article est structuré en trois parties. La première aborde la littérature empirique sur les déterminants de la réussite scolaire des élèves. La deuxième partie examine le modèle utilisé et décrit la base de données du Programme national d’évaluation des acquis (PNEA). Elle examine l’approche et la méthodologie utilisée. Enfin, la troisième partie traite des résultats obtenus et nous permet de formuler les principaux enseignements pouvant être tirés de nos résultats en matière de politiques publiques