The role of English as a lingua franca in social integration: The case of the international students of a university in Taiwan

Globalization and the ease of mobility across nations in the last decade or so have brought some fundamental changes to the structural organization and operation of universities worldwide. To enhance global competitiveness, East Asian universities, in particular, have seen a growth in the intake of international students. A majority of the previous studies on students studying abroad were undertaken in the context of English-speaking countries such as the UK and USA; research investigating students coming from afar to study in countries which are predominantly Chinese-speaking appears to be lacking. Even scanter is the work related to how this group of students navigates through the social way-of-life at the university. This article explores the social integration of the international students of a bilingual university located in northern Taiwan. More specifically, the role English as a lingua franca plays in the integration will be examined based on the narrative accounts of 14 informants. The findings suggest that some institutional and individual obstacles need to be overcome before English can become more widely accepted as the common medium of communication.published_or_final_versio

Human mental models of humanoid robots

Effective communication between a person and a robot may depend on whether there exists a common ground of understanding between the two. In two experiments modelled after human-human studies we examined how people form a mental model of a robot’s factual knowledge. Participants estimated the robot’s knowledge by extrapolating from their own knowledge and from information about the robot’s origin and language. These results suggest that designers of humanoid robots must attend not only to the social cues that robots emit but also to the information people use to create mental models of a robot.published_or_final_versio

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients Exhibit Reduced Expression of CLEC16A Isoforms in Peripheral Leukocytes

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototypic autoimmune disease with multiple etiological factors. The SLE susceptibility locus on chromosome 16p13 encodes a novel gene CLEC16A and its functional relationship with SLE is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the expression correlation of the two major CLEC16A spliced transcripts with SLE development. Expressions of the long (V1) and short (V2) CLEC16A isoforms in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were assayed by quantitative real time PCR and compared between healthy individuals and SLE patients. Correlation of CLEC16A isoform expression levels with SLE susceptibility, disease severity and twelve clinical parameters were also evaluated. Full length transcripts of CLEC16A V1 and V2 isoforms were readily amplified from PBMCs of healthy controls and patients at varying abundance. Compared with healthy controls (n = 86), expression levels of V1 and V2 were significantly reduced by ~two- and four-fold respectively in SLE patients (n = 181). The relative V2/V1 ratio was also significantly reduced by approximately two-fold. With regard to SLE disease parameters, only a weak positive correlation was found between CLEC16A V1 expression levels and SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI) score. Taken together, CLEC16A was found to be a susceptibility factor for SLE, with possible contribution to the development of the disease.published_or_final_versio

Human enterovirus 71 epidemics: what's next?

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Acupuncture Transmitted Infections

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Plasma renin activity and aldosterone level in patients with essential hypertension

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Increased homocysteine levsls in patients with ischaemic heart disease and hypertension

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Evolution of optical properties of tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) with atmosphere exposure

Tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) represents a material of significant interest for electron transport and/or light emitting layer applications in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). In spite of advances in Alq3 based devices, the knowledge and understanding of the optical properties of Alq3 and its chemical and environmental stability is still limited. With the reports of decreased turn-on voltage and increased efficiency of OLEDs, the issues of lifetime and stability of those devices are attracting increasing attention. The degradation of Alq3 based OLEDs and dark spots formation and growth have been intensively studied. The studies on degradation of optical properties of Alq3 itself remain scarce. We have investigated effects of atmosphere exposure to properties of tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) thin films by photoluminescence (PL) and absorption measurements. Alq3 films were evaporated on glass substrates at different temperatures. The influence of annealing to the environmental stability of the films has also been investigated. It has been found that deposition at higher substrate temperature and annealing of the samples deposited at room temperature yields improvement in environmental stability of the films, i.e. less decrease of the PL intensity over time with atmosphere exposure, as well as increased PL intensity. To investigate further effects of the air exposure, films deposited at room temperature were stored for four days in air, nitrogen, and oxygen. No decrease in PL intensity has been found for storage in nitrogen, while decrease for the film stored in oxygen was smaller than that for film stored in air, indicating that both humidity and oxygen play a role in PL intensity decrease in Alq3 thin films.published_or_final_versio

Coronavirus HKU15 in respiratory tract of pigs and first discovery of coronavirus quasispecies in 5′-untranslated region

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Non-Pharmacological treatment of hypertension

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