Solution reaction design: electroaccepting and electrodonating powers of ions in solution

By considering a first-order variation in electroaccepting and electrodonating powers, ω±, induced by a change from gas to aqueous solution phase, the solvent effect on ω± for charged ions is examined. The expression of electroaccepting and electrodonating powers in the solution phase, ω±s, is obtained through establishing the quantitative relationship between the change of the ω± due to the solvation and the hydration free energy. It is shown that cations are poorer electron acceptors and anions are poorer electron donors in solution compared to those in gas phase. We have proven that the scaled aqueous electroaccepting power, ω+s, of cations can act as a good descriptor of the reduction reaction, which is expected to be applied in the design of solution reactions

On Cultivating Senior Middle School Students’ Cross-Cultural Awareness in English Classes

Language is not only an important means for people to communicate, but also an important carrier of cultural heritage. But at the present stage of high school English teaching in China, teachers merely put the emphasis on the basic knowledge of English, such as the vocabulary, grammar and so on, while ignoring cultivating cross-cultural awareness. By empirical methods and the analysis of the survey results, the present study analyzes the reasons and points out some ways to cope with the problem

Dynamics of Vocalization-Induced Modulation of Auditory Cortical Activity at Mid-utterance

Background: Recent research has addressed the suppression of cortical sensory responses to altered auditory feedback that occurs at utterance onset regarding speech. However, there is reason to assume that the mechanisms underlying sensorimotor processing at mid-utterance are different than those involved in sensorimotor control at utterance onset. The present study attempted to examine the dynamics of event-related potentials (ERPs) to different acoustic versions of auditory feedback at mid-utterance. Methodology/Principal findings: Subjects produced a vowel sound while hearing their pitch-shifted voice (100 cents), a sum of their vocalization and pure tones, or a sum of their vocalization and white noise at mid-utterance via headphones. Subjects also passively listened to playback of what they heard during active vocalization. Cortical ERPs were recorded in response to different acoustic versions of feedback changes during both active vocalization and passive listening. The results showed that, relative to passive listening, active vocalization yielded enhanced P2 responses to the 100 cents pitch shifts, whereas suppression effects of P2 responses were observed when voice auditory feedback was distorted by pure tones or white noise. Conclusion/Significance: The present findings, for the first time, demonstrate a dynamic modulation of cortical activity as a function of the quality of acoustic feedback at mid-utterance, suggesting that auditory cortical responses can be enhanced or suppressed to distinguish self-produced speech from externally-produced sounds

Culture Shock and Its Implications for Cross-Cultural Training and Culture Teaching

The present paper attempts to make a contrastive study of the disease model and the growth model of culture shock. After analyzing their similarities and differences and comparing their contributions to the cross-cultural adaptation, it points out the necessity of the combination of the two models so as to make culture shock a less stressful and more positive experience. It also provides some implications for cross-cultural training and culture teaching in China.Key Words: Culture shock; The disease model; The growth model; Cross-cultural adaptatio

Assessing surrogate endpoints in vaccine trials with case-cohort sampling and the Cox model

Assessing immune responses to study vaccines as surrogates of protection plays a central role in vaccine clinical trials. Motivated by three ongoing or pending HIV vaccine efficacy trials, we consider such surrogate endpoint assessment in a randomized placebo-controlled trial with case-cohort sampling of immune responses and a time to event endpoint. Based on the principal surrogate definition under the principal stratification framework proposed by Frangakis and Rubin [Biometrics 58 (2002) 21--29] and adapted by Gilbert and Hudgens (2006), we introduce estimands that measure the value of an immune response as a surrogate of protection in the context of the Cox proportional hazards model. The estimands are not identified because the immune response to vaccine is not measured in placebo recipients. We formulate the problem as a Cox model with missing covariates, and employ novel trial designs for predicting the missing immune responses and thereby identifying the estimands. The first design utilizes information from baseline predictors of the immune response, and bridges their relationship in the vaccine recipients to the placebo recipients. The second design provides a validation set for the unmeasured immune responses of uninfected placebo recipients by immunizing them with the study vaccine after trial closeout. A maximum estimated likelihood approach is proposed for estimation of the parameters. Simulated data examples are given to evaluate the proposed designs and study their properties.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOAS132 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Whether Positive Global Self-Esteem Can Facilitate Second Language Acquisition?

Affective factors are universally acknowledged to play an important role in Second Language Acquisition, but those factors, with a rather wide range, have to be tested one by one so that how relevant each one is to SLA can be discovered. The present study focuses on one of them – self-esteem, which is believed an influential factor in affective domain. Through a case study, complete with questionnaires and interviews, it is believed that there is no relevant proof that the positive global self-esteem can facilitate the second language acquisition.Key words: Affective factors; Self-esteem; Global self-estee

Real double Hurwitz numbers with 33-cycles

We consider the problem of counting real ramified covers of $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1$ by genus $g$ real Riemann surfaces with ramification profiles $\lambda$, $\mu$ over $0$, $\infty$ respectively, and with ramification $(3,1,\ldots,1)$ over other real branch points. The resulted answers are real double Hurwitz numbers with $3$-cycles. We compute real double Hurwitz numbers with $3$-cycles via tropical covers, and introduce a lower bound, which does not depend on the distributions of real branch points, of these numbers. We give a non-vanishing theorem for the invariant. When the invariant is non-zero, we obtain a lower bound of a logarithmic asymptotics for the invariants as the degree tends to infinity. It implies the logarithmic asymptotic growth of real double Hurwitz numbers with $3$-cycles.Comment: 29 pages, 17 figures, presentation is improved, comments are welcom

Robust Beamforming and Rate-Splitting Design for Next Generation Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications

The next generation ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (xURLLC) need novel design to provide satisfactory services to the emerging mission-critical applications. To improve the spectrum efficiency and enhance the robustness of xURLLC, this paper proposes a robust beamforming and rate-splitting design in the finite blocklength (FBL) regime for downlink multi-user multi-antenna xURLLC systems. In the design, adaptive rate-splitting is introduced to flexibly handle the complex inter-user interference and thus improve the spectrum efficiency. Taking the imperfection of the channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) into consideration, a max-min user rate problem is formulated to optimize the common and private beamforming vectors and the rate-splitting vector under the premise of ensuring the requirements of transmission latency and reliability of all the users. The optimization problem is intractable due to the non-convexity of the constraint set and the infinite constraints caused by CSIT uncertainties. To solve it, we convert the infinite constraints into finite ones by the S-Procedure method and transform the original problem into a difference of convex (DC) programming. A constrained concave convex procedure (CCCP) and the Gaussian randomization based iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain a local minimum. Simulation results confirm the convergence, robustness and effectiveness of the proposed robust beamforming and rate-splitting design in the FBL regime. It is also shown that the proposed robust design achieves considerable performance gain in the worst user rate compared with existing transmission schemes under various blocklength and block error rate requirements.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure