Corpus Linguistics based error analysis of first year Universiti Teknologi Malaysia students’ writing

The ability to write in English among Malaysian university students is generally not at the most satisfactory level although English is considered as a second language. There has been a growing research interest in the analysis of errors students make in their English writing. The purpose of this study is to identify the errors made by first year UTM students in their writing. Besides that, this study also seeks to find out how much students know about the errors that they produce in writing besides investigating how they react towards these errors. For this study, 66 questionnaires were distributed to first year UTM students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Besides that, students’ samples of paragraph were also used to collect the intended data. Findings from the study show that from the 66 paragraph samples analyzed, a total of 1202 errors were found and then tagged according to the types of error. Besides that, findings from the questionnaire show that many of the students are not sure about their English proficiency level and most of them agreed that they would like to improve their English writing by addressing the errors that they make. The paper concludes with the overall summary of the study, limitations of the study as well as the pedagogical implications of the study

Methods for the direct simulation of nanoscale film breakup and contact angles

This thesis investigates direct simulation of fluids with free surfaces and contact lines, with a focus on capturing nanoscale physics in a continuum based computational framework. Free surfaces and contact lines have long presented some of the most challenging problems in computational fluid dynamics. Extensive progress has been made in recent years, and a wide variety of different methods are currently employed for direct simulation in these contexts. The complexity of the full governing equations for such flows poses significant challenges in terms of analytical techniques, and leads to lengthy computational times for direct simulations. For these reasons, reduced models are preferable in many contexts, even when it is not clear that such reduced models strictly apply. Recent advances in nanotechnology motivate the comparison between direct simulations and reduced models by presenting situations in which each possesses advantages; these experiments involve the deposition of nanoscale flat metallic structures onto a surface with unprecedented precision, the almost instantaneous liquefaction of which leads to new initial liquid configurations which have been previously impossible to achieve in an experimental setup. The mechanisms that lead to the instability of these structures are a combination of classical liquid instability (such as Rayleigh-Plateau), novel capillary instabilities driven by the initial geometry, and nanoscale physics. This study begins by examining the differences in qualitative behavior between direct numerical simulation of the full equations and a particular reduced model in the context of wetting and dewetting of drops. Afterwards, a specific initial liquid geometry is presented, the breakup of which requires direct numerical simulation in order to explain the experimental behavior. A parameter study of this geometry demonstrates that it offers a rich variety of dynamics; the breakup of the geometry is found to result in nanoparticle arrangements previously unobtainable using similar techniques, and through careful tuning of the parameters the end state of the breakup can be various combinations of metallic filaments and nanoparticles. While such instabilities are driven by surface tension, an important class of thin film instability is driven by intermolecular fluid/solid interactions. A numerical method is developed which, for the first time, permits the explicit inclusion of this fluid/solid interaction in the context of direct numerical simulations. This method not only allows for modeling and simulating film breakup, but additionally yields a numerical method for the simulation of contact angles as well

Burying the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine in the Nooks and Crannies: The Third Circuit\u27s Liberal Standard for Trade Secret Misappropriation in Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella

The article presents information on the value of trade secrets and the close attention paid by the government officials and company executives on the related knowledge possessed by the American employees. The improved portability of digital information, competitiveness of the U.S. economy and weak job market due to poor economic conditions are discussed. The public policy related to employee mobility is also discussed with reference to the trial of Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella

Burying the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine in the Nooks and Crannies: The Third Circuit\u27s Liberal Standard for Trade Secret Misappropriation in Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella

The article presents information on the value of trade secrets and the close attention paid by the government officials and company executives on the related knowledge possessed by the American employees. The improved portability of digital information, competitiveness of the U.S. economy and weak job market due to poor economic conditions are discussed. The public policy related to employee mobility is also discussed with reference to the trial of Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella

Exercise and diet in the management of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most prevalent chronic liver condition worldwide, and is projected to become the leading cause for liver transplantation in the United States as early as 2020. The mainstay of treatment remains lifestyle modification with diet and exercise recommendations, as although some pharmacological treatments such as glitazones and Vitamin E have shown benefit, there are concerns regarding long term safety. The evidence base for dietary interventions in NAFLD such as the Mediterranean diet, omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and coffee is mainly derived from observational data with questionable validity. Where trials exist, they have shown benefit for surrogate outcomes such as hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance, but no trials have been conducted with salient clinical outcomes such as reduction in progression to chronic liver disease. Benefit in surrogate outcomes has also been seen for aerobic, anaerobic and combined modality exercise but it remains unclear if one type is superior. Furthermore, a reduction in sedentary time appears equally important. To provide a sound evidence base for lifestyle recommendations to people with NAFLD, longer duration trials of standardized dietary or exercise interventions, and testing various doses, types and with liver related outcomes, are essential

Corporeality in Turn-of-the-Century American Fiction

My dissertation argues that a number of novels published in the U.S. during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries work to reveal corporeality's contributions to knowledge and meaningful human action. Many critics have proposed that fictional treatments of bodies during this period provide a means for understanding the diminished capacities for human agency in modernity. However, my dissertation proposes that figurings of dynamic embodiment in some turn-of-the-century American writers' works present corporeality as a shared condition of embodied beings, a condition that offers ethical insights into the nature of personhood. Even as bodies were being disciplined in military and civilian life to serve the states' purposes, American novels were evoking the body's complex resources for other forms of thought and action. The emphasis on physicality in literary works of the authors I examine has no doubt contributed to their notorious association with popular conceptions of late nineteenth-century determinist philosophies. My project suggests, though, that these writers' philosophical interest in embodiment marks a serious engagement with a corporeal-centered epistemology. I propose that turn-of-the-century writers' literary expressions of corporeality in many respects anticipates non-dualist theories of embodiment later elaborated by phenomenologists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In these accounts, the body is conceived as an active entity itself that is inextricably bound up with consciousness, rather than an inert object directed by a controlling mind. Feminist and cultural theorists such as Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Butler, and Laura Doyle have recently worked to re-appropriate and supplement phenomenological accounts of the body's role in human relations and action. In doing so, they have helped to elaborate the potential significance of these conceptions. Drawing on this theoretical work, my dissertation is an effort to rethink treatments of corporeality in some late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century U.S. fictions by authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Edith Wharton