Examining the cultural appropriateness of the communicative approach to language teaching in Japan.

The communicative approach has been one of the most successful and widely-used second language teaching approaches in the latter part of the twentieth century and the early stages of the twenty-first century. Yet despite its tremendous influence, some have questioned its universal applicability, particularly in Asian learning contexts. Ellis (1996) is one such critic, who argues that the communicative approach ought to be adjusted to fit what he claims are collectivist, form-focussed Asian learning contexts. This paper aimed to evaluate Ellis’s (1996) claims, particularly in relation to English language teaching in Japan. In doing so, it was shown that the ‘one-size-fitsall’approach adopted by Ellis (1996) in relation to categorising Asian learning contexts is overly simplistic. In fact, despite the prevalence of what he refers to as a contentoriented approach in many formal language learning contexts in Asia, many nonformal learning contexts – such as eikaiwa (English conversation classes) in Japan–successfully utilise the communicative approach. Moreover, this paper demonstrated that the notion of Western English teachers acting as ‘cultural mediators’ in Asian language learning settings is fraught with difficulty. Not only is it problematic trying to isolate what culture or cultures a person is said to represent, but also many Western English teachers teaching in countries such as Japan may not be in a position to truly claim to have an in-depth understanding of the culture in which they find themselves living and working

Demography and the age of rare variants

Large whole-genome sequencing projects have provided access to much of the rare variation in human populations, which is highly informative about population structure and recent demography. Here, we show how the age of rare variants can be estimated from patterns of haplotype sharing and how these ages can be related to historical relationships between populations. We investigate the distribution of the age of variants occurring exactly twice (f2 variants) in a worldwide sample sequenced by the 1000 Genomes Project, revealing enormous variation across populations. The median age of haplotypes carrying f2 variants is 50 to 160 generations across populations within Europe or Asia, and 170 to 320 generations within Africa. Haplotypes shared between continents are much older with median ages for haplotypes shared between Europe and Asia ranging from 320 to 670 generations. The distribution of the ages of f2 haplotypes is informative about their demography, revealing recent bottlenecks, ancient splits, and more modern connections between populations. We see the signature of selection in the observation that functional variants are significantly younger than nonfunctional variants of the same frequency. This approach is relatively insensitive to mutation rate and complements other nonparametric methods for demographic inference.Comment: Revised versio

Minimizing the excitation of parasitic modes of vibration in slender power ultrasonic devices

The design of slender power ultrasonic devices can often be challenging due to the excitation of parasitic modes of vibration during operation. The excitation of these modes is known to manifest from behaviors such as modal coupling which if not controlled or designed out of the system can, under operational conditions, lead to poor device performance and device failure. However, a report published by the authors has indicted that the excitation of these modes of vibration could be minimized through device design, specifically careful location of the piezoceramic stack. This paper illustrates that it is possible, through piezoceramic stack position, to minimize modal coupling between a parasitic mode and the tuned longitudinal mode of vibration for slender ultrasonic devices

Variation in a host-epiphyte relationship along a wave exposure gradient

The red alga Polysiphonia lanosa (L ) Tandy is an obligate epiphyte that primarily occurs on the fucoid brown algal basiphyte Ascophyllum nodosum (L) Le Jolis In the present study we examine how epiphytic interactions between P lanosa and A nodosum vary along a wave exposure gradient within the southern Gulf of Maine, USA P lanosa was most dense on protected shores, however because the stature of P lanosa was greater on exposed than on sheltered shores, greater biomass occurred In exposed habitats Epiphytlc P lanosa pnmanly attached to inlured vegetative bssue at exposed sites, while ~ t osc currence was primarily receptacular at sheltered sites A significantly stronger correlation was found between host receptacle abundance and epiphyte abundance at a protected low than an exposed site As a result, the distribution of epiphytes along the host S stlpe vanes at different sites We suggest that changes in the distribution and abundance of P lanosa across this wave exposure gradient are highly influenced by vanations in the distribution and persistence of suitable attachment sites on the host plant Because both the quantity and quality of attachment sites vanes w t h exposure, we hypothesize that d~fferenpt rocesses limit or de t e rm~neP lanosa populations in different locations In protected sites P lanosa may be limited by the presence of adequate substrata (inlured bssue and lateral pits) where successful recruitment may occur By contrast at exposed sites the supply of P lanosa sporelings, rather than quantity of appropnate substrata, may limlt population size

A miniature surgical drill using ultrasonic/sonic frequency vibration

A study is presented of a miniature ultrasonic surgical drill designed for bone biopsy, based on an ultrasonic/sonic drill which converts high frequency to low frequency vibrations through a freely vibrating mass between an ultrasonic transducer-horn and a drill bit. For conventional surgical drilling using a rotary drill or an ultrasonic drill, considerable power is required to penetrate into bone and the efficiency is low. However, for ultrasonic/sonic drilling, sufficient acoustic energy is accumulated and then released through each impact to achieve precise drilling with a lower power requirement. The ultrasonic/sonic drill was originally invented for rock drilling in low gravity environments. In this study it is incorporated in a miniature ultrasonic surgical drill and the effective impulse delivered to the bone is used to evaluate the drilling performance. To develop a miniature surgical device based on maximising the effective impulse, optimisation of the ultrasonic horn and free-mass is first demonstrated. The shape and dimensions of the ultrasonic horn and free-mass are determined through FEA, which focuses on maximising the post-collision velocity of the free-mass. Then, the entire dynamic stack constituting the surgical drill device is modelled as a mass-spring-damper system to analyse the dynamic behaviour. The numerical model is validated through experiments, using a prototype drill, which record the velocity of the free-mass and the drilling force. The results of the numerical models and experiments indicate this miniature ultrasonic surgical drill can deliver sufficient impulse to penetrate bone and form the basis of an ultrasonically activated bone biopsy device

Nonlinear characterization of half and full wavelength power ultrasonic devices

It is well known that power ultrasonic devices whilst driven under elevated excitation levels exhibit nonlinear behaviors. If no attempt is made to understand and subsequently control these behaviors, these devices can exhibit poor performance or even suffer premature failure. This paper presents an experimental method for the dynamic characterization of a commercial ultrasonic transducer for bone cutting applications (Piezosurgery® Device) operated together with a variety of rod horns that are tuned to operate in a longitudinal mode of vibration. Near resonance responses, excited via a burst sine sweep method were used to identify nonlinear responses exhibited by the devices, while experimental modal analysis was performed to identify the modal parameters of the longitudinal modes of vibration of the assemblies between 0-80 kHz. This study tries to provide an understanding of the effects that geometry and material choices may have on the nonlinear behavior of a tuned device

REGULATORY ROLE OF OX22HIGH T-CELLS IN MERCURY-INDUCED AUTOIMMUNITY IN THE BROWN NORWAY RAT

The monoclonal antibody OX22 defines a functional split within CD4+ T cells in the rat, with OX22high cells mainly producing interleukin 2 (IL-2) and interferon γ and responsible for delayed-type hypersensitivity responses, and OX22low cells mainly producing IL-4 and -5 and responsible for providing B cell help. There are reciprocal interactions between OX22high and OX22low cells, and it has been suggested that the OX22low subset has a role in the prevention of autoimmunity. We have used OX22 in vivo to define the role of these subsets in mercuric chloride-induced autoimmunity in the Brown Norway rat. In this model, there is polyclonal B cell activation and animals develop widespread tissue injury. Treatment of thymectomized animals with OX22 led to a profound reduction in the number of OX22high T cells in the peripheral blood. OX22-treated animals consistently developed more severe tissue injury than controls given an irrelevant antibody of the same isotype. Control animals pretreated with broad spectrum antimicrobial drugs showed milder tissue injury, but this protective effect of antimicrobials was lost in OX22-treated animals. Transfer of naive T cells to OX22-treated animals provided protection, but if T cells were depleted in vitro of OX22high cells before transfer, this effect was lost. These data provide evidence for a protective immunoregulatory role for OX22high T cells in mercuric chloride-induced autoimmunity.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

How Much of Current Unemployment Did We Import?

macroeconomics, unemployment