The Changes to Cultural Identity in Expatriates and Their Effects on the EFL Community

Expatriates are a group of unique individuals in terms of cultural identity. This paper will first look at the research on expats in-depth and explore the question of what defines cultural identity. Then, it will look into the reality facing expatriates and the formation and the evolution of their cultural identity. Lastly, it will look at how the assumptions about expatriates\u27 cultural identity impact the EFL teaching community

Towards a Satellite Formaldehyde in situ Hybrid Estimate for Organic Aerosol Abundance

Organic aerosol (OA) is one of the main components of the global particulate burden and intimately links natural and anthropogenic emissions with air quality and climate. It is challenging to accurately represent OA in global models. Direct quantification of global OA abundance is not possible with current remote sensing technology; however, it may be possible to exploit correlations of OA with remotely observable quantities to infer OA spatiotemporal distributions. In particular, formaldehyde (HCHO) and OA share common sources via both primary emissions and secondary production from oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Here, we examine OAHCHO correlations using data from summertime airborne campaigns investigating biogenic (NASA SEAC4RS and DC3), biomass burning (NASA SEAC4RS), and anthropogenic conditions (NOAA CalNex and NASA KORUS-AQ). In situ OA correlates well with HCHO (r=0.590.97), and the slope and intercept of this relationship depend on the chemical regime. For biogenic and anthropogenic regions, the OAHCHO slopes are higher in low NOx conditions, because HCHO yields are lower and aerosol yields are likely higher. The OAHCHO slope of wildfires is over 9 times higher than that for biogenic and anthropogenic sources. The OAHCHO slope is higher for highly polluted anthropogenic sources (e.g., KORUS-AQ) than less polluted (e.g., CalNex) anthropogenic sources. Near-surface OAs over the continental US are estimated by combining the observed in situ relationships with HCHO column retrievals from NASA's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). HCHO vertical profiles used in OA estimates are from climatology a priori profiles in the OMI HCHO retrieval or output of specific period from a newer version of GEOS-Chem. Our OA estimates compare well with US EPA IMPROVE data obtained over summer months (e.g., slope =0.600.62, r=0.56 for August 2013), with correlation performance comparable to intensively validated GEOS-Chem (e.g., slope =0.57, r=0.56) with IMPROVE OA and superior to the satellite-derived total aerosol extinction (r=0.41) with IMPROVE OA. This indicates that OA estimates are not very sensitive to these HCHO vertical profiles and that a priori profiles from OMI HCHO retrieval have a similar performance to that of the newer model version in estimating OA. Improving the detection limit of satellite HCHO and expanding in situ airborne HCHO and OA coverage in future missions will improve the quality and spatiotemporal coverage of our OA estimates, potentially enabling constraints on global OA distribution

Power poses – where do we stand?

<p>Dynamic results for Scenario 2.</p

AHR ChIP-Seq of male mouse liver following 2 hour TCDD exposure

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor ChIP-Seq performed in livers of male mice gavaged with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) for 2hr

Does that pose become you? Testing the effect of body postures on self-concept

Self-concept expansion predicts a range of adaptive outcomes. An intriguing possible cause of self-concept expansion is the posing of one’s body expansively, that is, “power posing.” In Study 1 (N = 65), we found that body expansion had an effect, of moderate magni- tude (d = 0.58), on self-concept size in college women as measured by the Twenty Statements Test. Participants who were randomly assigned to hold expanded poses (vs. contracted) – under the guise of a cover story about holding different body positions to test the accuracy of wireless electrodes – wrote significantly more self-state- ments than those who assumed contracted positions. In pre-regis- tered Study 2 we tested whether this finding was replicable and extended this research by aiming to characterize the process by which it occurred. One hundred and twenty-eight women students were randomly assigned to hold either expanded or contracted postures. They completed surveys measuring two general classes of potential mediators (“broaden-and-build” and “narrow-and-dis- rupt”), body self-objectification as a moderator, and four indices of self-concept size. Posture was not found to affect self-concept size, nor was it moderated by self-objectification. Though there was no effect on self-expansion, in exploratory analyses, assigned posture affected one of the broaden-and-build measures: psychological flexibility. Results of Study 2 could indicate that a mere two minutes of holding an expanded versus contracted body posture is not enough to induce changes in self-concept size; lack of main effects could in addition be due to a range of unmeasured confounders and/or the fragile and transient nature of the effect

Loss of liver-specific and sexually dimorphic gene expression by aryl hydrocarbon receptor activation in C57BL/6 mice

<div><p>The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a highly conserved transcription factor that mediates a broad spectrum of species-, strain-, sex-, age-, tissue-, and cell-specific responses elicited by structurally diverse ligands including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-<i>p</i>-dioxin (TCDD). Dose-dependent effects on liver-specific and sexually dimorphic gene expression were examined in male and female mice gavaged with TCDD every 4 days for 28 or 92 days. RNA-seq data revealed the coordinated repression of 181 genes predominately expressed in the liver including albumin (3.7-fold), α-fibrinogen (14.5-fold), and β-fibrinogen (17.4-fold) in males with corresponding AhR enrichment at 2 hr. Liver-specific genes exhibiting sexually dimorphic expression also demonstrated diminished divergence between sexes. For example, male-biased <i>Gstp1</i> was repressed 3.0-fold in males and induced 4.5-fold in females, which were confirmed at the protein level. Disrupted regulation is consistent with impaired GHR-JAK2-STAT5 signaling and inhibition of female specific CUX2-mediated transcription as well as the repression of other key transcriptional regulators including <i>Ghr</i>, <i>Stat5b</i>, <i>Bcl6</i>, <i>Hnf4a</i>, <i>Hnf6</i>, <i>Foxa1/2/3</i>, <i>and Zhx2</i>. Attenuated liver-specific and sexually dimorphic gene expression was concurrent with the induction of fetal genes such as alpha-fetoprotein. The results suggest AhR activation causes the loss of liver-specific and sexually dimorphic gene expression producing a functionally “de-differentiated” hepatic phenotype.</p></div