Augmented reality for ESL/EFL and bilingual education: an international comparison

In recent decades, educational technologies have enabled new opportunitiesfor teaching and learning on a recurrent basis. In contemporary educationalcontexts, which are mainly oriented towards active methodologies and studentcentered approaches, educational technologies have led to a significantbreakthrough in education. Among emergent educational technologies, it isinteresting to specifically highlight the current importance of Augmented Reality(AR), which allows overlaying of virtual objects (that is, ‘augmented’ elements)into the real world. This paper, after exploring the potential of AR in education, isaimed at comparing pre-service English as a Second Language (ESL), English asa Foreign Language (EFL) and Bilingual Education (BE) teachers’ perceptions,uses and preferences (n = 53) from two universities (Texas Woman’s University,USA, and University of Córdoba, Spain) regarding the use of AR, and analyzewhether there are similarities and/or differences based on sociocultural context,approaches to education or teacher practices. The findings reveal the positiveattitudes towards integrating AR in ESL/EFL and bilingual contexts of theparticipants of the two institutions. The most noted advantages of AR are thatit enhances classroom engagement and its focus is different from traditionalteaching methods, increasing student motivation and facilitating their learningprocesses. Some reported challenges imposed by AR are that access to mobiledevices is limiting, the cost of technology, technical issues and the necessityfor specialized teacher training. We also found other challenges and numerousadvantages of AR usage in ESL/EFL and bilingual contexts, which are discussedthoroughly. Finally, current needs in the field are identified and suggestions areoffered for further research in AR for ESL/EFL and BE

Phytotoxic and dissuasive activity of Chihuahua desert plants

With the purpose of finding plant compounds with the potential use as herbicides and insecticides, a research was realized with the objective of evaluate the phytotoxic and dissuasive activity of four Chihuahua desert plants. The phytotoxic activity evaluation was tested on Lactuca sativa and Lolium perenne, while the dissuasive activity was realized on three species of phytophagous insects: Myzus persicae, Rhopalosiphum padi and Spodoptera littoralis. Raw extracts were used, the solvents hexane, methanol and ethanol of different plants’ organs (root, steam, leaf and flower) of four species: Fouquieria splendens (ocotillo), Larrea tridentate (governor), Astragalus mollissimus (wild grass) and Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum (echo), by the establishment of in vitro bioassays at a concentration of 10 mg/ml extract/solvent. In the toxicity bioassay, the percentage of germination, root and leaf length were measured. The results showed that the leaf extract of L. tridentata had phytotoxic activity for L. sativa, while for L. perenne the phytotoxicity was observed within the ocotillo, governor and echo extracts. In the dissuasive bioassay, each treatment had 20 repetitions with 10 adult insects per repetition. The methanolic extracts of F. splendens leaf and root, ethanolic extract of A. mollisimus sheet and the ethanolic extract of P. pecten-aboriginum stems showed moderate dissuasive response of feeding against M. persicae, presenting a settlement inhibition index of 53.53, 54.35, 60.00 and 48.84% respectively. Nevertheless, the results indicated that none of the 10 extracts tested on S. littoralis showed significant dissuasive properties for this Lepidoptera, while for R. padi all the tested extracts presented dissuasive properties. The treatments of the four vegetable species evaluated showed defensive or dissuasive properties of moderate to strong feeding against the insects M. persicae and R. padi, presenting interesting potential for being used as insecticides, while the tested extracts that presented phytotoxicity for both lettuce and ryegrass present possibilities for the realization of herbicides

Osmotic stress tolerance in forage oat varieties (Avena Sativa L.) based on osmotic potential trials

Received: April 1st, 2022 ; Accepted: December 12th, 2022 ; Published: February 7th, 2023 ; Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] oats (Avena sativa L.) are globally important for milk and meat production, and, to a lesser extent, for the human diet. In Mexico, oats are a strategic crop, occupying the fourth place in cultivated area, only after maize for grain, bean, and sorghum for grain. Droughts are the main problem for oat production in Mexico. This study evaluated the germination and seedling growth of several oat varieties in response to drought stress simulated by PEG-6000 treatments of different osmotic pressure in order to identify drought-resistant genotypes. The Teporaca genotype was the most outstanding in the three levels of OP compared to its control with 0.0 of Osmotic Potential (OP). The Teporaca genotype showed the largest root length and the lowest diminishment of root length under osmotic stress conditions. This genotype also had the largest shoot length in the three osmotic stress levels. Regarding root fresh weight, Babicora stands out with 98.5% and Teporaca with 43% in the most severe level. Teporaca, Menonita, and Babicora showed the outstanding root dry weights of 346.5%, 327.2%, and 251.2%, respectively. These varieties had higher root dry weight than their own controls in water in the most severe level of OP. In conclusion, the Teporaca, Menonita, and Karma genotypes showed the highest osmotic stress tolerance and could be used as sources of favorable alleles to improve oat drought tolerance

Predicting Machine Translation Performance on Low-Resource Languages: The Role of Domain Similarity

Fine-tuning and testing a multilingual large language model is expensive and challenging for low-resource languages (LRLs). While previous studies have predicted the performance of natural language processing (NLP) tasks using machine learning methods, they primarily focus on high-resource languages, overlooking LRLs and shifts across domains. Focusing on LRLs, we investigate three factors: the size of the fine-tuning corpus, the domain similarity between fine-tuning and testing corpora, and the language similarity between source and target languages. We employ classical regression models to assess how these factors impact the model's performance. Our results indicate that domain similarity has the most critical impact on predicting the performance of Machine Translation models.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted to EACL 2024, finding

Yield, quality, alternate bearing and long-term yield index in pecan, as a response to mineral and organic nutrition

The pecan nut is produced in 57 countries in the world. Alternate bearing is one of the main biological problems that affect pecan cultivation. Mineral and organic fertilization is a good strategy to maintain and increase pecan nut production. In this study, several mineral and organic doses of fertilization were tested using a factorial arrangement 56 bounded to 25 treatments was used in structure Taguchi L25: nitrogen (N) 0 - 240 kg ha-1, phosphate (P2O5) 0 - 120 kg ha-1, potassium (K2O) 0 - 100 kg ha-1, calcium (CaO) 0 - 400 kg ha-1, liquid humus 0 - 3600 L ha-1 and solid humus 0 - 8000 kg ha-1. The study was carried out in Aldama city, Chihuahua (Mexico). An average yield of 2.4 t ha-1 was obtained, 157 nuts per kilogram and 58.9% of edible nut. The average alternate bearing intensity was 31.58%, and the long-term yield index (IRLP) was 9.59%. It is concluded that the factors whit the greatest impact on the analyzed variables were N and P2O5. In addition, it was found these mineral and organic fertilization systems help to reduce alternate bearing in pecan and simultaneously improve production and long-term productivity index. Optimal fertilization doses were defined: 181.4 kg ha-1 of N, 93.5 kg ha-1 of P2O5 and 3287.2 L ha-1 of liquid humus. Finally, the mineral fertilization complemented with organic fertilization is considered a good fertilization strategy for pecan trees, to increase production and with lower environmental impact

Obtención de propiedades morfológicas de materiales por medio de procesamiento digital de imágenes.

Las técnicas de procesamiento digital de imágenes están siendo ampliamente utilizadas para estudiar propiedades morfológicas de imágenes de todo tipo, tales como médicas, satelitales y de materiales. En este trabajo se presenta el estudio de propiedades morfológicas de imágenes superficiales de recubrimientos de nitruro de niobio (NbN), nitruro de tantalio (TaN), nitruro de circonio (ZrN) y nitruro de cromo (CrN), empleando la técnica de microscopía de barrido por sonda (SPM) en el modo de microscopía de fuerza atómica (AFM). Estas imágenes se trataron utilizando técnicas de procesamiento de imágenes. Para determinar la rugosidad se empleó la dimensión fractal (DF), y para hallar el número de granos y tamaño de grano se utilizó el método del Hessiano. La dimensión fractal es una herramienta que permite determinar el grado de complejidad de una superficie.Digital image processing techniques have been widely used for studying morphological properties of many diferent images, such as medical, satellite and materials images. In this work the study of morphological properties of niobium nitride (NbN), tantalum nitride (TaN), zirconium nitride (ZrN) and chromium nitride (CrN), employing the scanning probe microscopy (SPM) in the atomic force microscopy method (AFM) is present. These images were annalysed employing image processing techniques. To determine the roughness, fractal dimension (FD) was used. Fractal dimension is a tool that allows to calculate the surface complexity. The number and grains size was determined by using the Hessian method

Diversidad de macromicetos en bosques de pino en el municipio Madera, Chihuahua

El municipio Madera cuenta con una gran diversidad de ecosistemas que albergan una alta riqueza de especies fúngicas, de las cuales se tiene poco conocimiento debido a la falta de investigación para esa zona. El objetivo del presente estudio fue determinar y comparar la diversidad, hábitos y comestibilidad de los macromicetos. El muestreo se realizó en siete parcelas de 100 m × 100 m, en seis ejidos del municipio Madera, Chihuahua, durante los meses de julio y agosto del año 2016; se determinó número efectivo de especies, abundancia de frutos y diversidad alfa, mediante los índices de Shannon (Hˈ) y Margalef (DMG). Los resultados mostraron un total de 69 taxa de macromicetos, pertenecientes a 27 familias y 46 géneros; de acuerdo al hábito de desarrollo, 53.62 % son saprobias, 43.50 % micorrízicas y 2.90 % patógenas. En cuanto a la comestibilidad, 28.98 % tienen potencial alimenticio. La mayor diversidad se presentó en el ejido Socorro Rivera (H’=2.44 y DMG=3.58). Las especies con mayor distribución en las localidades de estudio pertenecen a Amanita; el porcentaje más alto de similitud de especies se registró en los ejidos Nicolás Bravo (paraje El Pedregoso) y Madera, con 18 %. Los taxones fúngicos registrados se suman a los citados previamente; con ello, aumenta el conocimiento para el estado de Chihuahua

Valproic acid restricts mast cell activation by Listeria monocytogenes.

Mast cells (MC) play a central role in the early containment of bacterial infections, such as that caused by Listeria monocytogenes (L.m). The mechanisms of MC activation induced by L.m infection are well known, so it is possible to evaluate whether they are susceptible to targeting and modulation by different drugs. Recent evidence indicates that valproic acid (VPA) inhibits the immune response which favors L.m pathogenesis in vivo. Herein, we examined the immunomodulatory effect of VPA on L.m-mediated MC activation. To this end, bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMC) were pre-incubated with VPA and then stimulated with L.m. We found that VPA reduced MC degranulation and cytokine release induced by L.m. MC activation during L.m infection relies on Toll-Like Receptor 2 (TLR2) engagement, however VPA treatment did not affect MC TLR2 cell surface expression. Moreover, VPA was able to decrease MC activation by the classic TLR2 ligands, peptidoglycan and lipopeptide Pam3CSK4. VPA also reduced cytokine production in response to Listeriolysin O (LLO), which activates MC by a TLR2-independent mechanism. In addition, VPA decreased the activation of critical events on MC signaling cascades, such as the increase on intracellular Ca2+ and phosphorylation of p38, ERK1/2 and -p65 subunit of NF-κB. Altogether, our data demonstrate that VPA affects key cell signaling events that regulate MC activation following L.m infection. These results indicate that VPA can modulate the functional activity of different immune cells that participate in the control of L.m infection

Drainage And Sedimentary Response Of The Northern Andes And The Pebas System To Miocene Strike-slip Tectonics: A Source To Sink Study Of The Magdalena Basin

Miocene strike-slip tectonics was responsible for creating and closing short-lived (ca. 6 Ma) passages and the emergence of isolated topography in the Northern Andes. These geological events likely influenced the migration and/or isolation of biological populations. To better understand the paleogeography of the Miocene hinterland and foreland regions in the Northern Andes, we conducted a source-to-sink approach in the Magdalena Basin. This basin is located between the Central and Eastern Cordilleras of Colombia and contains an ample Miocene record, which includes Lower Miocene fine-grained strata and Middle Miocene to Pliocene coarsening-up strata. Our study presents a new data set that includes detrital U–Pb zircon ages (15 samples), sandstone petrography (45 samples) and low-temperature thermochronology from the Southern Central Cordillera (19 dates); which together with previously published data were used to construct a paleogeographical model of the Miocene hinterland and foreland regions in the Northern Andes. The evolution of the Magdalena Basin during the Miocene was characterized by playa and permanent lake systems at ca. 17.5 Ma, which may be related to a marine incursion into NW South America and western Amazonia. The appearance of Eocene to Miocene volcanic sources in the Honda Group after ca. 16 Ma suggests the development of fluvial passages, which connected the Pacific with the western Amazonia and Caribbean regions. These passages were synchronous with a time of Miocene exhumation and topographic growth (ca. 16 to 10 Ma) in the Central Cordillera and the transition from lacustrine to fluvial deposition in the Magdalena Basin. Middle to Late Miocene strike-slip deformation promoted by oblique plate convergence and the oblique collision of the Panamá-Chocó Block likely explains the synchronous along-strike fragmentation and exhumation in the Central Cordillera