Enhancing Narrative Writing Skills through Action-Adventure Video Games

Video games have become a big part of a student’s life. With the influence of massively marketed commercial games, teachers can no longer ignore the role it plays in the student’s overall development. This research investigates the link between commercial video games and the teaching and learning of the English language, specifically, narrative writing. This research utilized a pre-experimental research design on 4 respondents using the Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console and Naughty Dog Inc’s “UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves” video game. The results of the research show that there are several narrative elements in the video game which differs from the standard narrative structure used in an English language classroom and these elements were transferred to the respondents who played the game, as evidenced in their post-experience narrative essay. The three features of the game: Three-Act Narrative Structure, Double-Climax feature and the existence of the Orientation suggest the positive influences of the video game on the respondents’ narrative writing ability. From the results of this research, teachers will be able to tap into the educational potential of commercial video games to further enrich their writing class by integrating commercial video games into their narrative writing class. It challenges ESL teachers to break out of their traditional methodologies and use commercial video games as a tool to enrich the students’ learning experience and retention. Keywords: Narrative writing, video games, three act structure, narrative structure, ES

Weak measurement with orthogonal pre-selection and post-selection

Weak measurement is a novel quantum measurement scheme, which is usually characterized by the weak value formalism. To guarantee the validity of the weak value formalism, the fidelity between the pre-selection and the post-selection should not be too small generally. In this work, we study the weak measurement on a qubit system with exactly or asymptotically orthogonal pre- and post-selections. We shall establish a general rigorous framework for the weak measurement beyond the weak value formalism, and obtain the average output of a weak measurement when the pre- and post-selections are exactly orthogonal. We shall also study the asymptotic behavior of a weak measurement in the limiting process that the pre- and post-selections tend to be orthogonal

Indirect Pathogenicity of Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis in Polymicrobial Otitis Media Occurs via Interspecies Quorum Signaling

Otitis media (OM) is among the leading diseases of childhood and is caused by opportunists that reside within the nasopharynx, such as Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis. As with most airway infections, it is now clear that OM infections involve multiple organisms. This study addresses the hypothesis that polymicrobial infection alters the course, severity, and/or treatability of OM disease. The results clearly show that coinfection with H. influenzae and M. catarrhalis promotes the increased resistance of biofilms to antibiotics and host clearance. Using H. influenzae mutants with known biofilm defects, these phenotypes were shown to relate to biofilm maturation and autoinducer-2 (AI-2) quorum signaling. In support of the latter mechanism, chemically synthesized AI-2 (dihydroxypentanedione [DPD]) promoted increased M. catarrhalis biofilm formation and resistance to antibiotics. In the chinchilla infection model of OM, polymicrobial infection promoted M. catarrhalis persistence beyond the levels seen in animals infected with M. catarrhalis alone. Notably, no such enhancement of M. catarrhalis persistence was observed in animals infected with M. catarrhalis and a quorum signaling-deficient H. influenzae luxS mutant strain. We thus conclude that H. influenzae promotes M. catarrhalis persistence within polymicrobial biofilms via interspecies quorum signaling. AI-2 may therefore represent an ideal target for disruption of chronic polymicrobial infections. Moreover, these results strongly imply that successful vaccination against the unencapsulated H. influenzae strains that cause airway infections may also significantly impact chronic M. catarrhalis disease by removing a reservoir of the AI-2 signal that promotes M. catarrhalis persistence within biofilm

Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy for Pseudomyxoma Peritonei of Appendiceal Origin - 801 Cases from a Single Institution in China

Aim: As more and more centers has published their treatment results ofpseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) andhyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), the data from Chinais missing. Myxoma Department of Aerospace Hospital is the biggestcenter treating PMP in China. The purpose of this study is to report theearly and long-term outcomes for PMP from this single center. Methods:801 appendix-derived PMP out of 1008 consecutive patients treated inMyxoma Department of Aerospace Hospital between 2008 and 2019 wereretrospectively analyzed. Results: Complete cytoreductive surgery (CCRS)was achieved in 240 (30%) patients with median PCI of 14(1~39), andthe rest had maximal tumor debulking (MTD), HIPEC was implementedin 96.3% of CCRS and 78.6% of MTD. The major morbidity (gradeIII/IV) was 11.4% and the 30-day operative mortality is 0.7%. The 5-and 10-year OS of CCRS was 76.9% and 64.1%, which is significantlyhigher than MTD (5-, 10-year OS as 36.1%, 27.1%; p20, MTD, high pathologic grade and without HIPECwere independent factors predicting poorer prognosis. Conclusions: CCRS+HIPEC can benefit PMP well with controllable risks. MTD+HIPEC maybenefit PMP as well when CCRS cannot be achieved after fully asscessmentby an experienced peritoneal maglignacy center, but the surgery should beperformed as limited as possible

To detect stack buffer overflow with polymorphic canaries

Singapore National Research Foundatio