Analysis of the Learning Problems Experienced by Japanese LEP Students and Suggestions for Global Bilingual Assessment

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes of the learning problems displayed by Japanese students who are learning English in public elementary schools in the U.S., and to suggest some appropriate assessment tools based on the findings. Five Japanese elementary school students temporarily residing in the U.S. were studied. Three of these were unsuccessful at learning English, while the other two were considered successful. The method included classroom observations of the subjects in their American public school and Japanese Saturday School and interviews with the subjects, their parents and their teachers in both American public school and the Japanese Saturday School. In addition, a questionnaire was administered to both parents and teachers regarding their expectations for their children/students. Intelligence was not found to be the major cause of the English learning difficulties. The more crucial factors seemed to be the students\u27 attitudes toward dealing with academic and interpersonal tasks. These attitudes appeared to be the products of their personalities and certain external factors such as the nature of the task, previous learning experiences, the relation between learning style and pedagogy and interpersonal relationships in their classrooms and homes. Another factor found important was the disparity between parents\u27 and teachers\u27 values and expectations for the children\u27s education. These findings suggest the need for global assessment of limited English proficiency students. A teacher needs to obtain longitudinal data that reflect a student\u27s Ll and L2 learning experience and his or her personality, rather than identifying problems simply based on limited short-.term observation. Understanding the parental values and expectations can be another means for discovering the cause of students\u27 learning difficulties

A Comprehensive Analysis of 174 Febrile Patients Admitted to Okayama University Hospital

Primary care physicians often encounter patients with fever of unknown origin and without apparent causes. Recent advances in laboratory medicine have facilitated diagnostic procedures;however, it is still difficult to determine the critical febrile factor at an early stage. We reviewed the medical records of 174 patients who were admitted due to a chief complaint of fever (＞37.5℃) to our hospital during the period from 2004 to 2010. The patients were categorized into patients with infection, inflammation, neoplasm and drug-induced fever. Based on the analysis done by category, it was revealed that the patient's age, body temperature and duration of fever were closely related to the final diagnosis. Serum CRP levels were significantly low in the nonbacterial infection group, while serum levels of sIL-2R were high in neoplasm and drug-induced cases. CRP level on admission was weakly but significantly correlated with body temperature, while duration of fever was inversely related to body temperature. The effectiveness of PET-CT and tissue biopsy for diagnosis was considerably high, particularly in the categories of neoplasm and nonspecific inflammation, respectively, though the effectiveness of bacterial culture was low. Thus, a careful review of physical and laboratory information including body temperature, CRP level, duration of fever, gender difference and history of medication is indispensable for diagnosis. Stepwise categorization and disease classification by comprehensive and systemic checkup are very helpful for determining the causes of fever

HV Virginis and WZ Sge-Type Dwarf Novae

A dwarf nova HV Vir was observed photometrically for eight nights during the outburst in 1992 April - May. The star showed two distinct types of periodic variation: (1) 82.20-min (0.05708 d) double-humped variation with decaying amplitudes during the early stage of the outburst, and (2) 83.80-min (0.05820 d) superhumps in later stages. We attributed the former to "early superhumps", which are only seen in the earliest stage of WZ Sge-type outbursts. The superhump period and evolution of the superhumps, together with general characteristics of the light curve, make HV Vir a typical WZ Sge-type dwarf nova. HV Vir also showed a large increase of the superhump period during the superoutburst. Upon the recognition of the WZ Sge-type nature of an object previously considered as a nova, we present a comprehensive list of candidates for WZ Sge-type dwarf novae, and related systems.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Publ. Astron. Soc. Japa