Enhancing Vocabulary Acquisition Through Synthetic Learning Experiences: Implementing Virtual Field Trips Into Classrooms

A Synthetic Learning Environment (SLE) the Virtual Field Trip (VFT) was designed to increase vocabulary acquisition and knowledge by utilizing simulation based technologies and leveraging sound educational findings. Vocabulary acquisition is considered a prerequisite to becoming a good reader and therefore a critical predictor of academic and lifelong success for early learners, however, teachers report that students lack the real world knowledge required for vocabulary knowledge. The VFT provides a meaningful context for anchored and situated instruction. Second grade students were assigned to either use the VFT or to listen to stories read aloud by a researcher on a video tape. While results did not indicate significant vocabulary acquisition on a series of 3 vocabulary tests; students who used the VFT did use significantly more words in a post exposure writing sample than students in the story group indicating an increase of words known at a level of depth sufficient to warrant their use in a writing sample. Students who used the VFT also reported increased motivation to use SLEs like the VFT for future learning objectives and that VFTs were fun. Findings related to the self-efficacy of students as measures immediately following each vocabulary test did not reveal a significant increase for VFT users. Students using the VFTs did not report learning more words than those students assigned to the story group. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are discussed

Audiovisual translation in foreign language education: the use of intralingual dubbing to improve speed, intonation and pronunciation in spontaneous speech

Recent studies have shown that the current situation of foreign language learning in England seems to be discouraging in comparison with the European average (British Council, 2013; European Commission, 2013). The fact that numerous cities are becoming multilingual nowadays emphasises the usefulness of opening up to other communities. Bearing this in mind, communicating verbally with others in another language can be seen as a convenient skill to develop in the foreign language classroom. In an attempt to satisfy the need to practise oral conversations and offer innovative options in the context of England, new didactic approaches are being considered. Amongst these, the active use of techniques traditionally employed in audiovisual translation has proved to have a positive impact on foreign language learning (Talaván, 2013; Incalcaterra and Lertola, 2014; Baños and Sokoli, 2015). This thesis examines the effect of the technique of intralingual dubbing (where students replace the original voices of actors in video clips) on Spanish oral production. There are two main aims. The first is to provide objective evidence to support the hypothesis that the use of intralingual dubbing can enhance students’ speed, intonation and pronunciation when speaking spontaneously in Spanish as a foreign language. The second is to create a teaching and learning toolkit on the subject for teachers. To this end, a total of 94 students aged 16–19 with a B1–B2 level of Spanish dubbed videos in several stages. In addition, 28 teachers received training on dubbing activities and five of them implemented the activities in their classes with a total of 26 students. The data is triangulated qualitatively and quantitatively. Results confirm that the main hypothesis serve as evidence to support the theoretical justification for the inclusion of active AVT techniques in FL speaking classes

Sensitivity Analysis of a Bidirectional Wireless Charger for EV

Bidirectional chargers are required to fully integrate Electric Vehicle (EV) into the smart grids. Additionally, wireless chargers ease the charge/discharge process of the EV batteries so that they are becoming more popular to fulfill a V2G scenario. When considering the load of wireless chargers, it is a requirement to know the real output power that these systems offer. The designed output power may differ from the real one as components suffer from tolerance. This paper defines six sensitivity factors to model the severity of the effects of tolerance into the output power. To do so, an electric circuit analysis is used and a mathematical formulation is derived. The six sensitivity factors are computed for a laboratory prototype.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Emergent simplicity in microbial community assembly

Published in final edited form as: Science. 2018 August 03; 361(6401): 469–474. doi:10.1126/science.aat1168.A major unresolved question in microbiome research is whether the complex taxonomic architectures observed in surveys of natural communities can be explained and predicted by fundamental, quantitative principles. Bridging theory and experiment is hampered by the multiplicity of ecological processes that simultaneously affect community assembly in natural ecosystems. We addressed this challenge by monitoring the assembly of hundreds of soil- and plant-derived microbiomes in well-controlled minimal synthetic media. Both the community-level function and the coarse-grained taxonomy of the resulting communities are highly predictable and governed by nutrient availability, despite substantial species variability. By generalizing classical ecological models to include widespread nonspecific cross-feeding, we show that these features are all emergent properties of the assembly of large microbial communities, explaining their ubiquity in natural microbiomes.The funding for this work partly results from a Scialog Program sponsored jointly by the Research Corporation, for Science Advancement and. the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grants to Yale University and Boston University by the Research Corporation and by the Simons Foundation. This work was also supported by a young; investigator award from the Human Frontier Science Program to A.S. (RGY0077/2016) and by NIH NIGMS grant 1R35GM119461 and a Simons Investigator as in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems (MMLS) to P.M.; D.S. and J.E.G. additionally acknowledge funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (purchase request no. HR0011515303, contract no.. HR0011-15-0-0091), the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0012627), the NIH (T32GM100842, 5R01DE024468, R01GM121950, and Sub_P30DK036836_P&F), the National Science Foundation (1457695), the Human Frontier Science Program (RGP0020/2016) and the Boston University Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Office. (Research Corporation, for Science Advancement; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Boston University by the Research Corporation; Simons Foundation.; RGY0077/2016 - uman Frontier Science Program; 1R35GM119461 - NIH NIGMS grant; Simons Investigator as in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems (MMLS); HR0011515303 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; HR0011-15-0-0091 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; T32GM100842 - NIH; 5R01DE024468 - NIH; R01GM121950 - NIH; ub_P30DK036836 - NIH; 1457695 - National Science Foundation; RGP0020/2016 - Human Frontier Science Program; Boston University Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Office)Accepted manuscrip

Power Factor Corrector Design applied to an 85-kHz Wireless Charger

Wireless charging technology extends the battery autonomy by allowing more flexible and practical ways of recharging it even when the electric vehicle is on move. The frequency conversion, which is required to generate a kHz-ranged magnetic field, also leads to considerable harmonics. As a result, the power factor and the corresponding efficiency decrement. This paper proposes a Power Factor Corrector which overcomes this drawback. The most relevant feature of the designed Power Factor Corrector is that it does not need any electrical signal from the secondary side to adjust its operation properly. The simulation results show the ability of the proposed scheme to increment the system efficiency for different State-Of-Charge in the Battery.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Teaching foreign languages through audiovisual translation resources: teachers’ perspectives

In the past decade, techniques traditionally used in the audiovisual translation (AVT) industry have been applied to teaching foreign languages (FL) with promising results. Both teachers and researchers have provided useful data on various AVT typologies (i.e. subtitling, dubbing, audio description) in order to improve specific learning areas: vocabulary acquisition, listening comprehension, pronunciation, intercultural awareness, etc. (Ibáñez & Vermeulen, 2014; Baños & Sokoli, 2015). The following study aims to provide information in two relevant areas identified in the field: (1) the direct experience of those teachers who have been using AVT techniques in the classroom in recent years, and (2) their perspectives on in the combination of FL and AVT in the future. A total of 56 respondents from Europe, the USA and Asia participated in the study, these being teachers of French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Catalan as an FL. The results obtained are applicable to different languages and useful to any professional interested in using AVT in their classroom or carrying out further research

Frecuencia de hipertensión arterial sistémica en perros con sobrepeso u obesidad y sus patologías asociadas

La obesidad es una enfermedad relacionada con diferentes alteraciones metabólicas como ladislipidemia (hipercolesterolemia e hipertrigliceridemia), resistencia a la insulina ehipertensión arterial sistémica (HTA). El humano con obesidad y la presencia de dos de estasalteraciones, es denominado como un caso de síndrome metabólico (SM) en el que cobrainterés el mecanismo fisiopatológico del proceso obesidad-hipertensión. En medicinaveterinaria estas alteraciones metabólicas relacionadas han sido poco estudiadas y se handefinido con el término obesidad relacionada con alteraciones metabólicas (ORAM).En este trabajo se estudió la relación entre la obesidad natural y la hipertensión arterial en losperros, además de analizar la frecuencia de ORAM en esta especie.Fueron estudiados 244 perros, obesos y otros con una condición corporal ideal (grupo control),en ambos grupos se encontraron individuos considerados sanos y otros con diferentespatologías algunas relacionadas fisiopatológicamente con la HTA.Encontramos una frecuencia del 57% de sobrepeso u obesidad en los casos estudiados,observando una mayor frecuencia en los animales entre los 6 y 10 años de edad, los perros dela raza Labrador presentaron una mayor probabilidad de ser obesos con respecto a otras razas,los casos de obesidad tuvieron una mayor frecuencia de enfermedades dermatológicas,endocrinopatías y enfermedad periodontal que los perros del grupo control.En los perros obesos se demostró que el 29.6% de ellos cumplieron con las características paraconsiderarse con ORAM, encontrando la asociacion de hipercolesterolemia e hiperglucemiacon una mayor frecuencia.El 12.94% de los perros obesos y el 15.23% de los perros del grupo control presentaron HTA.No se encontró una asociación estadística de HTA con la raza, el sexo, el estado gonadal ó laedad. Los perros obesos presentaron una mayor frecuencia de HTA de riesgo mínimo amoderado (130-179 mmHg de presion arterial sistólica); y los perros del grupo control con unamayor probabilidad de padecer HTA en riesgo severo (>180 mmHg) especialmente en loscasos clínicos con la presencia de enfermedades que pueden desarrollar HTA como laenfermedad renal crónica.En base a nuestros resultados consideramos que en el caso de los perros la obesidad no es unfactor de riesgo para presentar HTA; por lo tanto fisiopatológicamente el proceso obesidadhipertensiónno se comporta igual que en el humano

HLA DNA Sequence Variation among Human Populations: Molecular Signatures of Demographic and Selective Events

Molecular differences between HLA alleles vary up to 57 nucleotides within the peptide binding coding region of human Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes, but it is still unclear whether this variation results from a stochastic process or from selective constraints related to functional differences among HLA molecules. Although HLA alleles are generally treated as equidistant molecular units in population genetic studies, DNA sequence diversity among populations is also crucial to interpret the observed HLA polymorphism. In this study, we used a large dataset of 2,062 DNA sequences defined for the different HLA alleles to analyze nucleotide diversity of seven HLA genes in 23,500 individuals of about 200 populations spread worldwide. We first analyzed the HLA molecular structure and diversity of these populations in relation to geographic variation and we further investigated possible departures from selective neutrality through Tajima's tests and mismatch distributions. All results were compared to those obtained by classical approaches applied to HLA allele frequencies