1,000 research outputs found
Chengyu in Chinese Language Teaching: A preliminary analysis of Italian learners’ data
Chengyu, also known as Chinese four-character idioms, are a type of traditional Chinese idiom, mostly consisting of four characters. They commonly derive
from classic Chinese literary sources, including those of the three great philosophical and religious traditions that influenced the entire East Asia cultural sphere: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. Chengyu, therefore, possess a wide range of cultural references, and, from Chinese, spread to the languages of the other countries of the sinosphere, such as Japan and Korea. Although many scholars have emphasized the importance of the acquisition of chengyu, not much attention has been paid to chengyu learning in Chinese Language Teaching research so far. As a preliminary attempt to address this gap, this paper reports the results of two small-scale, exploratory experiments, aimed at investigating Italian learners’ general knowledge of chengyu and their main interpretation strategies, as well as comparing the effectiveness of direct and indirect instruction in chengyu teaching. The experiments involved participants from Bachelor and Master programs of Roma Tre University. The results show a predominant effect of negative transfer from Italian, as well as a better performance of the participants who received indirect instruction
Concurrent Multiscale Computing of Deformation Microstructure by Relaxation and Local Enrichment with Application to Single-Crystal Plasticity
This paper is concerned with the effective modeling of deformation microstructures within a concurrent multiscale computing framework. We present a rigorous formulation of concurrent multiscale computing based on relaxation; we establish the connection between concurrent multiscale computing and enhanced-strain elements; and we illustrate the approach in an important area of application, namely, single-crystal plasticity, for which the explicit relaxation of the problem is derived analytically. This example demonstrates the vast effect of microstructure formation on the macroscopic behavior of the sample, e.g., on the force/travel curve of a rigid indentor. Thus, whereas the unrelaxed model results in an overly stiff response, the relaxed model exhibits a proper limit load, as expected. Our numerical examples additionally illustrate that ad hoc element enhancements, e.g., based on polynomial, trigonometric, or similar representations, are unlikely to result in any significant relaxation in general
Modeling of dislocations and relaxation of functionals on 1-currents with discrete multiplicity
In the modeling of dislocations one is lead naturally to energies
concentrated on lines, where the integrand depends on the orientation and on
the Burgers vector of the dislocation, which belongs to a discrete lattice. The
dislocations may be identified with divergence-free matrix-valued measures
supported on curves or with 1-currents with multiplicity in a lattice. In this
paper we develop the theory of relaxation for these energies and provide one
physically motivated example in which the relaxation for some Burgers vectors
is nontrivial and can be determined explicitly. From a technical viewpoint the
key ingredients are an approximation and a structure theorem for 1-currents
with multiplicity in a lattice
Branched Microstructures in the Ginzburg-Landau Model of Type-I Superconductors
We consider the Ginzburg-Landau energy for a type-I superconductor in the
shape of an infinite three-dimensional slab, with two-dimensional periodicity,
with an applied magnetic field which is uniform and perpendicular to the slab.
We determine the optimal scaling law of the minimal energy in terms of the
parameters of the problem, when the applied magnetic field is sufficiently
small and the sample sufficiently thick. This optimal scaling law is proven via
ansatz-free lower bounds and an explicit branching construction which refines
further and further as one approaches the surface of the sample. Two different
regimes appear, with different scaling exponents. In the first regime, the
branching leads to an almost uniform magnetic field pattern on the boundary; in
the second one the inhomogeneity survives up to the boundary.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figure
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