The Functions Of Cultural Schemata In The Chinese Reading Comprehension And Reading Time Of College Students In Taiwan

The study examined the effects of cultural familiarity with a text on Chinese students’ reading comprehension performance and reading time. In the first phase of the study, participants were required to read a culturally familiar text, write down the time they spent reading the passage, and immediately complete a cloze test without referring back to the culturally-embedded text. In the second phase, they went through the same procedure for a culturally unfamiliar text. Upon completion of the reading tasks, a topic familiarity questionnaire was distributed to them to complete in order to screen out those who were culturally familiar with both reading texts. A survey about their attitudes toward the role that background knowledge played in their reading process was administered to them following the topic familiarity questionnaire. The results showed that the students’ reading comprehension performance and reading time were both significantly affected by their familiarity with the target culture. They spent less time on and comprehended better the culturally-embedded text they were familiar with. Analysis of the survey also substantiated the claim that they relied on the facilitative role of background knowledge in reading so as to read in a faster and more efficient way. The findings suggest that a reader’s cultural schemata impacts memory, reading comprehension, interpretation and reading time. Pedagogical implications of the study and suggestions for future research are also discussed in the article

1,4-Bis(dimethyl­silyl)-2,5-diphenyl­benzene

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C22H26Si2, is centrosymmetric. The dihedral angle between the central benzene ring and its phenyl substituents is 67.7 (2)°. The crystal packing is stabilized by van der Waals forces

In situ structures of the genome and genome-delivery apparatus in a single-stranded RNA virus.

Packaging of the genome into a protein capsid and its subsequent delivery into a host cell are two fundamental processes in the life cycle of a virus. Unlike double-stranded DNA viruses, which pump their genome into a preformed capsid, single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses, such as bacteriophage MS2, co-assemble their capsid with the genome; however, the structural basis of this co-assembly is poorly understood. MS2 infects Escherichia coli via the host 'sex pilus' (F-pilus); it was the first fully sequenced organism and is a model system for studies of translational gene regulation, RNA-protein interactions, and RNA virus assembly. Its positive-sense ssRNA genome of 3,569 bases is enclosed in a capsid with one maturation protein monomer and 89 coat protein dimers arranged in a T = 3 icosahedral lattice. The maturation protein is responsible for attaching the virus to an F-pilus and delivering the viral genome into the host during infection, but how the genome is organized and delivered is not known. Here we describe the MS2 structure at 3.6 Å resolution, determined by electron-counting cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) and asymmetric reconstruction. We traced approximately 80% of the backbone of the viral genome, built atomic models for 16 RNA stem-loops, and identified three conserved motifs of RNA-coat protein interactions among 15 of these stem-loops with diverse sequences. The stem-loop at the 3' end of the genome interacts extensively with the maturation protein, which, with just a six-helix bundle and a six-stranded β-sheet, forms a genome-delivery apparatus and joins 89 coat protein dimers to form a capsid. This atomic description of genome-capsid interactions in a spherical ssRNA virus provides insight into genome delivery via the host sex pilus and mechanisms underlying ssRNA-capsid co-assembly, and inspires speculation about the links between nucleoprotein complexes and the origins of viruses

Think Outside the Fiber: Imaging Amplifier for Space-Multiplexed Optical Transmission

This paper proposes a simple and practical method to amplify signals for space-multiplexed optical transmission. In this amplification technique, the output facet of the multicore or multimode fiber is mapped back to the same type of fiber after passing through an imaging and bulk amplifying region. Simulations are carried out for a seven-core multicore fiber with the signal lasers amplified by a bulk erbium-ytterbium-doped phosphate glass amplifier. Amplifier gain of similar to 20 dB is achieved at an input power of 6 mW for each individual core with an optical power conversion efficiency of 32.5%. The proposed amplifier technique does not have a core or mode count limit for multicore and multimode fibers

Case Study of Teacher Training for Project STEM Course

Educators are paying more attention to students' hands-on ability with critical thinking which has not been emphasized in previous Chinese education system. To fill this gap, there is a need to organize a hands-on workshop to develop teachers’ STEM hands-on skills to promote on high school campus. Therefore, the purposes of this study are: 1. exploring the development status of teachers' hands-on ability after ending the workshop and 2. exploring the effectiveness of the project-based STEM training with interdisciplinary concept content compared with the traditional STEM training. Based on the two-day teacher training of STEM workshop, this paper used Flanders interaction analysis which is an observation technique used to record and analyze the process and impact of teacher-student interaction in the classroom. Through the analysis, we found that the learners were active in this training course, the interaction between teachers and learners was very frequent, and the relationship between them was quite consistent (harmonious). Then we inferred the training effect of the teachers in the training by combining the works or results submitted by the learners after the workshop. The error rate of these exercises or results was low, indicating that peer discussion or group discussion played an important role in the process of practice. Compared with the traditional iFIAS method, it can be found that in the training based on the project-based teaching model, learners' advanced cognitive abilities such as analysis and synthesis were developed, and their knowledge transfer ability was more flexible, which was also a reflection of interdisciplinary ability