The processing of gender information in languages of distinct morphosyntactic gender marking systems

87 p.When talking about people, gender information is taken as an essential feature during language processing. The gender here may be definitional (e.g., King is male or Queen is female), stereotypical (e.g., doctor, male-biased) and/or grammatical (e.g., miner-o/a, male/female miner, morpho-syntactic form for linguistic agreement). All the three types of gender can provide information on gender. World languages are categorized into three groups based on how gender is encoded in a language: genderless languages (no morpho-syntactic gender is required), natural languages (morpho-syntactic gender agreement is required based on biological gender) and grammatical gender languages (grammatical gender agreement is compulsory between related words). Difference between the three language groups is the presence/absence of morpho-syntactic gender. The current thesis is aimed to investigate how gender information (definitional, stereotypical and/or grammatical) is processed in languages with distinct gender marking systems. Three experiments are conducted: while Experiment I investigate pronoun resolution in a genderless language (i.e., Mandarin Chinese, for its asymmetrical gender specificity in the third person pronouns), Experiments II and III explored the processing of stereotypical gender in noun phrases in Spanish (grammatical) and Mandarin Chinese (genderless). ERP mismatch paradigm is employed for all the three experiments. Cross-linguistic comparisons are carried out and different processing mechanisms resulting from distinct gender marking systems are reported

Mediated voyeurism on social networking sites: The Possible social needs and potential motivations of the voyeurs on Facebook

Previous studies on social networking sites have failed to comprehensively address the mediated voyeurism in the Internet. The features of Facebook enable millions to follow their friends, which can contribute to mediated voyeurism online. The purpose of this study is to explain the voyeuristic tendencies of Facebook users. An online survey was used to obtain self-reported levels of voyeuristic tendencies and both the social needs (social comparison and social identity) and motivations (surveillance, uncertainty reduction, and uses and gratifications) of Facebook users. Findings suggest that the voyeuristic tendencies on Facebook were positively related to the aforementioned social needs and motivations

Ultracold quantum scattering in the presence of synthetic spin-orbit coupling

Two-body scattering constitutes one of the most fundamental processes in various physical systems ranging from ultracold dilute quantum gases to energetic quark- gluon plasmas. In this dissertation, we study the low-energy atomic collision physics in the presence of synthetic gauge fields, which are generated by atom-light interaction. One category of synthetic gauge fields is the artificial spin-orbit coupling. We discuss three different aspects in scattering theory: ultracold collision, scattering resonance, and bound state formation from a few-body perspective when the atomic spin states are coupled with their center-of-mass motion. The understanding of the spin-orbit effects on the modification of the scattering processes not only builds the foundation of collision physics in the presence of non-abelian gauge fields but also paves the way towards unraveling the few-body correlations in many-body systems

Evaluation of a Team-Based Learning Tutor Training Workshop on Research and Publication Ethics by Faculty and Staff Participants

A team-based Learning (TBL) tutor training workshop on research and publication ethics was offered to 8 faculty members and 3 staff at Hallym University in 2009. To investigate the effect of the workshop and any attitude changes, a questionnaire survey was performed after the 8-hr course. Questions in four categories-general course content, change in attitudes toward research and publication ethics, the TBL format, and an open-ended question about the course--were included. Participants responded positively to all items on general course content. There was a positive change in attitude on research and publication ethics. Participants also responded positively to six items on team-based learning. The overall positive response to the workshop on research and publication ethics suggested the effectiveness of this kind of TBL tutor training course for university faculty and staff

Optimized Decimation of Tensor Networks with Super-orthogonalization for Two-Dimensional Quantum Lattice Models

A novel algorithm based on the optimized decimation of tensor networks with super-orthogonalization (ODTNS) that can be applied to simulate efficiently and accurately not only the thermodynamic but also the ground state properties of two-dimensional (2D) quantum lattice models is proposed. By transforming the 2D quantum model into a three-dimensional (3D) closed tensor network (TN) comprised of the tensor product density operator and a 3D brick-wall TN, the free energy of the system can be calculated with the imaginary time evolution, in which the network Tucker decomposition is suggested for the first time to obtain the optimal lower-dimensional approximation on the bond space by transforming the TN into a super-orthogonal form. The efficiency and accuracy of this algorithm are testified, which are fairly comparable with the quantum Monte Carlo calculations. Besides, the present ODTNS scheme can also be applicable to the 2D frustrated quantum spin models with nice efficiency