Second Language Acquisition and Current Trends in Japan: The Cultural Risks

This paper discusses second language acquisition with reference to periphery countries and the effects of English on culture and language. It includes a brief history of the spread of English as an international language and reasons why many countries are creating English language programs. Globalisation and communication advances since the 1990s are discussed with particular reference to their effects on Japanese society, culture and language. Many countries have decided to protect their national identities while simultaneously implementing English language programs that suit the needs of their people. Successful policies have taken into account the relationship between language and culture and the dangers of creating programs that do not consider the consequences of acculturation. It is important for Japanese policy makers to study the experiences and actions of other non-English countries, the current research available and pertinent language programs worldwide in order to formulate a viable English program that produces bilingual graduates literate in both English and Japanese. An effective English language program will incorporate theory, practice and the experiences of other countries, applied to the needs and nature of Japan and its people

Perception and Prejudice in Oral Communication

Successful teachers of English as a Foreign Language understand the power of their 'classroom talk'. They recognize and understand the prejudices that they bring into the classroom and use accommodative processes that will enhance student rapport, attentiveness and ultimately learning. Successful teachers balance linguistic convergence and divergence techniques to accommodate for the differences between individuals in the classroom

An Integrated Approach: Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation Skills and Communicating in the ESL Classroom

Our intention in contributing to this book chapter is to bring together some aspects of research and best practice in Oral Communication teaching in both the Arts and the Sciences and in so doing, apply a problem-solving approach to the teaching of successful Oral Communication to Second Language learners. We define successful Oral Communication as the process of giving and uveiving a clear message. This process both weaves and is woven from our acculturated concepts of reality and involves not only all aspects of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, but also intention, and verbal and non-verbal language

The Epidemiology of Stargardt Disease in the United Kingdom

The authors thank the British Ophthalmological Surveillance Unit (BOSU) for the support received, as well as Mr Barnaby Foot, research coordinator for BOSU, for his help and advice on this project. The authors thank the following ophthalmologists who assisted with data collection for this study: N. Acharya, S. Anwar, V. Bansal, P.N. Bishop, D. Byles, J.S. Chawla, A. Churchill, M. Clarke, B. Dhillon, M. Ekstein, S. George, J. Gillian, J.T. Gillow, D. Gilmour, R. Gray, P.T.S. Gregory, R. Gupta, S.P. Kelly, I.C. Lloyd, A. Lotery, M. McKibbin, R. MacLaren, G. Menon, A.T. Moore, A. Mulvihill, Y. Osoba, R. Pilling, H. Porooshani, A. Raghu Ram, T. Rimmer, I. Russell-Eggitt, M. Sarhan, R. Savides, S. Shafquat, A. Smith, A. Tekriwal, P. Tesha, P. Watts.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Concomitant diagnosis of immune deficiency and Pseudomonas sepsis in a 19 month old with ecthyma gangrenosum by host whole-genome sequencing.

X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA, OMIM#300300) is a rare monogenic primary immunodeficiency caused by mutations in the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) gene. XLA is characterized by insufficient immunoglobulin levels and susceptibility to life-threatening bacterial infections. We report on a patient that presented with ecthyma gangrenosum and septicemia. Rapid trio whole-genome sequencing (rWGS) revealed an apparently de novo hemizygous pathogenic variant (c.726dupT; p.Ile243TyrfsTer15) in the BTK gene. Metagenomic analysis of rWGS sequences that did not align to the human genome revealed 770 aligned to the Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 genome. The patient was diagnosed with XLA and pseudomonal sepsis

Modelling the earth’s geomagnetic environment on Cray machines using PETSc and SLEPc

The British Geological Survey's global geomagnetic model, Model of the Earth's Magnetic Environment (MEME), is an important tool for calculating the strength and direction of the Earth's magnetic field, which is continually in flux. While the ability to collect data from ground‐based observation sites and satellites has grown rapidly, the memory bound nature of the original code has proved a significant limitation on the size of the modelling problem required. In this paper, we describe work done replacing the bespoke, sequential, eigensolver with that of the PETSc/SLEPc package for solving the system of normal equations. Adopting PETSc/SLEPc also required fundamental changes in how we built and distributed the data structures, and as such, we describe an approach for building symmetric matrices that provides good load balance and avoids the need for close coordination between the processes or replication of work. We also study the memory bound nature of the code from an irregular memory accesses perspective and combine detailed profiling with software cache prefetching to significantly optimise this. Performance and scaling characteristics are explored on ARCHER, a Cray XC30, where we achieved a speed up for the solver of 294 times by replacing the model's bespoke approach with SLEPc

The structure of the carboxyltransferase component of acetyl-CoA carboxylase reveals a zinc-binding motif unique to the bacterial enzyme

Acetyl-coA carboxylase (ACC) is a central metabolic enzyme that catalyzes the committed step in fatty acid biosynthesis: biotin-dependent conversion of acetyl-coA to malonyl-coA. The bacterial carboxyltransferase (CT) subunit of ACC is a target for the design of novel therapeutics that combat severe, hospital-acquired infections resistant to the established classes of frontline antimicrobials. Here, we present the structures of the bacterial CT subunits from two prevalent nosocomial pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, at a resolution of 2.0 and 3.0 Å, respectively. Both structures reveal a small, independent zinc-binding domain that lacks a complement in the primary sequence or structure of the eukaryotic homologue. © 2006 American Chemical Society

Object Relations in the Museum: A Psychosocial Perspective

This article theorises museum engagement from a psychosocial perspective. With the aid of selected concepts from object relations theory, it explains how the museum visitor can establish a personal relation to museum objects, making use of them as an ‘aesthetic third’ to symbolise experience. Since such objects are at the same time cultural resources, interacting with them helps the individual to feel part of a shared culture. The article elaborates an example drawn from a research project that aimed to make museum collections available to people with physical and mental health problems. It draws on the work of the British psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion to explain the salience of the concepts of object use, potential space, containment and reverie within a museum context. It also refers to the work of the contemporary psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas on how objects can become evocative for individuals both by virtue of their intrinsic qualities and by the way they are used to express personal idiom