Nonequilibrium Steady States and MacLennan-Zubarev Ensembles in a Quantum Junction System

Based on a recent progress in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of infinitely extended quantum systems, a nonequlibrium steady state (NESS) is constructed for a single-level quantum dot interacting with two free reservoirs under less general but more practically useful conditions than the previous works. As an example, a model of an Ahoronov-Bohm ring with a quantum dot is studied in detail. Then, NESS is shown to be regarded as a MacLennan-Zubarev ensemble. A formal relation between response and correlation at NESS is derived as well.Comment: submitted to Progress of Theoretical Physic

Culture as Context

The relationship between context and culture seems to result in certain patterns, forms, and linguistic or non-linguistic features. They are all packaged in a product called “text.” If we closely observe our own linguistic behavior, we can see how much all of these elements affect each other. From a discourse analytic perspective, culture is a necessary aspect to examine in order to infer what is truly occurring in a conversation. Gumperz (1982) suggests that no matter what the context is, “all verbal behavior is governed by social norms specifying participant roles, rights and duties vis-à-vis each other” (p.165). He warns us of the danger of misunderstanding the speaker’s intentions and meanings if we solely rely on our own cultural background to interpret the talk. For instance, Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki and Ogino (1986) and Ide (2006) assert that a strict Japanese social code for politeness called “wakimae” (discernment) requires all Japanese speakers to comply with it without choice in their verbal activities. Japanese society emphasizes humility and one way this is realized is the use of the “non-acceptance” strategy in compliment responses

Contribution with Hand-Raising in Graduate Student Self-Selection: Bringing Legitimacy to the Focal Shift of Talk

Hand-raising is an extremely useful device for classroom self-selection. According to Sahlström (2002), it exhibits a student’s willingness to participate, and is a means by which to attract the attention of the teacher. Kawabe, Yamamoto, Aoyagi, and Watanabe (2014) analyzed various situations and student factors to affect hand-raising in the classroom. The practice of hand-raising is generally found to occur at the teacher’s turn transition relevant places, or TRPs (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). The conventional process of self-selection with hand-raising involves a student bidding for a nomination, and the self-selector becoming ratified to speak after the teacher nomination is provided. It was also suggested that later bidders tend to be selected more frequently than the first bidders, who may raise their hands slightly prior to the teacher’s early TRPs. Thus, “teachers may reward the late hand-raisers for sufficient listening” (Sahlström, 2002, p. 53-54)

A Conversation Analytic Study on Participation Practices in the American Graduate Classroom: East Asian Students Vs. L1 English-Speaking Students

In an increasingly global world, there has been a steep rise in the population of East Asian students (EASs) arriving in the United States to pursue post-secondary degrees. This has made EASs’ reticent and passive behaviors in the American classroom—a problem that has been raised and discussed for years—more salient today than ever before. While there has been a sizable amount of previous research investigating EASs who did not participate in class, very little attention has been paid to EASs who did participate and how they participate. This study examines EASs’ participation practices and how they differ from those of native-English-speaking students (NESSs). Using the conversation analysis (CA) method, I examined 38 hours of video-recorded and transcribed graduate classroom sessions from a university in the U.S., paying particular attention to both linguistic and non-linguistic features as well as various facets of embodiment, including gaze, gestures, and body movement. The analysis shows that both EASs and NESSs undertook three distinct stages of self-selection: namely, registering, gearing up, and launching. While EASs tended to faithfully follow the three full stages, NESSs tended to economize their process to reach self-selection faster and more effortlessly. In addition, in responding to teacher questions, EASs typically utilized the answering style that pursues a narrow focus on answering the teacher question, while NESSs were found to engage in the exploring style without such a narrow focus. Finally, in making affiliative or disaffiliative contributions to class discussions without any teacher questions or prompts, EASs were found to display a factual stance, without much use of affective elements, while NESSs tended to express an affective stance. Findings of this study contribute to the literature on EASs’ class participation as the first CA study on this topic and to that of classroom discourse in general. Pedagogically, these findings can constitute a useful basis for equipping instructors with better tools for working with EASs and training EASs to develop a more effective style of participation in the American graduate classroom

In Pursuit of Conversation Analysis: An Interview with Professor John Heritage

On the late-summer evening of September 23, 2017, we had the privilege of speaking over dinner with John Heritage, a plenary speaker at the eighth annual Conference of The Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI) held at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Heritage is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and one of the key scholars in the discipline of conversation analysis (CA). Early in his academic career, Professor Heritage published the book Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology (1984), in which he successfully brought Harold Garfinkel’s complex and highly technical analysis of “members’ methods” (the foundation of CA) to a wider audience. In 1988, he became a faculty member at UCLA—”CA central,” where the founders of conversation analysis, including Emanuel Schegloff, Harvey Sacks, and Harold Garfinkel, had been based. Since then, Professor Heritage has been a leading researcher in the field, consistently producing illuminating CA work in a variety of contexts, from media talk to medical interaction. Most recently, his focus has been on the study of epistemics in interaction. With this interview, we return to where John Heritage started: at the University of Leeds, England, where he was a graduate student focusing on what first made him interested in pursuing CA. We learn about some of the eye-opening events in his life and the past endeavors and accomplishments that helped him reach where he is today

Culture as Context

The relationship between context and culture seems to result in certain patterns, forms, and linguistic or non-linguistic features. They are all packaged in a product called “text.” If we closely observe our own linguistic behavior, we can see how much all of these elements affect each other. From a discourse analytic perspective, culture is a necessary aspect to examine in order to infer what is truly occurring in a conversation. Gumperz (1982) suggests that no matter what the context is, “all verbal behavior is governed by social norms specifying participant roles, rights and duties vis-à-vis each other” (p.165). He warns us of the danger of misunderstanding the speaker’s intentions and meanings if we solely rely on our own cultural background to interpret the talk. For instance, Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki and Ogino (1986) and Ide (2006) assert that a strict Japanese social code for politeness called “wakimae” (discernment) requires all Japanese speakers to comply with it without choice in their verbal activities. Japanese society emphasizes humility and one way this is realized is the use of the “non-acceptance” strategy in compliment responses

Quantitative and qualitative saccharide analysis of North Atlantic brown seaweed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy

Brown seaweeds contain a variety of saccharides which have potential industrial uses. The most abundant polysaccharide in brown seaweed is typically alginate, consisting of mannuronic (M) and guluronic acid (G). The ratio of these residues fundamentally determines the physicochemical properties of alginate. In the present study, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to give a detailed breakdown of the monosaccharide species in North Atlantic brown seaweeds. The anthrone method was used for determination of crystalline cellulose. The experimental data was used to calibrate multivariate prediction models for estimation of total carbohydrates, crystalline cellulose, total alginate and alginate M/G ratio directly in dried, brown seaweed using three types of infrared spectroscopy, using relative error (RE) as a measure of predictive accuracy. Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) performed well for the estimation of total alginate (RE = 0.12, R2 = 0.82), and attenuated total reflectance (ATR) showed good prediction of M/G ratio (RE = 0.14, R2 = 0.86). Both DRIFTS, ATR and near infrared (NIR) were unable to predict crystalline cellulose and only DRIFTS performed better in determining total carbohydrates. Multivariate spectral analysis is a promising method for easy and rapid characterization of alginate and M/G ratio in seaweed

Cold stress stimulates algae to produce value-added compounds

Two cold-tolerant microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus sp., were grown at 22 and 5 °C. At the lower temperature, the microalgae showed substantial biochemical and morphological changes. The soluble sugar profile in response to low-temperature cultivation was very different in the two strains. C. vulgaris increased both the sucrose and raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) content at 5 °C while Scenedesmus sp. drastically reduced the sucrose content. Both strains increased the total fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) content when grown at 5 °C. However, the FAME profiles were very different: C. vulgaris mainly increased C18:1 and less so C18:3, while Scenedesmus sp. decreased C18:1 but greatly increased C18:3. The morphology of C. vulgaris changed slightly at the lower temperature, while Scenedesmus sp. showed substantial changes in the size and shape. Low temperature triggered the synthesis of unsaturated fatty acids that are essential for human nutrition