Analyses on Vocabulary Size Test Results at an Intensive English Program

Previous studies have shown that explicit vocabulary learning leads tovocabulary acquisition; however, the link between implicit vocabularylearning and vocabulary acquisition seems to be under-researched. It wasunclear whether vocabulary development was positively or adverselyaffected by attending English classes and preparing for examinations. Inorder to address this issue, this research investigates the vocabulary size of78 first-year university students in 2018. The vocabulary size was measuredat the beginning and at the end of the school year using the Vocabulary SizeTest (Nation & Beglar, 2007). It was found that students gained about 300words on average through the year. The result shows that even though thestudents received limited explicit instruction on the vocabulary tested, theygenerally improved their English vocabulary over time. Their attendancerate and their scores in the review tests, however, were found to have nosignificant associations with the vocabulary gain

羞恥表出者に対する観察者の行動および評価に関する研究 : 日常場面における観察者の行動生起プロセスの検討

内容の要約広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(心理学)Philosophy in Psychologydoctora

The effect of embarrassed facial expressions on observer motive <Article>

This study had two purposes: first, we investigated whether the effect of embarrassed expressions on observer motive varied as a result of the situation that caused the embarrassment, and second, we investigated whether observer motive differed by type of embarrassed facial expression. Participants read scenarios in which a friend was either positively or negatively evaluated by a third person and the friend expressed one of four types of facial expression: three embarrassed and one neutral. Participants were then asked questions that explored their motive to act on behalf of themselves, on behalf of their friend, and to attempt to recover the disrupted social interaction. In order to examine whether the effect of embarrassed expression on observer motive varied according to the situation that resulted in the embarrassment and whether observer motive differed by type of facial expression, two-way ANOVAs, simple main effect analysis, and multiple comparisons were conducted Results revealed that the interactions of situation and facial expression type were significant on all observer motive. Moreover, there were significant differences in each observer motive between types of facial expression when the friend was positively evaluated; however, no such differences were found when the friend was evaluated negatively. These findings suggest that the effect of embarrassed facial expressions on observer motive is differed by the situation that caused the embarrassment, and that the effect of facial expressions on observer motive exist in only under conditions of positive evaluation

Exploratory Investigation into Successful and Less Successful Learners of English with Interviews

Previous analyses revealed that the students in an English program at abilingual university in Tokyo significantly improved their English proficiencyover their first year. Further statistical analyses such as structural equationmodeling, however, were unable to discover what factors contributed to theimprovement positively or negatively. Thus, to investigate what factorscontribute to the success of English learners in the English program, we askedboth successful and less successful students how they studied during the firstyear of their university education in and out of class. The results showed thatsuccessful and less successful learners employed no different learningstrategies, but two factors, English-speaking selves and test familiarity,emerged as possible factors that might influence the improvement of theirEnglish proficiency

Differences in the Composition of Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT) Reagents Affect Clot Waveform Analysis

Background Clot waveform analysis (CWA) based on activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) is a useful assay for hemostasis. However, the effects of activators and phospholipid conditions on CWA have not been adequately investigated. Therefore, we characterized CWA using four different APTT reagents. Methods: We used 39 archived plasma samples from patients with hemophilia A (HA), 16 samples from patients with HA under emicizumab treatment, and 10 samples from healthy individuals for CWA with four different types of APTT reagents (reagents A, B, C, and D). We then compared Ad|min1|, Ad|min2|, and Ad|max2| from the CWA, which reflect the maximum velocity, maximum acceleration, and maximum deceleration, respectively, among the four reagents. Results: Similar clot waveform shapes were observed for each reagent in the healthy donor group, HA group, and HA under emicizumab group, and the waveform was different for each target group. Significant changes were found in clotting time (CT) (s), Ad|min1| (%/s), Ad|min2| (%/s2), and Ad|max2| (%/s2). The waveform pattern for the coagulation reaction by reagent D, comprising silica and synthetic phospholipids, was the fastest among the reagents examined. Further, the difference in Ad|min1| (%/s) and Ad|min2| (%/s2) was larger than that in CT depending on the reagent used(s), indicating that the measured value of CWA was affected by the reagent composition. Conclusion: Our results showed a significant difference among reagents with varying composition and concentration; this was found to affect the parameters obtained from CWA. Thus, the differences between reagents hinder standardization of quantitative evaluation using these parameters; further, this highlights the necessity of understanding the characteristics of APTT reagents and determining the reference range in individual facilities

Solid variant of aneurysmal bone cyst in the tibia treated with simple curettage without bone graft: a case report

The solid variant of aneurysmal bone cyst (solid ABC) is rarely encountered in long bones and appropriate treatment for this disease remains unclear. We experienced a 13-year-old boy suffering from pain in his left knee caused by solid ABC. Simple curettage of the bone lesion without any adjuvant therapy and a bone graft gave immediate pain relief. Histological examination of the surgical specimen showed typical features of solid ABC, and cycloxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression was confirmed in giant cells with a background of spindle cells by immunohistochemistry. Magnetic resonance imaging showed that soft tissue edema surrounding the lesion was improved two months after surgery and there was no indication of recurrence two years after surgery

Saari's homographic conjecture for planar equal-mass three-body problem under a strong force potential

Donald Saari conjectured that the $N$-body motion with constant configurational measure is a motion with fixed shape. Here, the configurational measure $\mu$ is a scale invariant product of the moment of inertia $I=\sum_k m_k |q_k|^2$ and the potential function $U=\sum_{i<j} m_i m_j/|q_i-q_j|^\alpha$, $\alpha >0$. Namely, $\mu = I^{\alpha/2}U$. We will show that this conjecture is true for planar equal-mass three-body problem under the strong force potential $\sum_{i<j} 1/|q_i-q_j|^2$

Graph cuts by using local texture features of wavelet coefficient for image segmentation

This paper proposes an approach to image segmentation us-ing Iterated Graph Cuts based on local texture features of wavelet coefficient. Using Multiresolution Analysis based on Haar Wavelet, low-frequency range (smoothed image) is used for n-link and high-frequency range (local texture features) is used for t-link along with color histogram. The proposed method can segment the object region with noisy edges and colors similar to the background, but heavy texture change. Experimental results illustrate the validity of our method

Automatic segmentation of object region using Graph Cuts based on saliency maps and AdaBoost

Abstract—In conventional methods for region segmentation of objects, the best segmentation results have been obtained by semi-automatic or interactive methods that require a small amount of user input. In this study, we propose a new technique for automatically obtaining segmentation of a flower region by using visual attention (saliency maps) as the prior probability in Graph Cuts. First, AdaBoost determines an approximate flower location using a rectangular window in order to learn the object and background color information using two Gaussian mixture models. We then extract visual attention using saliency maps of the image, and used them as a prior probability of the object model (spatial information). Bayes ’ theorem gives a posterior probability using the prior probability and the likelihood from GMMs, and the posterior probability is used as t-link cost in Graph Cuts, where no manual labeling of image regions is required. The effectiveness of our approach is confirmed by experiments of region segmentation on flower images. I