Consideration of building a common platform of collaborative learning environment

This paper reports on considerations about a common and basic functions/components for building a collaborative learning environment. We make efforts to specify the technological issues towards the future standardization of this environment through our research experiences. The problem of standardization includes many embarrassed aspects, however it will extend and widen the field of applications possible within the collaborative learning paradigm, and will make possible the usage of the fruits of years of research and individual implementations of the concept of collaborative learning, from many researches, developments and experiences. So we would like to locate this problem as building a common platform

Determination of the Workability of a Coal Face Underground by Measuring the Friability of Coal

In this report, the results of an investigation of the friability-index of coal face underground, which would be the most useful index for prediction of face workability, at 141 working faces (62 coal mines) in Japan are described. These results were classified separately for each district and working system, i.e., blasting, coal pick, coal cutter and Hobel mining, and then the friability-index measured at each coal face was compared with the working efficiency. Furthermore, from these results, we have proposed a method for designation of the workability of a coal face by the friability-index

Understanding the ontological requirements for collaborative web-based experiential learning

The challenge of human-computer interaction forces educationalists to think of new ways to understand the social, historical and contextual nature of learning. Discussion and exchange of ideas enable learners to learn together. However, the granularity of the Webbased learning context is extensive; consequently, e- Courseware design faces new dilemmas. Only through targeted research will it be known with any certainty whether Web-based learning gives rise to a new type of learning dissonance [1]. It has been proposed that converged theoretical paradigms that underpin particular digitised or context-mediated learning systems are forcing learners into new ways of thinking [2]. This paper presents an overview of the plans for an experimental project designed to understand the ontological requirements for experiential instructional environments. This project is a joint research initiative involving three Universities in the Asia/Pacific region. Results will be used to inform educationalists interested in developing instructional strategies for a global community.<br /

How a Web-Based Course Facilitates Acquisition of English for Academic Purposes

This paper describes an experimental study aimed at investigating the learning effectiveness of a Web-based course called Academic English (EAP) for Japanese learners of English. The main focus of the study was to examine the form, function, and impact of interaction in the course. Twenty university-level EFL students participated in this experiment. They were randomly assigned to two treatment groups: a controlled group with inter-personal task treatment and an experiment group with intra-personal task treatment. Regarding effectiveness of the interactivity dimension in language acquisition, there was one independent variable, type of treatments, and two dependent variables, achievement and attitude measurements. The achievement variable was used to address the extent of learning due to the two treatment conditions. The attitude variable was used to address the degree of motivation towards a Web-based communication platform as well as the enforced interaction functions. Statistical analyses revealed no significant effect of treatment on either comprehension or general L2 development, but significant differences were found with respect to language interaction for task completion under different task treatments. Therefore, it was concluded that this Web-based course was well designed to maximize the students &apos; language learning experience as well as to improve their language abilities in English. Further research is needed to examine the notion of self-repair in students &apos; production in the target language

The tumor-forming type of multiple myeloma. I. Biological behavior.

A total of 45 cases of multiple myeloma has been followed up clinically during the period from 7 to 80 months. Out of these, six patients (13.3%) were diagnosed to be the tumor-forming type; they developed discrete tumor formation at the disease onset or during clinical observation. Biological behavior of these cases is briefly outlined. Histologically, five cases presented with well or moderately well differentiated plasma cells according to the grading made by Pasmantier and Azar. The remaining one case was poorly differentiated in cell maturity, and with electron and immunofluorescence microscopies, proved to be of plasmacytic nature.</p

Angle-resolved photoemission study of MX-chain compound [Ni(chxn)2_2Br]Br2_2

We report on the results of angle-resolved photoemission experiments on a quasi-one-dimensional $MX$-chain compound [Ni(chxn)$_2$Br]Br$_2$ (chxn = 1$R$,2$R$-cyclohexanediamine), a one-dimensional Heisenberg system with $S=1/2$ and $J \sim 3600$ K, which shows a gigantic non-linear optical effect. A "band" having about 500 meV energy dispersion is found in the first half of the Brillouin zone $(0\le kb/\pi <1/2)$, but disappears at $kb / \pi \sim 1/2$. Two dispersive features, expected from the spin-charge separation, as have been observed in other quasi-one-dimensional systems like Sr$_2$CuO$_3$, are not detected. These characteristic features are well reproduced by the $d$-$p$ chain model calculations with a small charge-transfer energy $\Delta$ compared with that of one-dimensional Cu-O based compounds. We propose that this smaller $\Delta$ is the origin of the absence of clear spin- and charge-separation in the photoemission spectra and strong non-linear optical effect in [Ni(chxn)$_2$Br]Br$_2$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure