DEVELOPING EFL LEARNERS' AUTONOMY IN SPEAKING ENGLISH: AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS' PRACTICE AT A UNIVERSITY IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

Learner autonomy (LA) is currently concentrated in the Vietnamese educational context as it equips learners with the capacity for lifelong learning. For the EFL context, tertiary students encounter numerous challenges practicing language skills, especially English speaking because of lacking the language environment. This study aims at exploring what Vietnamese EFL students practice to develop LA in speaking English. The study using a mix-method approach was conducted at a university in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam with the participation of 102 English-majored students ranging from freshmen to seniors. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used to explore students’ practice to develop LA for their English speaking development. The result reveals that the level in practicing LA among groups of students reaches the average, and it also figures out the components of LA in English speaking skills that students have performed as well as activities that students still encounter many obstacles in practicing.  Article visualizations

Understanding Interaction Capacity of CO2 with Organic Compounds at Molecular Level: A Theoretical Approach

In this chapter, interactions of CO2 with a number of organic compounds at molecular level are discussed in detail. The naked and substituted hydrocarbons along with compounds functionalized by hydroxyl, carbonyl, thiocarbonyl, carboxyl, sulfonyl, and amide groups have attracted much attention as CO2-philic agents. In general, interaction capacity between the functionalized organic compounds with CO2 is stronger than the hydrocarbon and its derivatives. An addition of more CO2 molecules into the interaction system formed by the functionalized organic compounds and CO2 leads to an increase in the stability of the complexes. The obtained results indicate that π…π linkages between CO2 and aromatic rings can significantly contribute to the interactions between CO2 and MOF/ZIF materials. Formic acid (HCOOH) is likely to be the most soluble compound as compared to the remaining host molecules (CH3OH, CH3NH2, HCHO, HCOOCH3, and CH3COCH3) when dissolved in CO2. The carbonyl (>C═O, >C═S) and sulfonyl (>S═O, >S═S) compounds have presented a higher stability, as compared to other functionalized groups, when they interact with CO2. Therefore, they can be valuable candidates in the design of CO2-philic materials and in the search of materials to adsorb CO2

An identification of the tolerable time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter timing mismatch level in high-speed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems

High-speed Terahertz communication systems has recently employed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing approach as it provides high spectral efficiency and avoids inter-symbol interference caused by dispersive channels. Such high-speed systems require extremely high-sampling time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters at the receiver. However, timing mismatch of time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters significantly causes system performance degradation. In this paper, to avoid such performance degradation induced by timing mismatch, we theoretically determine maximum tolerable mismatch levels for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing communication systems. To obtain these levels, we first propose an analytical method to derive the bit error rate formula for quadrature and pulse amplitude modulations in Rayleigh fading channels, assuming binary reflected gray code (BRGC) mapping. Further, from the derived bit error rate (BER) expressions, we reveal a threshold of timing mismatch level for which error floors produced by the mismatch will be smaller than a given BER. Simulation results demonstrate that if we preserve mismatch level smaller than 25% of this obtained threshold, the BER performance degradation is smaller than 0.5 dB as compared to the case without timing mismatch

Determine the source term of a two-dimensional heat equation

Let $\Omega$ be a two-dimensional heat conduction body. We consider the problem of determining the heat source $F(x,t)=\varphi(t)f(x,y)$ with $\varphi$ be given inexactly and $f$ be unknown. The problem is nonlinear and ill-posed. By a specific form of Fourier transforms, we shall show that the heat source is determined uniquely by the minimum boundary condition and the temperature distribution in $\Omega$ at the initial time $t=0$ and at the final time $t=1$. Using the methods of Tikhonov's regularization and truncated integration, we construct the regularized solutions. Numerical part is given.Comment: 18 page

Determination of the body force of a two-dimensional isotropic elastic body

Let $\Omega$ represent a two$-$dimensional isotropic elastic body. We consider the problem of determining the body force $F$ whose form $\phi(t)(f_1(x),f_2(x))$ with $\phi$ be given inexactly. The problem is nonlinear and ill-posed. Using the Fourier transform, the methods of Tikhonov's regularization and truncated integration, we construct a regularized solution from the data given inexactly and derive the explicitly error estimate. Numerical part is givenComment: 23 page

Trichinellosis in Vietnam

Trichinellosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease with a worldwide distribution. The aim of this work was to describe the epidemiological and clinical data of five outbreaks of trichinellosis, which affected ethnic minorities living in remote mountainous areas of northwestern Vietnam from 1970 to 2012. Trichinellosis was diagnosed in 126 patients, of which 11 (8.7%) were hospitalized and 8 (6.3%) died. All infected people had consumed raw pork from backyard and roaming pigs or wild boar at wedding, funeral, or New Year parties. The short incubation period (average of 9.5 days), the severity of the symptoms, which were characterized by diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, myalgia, edema, weight loss, itch, and lisping, and the high mortality, suggest that patients had ingested a high number of larvae. The larval burden in pigs examined in one of the outbreaks ranged from 70 to 879 larvae/g. These larvae and those collected from a muscle biopsy taken from a patient from the 2012 outbreak were identified as Trichinella spiralis. Data presented in this work show that the northern regions of Vietnam are endemic areas for Trichinella infections in domestic pigs and humans

EFL Young Learners’ Perceptions About the Benefits and Challenges of Doing Individual Audio Recording Tasks in Their Oral Fluency

This study was conducted to investigate the EFL young learners’ perceptions about the benefits of individual audio recording tasks in their oral fluency and find out their challenges on how to do individual audio recording tasks. Twenty young learners coming from an English center in Vinh Long province took part in the research. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings implicate that young learners highly perceived the benefits of doing individual audio recording tasks in improving their oral fluency, attitude and motivation. However, they encountered some challenges while doing individual audio recording tasks as regards linguistic problems and personal background. Keywords: Audio recording tasks, oral fluency, benefits and challenges of audio recording tasks DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-30-07 Publication date:October 31st 202

A thorough theoretical investigation into complexes formed by interaction of dimethyl sulfoxide with two water molecules

A computational study of the stability and the cooperative effect of hydrogen bonds in the complexes of dimethyl sulfoxide and two water molecules was undertaken at the MP2/6-311++G(2d,2p) level of theory. The cooperative energies of obtained complexes are significantly negative, indicating that there is a large cooperativity between types of hydrogen bonds. The existence of the O−H∙∙∙O hydrogen bond present at dimer of water increases the stability of O−H∙∙∙O and C−H∙∙∙O hydrogen bonds in the ternary complexes compared to relevant binary complexes. By vibrational and NBO analyses, it is found that the magnitude of stretching frequency red shift of O−H bonds in the O−H···O hydrogen bonds is enhanced, whereas the extent of stretching frequency blue shift of C−H bonds in the C−H∙∙∙O hydrogen bonds is weakened when the cooperativity of hydrogen bonds happens in the ternary complexes. Obtained results of AIM analysis and stabilization energies indicate the larger contribution of the O−H∙∙∙O relative to the C−H∙∙∙O hydrogen bond to cooperativity. Keywords. Dimethyl sulfoxide, hydrogen bond, cooperativity