Investigating Non-Sentential Utterances in a Spoken Chinese Corpus

International audienceThis paper describes a preliminary investigation into Chinese non-sentential utterances (NSUs) in a corpus of spoken Mandarin. It presents, with examples, a corpus-based taxonomy of Chinese NSUs. This taxonomy builds on the one by Fernández and Ginzburg for English NSUs in the British National Corpus (BNC) [1]. Partly due to the distinctiveness of spoken Chinese, eight new classes are added and their reasons for addition are explained. The paper concludes with discussions for future work

MicroRNA profiling study reveals MIR-150 in association with metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

© 2017 The Author(s). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that play a crucial role in pathogenesis of human cancers. Several miRNAs have been shown to involve in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) pathogenesis through alteration of gene networks. A global view of the miRNA expression profile of clinical specimens would be the best way to screen out the possible miRNA candidates that may be involved in disease pathogenesis. In this study, we investigated the expression profiles of miRNA in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues from patients with undifferentiated NPC versus non-NPC controls using a miRNA real-time PCR platform, which covered a total of 95 cancer-related miRNAs. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that NPC and non-NPC controls were clearly segregated. Promisingly, 10 miRNA candidates were differentially expressed. Among them, 9 miRNAs were significantly up-regulated of which miR-205 and miR-196a showed the most up-regulated in NPC with the highest incidence percentage of 94.1% and 88.2%, respectively, while the unique down-regulated miR-150 was further validated in patient sera. Finally, the in vitro gain-of-function and loss-of-function assays revealed that miR-150 can modulate the epithelial-mesenchymal-transition property in NPC/HK-1 cells and led to the cell motility and invasion. miR-150 may be a potential biomarker for NPC and plays a critical role in NPC tumourigenesis.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Reasoning-and-proving in geometry in school mathematics textbooks in Hong Kong

International audienceTo promote learning mathematics with understanding, mathematics educators in many countries recommend that proof play a central role in school mathematics. In response to this recommendation, this study examines the opportunities for students to learn reasoning-and-proving from the geometry strand of a popular school mathematics textbook in Hong Kong. The study adopts the methodology of Stylianides (2009). Results show that Hong Kong takes the traditional but problematic approach in which proof is taught mainly in geometry and in which two-column proof is emphasized. Overall, results suggest that proof plays a marginal role in school mathematics in Hong Kong

Reasoning-and-proving in geometry in school mathematics textbooks in Hong Kong

International audienceTo promote learning mathematics with understanding, mathematics educators in many countries recommend that proof play a central role in school mathematics. In response to this recommendation, this study examines the opportunities for students to learn reasoning-and-proving from the geometry strand of a popular school mathematics textbook in Hong Kong. The study adopts the methodology of Stylianides (2009). Results show that Hong Kong takes the traditional but problematic approach in which proof is taught mainly in geometry and in which two-column proof is emphasized. Overall, results suggest that proof plays a marginal role in school mathematics in Hong Kong

Reasoning-and-proving in geometry in school mathematics textbooks in Hong Kong

International audienceTo promote learning mathematics with understanding, mathematics educators in many countries recommend that proof play a central role in school mathematics. In response to this recommendation, this study examines the opportunities for students to learn reasoning-and-proving from the geometry strand of a popular school mathematics textbook in Hong Kong. The study adopts the methodology of Stylianides (2009). Results show that Hong Kong takes the traditional but problematic approach in which proof is taught mainly in geometry and in which two-column proof is emphasized. Overall, results suggest that proof plays a marginal role in school mathematics in Hong Kong