Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness to Foster Student Academic Motivation and Student Engagement in the EFL Classroom through Organization Development Interventions: An Action Research of Zhejiang Yuexiu University of Foreign Languages in China

The issue of student engagement is crucial in that it is not only conductive to students’ academic development, but also influences their everyday experiences, both socially and physiologically. So far, there is a dearth of empirical research on implementing ODI to effectively foster student engagement in Chinese EFL classroom. Thus, a systematic inquiry through action research is considered necessary and imperative. This current research focused on enhancement of student academic motivation by implementing ODI in order to foster student engagement in the EFL classroom. The sample was 82 freshmen from two parallel classes. The experimental group was exposed to organization development interventions, including appreciative inquiry, goal setting, team building, differentiated instruction, whereas the comparison group received no intervention. Mixed research methods were adopted to collect and analyze the data. The paired-samples t test showed that there was statistically significant difference in student academic motivation and engagement for the experimental group between pre-ODI and post-ODI while there was no statistically significant difference for the control group. The Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient showed that there was a very strong positive relationship between academic motivation and student engagement. The qualitative analysis of students’ reflection reports and classroom observation feedback by three instructors justified how the ODIs employed in this research enhanced student academic motivation and student engagement. Based on the findings, critical recommendations for further research were discussed

Rapid Solidification of Undercooled Melts

Rapid solidification and microstructure evolution of deeply undercooled bulk concentrated Ni-20%at.Cu and Co-20%at.Pd alloys are strictly and systematically evaluated. First, thermodynamics of the undercooled melt is discussed. Consideration is provided for not only the systematic microstructure evolution within a broad undercooling range, but also the dendrite growth mechanism and the rapid solidification characteristics. The dendrite growth in the bulk undercooled melts was captured by a high speed camera. The first kind of grain refinement occurring in the low undercooling regimes was explained by a current grain refinement model. Besides for the dendrite melting mechanism, the stress originating from the solidification contraction and thermal strain in the first mushy zone during rapid solidification could be a main mechanism causing the second kind of grain refinement above the critical undercooling. This internal-stress led to the distortion and breakup of the primary dendrites and was semi-quantitatively described by a corrected stress accumulation model. It was found that the stress induced recrystallization could make the primary microstructures refine substantially after recalescence

An Experimental and Analytical Study of a Radiative Cooling System with Flat Plate Collectors

AbstractA nocturnal radiative cooling system with flat plate solar collectors in Beijing, is assessed both experimentally and numerically. A cooling loop, including a radiator, a storage tank, pump, radiant floor and connecting pipes has been studied experimentally. The heat loss of an uncovered night-sky radiator was analysed according to radiation and convection theory. The water is circulated through the flat-plate radiator having 2 m2 of collector area at night to be cooled by convection and radiation to sky. The results indicate that the minimum temperature of the floor surface is 19.5°C. Vertical temperature field is uniform. Design temperature can increase 1°C compared with conventional heat convection. The average net cooling reached 26W/m2, as condensation does not occur. It is possible to increase the total cooling capacity while maintaining a low pressure drop. It demonstrates the feasibility of cooling using fluid medium through nocturnal radiation

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene manipulation to create single-amino-acid-substituted and floxed mice with a cloning-free method.

Clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) technology is a powerful tool to manipulate the genome with extraordinary simplicity and speed. To generate genetically modified animals, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing is typically accomplished by microinjection of a mixture of Cas9 DNA/mRNA and single-guide RNA (sgRNA) into zygotes. However, sgRNAs used for this approach require manipulation via molecular cloning as well as in vitro transcription. Beyond these complexities, most mutants obtained with this traditional approach are genetically mosaic, yielding several types of cells with different genetic mutations. Recently, a growing body of studies has utilized commercially available Cas9 protein together with sgRNA and a targeting construct to introduce desired mutations. Here, we report a cloning-free method to target the mouse genome by pronuclear injection of a commercial Cas9 protein:crRNA:tracrRNA:single-strand oligodeoxynucleotide (ssODN) complex into mouse zygotes. As illustration of this method, we report the successful generation of global gene-knockout, single-amino-acid-substituted, as well as floxed mice that can be used for conditional gene-targeting. These models were produced with high efficiency to generate non-mosaic mutant mice with a high germline transmission rate

Two-dimensional topological semimetals

The field of two-dimensional topological semimetals, which emerged at the intersection of two-dimensional materials and topological materials, have been rapidly developing in recent years. In this article, we briefly review the progress in this field. Our focus is on the basic concepts and notions, in order to convey a coherent overview of the field. Some material examples are discussed to illustrate the concepts. We discuss the outstanding problems in the field that need to be addressed in future research.Comment: 14 pages, 23 figure