The Effects of Reading Bilingual Books on Vocabulary Learning

This paper focuses on the effects of reading bilingual books on vocabulary learning. Eighty-three English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in China read different versions of the same text: English-only text, English text with target words glossed, English version text followed by the Chinese version, and Chinese version text followed by the English version. A pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest were created to measure the incidental learning of unknown vocabulary. The findings show: (a) All four groups made significant gains in lexical knowledge through completing the treatments, (b) Those who read glossed text and bilingual text had significantly durable knowledge gain, (c) The mean scores of participants who read glossed text and read the English version of the text before the Chinese version were significantly higher than the scores of participants who only read the English version of the text in the immediate posttest, (d) The knowledge gains of participants who read bilingual texts were significantly higher on the delayed posttest than those who only read the English version of the text

Mammographic breast density as a mediator and surrogate marker for breast cancer risk

Women with the highest mammographic density have a four to six-fold increased risk of breast cancer when compared to the ones with the least dense breasts. Mammographic breast density has also been associated with a wide array of factors related to the risk of breast cancer including age, menopausal status, age at first live birth, parity, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol consumption, hormone replacement therapy, endogenous levels of IGF-I and prolactin, family history of breast cancer, tamoxifen use and others. A question of interest is whether mammographic density is in the pathway by which these factors are related to breast cancer. To address this question, we conducted causal mediation analyses on two datasets using a newly developed statistical approach based on the counterfactual framework to examine the extent to which mammographic density acts as a mediator. The first dataset is pooled from four case-control studies performed in the western Washington state, contains 547 breast cancer cases (ascertained from a local Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program registry) and 472 controls (ascertained by random digit dialing) who had screening mammograms under age 50. The second dataset is from the Mayo Mammography Health Study (MMHS), which is a prospective cohort, comprised of 19,924 women (51.2% adjusted response rate) ages 35 and over, residing in the tri-state region (Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin) surrounding the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, without a history of breast cancer, who were scheduled for a screening mammogram at the Mayo Clinic between October 2003 and September 2006. Previous analyses from these two datasets have shown associations between some breast cancer risk factors and mammographic density. Results showed that mammographic density partially mediated the associations for some breast cancer risk factors such as breast calcifications, being parous, history of breast biopsy/aspiration/lumpectomy, and current use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), but not factors such as a first-degree family history of breast cancer and age at first live birth, history of smoking, age at menopause. These results help us better understand the pathways and mechanisms whereby a risk factor may cause breast cancer. It also helps inform and refine clinical and public health interventions for breast cancer by assessing the relative importance of different pathways

Elastic Properties of Bulk-metallic Glasses Studied by Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy

The elastic properties of a solid are of considerable interest to both science and technology. Not only do they contain fundamental information about the nature of the inter-atomic bonding in the material, but they also determine the mechanical behavior of solids. In the past few years, considerable effort has been devoted to the study of elastic properties of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs), a relatively new class of metallic materials that display a unique combination of mechanical and physical properties. Our research has focused on Zr-based, Cu-based and Ca-based metallic glasses. Zr-based BMGs are known to have superior glass forming ability and high strength, but their ductility is too low for wide-spread practical applications. Cu-based BMGs recently received wide interest because of their low cost and good mechanical properties. Ca-based BMGs have low glass transition temperature Tg, around 390 K, which make them very attractive to be studied near Tg. In this work, resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) has been applied to study the elastic properties of above mentioned BMGs from 5 K to their glass transition temperature Tg. RUS is a novel technique for determining the elastic moduli of solids, based on the measurement of the resonances of a freely vibrating body. In an RUS experiment, the mechanical resonances of a freely vibrating solid of known shape are measured, and an iteration procedure is used to “match” the measured lines with the calculated spectrum. This allows determination of all elastic constant of the solid from a single frequency scan. Below Tg, the elastic constants of the BMGs under investigation show “normal” behavior, i.e. with increasing temperature, all moduli decrease and Poisson ratio increases. Above Tg changes in the trends occur due to structural relaxation and crystallization. We confirmed the suggested link between ductility and Poisson ratio: BMGs showing good ductility display high Poisson ratio. By increasing palladium content in Zr50Cu40-xAl10Pdx alloys, BMGs with high Poisson ratio and thus good ductility have been obtained. In addition, we developed a simple model to provide fast and good estimate of the temperature dependence of elastic constants of BMGs from room temperature measurements. Keywords: Elastic properties; Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs); Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS); Internal friction

The effects of reading bilingual books on vocabulary learning

This study investigated the effects of reading bilingual books on vocabulary learning. Eighty-two Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners read different versions of the same text: English-only text, English text with target words glossed, English text followed by the Chinese text, and Chinese text followed by the English text. A pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest were used to measure incidental vocabulary learning. The findings showed that (a) all four groups made significant gains in lexical knowledge, (b) those who read glossed text and bilingual text had significantly durable knowledge gain, (c) the participants who read glossed text or read the English version of the text before the Chinese version had significantly higher scores text in the immediate posttest than the participants who read the English-only text, and (d) the participants who read bilingual texts had significantly higher scores on the delayed posttest than those who read the English-only text

Study on Unconventional Emergency Scenario Design: Taking Life-Rescuing of Dongfang Turbine Co., Ltd. in Wenchuan Earthquake for Example

Unconventional emergencies have attracted widespread concern in academic field due to its high uncertainty, huge destructiveness and complex management, and studies on unconventional emergencies shall change from “prediction-response” to “scenario-response”. By taking the life-rescuing of Dongfang Turbine Co., Ltd. in Wenchuan Earthquake for example, this paper divides scenarios in accordance with the specific investigations, and proposes several considerations about the unconventional emergency scenario study

A study of energy correction for the electron beam data in the BGO ECAL of the DAMPE

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is an orbital experiment aiming at searching for dark matter indirectly by measuring the spectra of photons, electrons and positrons originating from deep space. The BGO electromagnetic calorimeter is one of the key sub-detectors of the DAMPE, which is designed for high energy measurement with a large dynamic range from 5 GeV to 10 TeV. In this paper, some methods for energy correction are discussed and tried, in order to reconstruct the primary energy of the incident electrons. Different methods are chosen for the appropriate energy ranges. The results of Geant4 simulation and beam test data (at CERN) are presented

No. 14: The Impact of Proximity to Wet Markets and Supermarkets on Household Dietary Diversity in Nanjing City, China

Existing studies suggest that despite the proliferation of supermarkets, traditional wet markets have persisted in many countries and have been playing an important role in people’s daily food access. Yet, studies investigating the issue of food access and its influences on food security have mainly focused on food deserts and the proximity to supermarkets, with limited focus on wet markets and other food outlets. This study investigates the influence of the proximity to wet markets and supermarkets on urban household dietary diversity in Nanjing. Based on the data collected through a citywide survey in 2015 and the map data of wet markets and supermarkets, the Poisson regression model was deployed to examine the correlations between geographical proximity to supermarkets and wet markets and household dietary diversity. The results show that the coefficients for the distance to the nearest wet market are not statistically significant. Although the coefficients for the distance to nearest supermarket are statistically significant, they were too minor to be of practical importance. We argue, however, that the insignificant correlations reflect exactly the high physical accessibility to food outlets and the extensive spatially dense food supply network constituted by wet markets, supermarkets and small food stores in Nanjing. This is verified by the survey data that more than 90% of households purchased fresh food items within their neighbourhoods or in walking distance. In addition to the densely distributed food outlets, various other factors contributed to the non-significant influence of the distance to the nearest wet market and supermarket, including the many small food stores within or close to residential communities, the prevalence of three-generation extended households and high household income. This study highlights the importance of allowing mixed land use for food outlets with residential land and integrating wet markets into urban infrastructure planning