Behind classroom codeswitching : culture, curriculum and identity in a Chinese university English department

This is an exploratory mixed methods case study which investigates a number of critical issues regarding the teaching and learning of an English Language and Literature Department (henceforth the ELLD) in a Chinese university, including curriculum development, content-based instruction, and teachers’ cultural, professional and disciplinary identities etc. It originally aimed to examine three university teachers’ codeswitching behaviours. Classroom observation, interview and stimulated recall were employed to collect data for the Phase I of the study. However, analysis of codeswitching categories identified a predominance of extended expositions of Western and Chinese literature, culture and philosophy etc., which prompted the follow-up interviews (Phase II) further exploring the relevant issues concerning the disciplinary construction of ELLD in China. Findings from follow-up interviews suggested that teachers’ classroom practice was influenced by their cultural, professional and disciplinary identities. It also became clear that in the ELLD context, approaching literature, culture and philosophy from both the Chinese and Western perspectives reflected a cross-cultural view of the content-based teaching for the teachers. Moreover it highlighted the current lack of courses on liberal arts and excessive emphasis on English language skills in the national curriculum for the English majors. This study reveals a fundamental problem of the development of the ELLD in Chinese universities. It is suggested that awareness should be raised of target language use in both skills-based and content-based courses in the EFL context in China. In addition, it recommends further research to explore ways in which the national curriculum might be reformed to reflect the humanities characteristics of ELLD and universities should be given more space and freedom to address their specific requirements within the national curriculum

Quantifying Fluid Shear Stress in a Rocking Culture Dish

Fluid shear stress (FSS) is an important stimulus for cell functions. Compared with the well established parallel-plate and cone-and-plate systems, a rocking “see-saw” system offers some advantages such as easy operation, low cost, and high throughput. However, the FSS spatiotemporal pattern in the system has not been quantified. In the present study, we developed a lubrication-based model to analyze the FSS distributions in a rocking rectangular culture dish. We identified an important parameter (the critical flip angle) that dictates the overall FSS behaviors and suggested the right conditions to achieving temporally oscillating and spatially relatively uniform FSS. If the maximal rocking angle is kept smaller than the critical flip angle, which is defined as the angle when the fluid free surface intersects the outer edge of the dish bottom, the dish bottom remains covered with a thin layer of culture medium. The spatial variations of the peak FSS within the central 84% and 50% dish bottom are limited to 41% and 17%, respectively. The magnitude of FSS was found to be proportional to the fluid viscosity and the maximal rocking angle, and inversely proportional to the square of the fluid depth-to-length ratio and the rocking period. For a commercial rectangular dish (length of 37.6 mm) filled with ∼2 mL culture medium, the FSS at the center of the dish bottom is expected to be on the order of 0.9 dyn/cm2 when the dish is rocked +5° at 1 cycle/s. Our analysis suggests that a rocking “see-saw” system, if controlled well, can be used as an alternative method to provide low-magnitude, dynamic FSS to cultured cells

Experimental and physical model of the melting zone in the interface of the explosive cladding bar

AbstractLocal melting zone encountered in sections of the cladding interface is a distinguished phenomenon of the explosive cladding technique. The thickness and morphology of the melting zone in the Ti/NiCr explosive cladding bar are investigated by means of optical microscopy. Results show that the distribution of the melting zone in the interface of the Ti/NiCr explosive cladding bar is uniform and axisymmetric, and boundaries of the melting zone are circular arcs, whose center points to the center of the NiCr bar. The bamboo-shaped cracks generate in the melting zone. The thickness of the melting zone decreases with reducing of the stand-off distance and the thickness of the explosive. A physical model of the melting zone in the interface of the explosive cladding bar is proposed

A molecular simulation analysis of producing monatomic carbon chains by stretching ultranarrow graphene nanoribbons

Atomistic simulations were utilized to develop fundamental insights regarding the elongation process starting from ultranarrow graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) and resulting in monatomic carbon chains (MACCs). There are three key findings. First, we demonstrate that complete, elongated, and stable MACCs with fracture strains exceeding 100% can be formed from both ultranarrow armchair and zigzag GNRs. Second, we demonstrate that the deformation processes leading to the MACCs have strong chirality dependence. Specifically, armchair GNRs first form DNA-like chains, then develop into monatomic chains by passing through an intermediate configuration in which monatomic chain sections are separated by two-atom attachments. In contrast, zigzag GNRs form rope-ladder-like chains through a process in which the carbon hexagons are first elongated into rectangles; these rectangles eventually coalesce into monatomic chains through a novel triangle-pentagon deformation structure under further tensile deformation. Finally, we show that the width of GNRs plays an important role in the formation of MACCs, and that the ultranarrow GNRs facilitate the formation of full MACCs. The present work should be of considerable interest due to the experimentally demonstrated feasibility of using narrow GNRs to fabricate novel nanoelectronic components based upon monatomic chains of carbon atoms.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, Nanotechnology accepted versio

Translanguaging in a Chinese university CLIL classroom : teacher strategies and student attitudes

Pedagogical translanguaging has been extensively researched over the past decade. Yet, little is known about the attitudes of students towards this practice. Students constitute an integral part of classroom interactions and their learning process is significantly affected by teachers’ classroom discourse. This action research (AR) study, situated in a Chinese university Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) reading classroom and aided by lesson recordings and two sets of questionnaires, explores the translanguaging strategies employed by the teacher as well as the students’ attitudes to such strategies. Through incorporating feedback collected from students regarding the teacher’s modifications of language use, the study has demonstrated how the teacher mobilizes her full linguistic resources, in the form of translanguaging, to achieve pedagogical outcomes, which eventually leads to the establishment of a mutually beneficial classroom ecology. The study also indicates that advanced EFL learners, highly motivated to improve language proficiency and acquire subject content unanimously reject the traditional monolingual approach to teaching. The findings call for further research into the impact of pedagogical translanguaging on students’ learning process in multilingual classrooms

Constructing tissue-like complex structures using cell-laden DNA hydrogel bricks

Tissue engineering has long been a challenge because of the difficulty of addressing the requirements that such an engineered tissue must meet. In this paper, we developed a new "brick-to-wall" based on unique properties of DNA supramolecular hydrogels to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) tissuelike structures: different cell types are encapsulated in DNA hydrogel bricks which are then combined to build 3D structures. Signal responsiveness of cells through the DNA gels was evaluated and it was discovered that the gel permits cell migration in 3D. The results demonstrated that this technology is convenient, effective and reliable for cell manipulation, and we believe that it will benefit artificial tissue fabrication and future large-scale production

Numerical investigation of harbor oscillations induced by focused transient wave groups

Focused wave groups are traveling waves characterized by extremely-large transient wave amplitudes and very short durations. These waves usually cause serious damage to marine/offshore structures and coastal infrastructures, and can even result in human casualties (Nikolkina and Didenkulova, 2011). The studies on natural disasters related to the focused wave groups near the coastal zone have been mostly confined to wave evolution over beaches, wave runup, overtopping, and their impact forces acting on the coastal infrastructures (e.g., the seawall and the circular cylinder); the influence of focused transient wave groups on harbors has not yet been studied. In this study, the generation and propagation of focused transient wave groups and their interactions with the harbor are simulated using a fully nonlinear Boussinesq model, FUNWAVE 2.0. To this end, four elongated harbors with constant depth and a series of focused wave groups with various focused wave amplitudes, spectral width parameters, and incident directions are considered. Based on the Morlet wavelet transform and discrete Fourier transform techniques, the capability of focused transient wave groups to trigger the harbor resonance phenomenon is revealed for the first time. Subsequently, the influences of spectral width parameter, incident wave direction, and resonant mode on different resonant wave parameters (including maximum runup and resonant intensity of various resonant modes inside a harbor) are comprehensively investigated, and it is found that these three factors have significant effects on resonant wave parameters.</p

The Effects of Electrical Acupuncture and Essential Amino Acid Supplementation on Sarcopenic Obesity in Male Older Adults: A Randomized Control Study

Objective: Aging which is accompanied by loss of skeletal muscle and increase of body fat in some adults older than 60 years does not only result in remarkable influences on daily life function but also increases the risk of cardiovascular events. This study used electrical acupuncture together with essential amino acid supplementation to treat sarcopenic obesity (SO) in male older adults. Methods: A total of 48 male participants with SO (>60 years old) were randomized to electrical acupuncture with oral essential amino acids (EA + AA) or oral essential amino acids alone (AA). Acupuncture points on the limbs were punctured and stimulated electrically once every 3 days for 12 weeks. All participants received essential amino acids orally, twice per day for 28 weeks. Body fat percentage (BFP) and appendicular skeletal muscle index (ASM/H2) was determined by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Results: Both groups exhibited significant changes in BFP after 12, 20, and 28 weeks compared with baseline values; for ASM/H2, there were significant differences to baseline values after 12, 20, and 28 weeks in the EA + AA group, but only after 28 weeks in the AA group. Between the two groups, there were significant differences in BFP after 12, 20, and 28 weeks, and in ASM/H2 after 20 and 28 weeks. Conclusion: Both methods decrease BFP and increase ASM/H2. In male older adults, electrical acupuncture with oral essential amino acids is more effective and can increase muscle mass in a shorter time than oral essential amino acids alone

Effects of offshore fringing reefs on the transient harbor resonance excited by solitary waves

In this article, effects of the variation of the offshore reef topography on the transient resonance induced by solitary waves with various wave heights are first investigated. The transient resonance is simulated by a fully nonlinear Boussinesq model, FUNWAVE-TVD. This paper focuses on investigating how the variations of the plane reef-face slope, the reef-ridge width, the lagoon width and the reef-face profile shape affect the wave energy distribution, the total wave energy and the maximum oscillation (runup) inside the harbor. Results indicate that all of the uniformity of the wave energy distribution, the total wave energy and the amplification factor of the incident solitary wave (defined as the ratio of the maximum runup to the incident wave height) are shown to gradually decrease with the plane reef-face slope. For the other three topographical parameters (i.e., the reef-ridge width, the lagoon width and the reef-face profile shape), their influences on the resonant wave parameters inside the harbor becomes more complicated. Not all of the resonant wave parameters inside the harbor (i.e., the uniformity of the wave energy distribution, the total wave energy and the amplification factor of the incident solitary wave) present monotonic changes with these three topographical parameters