Integrating online services into English language teaching and learning: the case of Voki

The article deals with teaching English as a foreign language with the use of modern Internet technologies. The emphasis is upon the online application Voki and beneficial ways to implement it in the classroom. The article also presents an overview of classroom activities using Voki aimed at developing students’ communication skills

The Supply Chain Process Management Methodology within the Strategic Space and Considering the Leasing For Market Development

Abstract— The development of supply chain relations implies a methodological basis for assessing the supply chain process effectiveness that is adequate to the market development. The study contains a description of the methodology for assessing and managing the supply chain process from the perspective of the interests of the lessee and the external and internal environment factors. The study is based on the methodology for modeling cash flows of the recipient enterprise and the method of discounting its cash flows generated with the participation of the industrial enterprise in the supply chain process. The proposed methodology is a universal tool for assessing and managing the supply chain process, which includes the strengths of advanced methods for assessing the effectiveness of the supply chain scheme for financing industrial investments accumulated in scientific works devoted to supply chain. The proposed structure of strategic features based on the totality of the methods for assessing the supply chain activity, market development, and leasing process allows an industrial enterprise to generate the supply chain process management strategies based on the analysis of the performance indicators. A number of definitions have been introduced into the scientific discourse and a methodology for assessing the supply chain activity, market development, and leasing process has been developed. The assessment and management methodology is of practical value for a wide range of organizations considering the possibility of technological re-equipment of industrial production in a business network

Linguistic landscape as a powerful teaching resource in English for Specific Purposes

The study explores the integration of linguistic landscapes into English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction within the context of contemporary Serbia, aiming to expand language awareness, lingua-pragmatic competence, and critical thinking among learners. Against the backdrop of Anglo-globalisation, the study seeks to establish a model applicable to foreign language teaching, with a focus on language contacts and their impact on the linguistic landscape. The research employs a comprehensive sociolinguistic analysis of the linguistic landscape in Serbia, investigating the anglicisation of official names of entities such as companies, shops, and agencies. The study scrutinises the corpus of linguistic landscapes to identify patterns and socio-linguistic phenomena, developing a model for integrating these landscapes into ESP instruction. The methodology encompasses qualitative and quantitative analyses, drawing on language data and sociolinguistic observations. The key research questions concern the identification of distinctive features within the sociolinguistic landscape of contemporary Serbia, particularly in relation to English language influences, the effective utilisation of linguistic landscapes as a teaching resource in ESP courses to cultivate language awareness and lingua-pragmatic competence, and the implications that the incorporation of linguistic landscapes has on cultivating critical thinking regarding language contacts in the broader sociolinguistic context. The research has identified significant instances of anglicisation in the linguistic landscape of Serbia, having highlighted the pervasive influence of English in specialised fields and popular language culture. The model proposed for ESP instruction has demonstrated the potential of linguistic landscapes in enhancing language competencies, language awareness, and creative thinking among learners. The findings suggest that linguistic landscapes serve as a valuable resource for language educators, particularly in ESP contexts as they provide a dynamic platform for language instruction. Incorporating linguistic landscapes can contribute to preserving language standards, addressing the challenges posed by language contacts, and nurturing critical thinking skills among learners. The study’s model offers a paradigm applicable to teaching various foreign languages, promoting a better understanding of language influences in the contemporary multilingual world

Collaborative learning at engineering universities: Benefits and challenges

This paper concerns the cutting edge educational approaches incorporated into syllabuses of the most progressive Russian higher technical schools. The authors discuss one of the active methods in teaching foreign languages – collaborative learning implemented in e-courses. Theoretical and historical aspects of this approach are addressed, as are its suitability for engineering education and possible ways of introducing collaborative learning into e-courses. Collaborative learning technology offers wide prospects for teachers of foreign languages as it enables the use of various patterns of interaction, promotes discussion, opinion exchange, peer assessment and building an e-learning community, fosters the development of e-culture and netiquette, and prepares future specialists for work in their professional sphere under the new conditions imposed by society’s technological and cultural development. This paper describes real pedagogical experience of teaching English to students using the platform Moodle, focusing on the capacity of different Moodle instruments for designing group work tasks. Recommendations are given for their usage and the results of implementing a collaborative learning approach into certain e-courses offered at Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) are presented

Shotgun ion mobility mass spectrometry sequencing of heparan sulfate saccharides

Despite evident regulatory roles of heparan sulfate (HS) saccharides in numerous biological processes, definitive information on the bioactive sequences of these polymers is lacking, with only a handful of natural structures sequenced to date. Here, we develop a “Shotgun” Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry Sequencing (SIMMS2) method in which intact HS saccharides are dissociated in an ion mobility mass spectrometer and collision cross section values of fragments measured. Matching of data for intact and fragment ions against known values for 36 fully defined HS saccharide structures (from di- to decasaccharides) permits unambiguous sequence determination of validated standards and unknown natural saccharides, notably including variants with 3O-sulfate groups. SIMMS2 analysis of two fibroblast growth factor-inhibiting hexasaccharides identified from a HS oligosaccharide library screen demonstrates that the approach allows elucidation of structure-activity relationships. SIMMS2 thus overcomes the bottleneck for decoding the informational content of functional HS motifs which is crucial for their future biomedical exploitation

The Perception of the City and the Village by Russian and Chinese Young Adults

In the present-day society, the process of urbanization is often seen as one of the global tendencies that may bring about immense positive and negative changes in the lives of people. It appears that urbanization is largely associated with rural-urban migration, which may affect the economies of towns, cities, and rural areas globally. It tends to be that the youth are a significant part of this migration process. To better understand the problem, attempts have been made to investigate the factors responsible for the youth migration through revealing the attitude of the youth to modern city and village. This was done with the help of a free association experiment, focusing on similarities and differences in the city and the village perception by Russian and Chinese young people. As a result, specific socio-cultural factors and differences in the city and the village perception among the youth were revealed, some of the causes of the undergoing territorial and social transformations were identified, which may allow predicting the prospects of the city and the village development in future

The Perception of the City and the Village by Russian and Chinese Young Adults

In the present-day society, the process of urbanization is often seen as one of the global tendencies that may bring about immense positive and negative changes in the lives of people. It appears that urbanization is largely associated with rural-urban migration, which may affect the economies of towns, cities, and rural areas globally. It tends to be that the youth are a significant part of this migration process. To better understand the problem, attempts have been made to investigate the factors responsible for the youth migration through revealing the attitude of the youth to modern city and village. This was done with the help of a free association experiment, focusing on similarities and differences in the city and the village perception by Russian and Chinese young people. As a result, specific socio-cultural factors and differences in the city and the village perception among the youth were revealed, some of the causes of the undergoing territorial and social transformations were identified, which may allow predicting the prospects of the city and the village development in future

Cognitive Coherence as the Element of Functional Valence in COVID-19 Terminological System

Background. The relevance of the study is predetermined by the uniqueness of the communicative and discursive field formed during COVID-19 pandemic. The manifestation of COVID-19-related nominative categories occurs spontaneously and depends on pragmatic motives of social interaction at the global international level. The atypicality of COVID-19 terminological system development sets up the research course directed at both the process of diffuse terminological conglomerate formation and its conceptualization based on the mechanisms of cognitive activity implementation viewed through the cultural specificity revealed at the level of terminological functioning and terminological systemic unity. Objective. This article presents the results of a corpus-based research of cognitive and discursive features of COVID-19 terminological system development. Methods. The research material is a sample of Russian and English media texts selected via automatized algorithms of data parsing. Media discourse reflects short-term socially significant fluctuations in global information agenda directly related to semantic shifts in COVID-19 representation that are revealed through the variety of linguistic and extralinguistic discursive means and compared within the linguo-cultural communities under study. Results. As a result of content analysis and subsequent component analysis the peculiarities of COVID-19 terminological system development appear to be predetermined by the parallel structuring and transformation of COVID-19 semantic representation formed in the temporal perspective of pandemic waves on the basis of fundamental mechanisms of cognitive activity. The functional valence of COVID-19 terminological system is explicated through the convergence of cognitive components that result in terminological coherence and gradual formation of the denotative component of meaning through cognitive compilation of occasional semic characteristics. Conclusion. Cognitive coherence as the element of COVID-19 terminological system functional valence contributes to its gradual structuring and determines the features of semantic arrangement of COVID-19 conceptual field