語い教授における対話スクリプトを使ったオーセンティックな話言葉の規範の使用

This investigate teaching pragmatic competence, specifically the appropriate register. The subjects were 34 2nd year EFL students enrolled in "Basic Conversation", over one semester, at a Japanese national university. Students wrote and performed 4 scripted dialogues as part of an ABAB single case study where the intervention was focusing exercises of optimal features of the oral register authentic NS dialogues. Comparison of the baseline and subsequent scripts using the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test (non-parametric) showed a significant increase in the use of spoken features. Student feedback and instructor observation also provided corroboration. The results point to the utility of authentic materials in the Japanese EFL classroom.本研究は、適切な語い使用という語用論的能力の教授について考察するものである。被験者は日本の国立大学における34人のEFL学習者で、Basic Conversation の授業を履修する学生である。彼らは、ABAB single case study の中で4つの対話スクリプトについて記述、実演を行い、実験の処遇として、オーセンティックなNSの対話における口語的な語いの主な特徴の使用についての活動が含まれる。Wilcoxon Singled Ranks Test によって、話し言葉の特徴の使用について、処遇の有無による有意差があることが分かった。本研究の結果は、日本人EFL学習者のクラスにおけるオーセンティック・マテリアルの使用の有用性を示したものとなっている

Matching Kasteleyn Cities for Spin Glass Ground States

As spin glass materials have extremely slow dynamics, devious numerical methods are needed to study low-temperature states. A simple and fast optimization version of the classical Kasteleyn treatment of the Ising model is described and applied to two-dimensional Ising spin glasses. The algorithm combines the Pfaffian and matching approaches to directly strip droplet excitations from an excited state. Extended ground states in Ising spin glasses on a torus, which are optimized over all boundary conditions, are used to compute precise values for ground state energy densities.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; minor clarification

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project Environmental Impact Statement: Appendix C: Social and Economic Assessment

The purpose of this assessment of the social and economic impact of implementing the Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project, therefore, is not to flatly predict impacts. Rather, the intent is to provide information and judgments which can help people recognize the potential for changes and take appropriate steps to prepare for, accommodate, and adjust to those changes. Thus we hope that this report\u27s success will be measured by how well it provides information with which local citizens and all others involved in this project can proceed with their planning and decision-making processes

Conserved masses in GHS Einstein and string black holes

We analyze the relationship between quasilocal masses calculated for solutions of conformally related theories. We show that the ADM mass of a static, spherically symmetric solution is conformally invariant (up to a constant factor) only if the background action functional is conformally invariant. Thus, the requirement of conformal invariance places restrictions on the choice of reference spacetimes. We calculate the mass of the black hole solutions obtained by Garfinkle, Horowitz, and Strominger (GHS) for both the string and the Einstein metrics. In addition, the quasilocal thermodynamic quantities in the string metrics are computed and discussed.Comment: 16 pages REVTeX with packages amsfonts and amssym

Tumbleweeds and airborne gravitational noise sources for LIGO

Gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive not only to astrophysical gravitational waves, but also to the fluctuating Newtonian gravitational forces of moving masses in the ground and air around the detector. This paper studies the gravitational effects of density perturbations in the atmosphere, and from massive airborne objects near the detector. These effects were previously considered by Saulson; in this paper I revisit these phenomena, considering transient atmospheric shocks, and the effects of sound waves or objects colliding with the ground or buildings around the test masses. I also consider temperature perturbations advected past the detector as a source of gravitational noise. I find that the gravitational noise background is below the expected noise floor even of advanced interferometric detectors, although only by an order of magnitude for temperature perturbations carried along turbulent streamlines. I also find that transient shockwaves in the atmosphere could potentially produce large spurious signals, with signal-to-noise ratios in the hundreds in an advanced interferometric detector. These signals could be vetoed by means of acoustic sensors outside of the buildings. Massive wind-borne objects such as tumbleweeds could also produce gravitational signals with signal-to-noise ratios in the hundreds if they collide with the interferometer buildings, so it may be necessary to build fences preventing such objects from approaching within about 30m of the test masses.Comment: 15 pages, 10 PostScript figures, uses REVTeX4.cls and epsfig.st

The Organization-First Approach: How Programs Crowd Out Community

Examines advocacy, outreach, and funding organizations' approaches to community engagement; their views on deliberation with community leaders on issues, choices, and trade-offs; and barriers to more community-oriented and less inward-looking priorities

Adsorption of 2,2 '-dithiodipyridine as a tool for the assembly of silver nanoparticles

Silver nanostructured thin films stabilized by 2,2’-dithiodipyridine (2dtpy) were prepared. The Ag nanoparticles were obtained by treating the complex [Ag(2dtpy)]NO3 with NaBH4 in a methanol–toluene mixture. The films were transferred to borosilicate glass slips by a dip-coating method and were found to consist of Ag nanoparticles possibly linked via 2dtpy molecules. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) studies have offered the possibility of investigating the adsorption modes of 2dtpy at the Ag nanoparticle surfaces in the fil

Bubble Raft Model for a Paraboloidal Crystal

We investigate crystalline order on a two-dimensional paraboloid of revolution by assembling a single layer of millimeter-sized soap bubbles on the surface of a rotating liquid, thus extending the classic work of Bragg and Nye on planar soap bubble rafts. Topological constraints require crystalline configurations to contain a certain minimum number of topological defects such as disclinations or grain boundary scars whose structure is analyzed as a function of the aspect ratio of the paraboloid. We find the defect structure to agree with theoretical predictions and propose a mechanism for scar nucleation in the presence of large Gaussian curvature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Data analysis strategies for the detection of gravitational waves in non-Gaussian noise

In order to analyze data produced by the kilometer-scale gravitational wave detectors that will begin operation early next century, one needs to develop robust statistical tools capable of extracting weak signals from the detector noise. This noise will likely have non-stationary and non-Gaussian components. To facilitate the construction of robust detection techniques, I present a simple two-component noise model that consists of a background of Gaussian noise as well as stochastic noise bursts. The optimal detection statistic obtained for such a noise model incorporates a natural veto which suppresses spurious events that would be caused by the noise bursts. When two detectors are present, I show that the optimal statistic for the non-Gaussian noise model can be approximated by a simple coincidence detection strategy. For simulated detector noise containing noise bursts, I compare the operating characteristics of (i) a locally optimal detection statistic (which has nearly-optimal behavior for small signal amplitudes) for the non-Gaussian noise model, (ii) a standard coincidence-style detection strategy, and (iii) the optimal statistic for Gaussian noise.Comment: 5 pages RevTeX, 4 figure