4,747 research outputs found
The metamorphosis of the 'virtuoso': Pedagogic patterns in Hong Kong primary mathematics classrooms
Classrooms in the East Asian region are primarily portrayed as teacher-centred, with a tense atmosphere stressing mechanical or rote learning. Using data derived from a project that evaluated the impact of a major curriculum reform in Hong Kong, this paper argues that these descriptions fail to capture many salient features of pedagogy. A total of 122 Primary One mathematics lessons were observed in twelve schools over a three-year period from 1995 to 1998. Analysis indicated that although whole-class instruction was still the dominant mode of pedagogy, the role of the teacher as a virtuoso performing to a whole class was being modified. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.postprin
Acquisition of Japanese quantity contrasts by L1 Cantonese speakers
This paper explores the acquisition of Japanese vowel and consonant quantity contrasts by Cantonese learners. Our goal is to examine whether transfer from L1 is possible when L1 experience is phonemic but restricted to a small set of sounds (short vs. long vowels) and when the experience is non-phonemic, derived only at morpheme boundaries (short vs. long consonants). We recruited 20 Cantonese learners (beginner and advanced learners) and 5 native speakers of Japanese, who produced target stimuli varying in consonant and vowel quantity framed in a carrier sentence. The resultant data were converted into several durational ratios for analyses. Results showed that both the beginners and advanced learners were able to distinguish between short vs. long vowels and consonants in Japanese, but only the native speakers enhanced the contrasts in slower speech. It was also found that in most cases the learners were able to lengthen the vowel before a geminate (i.e. long consonant), a secondary cue to Japanese consonant quantity known to be rare across languages. These results are discussed in terms of current theories of second language acquisition.postprin
Validation and application of health utilities index in Chinese subjects with Down Syndrome
published_or_final_versio
Forgetful maps between Deligne-Mostow ball quotients
We study forgetful maps between Deligne-Mostow moduli spaces of weighted
points on P^1, and classify the forgetful maps that extend to a map of
orbifolds between the stable completions. The cases where this happens include
the Livn\'e fibrations and the Mostow/Toledo maps between complex hyperbolic
surfaces. They also include a retraction of a 3-dimensional ball quotient onto
one of its 1-dimensional totally geodesic complex submanifolds
SGDiff: A Style Guided Diffusion Model for Fashion Synthesis
This paper reports on the development of \textbf{a novel style guided
diffusion model (SGDiff)} which overcomes certain weaknesses inherent in
existing models for image synthesis. The proposed SGDiff combines image
modality with a pretrained text-to-image diffusion model to facilitate creative
fashion image synthesis. It addresses the limitations of text-to-image
diffusion models by incorporating supplementary style guidance, substantially
reducing training costs, and overcoming the difficulties of controlling
synthesized styles with text-only inputs. This paper also introduces a new
dataset -- SG-Fashion, specifically designed for fashion image synthesis
applications, offering high-resolution images and an extensive range of garment
categories. By means of comprehensive ablation study, we examine the
application of classifier-free guidance to a variety of conditions and validate
the effectiveness of the proposed model for generating fashion images of the
desired categories, product attributes, and styles. The contributions of this
paper include a novel classifier-free guidance method for multi-modal feature
fusion, a comprehensive dataset for fashion image synthesis application, a
thorough investigation on conditioned text-to-image synthesis, and valuable
insights for future research in the text-to-image synthesis domain. The code
and dataset are available at: \url{https://github.com/taited/SGDiff}.Comment: Accepted by ACM MM'2
CIB1 protects against MPTP-induced neurotoxicity through inhibiting ASK1.
Calcium and integrin binding protein 1 (CIB1) is a calcium-binding protein that was initially identified as a binding partner of platelet integrin αIIb. Although CIB1 has been shown to interact with multiple proteins, its biological function in the brain remains unclear. Here, we show that CIB1 negatively regulates degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in a mouse model of Parkinson\u27s disease using 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Genetic deficiency of the CIB1 gene enhances MPTP-induced neurotoxicity in dopaminergic neurons in CIB1(-/-) mice. Furthermore, RNAi-mediated depletion of CIB1 in primary dopaminergic neurons potentiated 1-methyl-4-phenyl pyrinidium (MPP(+))-induced neuronal death. CIB1 physically associated with apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) and thereby inhibited the MPP(+)-induced stimulation of the ASK1-mediated signaling cascade. These findings suggest that CIB1 plays a protective role in MPTP/MPP(+)-induced neurotoxicity by blocking ASK1-mediated signaling
Lyman alpha line formation in starbursting galaxies II. Extremely Thick, Dustless, and Static HI Media
The Lya line transfer in an extremely thick medium of neutral hydrogen is
investigated by adopting an accelerating scheme in our Monte Carlo code to skip
a large number of core or resonant scatterings. This scheme reduces computing
time significantly with no sacrifice in the accuracy of the results. We applied
this numerical method to the Lya transfer in a static, uniform, dustless, and
plane-parallel medium. Two types of photon sources have been considered, the
midplane source and the uniformly distributed sources. The emergent profiles
show double peaks and absorption trough at the line-center. We compared our
results with the analytic solutions derived by previous researchers, and
confirmed that both solutions are in good agreement with each other. We
investigated the directionality of the emergent Lya photons and found that limb
brightening is observed in slightly thick media while limb darkening appears in
extremely thick media. The behavior of the directionality is noted to follow
that of the Thomson scattered radiation in electron clouds, because both Lya
wing scattering and Thomson scattering share the same Rayleigh scattering phase
function. The mean number of wing scatterings just before escape is in exact
agreement with the prediction of the diffusion approximation. The Lya photons
constituting the inner part of the emergent profiles follow the relationship
derived from the diffusion approximation. We present a brief discussion on the
application of our results to the formation of Lya broad absorption troughs and
P-Cygni type Lya profiles seen in the UV spectra of starburst galaxies.Comment: 24 papges, 12 figures, The revised version submitted to Ap
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