Mobile Learning Revolution: Implications for Language Pedagogy

Mobile technologies including cell phones and tablets are a pervasive feature of everyday life with potential impact on teaching and learning. “Mobile pedagogy” may seem like a contradiction in terms, since mobile learning often takes place physically beyond the teacher's reach, outside the walls of the classroom. While pedagogy implies careful planning, mobility exposes learners to the unexpected. A thoughtful pedagogical response to this reality involves new conceptualizations of what is to be learned and new activity designs. This approach recognizes that learners may act in more self-determined ways beyond the classroom walls, where online interactions and mobile encounters influence their target language communication needs and interests. The chapter sets out a range of opportunities for out-of-class mobile language learning that give learners an active role and promote communication. It then considers the implications of these developments for language content and curricula and the evolving roles and competences of teachers

Learning to Teach Using ICT in the Secondary School. A Companion to School Experience

First published in 1999, this is the latest edition of a textbook in the wide ranging “companion to school experience” in Routledge’s Learning to Teach Subjects in the Secondary School Series. This is designed for teachers in training or involved in developing their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in a UK context. The vast majority of contributions are from experts with a teaching and research background at senior university level. A number of chapters are jointly constructed with senior teachers and educational and learning experts. This diversity, together with the relevant case studies that inform each chapter, makes it an appealing and accessible text for both novice and more experienced readers

Mobile language learning experiences for migrants beyond the classroom

This paper summarises key findings from three recent research projects investigating how mobile technologies can support migrants in achieving greater language immersion through situated, informal and incidental language learning beyond the classroom. The research highlights the affordances and constraints of the city space as an emerging environment for semi-structured informal learning. Pedagogical models arising from this research emphasize the potential for learners’ agency and engagement through self-directed, social and playful learning. Implications for policy and practice are discussed

Distinct subpopulations of gy T cells are present in normal and tumor-bearing human liv

gy T cells are thought to mediate immune responses at epithelial surfaces. We have quantified and characterized hepatic and peripheral blood gy T cells from 11 normal and 13 unresolved tumor-bearing human liver specimens. gy T cells are enriched in normal liver (6.6% of T cells) relative to matched blood (0.9%; P = 0.008). The majority express CD4CD8 phenotypes and many express CD56 and/or CD161. In vitro, hepatic gy T cells can be induced to kill tumor cell lines and release interferon-g, tumor necrosis factor-a, interleukin-2 and interleukin- 4. Analysis of Vgand Vy chain usage indicated that Vy3+ cells are expanded in normal livers (21.2% of gy T cells) compared to blood (0.5%; P = 0.001). Tumor-bearing livers had significant expansions and depletions of gy T cell subsets but normal cytolytic activity. This study identifies novel populations of liver T cells that may play a role in immunity against tumors

Distinct subpopulations of gy T cells are present in normal and tumor-bearing human liv

gy T cells are thought to mediate immune responses at epithelial surfaces. We have quantified and characterized hepatic and peripheral blood gy T cells from 11 normal and 13 unresolved tumor-bearing human liver specimens. gy T cells are enriched in normal liver (6.6% of T cells) relative to matched blood (0.9%; P = 0.008). The majority express CD4CD8 phenotypes and many express CD56 and/or CD161. In vitro, hepatic gy T cells can be induced to kill tumor cell lines and release interferon-g, tumor necrosis factor-a, interleukin-2 and interleukin- 4. Analysis of Vgand Vy chain usage indicated that Vy3+ cells are expanded in normal livers (21.2% of gy T cells) compared to blood (0.5%; P = 0.001). Tumor-bearing livers had significant expansions and depletions of gy T cell subsets but normal cytolytic activity. This study identifies novel populations of liver T cells that may play a role in immunity against tumors

Stage Cylindrical Immersive Display

Panoramic images with a wide field of view intend to provide a better understanding of an environment by placing objects of the environment on one seamless image. However, understanding the sizes and relative positions of the objects in a panorama is not intuitive and prone to errors because the field of view is unnatural to human perception. Scientists are often faced with the difficult task of interpreting the sizes and relative positions of objects in an environment when viewing an image of the environment on computer monitors or prints. A panorama can display an object that appears to be to the right of the viewer when it is, in fact, behind the viewer. This misinterpretation can be very costly, especially when the environment is remote and/or only accessible by unmanned vehicles. A 270 cylindrical display has been developed that surrounds the viewer with carefully calibrated panoramic imagery that correctly engages their natural kinesthetic senses and provides a more accurate awareness of the environment. The cylindrical immersive display offers a more natural window to the environment than a standard cubic CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), and the geometry allows multiple collocated users to simultaneously view data and share important decision-making tasks. A CAVE is an immersive virtual reality environment that allows one or more users to absorb themselves in a virtual environment. A common CAVE setup is a room-sized cube where the cube sides act as projection planes. By nature, all cubic CAVEs face a problem with edge matching at edges and corners of the display. Modern immersive displays have found ways to minimize seams by creating very tight edges, and rely on the user to ignore the seam. One significant deficiency of flat-walled CAVEs is that the sense of orientation and perspective within the scene is broken across adjacent walls. On any single wall, parallel lines properly converge at their vanishing point as they should, and the sense of perspective within the scene contained on only one wall has integrity. Unfortunately, parallel lines that lie on adjacent walls do not necessarily remain parallel. This results in inaccuracies in the scene that can distract the viewer and subtract from the immersive experience of the CAVE

Thrombin generation assays for optimizing low molecular weight heparin dosing in pregnant women at risk of thrombosis – response to Ismail et al

We thank Ismail et al for their interest in our study (Chowdary et al, 2015) and for raising some important issues on this controversial topic. We acknowledge the limitation in our study: that this was a real life exercise and hence, the relatively wide time frame between low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) injection and blood sampling. Ismail et al reported typical anti-Xa pharmacodynamic profiles after fixed dose Tinzaparin in patients post-Caesarean section. However this is not really comparing like with like, because these are postpartum patients and observations post-surgical procedure are a study in themselves. It is interesting to note that Ismail et al reported very low peak anti-Xa levels with a concomitant reduction of thrombin-antithrombin (TAT). It would be interesting to see TAT levels in patients with a contraindication for LMWH as a control.peer-reviewe

Weak wind effects in CNO driven winds of hot first stars

During the evolution of rotating first stars, which initially consisted of only hydrogen and helium, CNO elements may emerge to their surface. These stars may therefore have winds that are driven only by CNO elements. We study weak wind effects (Gayley-Owocki heating and multicomponent effects) in stellar winds of first generation stars driven purely by CNO elements. We apply our NLTE multicomponent models and hydrodynamical simulations. The multicomponent effects (frictional heating and decoupling) are important particularly for low metallicity winds, but they influence mass loss rate only if they cause decoupling for velocities lower than the escape velocity. The multicomponent effects also modify the feedback from first stars. As a result of the decoupling of radiatively accelerated metals from hydrogen and helium, the first low-energy cosmic ray particles are generated. We study the interaction of these particles with the interstellar medium concluding that these particles easily penetrate the interstellar medium of a given minihalo. We discuss the charging of the first stars by means of their winds. Gayley-Owocki heating, frictional heating, and the decoupling of wind components occur in the winds of evolved low-metallicity stars and the solar metallicity main-sequence stars.Comment: 10 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic