Cross-culture contact : a study of factors that contribute to culture shock on ESL students\u27 adjustment in the english language institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The factors that contribute to culture shock among international students who study abroad have been researched continuously since 1960. However, the findings remain controversial. The purpose of this study was to identify, through survey research methodology, what demographic factors, including age, gender, marital status, nationality, length of stay in the U.S., previous travel experience in other countries, and number of American friends, were related to culture shock linguistically, socially, and psychologically among ESL students. Subjects participating in this study were 66 ESL students who were native speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish at the English Language Institute at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, enrolled during the 1997-1998 academic year. The questionnaire, developed by the researcher specifically for this study, was translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish languages. The translated questionnaires were distributed and subsequently collected by the researcher after completion. These participants were asked to answer 40 questions to describe their linguistic, sociological and psychological difficulties, which relate to culture shock. In addition, the participants were asked to respond to six open-ended questions that reflected their feelings and perspectives of American people and American life. Statistical testing of the hypotheses was performed by using the Stat-Star program on a personal computer. The analysis of the data of the closed-ended questions was accomplished using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient method. The analysis of the data of the open-ended questions was performed using qualitative methods. The results of the analysis of the data led to the following conclusions: An ESL student\u27s age did not produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. An ESL student\u27s gender did not produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. An ESL student\u27s martial status did not produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. An ESL student\u27s nationality did not produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. An ESL student\u27s length of stay in the U.S. did produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. An ESL student\u27s previous travel experience did produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. The number of an ESL student\u27s American friend did produce a significant relationship on his/her perceptions toward the linguistic aspects of culture shock, sociological aspects of culture shock, and psychological aspects of culture shock. The narrative data indicated that ESL students felt that American life was both exciting and stressful. Students enjoyed freedom, convenient life style, advanced technology, and equal human rights. On the other hand, students felt that the American society was money-oriented, and unsafe. However, students were very impressed by Americans\u27 warm, and polite manner, and their way of respecting privacy. Interestingly, students also concluded that American people were selfish, exhibited a lack of self-discipline, and had a superior attitude. Recommendations for further research include studies exploring other demographic factors and their relationships with culture shock, replication of the study with a larger population, and with populations from different geographic areas

Measurement uncertainty relation for three observables

In this work we establish rigorously a measurement uncertainty relation (MUR) for three unbiased qubit observables, which was previously shown to hold true under some presumptions. The triplet MUR states that the uncertainty, which is quantified by the total statistic distance between the target observables and the jointly implemented observables, is lower bounded by an incompatibility measure that reflects the joint measurement conditions. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the triplet MUR to be saturated and the corresponding optimal measurement. To facilitate experimental tests of MURs we propose a straightforward implementation of the optimal joint measurements. The exact values of incompatibility measure are analytically calculated for some symmetric triplets when the corresponding triplet MURs are not saturated. We anticipate that our work may enrich the understanding of quantum incompatibility in terms of MURs and inspire further applications in quantum information science. This work presents a complete theory relevant to a parallel work [Y.-L. Mao, et al., Testing Heisenberg's measurement uncertainty relation of three observables, arXiv:2211.09389] on experimental tests.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2211.0938

Influences of phase transition and microstructure on dielectric properties of Bi0.5Na0.5Zr1-xTixO3 ceramics

Bismuth sodium zirconate titanate ceramics with the formula Bi0.5Na0.5Zr1-xTixO3 [BNZT], where x = 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6, were prepared by a conventional solid-state sintering method. Phase identification was investigated using an X-ray diffraction technique. All compositions exhibited complete solubility of Ti4+ at the Zr4+ site. Both a decrease of unit cell size and phase transition from an orthorhombic Zr-rich composition to a rhombohedral crystal structure in a Ti-rich composition were observed as a result of Ti4+ substitution. These changes caused dielectric properties of BNZT ceramics to enhance. Microstructural observation carried out employing SEM showed that average grain size decreased when addition of Ti increased. Grain size difference of BNZT above 0.4 mole fraction of Ti4+ displayed a significant increase of dielectric constant at room temperature

Type I interferons suppress viral replication but contribute to T cell depletion and dysfunction during chronic HIV-1 infection

The direct link between sustained type I interferon (IFN-I) signaling and HIV-1-induced immunopathogenesis during chronic infection remains unclear. Here we report studies using a monoclonal antibody to block IFN-α/β receptor 1 (IFNAR1) signaling during persistent HIV-1 infection in humanized mice (hu-mice). We discovered that, during chronic HIV-1 infection, IFNAR blockade increased viral replication, which was correlated with elevated T cell activation. Thus, IFN-Is suppress HIV-1 replication during the chronic phase but are not essential for HIV-1-induced aberrant immune activation. Surprisingly, IFNAR blockade rescued both total human T cell and HIV-specific T cell numbers despite elevated HIV-1 replication and immune activation. We showed that IFNAR blockade reduced HIV-1-induced apoptosis of CD4+ T cells. Importantly, IFNAR blockade also rescued the function of human T cells, including HIV-1-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells. We conclude that during persistent HIV-1 infection, IFN-Is suppress HIV-1 replication, but contribute to depletion and dysfunction of T cells

Long-term efficacy of endoscopic cyclophotocoagulation in the management of glaucoma following cataract surgery in children

Purpose To report the long-term efficacy of endoscopic cyclophotocoagulation (ECP) in pediatric glaucoma following cataract surgery (GFCS). Methods ECP was performed on 35 eyes of 25 patients 24 mm Hg, alternative glaucoma procedure following ECP, or occurrence of visually significant complications. Analysis was performed to estimate risk factors for failure. Results A total of 27 aphakic and 8 pseudophakic eyes were included. Pretreatment IOP averaged 33.9 ± 7.9 mm Hg. Final IOP after a mean follow-up period of 7.2 years was 18.9 ± 8.8 mm Hg (P < 0.001). The success rate was 54% (19/35 eyes). The failure rate was not increased in pseudophakic patients relative to aphakic patients. Patients with single ECP demonstrated preserved visual acuity from baseline to final follow-up. Conclusions In this patient cohort, with average follow-up period of 7.2 years, ECP was useful in the treatment of pediatric GFCS

Automatic landslide identification by Dual Graph Convolutional Network and GoogLeNet model-a case study for Xinjiang province, China

Landslides are a natural disaster that exists widely in the world and poses a great threat to human life and property, so it is of great importance to identify and locate landslides. Traditional manual interpretation can effectively identify landslides, but its efficiency is very low for large interpreted areas. In this sense, a landslide recognition method based on the Dual Graph Convolutional Network (DGCNet) is proposed to identify the landslide in remote sensing images quickly and accurately. The remote sensing image (regional remote sensing image) of the northern mountainous area of Tuergen Township, Xinyuan County, Xinjiang Province, was obtained by GeoEye-1 (spatial resolution: 0.5 m). Then, the DGCNet is used to train the labeled images, which finally shows good accuracy of landslide recognition. To show the difference with the traditional convolutional network model, this paper adopts a convolution neural network algorithm named GoogLeNet for image recognition to carry out a comparative analysis, the remote sensing satellite images (single terrain image) of Xinyuan County, Xinjiang Province is used as the data set, and the prediction accuracy is 81.25%. Compared with the GoogLeNet model, the DGCNet model has a larger identification range, which provides a new method for landslide recognition of large-scale regional remote sensing images, but the performance of DGCNet is highly dependent on the quality and characteristics of the input image. If the input data quality is poor or the image structure is unclear, the model’s performance may decline

High speed self-testing quantum random number generation without detection loophole

Quantum mechanics provides means of generating genuine randomness that is impossible with deterministic classical processes. Remarkably, the unpredictability of randomness can be certified in a self-testing manner that is independent of implementation devices. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of self-testing quantum random number generation based on an detection-loophole free Bell test with entangled photons. In the randomness analysis, without the assumption of independent identical distribution, we consider the worst case scenario that the adversary launches the most powerful attacks against quantum adversary. After considering statistical fluctuations and applying an 80 Gb $\times$ 45.6 Mb Toeplitz matrix hashing, we achieve a final random bit rate of 114 bits/s, with a failure probability less than $10^{-5}$. Such self-testing random number generators mark a critical step towards realistic applications in cryptography and fundamental physics tests.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figure