Culture, ethnicity and English language learning: a socio-cultural study of secondary schools in Taiwan

Learning English in Taiwan has become a primary economic concern as industry has recognised the need to compete within global markets in which trade is carried out predominantly in English. The national, longitudinal achievement data in English has consistently demonstrated a substantial gap in English between candidates (age 13) living in urban and rural locales. This thesis explores differences in secondary school students' access to English as a foreign language in four schools in Taiwan. The schools were chosen to represent locales dominated by different ethnic groups. Multiple methods were employed and the design of the research was guided by Rogoff's description of planes of analysis. Questionnaires adapted from Scribner and Cole' (1981) seminal work on literacy were used to assess students' engagement in learning English in everyday contexts. Classroom observations were conducted in eight classrooms, two in each school, and semi-structured interviews were carried out with students, teachers and parents. Key findings reveal that students from various ethnic groups and locales have access to different socio-cultural resources that position them differently with respect to formal school English learning. The study found a greater asymmetry in rural in contrast to urban locales between school and community values such as ethnic cultural legacies. In some schools teachers accessed students' ethnicity and dialect to bridge between school and outside school knowledge. Individual students' access to English followed complex trajectories that often reflected tensions relating to ethnicity, gender and social class background. Learning English was found to be a value-laden practice that has been exacerbated by the heightened political pressure to learn English to ensure Taiwan's place in the global economy. The theoretical and methodological approaches, and findings bring to light some of the socio-political implications to English language teaching for practitioners, policy makers, and academics concerning foreign language learning in countries such as Taiwan facing competition in global economic markets

PreZon: Prediction by Zone and Its Application to Egg Productivity in Chickens

Taiwan red-feathered country chickens (TRFCCs) are one of the main meat resources in Taiwan. Due to the lack of any systematic breeding programs to improve egg productivity, the egg production rate of this breed has gradually decreased. The prediction by zone (PreZone) program was developed to select the chickens with low egg productivity so as to improve the egg productivity of TRFCCs before they reach maturity. Three groups (A, B, and C) of chickens were used in this study. Two approaches were used to identify chickens with low egg productivity. The first approach used predictions based on a single dataset, and the second approach used predictions based on the union of two datasets. The levels of four serum proteins, including apolipoprotein A-I, vitellogenin, X protein (an IGF-I-like protein), and apo VLDL-II, were measured in chickens that were 8, 14, 22, or 24 weeks old. Total egg numbers were recorded for each individual bird during the egg production period. PreZone analysis was performed using the four serum protein levels as selection parameters, and the results were compared to those obtained using a first-order multiple linear regression method with the same parameters. The PreZone program provides another prediction method that can be used to validate datasets with a low correlation between response and predictors. It can be used to find low and improve egg productivity in TRFCCs by selecting the best chickens before they reach maturity

Flemingia macrophylla Extract Ameliorates Experimental Osteoporosis in Ovariectomized Rats

Flemingia macrophylla (Leguminosae), a native plant of Taiwan, is used as folk medicine. An in vitro study showed that a 75% ethanolic extract of F. macrophylla (FME) inhibited osteoclast differentiation of cultured rat bone marrow cells, and the active component, lespedezaflavanone A (LDF-A), was isolated. It was found that oral administration of FME for 13 weeks suppressed bone loss in ovariectomized rats, an experimental model of osteoporosis. In addition, FME decreased urinary deoxypyridinoline concentrations but did not inhibit serum alkaline phosphatase activities, indicating that it ameliorated bone loss via inhibition of bone resorption. These results suggest that FME may represent a useful remedy for the treatment of bone resorption diseases, such as osteoporosis. In addition, LDF-A could be used as a marker compound to control the quality of FME

Motivating and Sustaining Women\u27s Digital Literacy through ICT Learning

Digital literacy is one of the most important issues that women confront today. Lacking of digital literacy excludes women from lifelong learning and development. Our two-phase, multi-method study attempted to examine how ICT literacy affects women and identifies the key factors that motivate adult females to acquire ICT skills. The first phase identified important theoretical constructs that affect and sustain ICT learning and usage among women, using a qualitative approach based on Social Cognitive and Social Capital Theories. In the second phase, a quantitative study was conducted to validate the research model. Our findings suggest that social capital and learning satisfaction contribute significantly to ICT usage, and that this in turn has a positive impact on the level of well-being

Protective effect of transgenic expression of porcine heat shock protein 70 on hypothalamic ischemic and oxidative damage in a mouse model of heatstroke

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transgenic mice have been used to examine the role of heat shock protein (HSP)72 in experimental heatstroke. Transgenic mice that were heterozygous for a porcine HSP70β gene ([+] HSP72) and transgene-negative littermate controls ([-] HSP72), under pentobarbital sodium anesthesia, were subjected to heat stress to induce heatstroke. It was found that the overexpression of HSP72 in multiple organs improved survival during heatstroke by reducing hypotension and cerebral ischemia and damage in mice. Herein we attempted to further assess the effect of heat exposure on thermoregulatory function, hypothalamic integration, and survival in unrestrained, unanesthetized [+]HSP72 and compare with those of [-]HSP72. In this research with the transgenic mice, we first conducted several biochemical, physiologic and histological determinations and then investigated the beneficial effects of HSP72 overexpression on the identified hypothalamic deficits, thermoregulatory dysfunction, and mortality during heatstroke.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We report here that when [-]HSP72 mice underwent heat stress (ambient temperature 42.4°C for 1 h), the fraction survival and core temperature at 4 h after heat stress were found to be 0 of 12 and 34.2°C ± 0.4°C, respectively. Mice that survived to day 4 after heat stress were considered as survivors. In [+]HSP72 mice, when exposed to the same heat treatment, both fraction survival and core temperature values were significantly increased to new values of 12/12 and 37.4°C ± 0.3°C, respectively. Compared to [-]HSP mice, [+]HSP72 mice displayed lower hypothalamic values of cellular ischemia (e.g., glutamate and lactate-to-pyruvate ratio) and damage (e.g., glycerol) markers, pro-oxidant enzymes (e.g., lipid peroxidation and glutathione oxidation), pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., interleukin-1beta and tumor necrosis factor-alpha), and neuronal damage score evaluated 4 h after heat stress. In contrast, [+]HSP72 mice had higher hypothalamic values of antioxidant defences (e.g., glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase), ATP, and HSP72 expression.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study indicates that HSP72 overexpression appears to be critical to the development of thermotolerance and protection from heat-induced hypothalamic ischemic and oxidative damage.</p

Wnt proteins regulate acetylcholine receptor clustering in muscle cells

Background: The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a cholinergic synapse that rapidly conveys signals from motoneurons to muscle cells and exhibits a high degree of subcellular specialization characteristic of chemical synapses. NMJ formation requires agrin and its coreceptors LRP4 and MuSK. Increasing evidence indicates that Wnt signaling regulates NMJ formation in Drosophila, C. elegans and zebrafish. Results: In the study we systematically studied the effect of all 19 different Wnts in mammals on acetylcholine receptor (AChR) cluster formation. We identified five Wnts (Wnt9a, Wnt9b, Wnt10b, Wnt11, and Wnt16) that are able to stimulate AChR clustering, of which Wnt9a and Wnt11 are expressed abundantly in developing muscles. Using Wnt9a and Wnt11 as example, we demonstrated that Wnt induction of AChR clusters was dose-dependent and non-additive to that of agrin, suggesting that Wnts may act via similar pathways to induce AChR clusters. We provide evidence that Wnt9a and Wnt11 bind directly to the extracellular domain of MuSK, to induce MuSK dimerization and subsequent tyrosine phosphorylation of the kinase. In addition, Wnt-induced AChR clustering requires LRP4. Conclusions: These results identify Wnts as new players in AChR cluster formation, which act in a manner that requires both MuSK and LRP4, revealing a novel function of LRP4.NeurosciencesSCI(E)24ARTICLEnull

Reduction in magnetic coercivity of Co nanomagnets by Fe alloying

We measured the magnetic hysteresis and coercivity of individual Co and Co$_{0.8}$Fe$_{0.2}$ bilayer nano-sized island structures formed on Cu (111) substrate using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy. From the hysteresis taken on various sizes of islands, we found that the alloyed islands are ferromagnetic with out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy, same as the pure islands. Coercivity of the alloy islands, which is dependent on their size, was significantly reduced to ≈40% of that of the pure islands. Based on the Stoner–Wohlfarth model, we evaluated the amount of magnetic anisotropic energy and anisotropy constant for both pure and alloy islands. Since tunneling spectra taken on the alloy islands show upward shifts of the valence electronic states as compared to the pure ones, fewer electrons populated in the valence band of the alloy islands are presumably responsible for the reduction in the magnetic anisotropic energy

Phase transition and hysteresis in scale-free network traffic

We model information traffic on scale-free networks by introducing the node queue length L proportional to the node degree and its delivering ability C proportional to L. The simulation gives the overall capacity of the traffic system, which is quantified by a phase transition from free flow to congestion. It is found that the maximal capacity of the system results from the case of the local routing coefficient \phi slightly larger than zero, and we provide an analysis for the optimal value of \phi. In addition, we report for the first time the fundamental diagram of flow against density, in which hysteresis is found, and thus we can classify the traffic flow with four states: free flow, saturated flow, bistable, and jammed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure