Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Task-based Language Teaching( TBLT) in Chinese Higher Education: EFL Teachers’ Perceptions

Key words:TBLT, EFL teachers, Chinese college ABSTRACT Very large numbers in English language classes in China present a challenge to language learners, teachers and policy makers. Nunan’s (2003) proposal that TBLT can be of particular relevance in the Asia-Pacific countries suggests that empirical studies in this area are necessary. This paper reports on an empirical study of the perceptions of Chinese teachers of English in higher education. As the number of English learners in China has increased dramatically, it is not rare to have a college class with over 100 students especially since the expansion of college enrolment in 1999 (Wang& Zhang, 2011). Nunan (2003) suggests that TBLT emerges as a central concept from a study of curriculum guidelines and syllabi in Asia-Pacific countries including Japan, Vietnam, China, Korea and Malaysia. The National Curriculum Syllabus for English Language Teaching in China, published in 2001, advocates the use of TBLT. But TBLT has not been sufficiently researched to be proven empirically in classroom practice in foreign language learning in higher education (Carless, 2004; Zhang, 2005). Research on curriculum innovation and implementation suggests that one of the causes of the discrepancy between theory and classroom practice may be teacher attitudes (Evdokia, 1996). Teachers are inclined to translate innovative ideas to conform with their own style of teaching (Wagner，1991). This study investigates EFL teachers’ attitudes towards TBLT and assesses the current implementation of TBLT in Chinese colleges. The methodology is primarily qualitative and analysis is carried out via questionnaires and interviews. This paper reports on the research design and focuses in particular on the results of the study involving the interview and a questionnaire survey of teachers’ familiarity with the concept of TBLT, their use of this method, and the challenges it poses for their practice as English teachers.
Accounting Conservatism and Corporate Investment

This paper documents negative associations between conservatism and both firm investments and future operating performance for financially constrained firms. The negative correlations are consistent with accounting literature’s predictions that accounting conservatism can cause dysfunctional investment incentives for managers and motivate them to forego positive NPV projects (Leuz, 2001; Watts, 2003a; Guay and Verrecchia, 2006). Further, consistent with literature, empirical evidence show that the negative correlation between conservatism and firm investments is more pronounced for firms with high return volatility and for firms with short CEO tenure horizon. Last, the negative correlation between conservatism and future investments is mitigated by CEOs’ equity ownership, suggesting that equity ownership mitigates agency conflicts (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). The results are robust to alternative empirical strategy, variable specifications, and sample selection criteria. JEL Classification: G31; M41
Strategic Interaction between Corrupt Governments in a Growth Model

This paper investigates the consequences of strategic interaction between corrupt governments on economic growth. I derive a growth model where corruption is the endogenous result of a self-seeking government. The implications of endogenous corruption on economic growth are investigated. The model is then expanded to a two-country setting and solved for both the competitive Nash and cooperative equilibrium. The negative consequences of corruption can be significantly reduced through inter-governmental competition, thus providing a further argument for fiscal decentralization in the context of self-seeking governments. An empirical analysis of the effect of decentralization on corruption is performed which supports the main theoretical result. ∗Department of Economics, Washington University in St Louis. Email: trskladz@artsci.wustl. edu. I wish to thank Paul Rothstien, Gaetano Antinolfi, Steven Fazzari, Raul Barreto and Andrew Leigh for helpful comments and the Center for Research in Economics and Strategy at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St Louis for financial support. All errors are my own.
Level of serum fructosamine in Saudi diabetic patients

Fructosamine, a compound used to measure serum glycosylated proteins was assayed in 105 Saudi diabetic subjects and 54 healthy non-diabetic Saudi subjects. Fructosamine concentrations in diabetics were significantly higher than in healthy controls (p less than 0.0005). Fructosamine concentrations correlated significantly with fasting blood glucose and HbA1 in diabetics (r = 0.677, p less than 0.0005, and r = 0.598, p less than 0.0005, respectively). The correlation between fructosamine and HbA1 was significant in the oral hypoglycemic-treated diabetics and poor in the insulin-treated diabetic group (r = 0.568, p less than 0.0005, and r = 0.526, p = 0.01). Fructosamine concentrations correlated poorly with the duration of diabetes (r = 0.221, p less than 0.05)
Development of attentional orienting to visual memories

Working memory capacity is strikingly limited, but the nature of these limits remains controversial. A largely unexplored field is the development of visual working memory. We know that WM capacity critically increases during childhood. However, it is still unclear which aspects of WM explain this development. Investigating these aspects could contribute not only to our understanding of visual WM development, but also could shed a light on the mechanisms that underlie WM capacity in adults by uncovering differences in developmental trajectories of processes within WM. This study aimed to test the influence of content cues in WM capacity, and more specifically, the development of attentional control with content information. We explored multiple hypotheses using the single-probed recognition version of the change detection paradigm. All of our inferences are based on Bayesian analysis of variance. We found overwhelming evidence of the content pre-cue in accuracy for all groups. The evidence for the content retro-cue across all groups was inconclusive. We did not find decisive evidence for the development of content retro-cue benefit. However, when we analysed the data from the adults only, we have a robust yet small effect of content retro-cue.
Measuring The Selection and Incentive Effects of Career and Financial Incentives

We design and implement a two-stage randomized field experiment to disentangle the selection and incentive effects of career and financial incentives where our collaborating nongovernmental organization (NGO) recruits and trains enumerators for a population census of a rural catchment district in Malawi. Career incentives in our setting consist of a future job prospect and a recommendation letter, which are typical components of an internship. The financial incentive we study consists of a fixed wage, which is not dependent on job performance. We find that those selected through the career incentive of an internship perform significantly better than those hired through the financial incentive channel. In addition, we find that an additional financial incentive increases labor productivity of workers recruited via the internship channel.
Distributions and variations in the partial pressure of CO in 2 ž w / surface waters p CO of the central and western equatorial 2 Pacific during the 1997 r 1998 El Nino event ̃

Ž w. Ž a . Measurements of partial pressure of CO in surface waters pCO and overlying air pCO were made in the central 2 2 2 and western equatorial Pacific from October 1997 to February 1998 within the period of the 1997r1998 El Nino, which was ̃ reported to be the strongest El Nino event on record. The distribution of the pCO showed a pattern driven by the eastward ̃ 2 Ž . movement of western Pacific warm pool and thermodynamic effects temperature and salinity , which was different from those of the moderate 1986r1987 El Nino and non-El Nino periods. Due to the eastward movement of the warm pool with ̃ ̃ Ž . Ž . w sea surface temperature SST higher than 28.5 8C and sea surface salinity SSS lower than 34.5, the pCO between 1808 2 Ž . Ž . w and 1638W 347–364 matm was almost equal to that of the air 351 matm . Between 1438E and 1808, the pCO tended to 2 Ž . increase toward the west 387 matm at 08, 1448E in December 1997 along with the SST and SSS. West of 1438E in January w Ž . 1998, a steep change in pCO ranging from 320 to 365 matm occurred while retaining high SST )28.5 8C and SSS 2 Ž . )34.5 . This was caused by the advection of surface water from the southern low latitudes that had been affected by Ž . biological activity New Guinea Coastal Current . From December 1997 to JanuaryrFebruary 1998, the SSS was usually higher than 34.5 west of 1808, which was significantly high compared to the western equatorial Pacific warm pool. This was probably due to the decrease of the net fresh water input for the western equatorial Pacific andror the northward migration of surface water from the Southern Hemisphere. The CO outflux from the central and western equatorial Pacific 2 Ž . 5.58S–5.58N, 139.58E–159.58W was estimated to be 0.027 Pg-Cryear in December 1997 and 0.038 Pg-Cryear in Ž JanuaryrFebruary 1998. This presents a significant decrease from the CO outflux during the non-El Nino periods 0.34 ̃ 2 . Pg-Cryear in JanuaryrFebruary 1989, 0.11 Pg-Cryear in SeptemberrNovember 1990 and a slight one from the moderate ) Corresponding author. Tel. : q81-298-53-8721; fax: q81-298-53-8728. Ž . Ž . E-mail addresses: hyoshika@mri-jma.go.jp H.Y. Inoue , t-midorikawa@met.kishou. go.jp T. Midorikawa , kawanot@jamstec.go.jp Ž . T. Kawano . 0304-4203r01r$ see front matter q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž . PII: S0304-4203 01 00048-2 ( ) H.Y. Inoue et al.rMarine Chemistry 76 2001 59–75 60 Ž . 1986r1987 El Nino period 0.055 Pg-Cryear in JanuaryrFebruary 1987 . Following the El Nino–Southern Oscillation ̃ ̃ phenomena, CO outflux varied largely in the central equatorial Pacific and little in the western equatorial Pacific. q 2001 2 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Obfuscating to Persuade∗

A decision maker faces a choice between a risky new policy and a risk-free status quo, and consults an expert adviser who knows how risky the new policy can be and how to best mitigate the risk. The adviser wants to persuade the decision maker to adopt the new policy through his report. This paper shows that strategic communication is characterized by obfuscation: the adviser gives a vague report to signal risklessness, even though it causes the decision maker to misinterpret how to execute the policy. The less detailed the report is, the less risky the new policy sounds. In contrast to the past finding, the adviser’s message becomes more vague as the parties’ interests becomes more congruent: vagueness signals congruence. JEL classification: C72, D82, D83
CEA APPROACH TO THE MODELLING OF CORIUM BEHAVIOUR AND THE PLACE OF MASCA

CEA has undertaken an original approach to the modelling of corium behaviour for In-Vessel and Ex-Vessel situations. This approach is based on a strong coupling between physicochemistry and thermalhydraulics. The aim is to derive (in a physically consistent way) deterministic interface conditions, stratification criteria and physical properties to be used for the calculation of heat flux distributions, melt temperatures and material interactions. The approach has been first developed for oxidic corium pool. It has been shown that no mushy zone can exist in thermalhydraulic steady state in the absence of mass transfer. The interface temperature is then equal to the liquidus temperature corresponding to the actual melt composition (that may evolve versus time). The melt is then completely liquid and the viscosity is low. The dissolution of ceramics is described with the same approach. This applies directly to In-Vessel corium pools and corium retention in core-catchers. The approach has been validated against a number of real material experiments (RASPLAV, CIT, VULCANO) and simulant material experiments (RASPLAV Salt, SIMECO). The problem of molten corium/concrete interaction (MCCI) is more complex since it involves mass transfer due to the melting of concrete and to gas sparging. It has been shown, through comparison to many experiments, that the approach provides a good description of the evolution of melt temperature (that, again, follows the liquidus temperature) and provides rational explanations for material effects on melt temperature and for the occurrence of ablation instabilities. A methodology has been derived for the calculation of melt viscosities and validated. This approach permitted, for the first time, to define similarity criteria. Following this analysis, analytical experiments with simulant material (ARTEMIS) have been engaged for a better understanding of the melt behaviour at the interface with concrete. The same approach has been applied to oxide-metal melts (including molten steel). It has rapidly revealed that the behaviour of such mixtures depends on whether or not they come to physicochemical equilibrium. If they come to physicochemical equilibrium, and depending on the level of oxidation of zirconium, inverse stratification can occur. The model describing the behaviour of such melts has been derived by CEA in a way consistent with the preceding models. The model has been validated against MASCA tests (prediction of compositions, densities and interface conditions) and SIMECO experiments (transient dissolution of top layer, heat flux distribution). Consequences on In-Vessel Retention and on interaction with ceramics (core-catchers) have been outlined.
CIA_A_204368 1159..1166

Huantao Zong Fangang Meng Yong Zhang Guangzhu Wei Huiqing Zhao 1Department of Urology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China Purpose: To evaluate the effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on urinary dysfunctions in Parkinson’s patients. Patients and methods: A total of 416 patients, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) based on the UK Parkinson’s Disease Society Brain Bank Diagnostic Criteria, were enrolled in the study, including 307 males and 109 females. The effects of DBS treatment on urinary functions during urination and bladder storage of these patients were evaluated using testing and assessment scales, such as the American Urological Association Symptom Index (AUASI), Overactive Bladder Symptom Scores (OAB-SS), Quality Of Life Scale (QOL), and urodynamic tests. The data were statistically analyzed with the chi-square test and both independent-samples t-test and paired-samples t-test were used in this study. Results: Symptoms of urinary dysfunctions, such as urinary frequency, urgency, and incontinence, in the patients with PD were notably relieved by DBS treatment (P<0.05), and the OAB-SS and bladder storage problems were greatly improved as well (P<0.05). Compared with those in male patients, DBS surgery significantly improved the AUA-SI, urinary symptom scores, and QOL in female PD patients (P<0.05), as well as other functional indicators related to the urinary tract, including the maximum urinary flow rate, detrusor pressure at peak flow, and residual urine volume in female PD patients (P<0.05). Conclusion: DBS surgery is effective in improving urinary functions in PD patients, as primarily reflected by the alleviation of urinary symptoms such as urinary frequency, urgency, and incontinence. Female PD patients displayed better urinary function outcomes from DBS treatment than did male patients.
The Identification of Indonesia and Malaysia Company Performance Based on Intellectual Capital

Indonesia and Malaysia are Southeast Asian countries that have similar growth rates in business performance. Both countries have experienced the global financial crisis and recovered from the economic downturn. This study examined the performance based on intellectual capital of Indonesian and Malaysian companies listed on the Indonesian and Malaysian Stock Exchanges from 2013 until 2016 using an analysis based on the ? Independent Sample t ? test? to evaluate the Intellectual Capital value which consists of the variables Value Added Capital Employed (VACA), Value Added Human Capital (VAHU), and Structural Capital Value Added (STVA), (Pulic, 1998). Based on the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC)TM approach, the study found several performance differences between Indonesian and Malaysian companies involving the capital employment (VACA), human capital (VAHU), structural capital (STVA) and also a significant decline in company performance.
Feature Matching Facilitates Analogy Based Transfer

When people compare examples of unfamiliar problems they often infer the underlying structure, which then facilitates subsequent transfer. However, when algebra word problems are compared, such an inference is more difficult because it could rely on recognizing analogically similar structures either in terms of a general principle or in terms of a solution procedure. In order to examine a possible method to overcome this difficulty, in the present experiment, participants compared algebra word problems either by matching features that corresponded in terms of a general principle, or by verbally explaining the steps of the solution procedure. The feature matchers outperformed the explainers at subsequent transfer to an especially difficult problem that required them to use an equation that they had not been taught. They did so even though their training task involved seemingly mindless pattern matching, whereas the explainers' task involved verbal explanation. Therefore, training exercises designed to foster transfer of algebra problem solving ability might benefit by using a feature matching approach, although making such a task meaningful to students might be a challenge.
Migration, Ability and Audit Quality: Evidence from Audit Partners in China

Research in labor economics proposes that migrants tend to be a group of self-selected individuals and people with higher human capital migrate to more economic developed areas where wages are higher. Based on this insight, we argue that university graduates who migrate to a more economically developed city have higher human capital, relative to their peers staying in the city of the university where they studied. When these upward migrating graduates become auditors, they provide higher quality audits. Using data from China and multiple measures of audit quality, we find evidence supporting the argument. JEL Classifications: G41
Earth, Wind and Fire: The impact of anti-poverty efforts on Indian agriculture and air pollution

Income growth from low levels is often associated with reductions in environmental quality but evidence that the relationship is more than correlational remains scarce. I use an exogenous shock to incomes from the world’s largest anti-poverty program (NREGA) to show that income growth leads to increased air pollution in India. Using a difference-in-differences approach on the staggered roll-out of NREGA combined with data on nearly 1 million fires I show the frequency of cropland fires increases by between 9% and 21% after implementation of NREGA. The increase in fires is concentrated in districts with high levels of fires prior to NREGA and in districts with a high index of mechanization. I independently analyze data from a randomized control trial improving NREGA implementation in one state and find similar concentration of the impact on fires. These results are consistent with a model that I outline showing that income growth can lead to environmentally degrading but labor-saving mechanization. In my context farmers use fires to clear harvest residue and agronomic literature indicates mechanized harvesting leaves more residue, increasing the use of fires. I estimate that nationally NREGA increased the rate of particulate emissions from biomass burning by 30% to 50%. I show that NREGA does not change area planted or tonnage produced in fire intensive crops. My results suggest policies raising the opportunity cost of time for labor may have environmental consequences and policy-makers may wish to couple income raising policies with policy encouraging producers to internalize environmental costs. JEL Codes: Q1, Q53, D2, O13, O44, J43
Improvement of Silver Nanoparticles Synthesis by Monascus purpureus using Gamma Irradiation

Aqueous dispersion of highly stable silver nanoparticles were synthesized using gamma irradiation with Monascus purpureus supernatant molecules as reducing and stabilizing agent. The formation of Nano sized silver was confirmed by its characteristic surface Plasmon absorption peak around 420nm in UV-VIS spectra. The size of the silver nanoparticles can be turned by controlling the radiation dose and mixing method of AgNO solution with Monascus purpureus supernatant (irradiation process). Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurement and Transmission electron microscope (TEM)of the synthesized nanoparticles indicated that the size depend on dose and irradiation process . The irradiation was carried out at doses from 1 to 25kGy . XRD analysis of the silver confirmed the formation of metallic silver. Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopic data indicate abounding of Ag nanoparticles with Monascus purpureus supernatant molecules. The obtained Ag nanoparticle dispersion was stable for over 3 months at room temperature.
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Speakers include: Nasser Barghi Irfan Ahmad Louis MacKenzie Ash Parmar Ian Buckle Plaque control is the cornerstone for the prevention and control of periodontal disease and caries. However, although salivary flow has some limited potential in cleaning debris from interproximal spaces and occlusal pits, it is less effective in removing and⁄ or washing out plaque, and natural cleaning of the dentition by physiological forces – ie, movement of the tongue and cheeks – is virtually non-existent (Lindhe & Wicén, 1969). Therefore, to be controlled, plaque must be removed frequently by active methods, and evidence from large cohort studies has demonstrated that high standards of oral hygiene will ensure effective plaque removal (Van der Weijden & Slot, 2011). There is substantial evidence showing that toothbrushing can control plaque, provided that cleaning is sufficiently thorough and performed at appropriate intervals. The underlying factors influencing the effectiveness of toothbrushing include toothbrush design, its mode of action, ease-of-use and patient compliance.