A comparison of the use of strategies in reading electronic and printed text by Chinese adult ESL learners

This study investigates whether Chinese adult ESL learners use the same reading strategies online as they do in traditional print. Three Chinese-speaking graduate students at Iowa State University participated in this study. To best elicit information regarding subjects\u27 thought processes and their use of reading strategies, several methods were used, including think-aloud protocols, Morae software, and a follow-up interview. During the think-aloud process, subjects were assigned two reading tasks. One process involved reading in traditional print, and in the other process, participants read in hypertext. Each text format consisted of three passages. Each subject had the option of choosing two passages in either text. To ensure that the data was interpreted accurately, each oral report was conducted in two forms: concurrent and retrospective. The entire process was recorded using Morae software, which allowed the investigator to review subjects\u27 behaviors easily and thus further clarify questions regarding behaviors observed that were not fully understood during the interview. The results suggest that there is little variation in the use of strategies between the two contexts. Only the strategy of inferencing was found to be more closely related to hypertext. Moreover, evidence suggests that variation in the use of strategies within this study was influenced more by learner-dependent factors rather than the media of the text

Ontology-based Fuzzy Markup Language Agent for Student and Robot Co-Learning

An intelligent robot agent based on domain ontology, machine learning mechanism, and Fuzzy Markup Language (FML) for students and robot co-learning is presented in this paper. The machine-human co-learning model is established to help various students learn the mathematical concepts based on their learning ability and performance. Meanwhile, the robot acts as a teacher's assistant to co-learn with children in the class. The FML-based knowledge base and rule base are embedded in the robot so that the teachers can get feedback from the robot on whether students make progress or not. Next, we inferred students' learning performance based on learning content's difficulty and students' ability, concentration level, as well as teamwork sprit in the class. Experimental results show that learning with the robot is helpful for disadvantaged and below-basic children. Moreover, the accuracy of the intelligent FML-based agent for student learning is increased after machine learning mechanism.Comment: This paper is submitted to IEEE WCCI 2018 Conference for revie

A Study of MIS Scholar Community Development via a Collaboration Network Structures Analysis

The objective of this study is to apply collaborative networks to understanding the development process of the Management Information System (MIS) journals’ knowledge community. This research explores four phenomena: whether a co-author network depends on star collaborators, whether this network is a small world, the structural cohesion within the co-author network, and central scholars. We found that the MIS community has a small-world structure and high structural cohesion, so the MIS network is a dense cluster. Another finding was that a small number of researchers receive disproportionate recognition in MIS communities, indicating the presence of preferential attachment. This means that the MIS network contains clear star authors. Furthermore, we infer how a structural network affects knowledge diffusion and information diffusion. In addition, this study discusses changes in each journal’s central scholars to observe patterns of publication for each journal published by a private for-profit organization or sponsored by academic societies

Toxicity assessments of chalcone and some synthetic chalcone analogues in a zebrafish model

[[abstract]]The aim of this study was to investigate the in vivo toxicities of some novel synthetic chalcones. Chalcone and four chalcone analogues 1a–d were evaluated using zebrafish embryos following antibody staining to visualize their morphological changes and muscle fiber alignment. Results showed that embryos treated with 3'-hydroxychalcone (compound 1b) displayed a high percentage of muscle defects (96.6%), especially myofibril misalignment. Ultrastructural analysis revealed that compound 1b-treated embryos displayed many muscle defect phenotypes, including breakage and collapse of myofibrils, reduced cell numbers, and disorganized thick (myosin) and thin (actin) filaments. Taken together, our results provide in vivo evidence of the myotoxic effects of the synthesized chalcone analogues on developing zebrafish embryos.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]電子

Multiplex PCR System for Rapid Detection of Pathogens in Patients with Presumed Sepsis – A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Blood culture is viewed as the golden standard for the diagnosis of sepsis but suffers from low sensitivity and long turnaround time. LightCycler SeptiFast (LC-SF) is a real-time multiplex polymerase chain reaction test able to detect 25 common pathogens responsible for bloodstream infections within hours. We aim to assess the accuracy of LC-SF by systematically reviewing the published studies. Method Related literature on Medline, Embase, and Cochrane databases was searched up to October 2012 for studies utilizing LC-SF to diagnose suspected sepsis and that provided sufficient data to construct two-by-two tables. Results: A total of 34 studies enrolling 6012 patients of suspected sepsis were included. The overall sensitivity and specificity for LC-SF to detect bacteremia or fungemia was 0·75 (95% CI: 0·65–0·83) and 0·92 (95%CI:0·90–0·95), respectively. LC-SF had a high positive likelihood ratio (10·10) and a moderate negative likelihood ratio (0·27). Specifically, LC-SF had a sensitivity of 0·80 (95%CI: 0·70–0·88) and a specificity of 0·95(95%CI: 0·93–0·97) for the bacteremia outcome, and a sensitivity of 0·61 (95%CI: 0·48–0·72) and a specificity of 0·99 (95%CI: 0·99–0·99) for the fungemia outcome. High heterogeneity was found in the bacteremia outcome subgroup but not in the fungemia outcome subgroup. Conclusion: LC-SF is of high rule-in value for early detection of septic patients. In a population with low pretest probability, LC-SF test can still provide valuable information for ruling out bacteremia or fungemia

IMPLEMENT AN EXTENSION CORD POWER SOCKET WITH EMERGENCY LIGHTING AND VOICE CONTROL LIGHTING FUNCTIONS

Conventional power sockets are equipped with an extension cord. Even with anti-overload devices, incidents of accidental discharge or damage to electrical appliances may still incur due to external factors. To address this problem, this study integrated the voice control and lighting functions to the design of the power socket with an extension cord. The proposed design is space-efficient and versatile, and can be used in living rooms, bedrooms, and other places having electrical appliances. The proposed design also integrated emergency lighting and flashlight functions, so as to expand the practicality and safety of the power socket

The Treatment of Ectopic Pregnancy with Laparoscopy-Assisted Local Injection of Chemotherapeutic Agents

Non

To develop an incontinence-associated dermatitis care teaching program for nursing post-graduate staff

1.To develop an incontinence-associated dermatitis care teaching program including teaching video for learning, simulated incontinence-associated dermatitis situation for practice. 2.To evaluate this outcome by using OSCE test

Pin1 positively affects tumorigenesis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and correlates with poor survival of patients

BACKGROUND: Pin1 promotes oncogenesis by regulating multiple oncogenic signaling. In this study, we investigated the involvement of Pin1 in tumor progression and in the prognosis of human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). RESULTS: We observed that proliferation, clonogenicity and tumorigenesis of CE81T cells were inhibited by Pin1 knockdown. We next analyzed Pin1 expression in clinical ESCC specimens. When compared to the corresponding non-tumor part, Pin1 protein and mRNA levels in tumor part were higher in 84% and 62% patients, respectively. By immunohistochemistry, we identified that high Pin1 expression was associated with higher primary tumor stage (p = 0.035), higher overall cancer stage (p = 0.047) and poor overall survival (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the association between expression of Pin1 and levels of β-catenin and cyclin D in cell line and clinical specimens was evaluated. β-catenin and cyclin D1 were decreased in CE81T cells with Pin1 knockdown. Cyclin D1 level correlated with Pin1 expression in clinical ESCC specimens. CONCLUSIONS: Pin1 upregulation was associated with advanced stage and poor prognosis of ESCC. Pin1 knockdown inhibited aggressiveness of ESCC cells. β-catenin and cyclin D1 were positively regulated by Pin1. These results indicated that targeting Pin1 pathway could represent a potential modality for treating ESCC