Examining the cultural appropriateness of the communicative approach to language teaching in Japan.

The communicative approach has been one of the most successful and widely-used second language teaching approaches in the latter part of the twentieth century and the early stages of the twenty-first century. Yet despite its tremendous influence, some have questioned its universal applicability, particularly in Asian learning contexts. Ellis (1996) is one such critic, who argues that the communicative approach ought to be adjusted to fit what he claims are collectivist, form-focussed Asian learning contexts. This paper aimed to evaluate Ellis’s (1996) claims, particularly in relation to English language teaching in Japan. In doing so, it was shown that the ‘one-size-fitsall’approach adopted by Ellis (1996) in relation to categorising Asian learning contexts is overly simplistic. In fact, despite the prevalence of what he refers to as a contentoriented approach in many formal language learning contexts in Asia, many nonformal learning contexts – such as eikaiwa (English conversation classes) in Japan–successfully utilise the communicative approach. Moreover, this paper demonstrated that the notion of Western English teachers acting as ‘cultural mediators’ in Asian language learning settings is fraught with difficulty. Not only is it problematic trying to isolate what culture or cultures a person is said to represent, but also many Western English teachers teaching in countries such as Japan may not be in a position to truly claim to have an in-depth understanding of the culture in which they find themselves living and working

Demography and the age of rare variants

Large whole-genome sequencing projects have provided access to much of the rare variation in human populations, which is highly informative about population structure and recent demography. Here, we show how the age of rare variants can be estimated from patterns of haplotype sharing and how these ages can be related to historical relationships between populations. We investigate the distribution of the age of variants occurring exactly twice (f2 variants) in a worldwide sample sequenced by the 1000 Genomes Project, revealing enormous variation across populations. The median age of haplotypes carrying f2 variants is 50 to 160 generations across populations within Europe or Asia, and 170 to 320 generations within Africa. Haplotypes shared between continents are much older with median ages for haplotypes shared between Europe and Asia ranging from 320 to 670 generations. The distribution of the ages of f2 haplotypes is informative about their demography, revealing recent bottlenecks, ancient splits, and more modern connections between populations. We see the signature of selection in the observation that functional variants are significantly younger than nonfunctional variants of the same frequency. This approach is relatively insensitive to mutation rate and complements other nonparametric methods for demographic inference.Comment: Revised versio

Variation in a host-epiphyte relationship along a wave exposure gradient

The red alga Polysiphonia lanosa (L ) Tandy is an obligate epiphyte that primarily occurs on the fucoid brown algal basiphyte Ascophyllum nodosum (L) Le Jolis In the present study we examine how epiphytic interactions between P lanosa and A nodosum vary along a wave exposure gradient within the southern Gulf of Maine, USA P lanosa was most dense on protected shores, however because the stature of P lanosa was greater on exposed than on sheltered shores, greater biomass occurred In exposed habitats Epiphytlc P lanosa pnmanly attached to inlured vegetative bssue at exposed sites, while ~ t osc currence was primarily receptacular at sheltered sites A significantly stronger correlation was found between host receptacle abundance and epiphyte abundance at a protected low than an exposed site As a result, the distribution of epiphytes along the host S stlpe vanes at different sites We suggest that changes in the distribution and abundance of P lanosa across this wave exposure gradient are highly influenced by vanations in the distribution and persistence of suitable attachment sites on the host plant Because both the quantity and quality of attachment sites vanes w t h exposure, we hypothesize that d~fferenpt rocesses limit or de t e rm~neP lanosa populations in different locations In protected sites P lanosa may be limited by the presence of adequate substrata (inlured bssue and lateral pits) where successful recruitment may occur By contrast at exposed sites the supply of P lanosa sporelings, rather than quantity of appropnate substrata, may limlt population size

Nonlinear characterization of half and full wavelength power ultrasonic devices

It is well known that power ultrasonic devices whilst driven under elevated excitation levels exhibit nonlinear behaviors. If no attempt is made to understand and subsequently control these behaviors, these devices can exhibit poor performance or even suffer premature failure. This paper presents an experimental method for the dynamic characterization of a commercial ultrasonic transducer for bone cutting applications (Piezosurgery® Device) operated together with a variety of rod horns that are tuned to operate in a longitudinal mode of vibration. Near resonance responses, excited via a burst sine sweep method were used to identify nonlinear responses exhibited by the devices, while experimental modal analysis was performed to identify the modal parameters of the longitudinal modes of vibration of the assemblies between 0-80 kHz. This study tries to provide an understanding of the effects that geometry and material choices may have on the nonlinear behavior of a tuned device

How Much of Current Unemployment Did We Import?

macroeconomics, unemployment

Purification of Tannery Effluent by electrolytic corrosion of aluminium

Tannery Effluent is noxious because tanning process chemicals are preservatives, including chromium, and the pH is high. Electrolytic processing is feasible because the high salt content gives a high electrical conductivity. While research on the subject dates back to early in the 20th Century, commercialization has not occurred, perhaps due to excessive power consumption. Other researchers have produced promising results with rendering plant effluent (Tetrault 2003). During 2005 a specialised proprietary prototype with a novel anode design was trialed extensively at a Tannery site in New Zealand and produced good results during continuous inline operation despite wide variation in the inflow. Greater than 90% removal of chromium from solution with similar reductions in turbidity were achieved at lower operating cost, residual aluminum and total aluminum addition than by dosing with usual commercial aluminum based flocculants. Results from the field trials are shown and discussed

Gordon Brown y el internacionalismo realista

Gordon Brown está a punto de completar su primer semestre como primer ministro británico y ya es posible evaluar algunos de los cambios que ha introducido en la política exterior del Reino Unido. Algunas de las intenciones de Brown han quedado de manifiesto en su respuesta a ciertas cuestiones (desde el Tratado de Reforma de la UE hasta Darfur) que requerían acción inmediata, pero el primer ministro también ha tratado de reformular algunos de los principios que regirán la política exterior británica a más largo plazo. Brown describe esta nueva visión, que combina multilateralismo con intervencionismo, como un “internacionalismo realista”. Gordon Brown ha adoptado un perfil más bajo en la escena internacional que su predecesor, Tony Blair. Durante sus primeros seis meses de mandato, las principales cuestiones de política exterior han girado en torno a Europa y a EEUU. El último capítulo de la perennemente difícil relación del Reino Unido con la UE ha venido protagonizado por el proceso de ratificación del Tratado de Reforma. Brown está intentando evitar a toda costa el referéndum que piden el opositor Partido Conservador y poderosos sectores de los medios de comunicación. El primer ministro ha reafirmado la preeminencia de la relación transatlántica como vínculo bilateral de mayor importancia del Reino Unido, pero ha dado a entender que el surgimiento de un mundo multipolar requerirá cambios de estrategia. Su doctrina de realismo práctico trata de predecir algunos de esos cambios abogando por reformar las instituciones multinacionales e insistiendo, al mismo tiempo, en que la intervención (en ocasiones por la fuerza) será más necesaria que nunca en un mundo globalizado

La cumbre de Londres: ¿hito o escollo?

La cumbre del G20 y las instituciones internacionales para el crecimiento, el empleo y la estabilidad se celebrará el 2 de abril de 2009 en Londres. Los jefes de gobierno de los países del G20 y otros (entre ellos España) se reunirán en Londres el 2 de abril de 2009 para desarrollar lo que se ha dado en llamar “la agenda Bretton Woods II”. Debatirán la coordinación de los programas de estímulo fiscal, la supervisión de los mercados financieros mundiales, la reforma de las instituciones financieras internacionales, el cambio climático y el desarrollo económico equilibrado. A pesar de su extrema importancia, el éxito de esta cumbre no está garantizado. Las diferentes prioridades de los diversos participantes y el lamentable estado de la economía global pueden dar lugar a que, incluso si la cumbre de Londres tiene un resultado positivo, su impacto sea finalmente reducido. Sin embargo, el fracaso de la cumbre podría llevar a una mayor inestabilidad y aumentar las tensiones entre países