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In a Taiwan-France telecollaborative project, Beyond These Walls , we designed a self-introduction activity to facilitate connective affordance between two groups of learners. Participants selected three objects – representing their past, present, and future – to their intercultural partners. Students prepared PowerPoint files and text documents to post on a project website. Participants then read, commented on, and asked/answered questions about the postings. To understand how the participants presented and positioned themselves during the processes of forming connectivity, the object descriptions and interactive postings were collected. Bakhtin’s (1986; 1981) conceptions of audience and addressivity and the social presence theory of Gunawardena (1995) were used to analyze the data. Our findings suggest that objects reflected the participants' identities and personas, which helped to create a sense of physical presence that is frequently lacking in online communication. The acts of selecting, describing, reading, and discussing objects of personal significance were conducive to participants' awareness of one another's identities and shaped the perceptions of their interlocutors as authentic, identifiable individuals with whom interpersonal communication was possible. Based on these findings, we discuss the importance of identity and how identity construction strategies foster social presence that is essential in telecollaborative settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We study the production cross section of the t-channel single top quark at the LHC in the noncommutative space–time. It is shown that the deviation of the t-channel single top cross section from the Standard Model value because of noncommutativity is significant when . Using the present experimental precision in measurement of the t-channel cross section, we apply upper limit on the noncommutative parameter. When a single top quark decays, there is a significant amount of angular correlation, in the top quark rest frame between the top spin direction and the direction of the charged lepton momentum from its decay. We study the effect of noncommutativity on the spin correlation and we find that depending on the noncommutative scale, the angular correlation can enhance considerably. Then, we provide limits on the noncommutative scale for various possible relative uncertainties on the spin correlation measurement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: What is the mechanism in creating the mass of the elementally particles? What is the origin of the dark matter which fills the universe? Is there a hidden space-time dimensions other than our ordinary 3+1? These fundamental questions that have been unanswered over the decades are finally ready to be solved with the TeV energy scale proton–proton collider, LHC (large hadron collider), with the large multi-purpose detector called ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus). The LHC finally restarted its operation at November 2009, after a long shutdown period following the incident in 2008. This article aims to address the basic intrinsic issues of the contemporary high energy particle physics, and will illustrate how ATLAS can shed a light on them. Generic explanations on LHC and ATLAS, and also on how the Japanese group is taking part in the large international collaboration are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main factors limiting the acceptance of large carnivores is livestock depredation. Reducing damages on livestock requires understanding how depredation varies in space and time. The conservation of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) population in the Pyrenees offers a relevant study case to illustrate this issue, with a minimum population size of 41 individuals recorded in 2016 and an average of 103.3 ± 18.9 attacks per year on domestic animals between 2010 and 2016 during the summer pasture period. We analysed the spatial aggregation of depredation events by using the local Getis-Ord analysis of spatial dependence at the management scale (pastoral units) and at a finest scale (250 × 250 m grain). Our results uncover the absence of coldspots of brown bear depredation in the French Pyrenees and the presence of significant hotspots. Depredation hotspots are consistent in time, meaning that a hotspot in one year is likely to exist in the following year(s). The fine scale analysis allowed identifying both inter- and intra-pasture hotspots and we propose a simple method to rescale these fine scale results. We linked this spatial pattern of hotspots (at 250 m resolution) to environmental factors. Hotspot presence is characterized by being close to forest and buildings with a high proportion of grassland and on steep slopes. Moreover, a nonlinear relationship with brown bear activity describes the presence of hotspots. The assessment of depredation hotspots and their link with environmental factors offers some practical guidance about where to focus efforts in order to decrease this human-large carnivore conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]