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This paper raises the question of the relevance of 'autonomy' in a UK-based EAP context. Some examples are put forward to show the nature of formal lecture speech, and the corresponding comprehension problems that many students have. It is argued that the concept of 'process' or 'cognitive' autonomy has some relevance, in that we aim to develop transferable and generative language skills. However, it is suggested that this is only a partial view. EAP students are required to attain autonomy in relation to a target situation, and the target itself constrains the operation of autonomy in a number of ways. It is concluded that 'autonomy' is not a monolithic concept. It is many-faceted, and these different facets do not always work together., Cet article pose le problème de la pertinence de 'l'autonomie' dans un contexte britannique d'EAP. Quelques exemples sont cités pour illustrer la nature du discours du cours magistral, et les difficultés de compréhension qui en résultent pour beaucoup d'étudiants. On y propose que le concept de 'processus' ou d'autonomie 'cognitive' peut avoir une certaine pertinence par le fait que nous visons à développer des compétences dans la langue qui soient transférables et génératives. Par contre, ce ne serait là qu'une perspective partielle dans la mesure où on demande aux étudiants en EAP d'atteindre une autonomie par rapport à la situation cible, et que la cible elle-même contraint l'opération d'autonomie de différentes façons. On en tire la conclusion que l'autonomie n'est pas un concept monolithique. Elle a différentes facettes qui ne sont pas toujours faciles à concilier., Mcdonough Jo. Academic Listening Comprehension : the Relevance of Autonomy. In: Cahiers de l'APLIUT, volume 8, numéro 1-2, 1988. Actes du IXe Congrès GERAS et du 1er Congrès CRAI – Paris, février 1988 : Vers une Autonomie de l’apprentissage de l’anglais de spécialité. pp. 129-136.

Miniaturizing dielectric electroactive polymer (EAP) actuators will lead to highly-integrated mechanical systems on a chip, combining dozens to thousands of actuators and sensors on a few cm2. We present here µm to mm scale electroactive polymer (EAP) devices, batch fabricated on the chip or wafer scale, based on ion-implanted electrodes. Low-energy (2-10 keV) implantation of gold ions into a silicone elastomer leads to compliant stretchable electrodes consisting of a buried 20 nm thick layer of gold nanoparticles in a silicone matrix. These electrodes: 1) conduct at strains up to 175%, 2) are patternable on the µm scale, 3) have stiffness similar to silicone, 4) have good conductivity, and 5) excellent adhesion since implanted in the silicone. The EAP devices consist of 20 to 30 µm thick silicone membranes with µm to mm-scale ion-implanted electrodes on both sides, bonded to a holder. Depending on electrode shape and membrane size, several actuation modes are possible. Characterization of 3mm diameter bi-directional buckling mode actuators, mm-scale tunable lens arrays, 2-axis beam steering mirrors, as well as arrays of 72 cell-size (100x200 µm2) actuators to apply mechanical strain to single cells are reported. Speeds of up to several kHz are observed.

The increasingly common requirement for higher education courses to include reflective writing as part of assessment practices places additional demands on novice writers. Complex and self-referential assessment criteria mean that students on foundation and pre-sessional courses in particular find it hard to decode and match descriptors, and to balance subjectivity and critical analysis. English for Academic Purposes (EAP), the most widely adopted approach to teaching academic writing in higher education, prioritises objectivity, and teaches students to recognise generic patterns of text organisation – though it seldom includes reflective writing itself as a genre. In contrast, the less familiar teaching approach of academic literacies explores students’ subjectivity, more obviously relevant to reflection, often through the development of an authentic narrative voice. As in other forms of academic writing, voice in reflective writing can be seen as a construct. It conveys a persona via the narrative, and an ethos via its specialised content. However, unlike other forms of academic writing, the persona in reflective writing must simultaneously communicate the author’s private and public self. With the purpose of developing students’ persona , an academic literacies intervention in two transition courses invited students to complete a piece of timed writing in response to an autobiographical prompt. Compared with the EAP writing produced by the same student cohorts, the autobiographical writing contained a clear persona and consistent ethos. The assessed reflective writing later produced by the same students showed little change, however, particularly in its handling of ethos . The findings suggest that teachers of reflective writing need simultaneously to develop students’ ability to communicate a credible persona and to handle a specialised ethos of formal academic content. A more principled combination of the two approaches, EAP and academic literacies, could best provide the optimum learning environment for novice student writers to develop a balanced voice and achieve reflective writing fluency

We report on the first successfully microfabricated and tested ion implanted dielectric electroactive polymer (DEAP) actuators. Dielectric EAP (DEAP) actuators combine exceptionally high energy–density with large amplitude displacements [S. Ashley, Artificial muscles, Sci. Am. 289 (2003) 52–59; R. Pelrine, R. Kornbluh, J. Joseph, R. Heydt, Q. Pei, S. Chiba, High field deformation of elastomeric dielectrics for actuators, Mater. Sci. Eng. C 11 (2000) 89–100]. Scaling DEAPs down to the millimeter and micron scale requires patterning compliant electrodes on such a scale on the surfaces of the polymer. We used ion implantation to make the surfaces of the polymer locally conducting. Implanting the compliant electrodes solves the problem of microfabricating patterned electrodes whose elasticity is close to that of the insulating elastomer, thus avoiding the deposition of metal electrodes on the polymer which leads to significant stiffening of the membrane [A. Pimpin, Y. Suzuki, N. Kasagi, Micro electrostrictive actuator with metal compliant electrodes for flow control applications, in: MEMS 04, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 25–29 January, 2004, pp. 478–481]. Several techniques based on ion implantation for chip level and wafer level fabrication are presented. Ion implanted DEAP membranes were both simulated (FEM) and characterized. We report measurements on an actuator consisting of a 30-μm-thick ion implanted PDMS membrane bonded to a silicon chip into which a cavity had been etched. We measured 110 μm vertical displacements for a 0.72 mm2 membrane, achieving for the first time the same percent displacement in microscopic DEAPs as in macroscopic devices. These observations show that ion implantation allows the patterning of electrodes on PDMS membranes with negligible increase in stiffness.

We report on a novel technique to control the resonance frequency of polymer membranes, without additional external actuators. An electrostatic force is used to apply compressive stress to a dielectric electroactive polymers membrane, consisting of a 25 micron thick, 1 to 4 mm diameter, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film bonded onto patterned silicon or Pyrex wafers. Both sides of the membranes are rendered conductive by low-energy metal ion implantation. Ion implantation is chosen because it stiffens the membrane much less than sputtering a film of similar thickness. The initial resonance frequency of the membrane is given by its geometry, the Young’s modulus and stress of the composite film. The technique presented here allows tuning the resonance frequency from this initial value down to zero (at the buckling threshold) by adding compressive stress due to a voltage difference applied to the electrodes on both sides of the membrane. We have measured a reduction of the first mode resonance frequency of up to 77% (limited by dielectric breakdown) for ion-implanted membranes. The tuning is repeatable and allows for continuous variation. Excellent agreement was found between our measurements and an analytical model we developed based on the Rayleigh-Ritz theory.

One of the key factors to obtain large displacements and high efficiency with dielectric electroactive polymer (DEAPs) actuators is to have compliant electrodes. Attempts to scale DEAPs down to the mm or micrometer range have encountered major difficulties, mostly due to the challenge of micropatterning sufficiently compliant electrodes. Simply evaporating or sputtering thin metallic films on elastomer membranes produces DEAPs whose stiffness is dominated by the metallic film. Low energy metal ion implantation for fabricating compliant electrodes in DEAPs presents several advantages: a) it is clean to work with, b) it does not add thick passive layers, and c) it can be easily patterned. We use this technology to fabricate DEAPs micro-actuators whose relative displacement is the same as for macro-scale DEAPs. With transmission electron microscope (TEM) we observed the formation of metallic clusters within the elastomer (PDMS) matrix, forming a nano-composite. We focus our studies on relating the properties of this nano-composite to the implantation parameters. We identified the optimal implantation parameters for which an implanted electrode presents an exceptional combination of high electrical conductivity and low compliance.

Security aspects must be considered in the next generation of IoT and 5G networks. From the different aspects that can be consid- ered that belong to the area of security, we focus in this work as core aspects, the processes of authentication and key management operations that are essential to establish security associations between end-devices and data services. However, little effort has been put so far into providing a network-independent solution for service access authentication in the field of constrained devices based on IoT such as LoRaWAN, Narrow- Band IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE-M in 5G networks. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel architecture based on EAP bootstrapping and AAA infrastructure for IoT and 5G networks to manage service authentication and security association in order to enable secure end-to-end communi- cation. In this work, we propose the use of an improved bootstrapping mechanism for secondary authentication adapted to be compliant with the 3GPP specifications for integrating IoT technologies in 5G networks. We propose the adaptation of LO-COAP-EAP (Low-Overhead CoAP- EAP) as an EAP lower layer for enabling the secondary service authen- tication with high flexibility, scalability and networks independence.

We summarize recent results on micromachined dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA), or artificial muscles, whose compliant electrodes are made by low energy ion-implantation into an elastomer. Out-of-plane displacements in buckling mode of over 25% of the device diameter were observed, with a response time of less than 1 ms. Applications include beam steering, RF switching, and tunable microlens arrays. In addition, when operated below the buckling threshold, the device’s resonance frequency can be tuned from its initial value in the kHz range down to zero, with application in acoustic filtering and analog sound processing.

日本の大学の英語プログラムは一般目的の英語から学術目的の英語に移行することが求められている。本研究は，一般学術目的の英語４技能Can-Doディスクリプタについて，「アカデミック英語基礎」クラスの効果，英語レベルと自己評価値の相関関係，４技能別の困難度，項目の困難度の並びについて検証することを目的とする。本研究には英語レベル別に編成された６クラスの「アカデミック英語基礎」を受講する114名の２年生（英検２級から４級レベル）が参加した。学究的スキルと４技能（各20）について，CEFR（Council of Europe, 2001）に基づき先行研究（Jordan, 1997ほか）を修正して作成されたCan-Doディスクリプタ（n=88）を含む同じアンケートが事前評価と事後評価として実施され，分析された。分析の結果は以下の４点を示した。第一に，事前評価と事後評価では，統計的に有意であり（p＜.05），「アカデミック英語基礎」クラスの肯定的効果があることを示した。第二に，レベル別クラス間の自己評価値の相関関係は，４技能について有意（ｐ＜.001/p＜.05）であったが，ライティングにおいては，レベル間の相関関係（ピアソンｒ：.879～ .558）は比較的に弱かった。第三に，Can-Doディスクリプタの達成値は，全体的にリスニングが最も高く，ライティングが最も低い結果を示した。最後に，Can-Doディスクリプタは困難度に応じて並べられているとは言えない。特にライティングにおいては，困難度の規則性を見つけることはできなかった。今後の調査で困難度の並びについて再検証が必要である。, Japanese university English programs have gradually enacted requirements that have led to a shift away from courses founded on English for General Purposes and toward those based on English for Academic Purposes. This study aims to examine, in relation to can-do descriptors for English, the following: effects of the course Basic Academic English, correlations between English proficiency and self-ratings, comparisons of proficiency ratings in the four language skills, and evaluations of the can-do descriptor difficulty order. Participants in the study consisted of sophomores （n=114） who were enrolled in six university Basic Academic English classes. English proficiency levels of the participants varied with a range extending from STEP Eiken Exam G2 to G4. An identical pre/post can-do descriptor questionnaire was administered to the participants and examined areas that included both academic skills and the four language skills（20 each）. The questionnaire（Qs=88） utilized items adapted from CEFR （Council of Europe,2001） with additional modification based on previous studies （Jordan, 1997 and others）. An analysis of the data revealed the following four points. First, pre/post self-ratings were found to be statistically significant （p, application/pdf

In a context characterized by the increasing presence of CLIL programs in universities with a tradition of ESP courses, we analyze the case of a university in Catalonia (Spain) with regard to the position of CLIL and ESP. As CLIL programs are promoted to improve students' language proficiency in English, we explore the importance of language learning in these programs and the implications derived for ESP. Data were obtained from institutional documentation, class observation, and lecturer and student views on CLIL expressed in focus groups and a questionnaire. Findings show imprecise guidelines for CLIL implementation. Although we can observe an institutional shift from ESP to CLIL, the latter courses do not generally include language support. Lecturer and student perspectives provide useful insights for action that can be taken by ESP course designers to adapt courses to make them more relevant to students' discipline-related needs. Faced with these findings, we propose engaging in collaboration with content lecturers to develop graduates' proficiency in English. This collaboration can take place both through the integration of language in content courses and through the integration of content in ESP courses to make them more relevant to disciplines' communicative needs. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We report on the modelling, fabrication and testing of small arrays of mm-diameter PDMS lenses whose focal length can be electrically tuned. The lenses consist of an array of 1 to 3 mm diameter electroactive polymer actuators bonded to a socket that provides fluidic coupling between devices. The actuator is a membrane with compliant electrodes on both sides, which can be compressed by an electrostatic force obtained by applying a voltage to the electrodes (i.e., it is an dielectric electroactive polymer actuator). Compressing the membrane causes its area to increase, which is used to vary the curvature of the fluidically coupled devices. A key technology is the use of low-energy ion-implantation to fabricate compliant (conducts at strains of more than 100%) and 50% transparent electrodes on 30 μm thick Polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) film. We report tuning the focal length from 4 mm to 8 mm at 1.7 kV, and find an excellent agreement with an analytical model for focal length as a function of voltage, geometry, and material parameters.

Over the past two decades, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has experienced an important growth becoming a central element of L2 students’ higher education. These students seem to find in citation, a vital area of EAP, great challenges to overcome, being paraphrasing the most demanding strategy. The present dissertation aims to delve into L2 paraphrasing practices by reviewing relevant research on this issue. These show the struggles that L2 students undergo before paraphrasing successfully, most of them dealing with linguistic and academic literacy. With the lack of understanding of the purpose of paraphrasing being the most relevant of these problems, students also have to face the fear of being accused of plagiarism and confidence issues that prevent them from using their own words. Besides, this dissertation will deal with the role of teachers throughout the learning process of this citation strategy. In order to examine the aforesaid issues, I will carry out a brief case study about L2 students’ reporting verbs use to introduce paraphrases, which, in some cases, creates a conflict with the reported author’s original idea.

We report on the characterization, active tuning and modeling of the first mode resonance frequency of dielectric electroactive polymer (DEAP) membranes. Unlike other resonance frequency tuning techniques, the tuning procedure presented here requires no external actuators or variable elements. Compliant electrodes were sputtered or implanted on both sides of 20 to 35 m thick, 2 to 4 mm diameter polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes. The electrostatic force from an applied voltage adds compressive stress to the membrane, effectively softening the device and reducing its resonance frequency, in principle to zero at the buckling threshold. A reduction in resonance frequency up to 77% (limited by dielectric breakdown) from the initial value of 1620 Hz was observed at 1800 V for ion-implanted membranes, and a 20% decrease was observed for membranes with sputtered electrodes. Excellent agreement was found between our measurements and an analytical model we developed based on the Rayleigh-Ritz theory. This model is more accurate in the tensile domain than the existing model for thick plates [33] applied to DEAPs. The membranes reported here have resonance frequencies in the audible range. By varying their resonance frequency (and hence their compliance) the membranes can be used as frequency-tunable attenuators. The same technology could also allow the fine-tuning of the resonance frequencies in the MHz range of devices made from much stiffer polymers such as PMMA or SU8.

Background Bacterial infections have been assumed to worsen multiple sclerosis (MS) disease symptoms and to lead to increased neurodegeneration. However, the underlying biological mechanisms for these effects are complex and poorly understood. Here, we assessed the disease-modulating effects of chronic infection with Staphylococcus aureus, a common human pathogen, on the clinical course and the extent of neurodegeneration in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS. Methods To conduct this study, we established a persistent chronic infection in female brown Norway rats by inoculating Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria in a subcutaneously implanted tissue cages. Results In this study, we observed that the introduction of a localized S. aureus infection during the subclinical phase of EAE induced a chronic systemic inflammatory response, consisting of increased T- and B-cell counts and systemic production of proinflammatory cytokines. Unexpectedly, the S. aureus infection completely prevented the development of clinical EAE, and markedly reduced inflammatory infiltration and demyelination of the optic nerve, while it increased the number of surviving retinal neurons. Using a S. aureus strain that lacked the extracellular adherence protein (Eap), we determined that the extracellular adherence protein is at least partially responsible for the inhibitory effect of S. aureus infection on autoimmune inflammation of the central nervous system. Conclusions Our results demonstrate for the first time that chronic infection with S. aureus has a beneficial effect on EAE, indicating a dual role of infection in the pathogenesis of MS. We also showed that secretion of Eap by S. aureus plays a major role in preventing autoimmune inflammation of the CNS. Moreover, we identified Eap as a factor responsible for this protective effect. peerReviewed