Search

Given current trends in international education, many institutions of higher education in the United States and elsewhere seek to prepare students for life and careers in a globalized world. For many institutions, this means internationalizing curriculum and campus, increasing educational exchange opportunities (for both domestic and international students), and developing intercultural abilities in their students. In the process, several questions arise: (1) which strategies are effective, (2) what research gaps exist, (3) what standards measure quality, and (4) what factors determine the quality and effectiveness of their efforts while lacking evidence about competencies? This article explores a possible response to the questions posed drawing on half a century of experience in educational exchange and intercultural service, a review of the intercultural literature, plus two multinational research projects. These combined efforts led to an expansion and (re)conceptualization of the seminar theme of intercultural effectiveness. Despite more than 50 terms found in the literature (including “intercultural effectiveness”) (see, among others, Byram, 1997; Deardorff, 2004; Edelstein, 2014; Martin and Nakayama, 2000), to describe abilities needed for intercultural interaction, one term emerges as perhaps the most comprehensive and most accurate – intercultural communicative competence (ICC).

Selection can affect growth, changing performance and asymptotic values. However, there is little information about the growth of families in fish breeding programs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance and growth of families of Nile tilapia AquaAmérica. Twenty AquaAmérica families cultivated in a net cage (13.5 m3) for 181 days were evaluated. The nonlinear Gompertz regression model was fitted to the data by the weighted least squares method, taking the inverse of the variance of weight in different families and at different ages as the weighting variable. The model was adjusted to describe the growth in weight and morphometric characteristics. Two families showed highest (P

The use of Ni-Ti alloys in the practice of endodontic comes from their important properties such as shape memory and superelasticity phenomena, good corrosion resistance and high compatibility with biological tissues. In the last twenty years a great variety of nickel-titanium rotary instruments, with various sections and taper, have been developed and marketed. Although they have many advantages and despite their increasing popularity, a major concern with the use of Ni-Ti rotary instruments is the possibility of unexpected failure in use due to several reasons: novice operator handling, presence manufacturing defects, fatigue etc. Recently, the use of an aqueous gel during experimental tests showed a longer duration of the instruments. The aim of the present work is to contribute to the study of the fracture behavior of these endodontic rotary instruments particularly assessing whether the use of the aqueous lubricant gel can extend their operative life stating its reasons. A finite element model (FEM) has been developed to support the experimental results. The results were rather contradictory, also because the Perspex (Poly-methyl methacrylate, PMMA) cannot simulate completely the dentin mechanical behavior; however the results highlight some interesting points which are discussed in the paper.

This paper examines how the addition of intercultural interventions carried out throughout European credit-bearing exchange programmes can enhance sojourners’ development of intercultural competencies, and it explores how both formal and non-formal pedagogical interventions may be designed and implemented. Such interventions were conducted at a Portuguese university with 31 sojourners throughout one academic year, and their impact was assessed using a mixed methods research design. Sojourners included incoming students of the exchange programmes Campus Europae and Erasmus, as well as highly skilled immigrants. Findings confirm the positive impact of interventions on the development of intercultural competencies and, in turn, their contribution to internationalisation efforts. Implications for further research suggest a need to increase interventions and to develop a systematic approach for fostering intercultural competencies throughout the study abroad cycle.

Aims: This article aims to (1) explore the levels of perceived insecurity in a sample of patients with mood or anxiety disorders and (2) assess whether living in ‘big cities’ can influence the levels of patients’ perceived insecurity and social contacts compared to living in a non-urbanized context. Methods: A total of 24 Italian mental health centers (MHCs) have been invited to participate. Twenty patients consecutively accessing the MHC have been recruited. All patients have been assessed using validated assessment tools. Results: The sample consisted of 426 patients, mostly female, with a mean age of 45 years. Globally, 52.2% of patients had a diagnosis of mood disorders, and 37.8% had anxiety disorders. Half of the sample declared that the main feeling toward life is uncertainty; higher levels of pessimistic views toward life have been detected in patients living in urban areas. A positive association between negative attitudes toward life and higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, poor social functioning and higher levels of perceived psychological distress has been found. Conclusion: Our findings confirm the presence of a common sense of perceived uncertainty among our sample. Such attitude toward life can have a detrimental impact on patients’ psychological and physical well-being, contributing to high levels of distress.

The last quarter of a century has witnessed rapid development of the intercultural field; and with this, a concomitant growth in Intercultural Communication (ICC) courses in colleges and universities in various parts of the world. Instructors are called upon to design and implement such courses often for the first time and, in so doing, they are helping to define the content and parameters of this subject matter. Often, the context in which they teach, or the department or program in which the course is placed, also further define the scope of the courses. This survey was designed to learn about the evolving nature of ICC courses, given interest among faculty to learn what their colleagues are doing elsewhere. Through compilation and presentation of the data obtained, this interim report provides a snapshot of 50 plus courses in 11 countries between 1992 and 1994. It reveals not only the purvue of these courses, but also their goals and objectives, content areas, and approaches to implementation. It also begins to identify common models, frameworks and schema, useful materials and resources, and assessment procedures. For those who participated in the survey—and for others interested in the questionnaire instrument — it serves also as a self-study guide for examining one's own approach to the task by reviewing the 70 plus questions contained in the survey questionnaire.

Recombinant polioviruses expressing antigens from rotavirus, herpes simplex virus type 2, and hepatitis B virus were generated. Fusion of the heterologous polypeptides to the amino terminus of the poliovirus polyprotein did not prevent myristylation of VP0, suggesting a novel mechanism of myristylation for these recombinant viruses. The effects of the parental genetic background, different foreign sequences, and different insert sizes on growth characteristics were compared. Both the size and the nature of the heterologous sequence appeared to be factors influencing the growth and stability of recombinant polioviruses. All of the recombinants showed a temperature-sensitive phenotype, regardless of the genetic background (attenuated or wild type) from which they were derived. Preliminary studies with transgenic mice carrying the poliovirus receptor gene are discussed.

People often take their own language for granted, unaware that their native tongue is not merely a “neutral” communication system, but a pervasive medium that directly influences every aspect of their lives. This is probably because we develop our language ability so very early in life that we seldom reflect on it. For this reason, contact with diversity — and especially linguistic diversity — can be a richly provocative experience. Grappling with communication through a foreign language provides an opportunity to learn about another way of life; even more important, it raises questions about one's own language, culture, and world view. Although individuals from minority languages and cultures are commonly challenged to do just this, other individuals, by virtue of belonging to the mainstream of society, may not also have had the benefit of such an experience, which can lead to cross-cultural awareness and an expanded world view. This exercise helps to create such an opportunity.

The restoration of blurred noisy images can be formulated, using the regularization theory, as a constrained optimization problem. According to the classical approach, based on the Lagrange multipliers theory, the exact solution of this problem is obtained iteratively by solving several minimization problems of very large dimensions. This involves enormous computation costs. In this paper, an alternative method, based on the primal-dual theory of convex optimization, is proposed; the original problem is reformulated in an equivalent form so that the related dual problem can be solved through a single unconstrained maximization. The solution of the original problem is then related to the solution of the dual problem via a simple model which depends on the particular cost functional adopted.

An automatic analysis system has been developed and used to analyze photographs obtained by high-speed microphotography, the final aim being to derive spatial resolved size distributions of drops in sprays. The problem of determining whether photographic images of particles are in focus or not is solved by obtaining a calibration of geometric parameters of particle images as functions both of the particle position in the camera's field of view and of the particle diameter. On the basis of the results of this calibration on the particular photographic system being used, the drops are automatically rejected or sized and counted. This is done through a procedure based on the geometrical characterization of drop images at different ranges of gray levels. The main body of such a procedure is constituted by an algorithm of original design (connected components detection algorithm) which allows for the simultaneous detection of the boundaries of drop images at different gray levels and generates a hierarchical structure among them. Size distributions obtained by means of the procedure described in the paper offer significant reduction in experimental time as well as improvement in experimental accuracy, in relation to manual sizing and counting techniques.

The article reviews the book "Continuum Companion to Research Methods in Applied Linguistics," edited by Brian Paltridge and Aek Phakiti, part of the Continuum Companion book series.

The objective was to relate the response of the HSP70 and P53 genes to the cessation and the recovery of cardiac muscle cell functions when submitted to ischemia-reperfusion. We have measured the electromechanical activity, the released enzymes and HSP70 RNA and protein levels in cultured neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (CM) in a substrate-free, hypoxia-reoxygenation model of ischemia-reperfusion. In parallel the expression of the two genes P53 (the key apoptosis regulator gene) and P21/Waf1 (the P53 target gene) has been evaluated. The functional recovery during post-'ischemic' reoxygenation was associated with an overexpression of HSP70 and P53 lasting until the functional parameters reverted back to the normal, prehypoxic values. In contrast, extending the substrate-free hypoxic treatment worsens the dysfunction of the cardiac muscle cell and, in these conditions, reoxygenation failed to restore cell functions and to activate HSP70. Finally, in the conditions of reversible 'ischemic' cell injury, an early and transitory activation of P53 was associated with the functional recovering process of the CM submitted to simulated ischemia. These observations are suggestive of a contributive role of both HSP70 and P53 to a cytoprotective program activated by reoxygenation in post-'ischemic' CM.

The cardiovascular beneficial effects of fish oils are currently attributed to docosahexaenoic (C22:6 n-3) and eicosapentaenoic (C20:5 n-3) acids, although most investigations have focused on eicosapentaenoic acid. This study was devoted to the specific effect of docosahexaenoic acid, as compared to eicosapentaenoic acid, on the basal electrophysiological and mechanical characteristics of cultured rat myocardial cells. The myocyte cultures were prepared from newborn rat heart ventricles. The cells were grown for 24 hours in a conventional seric medium, and then incubated in a medium enriched with either docosahexaenoic acid or eicosapentaenoic acid for 96 hours. This treatment resulted in docosahexaenoic acid-rich cells (16% of the phospholipid fatty acids) and docosahexaenoic acid-poor cells (1.5%), both displaying the same phospholipid n-6/n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid ratio. The transmembrane potentials were recorded with glass microelectrodes. Contractions were monitored photometrically. The action potential amplitude was slightly smaller in docosahexaenoic acid-rich cells (-4 mv), due to a lower plateau phase. There was no difference in action potential duration and spontaneous rate. The contraction measurements were not significantly different between the two groups of cells. We conclude that increasing the docosahexaenoic acid content in cardiomyocyte membrane phospholipids may have modulated the calcium ionic channels governing the plateau phase of the action potential, whereas the other physiological activities remained unaffected.

Polymorphonuclear (PMN) motility is currently determined by a method using chemotactic chambers with micropore filters. PMN locomotive capacity is measured by evaluating the maximum distance travelled by the cells, or by counting the number of cells which have moved through the filter. Although in recent years some attempts to improve the analysis of chemotaxis data by computer-assisted systems have been made no technique has been shown capable of both measurement and correlation of these parameters in real time. In the present paper we describe an automated technique, based on a workstation capable of exploring microporous filters employed in chemotactic chambers and of measuring PMN motility in a reliable, reproducible, rapid manner, independent of the subjectivity of the operator. The measurement is carried out by custom software capable of undertaking computerized image analysis of microscopic fields acquired by a TV camera and of driving the motorized microscopic table. Depth of migration, cell distribution at each plane, correlation index of the random behaviour with the model described by a gaussian distribution and data about the patient or assay under study, are computed, displayed, stored in a data base and printed in real time.