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The aims of the present study were to explore the effects of two different types of task conditions (topic choice vs. no choice) on the quality of written production in a second language (lexical complexity, syntactic complexity, and cohesion) and to investigate the effects of these two different task conditions on task motivation. This research was conducted by means of a task motivation questionnaire and a collation of the writings of 31 Korean college students learning English as a foreign language. The data was analyzed using Coh-Metrix 3.0. The major findings were as follows: 1) The writings of participants in the topic choice condition were better than those in the no-choice condition in terms of lexical sophistication and temporal cohesion. However, participants' written production in the no-choice condition was better than that in the topic choice condition in terms of syntactic complexity. 2) The participants' task motivation levels were higher for the perceived choice domain in the topic choice condition than in the no-choice condition. These findings should help L2 writing instructors, materials developers, and researchers to design L2 writing instruction with a focus on written production specifically for Korean college-level learners.

The aim of this study is to identify differences in opinions on the evaluation of ELT teachers' books between pre-service and in-service teachers. In literature, it has been argued that the development of teachers' books for EFL teachers can be assisted by the results of a needs analysis. A total of 65 pre-service and 50 in-service secondary school teachers from South Korea took part in a survey. There was a high level of agreement for the 22 criteria-items that asked for the evaluative opinions between two groups as shown through the correlation r = 0.85. However, there were statistically different opinions. The pre-service teachers stressed the importance of clear objectives for each lesson, but the in-service teachers emphasized the need for the inclusion of process tests in teachers' books. Interestingly, there were also different opinions on the use of a teacher's book. The results from semi-structured interviews revealed that the former plan to use the teacher's book for their classroom teaching in the future whereas the latter responded that their own notes would be somewhat more useful than teachers' books. To conclude, it can be proposed that greater emphasis should be placed on gauging preferences of certain groups of teachers in specific EFL contexts for the development of teachers' books.

This study aims to investigate Korean university-level EFL learners' learning style preferences. The characteristics of their learning style preferences and implications for effective English learning were examined through the quantitative analysis of 496 subjects' responses to a learning style survey and their English achievement and term-end performances. The findings indicate that Korean learners' auditory style preference is noticeable, and visual and individual learning styles are also considered to be primary learning styles, whereas tactile, kinesthetic, and group learning styles are less favored. This suggests that the learners want to learn English with more emphasis on a visual-driven independent style than on an experience-driven collaborative style. Additionally, a majority of the learners tend to maintain or reinforce their preferences throughout the course, and they tend to obtain relatively better English achievement results than learners who substantially change their preferences. In terms of learners' awareness of their identified learning styles, the findings show that style-aware group performed better than the unaware group. However, any generalization regarding the relationship between learning styles and English achievement or performance should be avoided. Importantly, generalizations regarding ethnic groups' learning style preferences should be discussed cautiously; instead, learning styles should be discussed relative to the learning context.

Discrepancies between parent and youth perceptions of their relationship are a common aspect of generational acculturation gaps influencing immigrant families. Programs designed to strengthen parenting practices among immigrant Latino families commonly address immigration stresses, including differences between parent and youth perceptions, but little is known about discrepancies in their appraisals of program effects on parenting behavior. A randomized trial was conducted examining effects on parent behavior of a program for immigrant families with youth aged 10–14, developed through community‐based participatory research principles. Families (346 parents and youth) were recruited by organizations serving Latino families in a Midwestern metropolitan area and randomly assigned to the eight‐session psychoeducation and skill‐building program or a waitlist control. Parents and youth completed self‐report measures at pre‐intervention, post‐intervention (4 months), and a 6‐month follow‐up regarding parents' expression of acceptance, efforts to solicit information about the child's experiences, and consistency of discipline, key foci of the program. Based on social cognition theory, the study focused on possible differences in parents' and youths' perceptions of change in parenting behavior. Parents in the treatment group reported pre‐post improved acceptance, consistent discipline, and solicitation, whereas youth reported improvement only in parental solicitation, a pattern maintained at follow‐up. In the control group, the only change was youth‐reported reduction in parental acceptance. Parents' perceptions of improvement are encouraging, but overall lack of improvements from the youth perspective poses a potential problem for impact on parent–child relations. Interventions may need to target both parent and youth cognitions about behavior changes directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potassium channels (Kv) are responsible for repolarizing the action potential in cardiomyocytes. There is a variety of Kv isoforms and corresponding currents (e.g. IKto, IKslow1, IKslow2) that contribute to different phases of repolarization. Because only the sum of their activities can be measured in the form of currents (IKsum), there is a need to delineate individual K+ currents. Most existing studies make inference of Kv activities via curve-fitting procedures but encounter certain limitations as follows: (1) curve-fitting decomposition only relies on the shape of K+ current traces, which does not discern the underlying kinetics; (2) IKsum traces can only be fitted for one clamp voltage at each time, and then analyzed in a population-averaged way later. This paper presents a novel concurrent data assimilation method to calibrate biophysics-based models and delineate kinetics of Kv isoforms with multiple voltage-clamp responses simultaneously. The proposed method is evaluated and validated with whole-cell IKsum recordings from wild-type and chronically glycosylation-deficient cardiomyocytes. Experimental results show that the proposed method effectively handles multiple-response data and describes glycosylation-conferred perturbations to Kv isoforms. Further, we develop a graphical-user-interface (GUI) application that provides an enabling tool to biomedical scientists for data-driven modeling and analysis of Kv kinetics in various heart diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This secondary analysis of longitudinal data on Latino immigrant parents applied latent change modeling to investigate the association between within‐family change in parent–child conflict and within‐individual change in parent's psychological distress, and how within‐individual change in parenting stress mediates that association over time. Background: Immigrant parents face additional challenges when parenting their children. There is limited research regarding how parent–child conflict may influence parenting stress and parents' overall well‐being, in particular in Latino immigrant families. Method: Secondary analysis was conducted on data from a sample of 344 Latino immigrant parents who participated in a community‐based parenting skills invention. In the original intervention study, they were assigned randomly to intervention or waitlist control groups and assessed at three points: baseline, 4 months (post‐intervention), and a follow‐up 10 months after the baseline assessment. Results: Across 4 months, change in parent–child conflict was significantly associated with changes in parenting stress and psychological distress, whereas across 10 months, change in parent–child conflict was only associated with change in psychological distress. The indirect effects through parenting stress were non‐significant. However, participating in the intervention had a protective indirect effect by reducing parenting stress across 4 months and reducing psychological distress across 10 months via change in parent–child conflict. Conclusion: Changes in parent–child relations were related to changes in parents' individual well‐being, with those associations varying across different time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study of transracially adopted adolescents and their White parents examines family cohesion and expressiveness as predictors of parents' engagement in cultural socialization and preparation for bias. It also examines differences in adolescent and parent views of the level of cohesion and expressiveness in their family. Background: Given the importance of both cultural socialization and preparation for bias on promoting the well‐being of adoptees, it is of value to examine why some White parents engage in these behaviors more frequently than others. Family functioning sets the tone for subsequent interactions and may be an important contributor to parents' racial socialization efforts. Method: Seventy‐two transracially adopted parent–adolescent dyads completed an online survey. Results: Generally, parents and adolescents reported high cohesion and moderate expressiveness, although transracially adopted adolescents tended to view their family more negatively than their parents. Parents who viewed their family as more cohesive and expressive were more likely to engage in cultural socialization. Those who viewed their family as more expressive were more likely to talk to their child about race and prepare them for discrimination. Contrary to expectation, when adolescents viewed their family as less expressive, their parents were more likely to engage in preparation for bias. Conclusion and Implications: The importance of including multiple family members' perspectives to more fully understand transracial adoptive families and the need for White parents to engage in quality, not just frequent, racial socialization are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate simulation of rotor aerodynamics has been a challenging problem for the computational fluid dynamics community, largely because numerical diffusion in the typically coarse grids away from the blades seriously degrades the prediction of the returning wakes. A numerical scheme is proposed to improve the reconstruction stage of a MUSCL approach in the framework of a finite volume formulation. A fourth-order upwind scheme, based on the interpolation of the local characteristic variables in the reconstruction stage, is applied instead of the conventional third-order upwind-biased scheme. Different slope limiters are applied to different characteristic fields to reduce the numerical dissipation of entropy and shear waves. We have implemented the proposed scheme into the TURNS code. Numerical results for a hover case show a significant improvement in the wake capturing capability over the baseline TURNS code.