Effect of Interaction Intensity on Alignment and EFL Learners’ Oral Production in the ReadingSpeaking Integrated Continuation Task

This study aims to uncover the relationship between interaction and alignment in a readingspeaking integrated continuation task, especially focusing on whether an increase in interaction intensity can lead to stronger alignment and further generate positive effects on L2 learning. To this end, 31 participants were asked to perform reading-speaking integrated continuation tasks under three different conditions featuring low, medium and high interaction intensity respectively. The results showed that 1) alignment existed in the reading-speaking integrated continuation task;2)increasing interaction intensity generated stronger alignment at both linguistic and situational levels;3) growing interaction intensity contributed to more coherent and accurate L2 oral production. These findings not only proved the workings of mind-body-world alignment, but also testified that increasing interaction intensity could bring about a stronger alignment effect(Wang,2010), which then contributed to better L2 oral performance. These findings confirm again the role of interaction in L2 learning and suggest that alignment could possibly be a mediating factor that links interaction and L2 development. Pedagogical implications for teaching and learning L2 speaking are discussed.

High power terahertz pulses generated in intense laser-plasma interactions

Terahertz （THz） radiation has attracted much attention due to its wide potential applications. Though radiation can be generated with various ways, it is still a big challenge to obtain strong tabletop sources. Plasma, with the advantage of no damage limit, is a promising medium to generate strong THz radiation. This review reports recent advances on strong THz radiation generation from low-density gases and high-density solid targets at different laser intensities.

Producing High Intense Attosecond Pulse Train by Interaction of Three-Color Pulse and Overdense Plasma

Amplifying the attosecond pulse by the chirp pulse amplification method is impossible. Furthermore, the intensity of attosecond pulse is low in the interaction of laser pulse and underdense plasma. This motivates us to propose using a multi-color pulse to produce the high intense attosecond pulse. In the present study, the relativistic interaction of a three-color linearly-polarized laser-pulse with highly overdense plasma is studied. We show that the combination of ω1, ω2 and ω3 frequencies decreases the instance full width at half maximum reflected attosecond pulse train from the overdense plasma surface. Moreover, we show that the three-color pulse increases the intensity of generated harmonics, which is explained by the relativistic oscillating mirror model. The obtained results demonstrate that if the three-color laser pulse interacts with overdense plasma, it will enhance two orders of magnitude of intensity of ultra short attosecond pulses in comparison with monochromatic pulse.

L2 Syntactic Alignment in the Reading-Writing Integrated Continuation Task: Evidence From Chinese EFL Learners’ Description of Motion Events

This study investigated how the mode in which the reading-writing integrated continuation task was conducted modulates the effects of second language(L2) syntactic alignment, through the English motion event construction with manner verbs. Ninety Chinese students were assigned to either of the two experimental groups or a control group, and they all experienced a pretest, an alignment phase and a posttest. In the alignment phase, the two experimental groups completed a reading-writing integrated continuation task but in different modes. For the multi-turn mode,participants reconstructed a picture story by continuing the episodes extracted from the story with one episode presented and continued at a time;for the single-turn mode, the first half of the same picture story was presented as a chunk, and then participants read and continued it. Results show that L2 learners aligned with the target structure in completing the story, and the alignment effect was retained in the posttest conducted after a delay of two weeks. Moreover, syntactic alignment was modulated by task mode with the multi-turn group exhibiting stronger immediate and longterm alignment effects. We conclude that the continuation task is a fruitful context for L2 structural alignment, and the magnitude of alignment effect hinges on interactive intensity.

Acceleration of Protons from a Double-Layer or Multi-Ion-Mixed Foil Irradiated by Ultraintense Lasers

Acceleration of protons by the radiation pressure of a circularly polarized laser pulse with the intensity up to 1021 W/cm^2 from a double-layer or multi-ion-mixed thin foil is investigated by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The double-layer foil is composed of a heavy ion layer and a proton layer. It is found that the radiation pressure acceleration can be classified into three regimes according to the laser intensity due to the different critical intensities for laser transparency with different ion species. When the laser intensity is moderately high, the laser pushes the electrons neither so slowly nor so quickly that the protons can catch up with the electrons, while the heavy ions cannot. Therefore, the protons can be accelerated efficiently. The proton beam generated from the double-layer foil is of better quality and higher energy than that from a pure proton foil with the same areal electron density. When the laser intensity is relatively low, both the protons and heavy ions are accelerated together, which is not favorable to the proton acceleration. When the laser intensity is relatively high, neither the heavy ions nor the protons can be accelerated efficiently due to the laser transparency through the target.

Interacting Stress Intensity Factors of Multiple Elliptical-Holes and Cracks Under Far-Field and Arbitrary Surface Stresses

Calculating interacting stress intensity factors(SIFs)of multiple ellipticalholes and cracks is very important for safety assessment,stop-hole optimization design and resource exploitation production in underground rock engineering,e.g.,buried tunnels,deep mining,geothermal and shale oil/gas exploitation by hydraulic fracturing technology,where both geo-stresses and surface stresses are applied on buried tunnels,horizontal wells and natural cracks.However,current literatures are focused mainly on study of interacting SIFs of multiple elliptical-holes(or circularholes)and cracks only under far-field stresses without consideration of arbitrary surface stresses.Recently,our group has proposed a new integral method to calculate interacting SIFs of multiple circular-holes and cracks subjected to far-filed and surface stresses.This new method will be developed to study the problem of multiple elliptical-hole and cracks subjected to both far-field and surface stresses.In this study,based on Cauchy integral theorem,the exact fundamental stress solutions of single elliptical-hole under arbitrarily concentrated surface normal and shear forces are derived to establish new integral equation formulations for calculating interacting SIFs of multiple elliptical-holes and cracks under both far-field and arbitrary surface stresses.The new method is proved to be valid by comparing our results of interacting SIFs with those obtained by Green’s function method,displacement discontinuity method,singular integral equation method,pseudo-dislocations method and finite element method.Computational examples of one elliptical-hole and one crack in an infinite elastic body are given to analyze influence of loads and geometries on interacting SIFs.Research results show that whenσ_(xx)^(∞)≥σ^(yy′)^(∞),there appears a neutral crack orientation angle b0(without elliptical-hole’s effect).Increasing s¥xx/s¥yy and b/a(close to circularhole)usually decreases b0 of KI and benefits to the layout of stop-holes.The surface compressive stresses applied onto elliptical-hole(n)and crack(p)have significant influence on interacting SIFs but almost no on b0.Increasing n and p usually results in increase of interacting SIFs and facilitates crack propagation and fracture networks.The elliptical-hole orientation angle(a)and holed-cracked distance(t)have great influence on the interacting SIFs while have little effect on b0.The present method is not only simple(without any singular parts),high-accurate(due to exact fundamental stress solutions)and wider applicable(under far-field stresses and arbitrarily distributed surface stress)than the common methods,but also has the potential for the anisotropic problem involving multiple holes and cracks.