INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

Individual differences in foreign language learning have long been the concern of linguists and language teachers. Researches on this subject have been carried out in schools, universities and other educational institutions and great achievements have been made. As it is, there are many individual differences which affect the learning of foreign languages, such as intelligence, aptitude, motivation, personality, attitude,

The Exploration of Individual Differences in Second Language Learning

This paper mainly focuses on the influence of age and motivation in second language learning.Based on the theories of individual differences and an interview analysis,results obtained in this research include three aspects.Firstly,it is better to start a second language at an earlier age.Secondly,integrative motivation weighs more in the long-term success when learning a second language.Thirdly,creating better English environments is essential in EFL schools.

The Effects of Learner’s Individual Differences on the Written Corrective Feedback

From the perspective of individual learner differences,this paper aims to show the readers an outline of the influence of individual learner differences on written corrective feedback.Based on 200 eighth and ninth grade junior high school students’thinking patterns and tests,60 students were selected as subjects in this study.Based on the comparative analysis and error analysis in second language acquisition as the main theoretical basis,this study analyzed the common types of errors in the use of nonpredicate verbs in junior high school students and their causes.There are three main questions in this study:how about the error frequency of the five forms(present participle,past participle,infinitive,gerund and independent nominative structure)in the nonpredicate verb learning of junior high school students?What kind of mistakes do junior high school students make in the process of learning non-predicate verbs?According to the conclusion of the investigation and research,the author puts forward some suggestions from the aspects of teachers and students in the last part of the article.

The Causes of Individual Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder(ASD)is characterized by various symptoms including impaired social interactions,unusually repetitive behaviors,and highly restricted interests etc.People with ASD differ significantly on their clinical profiles and the causes of such individual difierences are not yet folly understood.The present paper provides an overview of the causes of individual differences in ASD from three different perspectives:genetic,environmental,and neurobiological perspectives.The present paper also describes one study design in detail within each perspective(i.e.,classical twin design,epidemiological case-control design,and magnetic resonance imaging),and explains how each study design is informative about the causes of ASD.

Vitamin Pharmacogenomics： New Insight intoIndividual Differences in Diseases and DrugResponses

Vitamins are vital to sustain normal physiological function, metabolism, and growth for all living organisms. Being an integral component of coenzyme, vitamins can affect the catalytic activities of many enzymes and the expression of drug transporters. Genetic variations in metabolism and/or transporter genes of drugs can influence the exposure of the human body to drugs and/or their active metabolites, thus contributing to the variations in drug responses and toxicities.Nonetheless, pharmacogenomics studies on nutrients have been rarely summarized. In this article,we reviewed recent progress on vitamin pharmacogenomics, for a better understanding on the influence of vitamin-related gene polymorphisms on inter-individual differences in diseases and drug efficacy and safety.

Comments on"Vitamin Pharmacogenomics:New Insight into Individual Differences in Diseases and Drug Responses"

Dear Editor, I would like to offer some comments on the excellent article by Hai-Yan He and colleagues published in Genomics, Proteomics ＆ Bioinformatics on 1st April 2017 [1]. The authors include, in the list of genetic polymorphisms that have an effect on vita- mins, the low concentrations of cellular and plasma vitamin B12 in GG carriers of SNP rs602662 （772 G 〉 A） in the gene encoding fucosyltransferase 2 （FUT2）.

Teacher Efficacy and Affective Well-Being in Hong Kong:An Examination of Their Relationships and Individual Differences

Purpose-The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of teacher efficacy and affective well-being while focusing on the roles of demographic characteristics(gender,grade level,educational background,and seniority).Design/Approach/Methods-1,115 primary and 541 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong participated in the questionnaire survey.A series of t-tests,ANOVA,correlation analysis,and hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted.Findings-The younger teachers reported lower scores for well-being and efficacy than their senior counterparts,and the female and primary school teachers reported significantly higher levels of teacher efficacy for student engagement than their respective counterparts.Of the dimensions of affective well-being,pleasant affect was more closely related to teacher efficacy than negative affect,and the activated pleasant dimension of enthusiasm had the strongest influence.Of the three dimensions of teacher efficacy,efficacy for student engagement was most strongly associated with affective well-being.Originality/Value-The study revealed that teachers’affective well-being is not only important in itself,but also contributes to classroom teaching.The enthusiasm and passion possessed and maintained by teachers could play important roles in enhancing their self-efficacy.Furthermore,maintaining a good affective well-being status and even a modest level of anxiety contributes to their efficacy for student engagement,a dimension on which teachers reported the least confidence.Suggestions were put forward on how to improve teacher efficacy and well-being.

Individual difference of artificial emotion applied to a service robot

In order to enable personalized natural interaction in service robots, artificial emotion is needed which helps robots to appear as individuals. In the emotion modeling theory of emotional Markov chain model （eMCM） for spontaneous transfer and emotional hidden Markov model （eHMM） for stimulated transfer, there are three problems： 1） Emotion distinguishing problem： whether adjusting parameters of the model have any effects on individual emotions; 2） How much effect the change makes; 3） The problem of different initial emotional states leading to different resultant emotions from a given stimuli. To solve these problems, a research method of individual emotional difference is proposed based on metric multidimensional scaling theory. Using a dissimilarity matrix, a scalar product matrix is calculated. Subsequently, an individual attribute reconstructing matrix can be obtained by principal component factor analysis. This can display individual emotion difference with low dimension. In addition, some mathematical proofs are carried out to explain experimental results. Synthesizing the results and proofs, corresponding conclusions are obtained. This new method provides guidance for the adjustment of parameters of emotion models in artificial emotion theory.

Fatty acid analysis in the seeds of 50 Paeonia ostii individuals from the same population

Tree peony seeds are rich in α-linolenic acid(ALA), and the peony seed oil is now being produced in China. Paeonia ostii is the most widely used tree peony species for oil extraction, which is commercially called Fengdan and treated as a single cultivar. Here, 50 P. ostii individuals from the same population in northern China were randomly selected for fatty acids(FAs) analysis. Thirteen FAs were isolated, and the most abundant five were palmitic acid(5.31–6.99%), stearic acid(1.22–2.76%), oleic acid(18.78–28.15%), linoleic acid(11.86–26.10%), and ALA(41.11–57.51%). There were significant individual differences of plants in FA quality and quantity and the linoleic acid content in Plant No. 48 even exceeded the scope of 1–99%. Further statistical analysis indicated that most of the individual FAs, saturated FAs, unsaturated FAs, and total FAs levels showed significant positive correlations to each other, whereas the seed yield per plant was independent and not correlated to the factors mentioned above. Ward’s hierarchical clustering results grouped the 50 plants into four clusters based on FA contents and seed yield, and the seven plants in Cluster IV were identified as good candidates for oil production. Our results confirmed that the individual differences did occur in P. ostii and Fengdan cannot be simply treated as one uniform cultivar. Also, these results may help simplify the selection of plants for oil peony breeding and accelerate the development of the oil peony industry.

Short Form of Weinstein Noise Sensitivity Scale(NSS-SF): Reliability, Validity and Gender Invariance among Chinese Individuals

Objective Independent from noise exposure, noise sensitivity plays a pivotal role in people＇s noise annoyance perception and concomitant health deteriorations. The present study empirically investigated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Weinstein Noise Sensitivity Scale-Short Form （CNSS-SF）, the widely used inventory measuring individual differences in noise perception.Methods In total, 373 Chinese participants （age = 21.41 ± 3.36） completed the online, anonymous questionnaire package. Examination of the CNSS-SF＇s reliability （internal consistency）, factorial validity through validation and cross-validation, nomological validity and measurement invariance across gender groups were undertaken.Results The Cronbach alpha coefficients and composite reliabilities indicated sufficient reliability of the CNSS-SF. Two confirmatory factor analyses （CFA）, in two randomly partitioned groups of participants, substantiated the factorial validity of the scale. The nomological validity of the scale was also corroborated by the significant positive association of its score with the trait anxiety score. Measurement invariance of the CNSS-SF was also found across genders via multi-group CFA.Conclusion Though not without limitations, findings from the present research provide promising evidence for the utility of the scale in measuring noise sensitivity among the Chinese population. The availability of the CNSS-SF can promote research related to environmental noise and health in China, as well as facilitate cross-cultural comparisons.

Scientists Identify Different Developmental Trajectories for Individuals with Schizotypal Traits

Schizotypy,defined as the personality organization underlying schizophrenia and other related mental disorders,is a critical construct for a broad range of scientific disciplines.Because schizotypy can be psychometrically identified in the general population,investigating schizotypy may provide a unique

Remaining useful lifetime prediction for equipment based on nonlinear implicit degradation modeling

Nonlinearity and implicitness are common degradation features of the stochastic degradation equipment for prognostics.These features have an uncertain effect on the remaining useful life(RUL)prediction of the equipment.The current data-driven RUL prediction method has not systematically studied the nonlinear hidden degradation modeling and the RUL distribution function.This paper uses the nonlinear Wiener process to build a dual nonlinear implicit degradation model.Based on the historical measured data of similar equipment,the maximum likelihood estimation algorithm is used to estimate the fixed coefficients and the prior distribution of a random coefficient.Using the on-site measured data of the target equipment,the posterior distribution of a random coefficient and actual degradation state are step-by-step updated based on Bayesian inference and the extended Kalman filtering algorithm.The analytical form of the RUL distribution function is derived based on the first hitting time distribution.Combined with the two case studies,the proposed method is verified to have certain advantages over the existing methods in the accuracy of prediction.

Research on Corrective Feedback in Foreign Language Teaching

Corrective feedback is an important part of second language acquisition, and many researches have showed that the corrective feedback in general have a positive effect on second language acquisition. The present study aims to investigate corrective feedback and draw enlightening conclusions:1) Different corrective feedback types have different effects on second language acquisition; 2)The effect of corrective feedback is also influenced by the feedback timing, explicitness of the feedback and learners' individual differences; 3) Teachers should consider feedback types, feedback timing, and individual differences of students based on teaching contents when providing corrective feedback in foreign language teaching.

Anti-Robinson Structures for Analyzing Three-Way Two-Mode Proximity Data

Multiple discrete (non-spatial) and continuous (spatial) structures can be fitted to a proximity matrix to increase the information extracted about the relations among the row and column objects vis-à-vis a representation featuring only a single structure. However, using multiple discrete and continuous structures often leads to ambiguous results that make it difficult to determine the most faithful representation of the proximity matrix in question. We propose to resolve this dilemma by using a nonmetric analogue of spectral matrix decomposition, namely, the decomposition of the proximity matrix into a sum of equally-sized matrices, restricted only to display an order-constrained patterning, the anti-Robinson (AR) form. Each AR matrix captures a unique amount of the total variability of the original data. As our ultimate goal, we seek to extract a small number of matrices in AR form such that their sum allows for a parsimonious, but faithful reconstruction of the total variability among the original proximity entries. Subsequently, the AR matrices are treated as separate proximity matrices. Their specific patterning lends them immediately to the representation by a single (discrete non-spatial) ultrametric cluster dendrogram and a single (continuous spatial) unidimensional scale. Because both models refer to the same data base and involve the same number of parameters, estimated through least-squares, a direct comparison of their differential fit is legitimate. Thus, one can readily determine whether the amount of variability associated which each AR matrix is most faithfully represented by a discrete or a continuous structure, and which model provides in sum the most appropriate representation of the original proximity matrix. We propose an extension of the order-constrained anti-Robinson decomposition of square-symmetric proximity matrices to the analysis of individual differences of three-way data, with the third way representing individual data sources. An application to judgments of schematic face stimuli illustrates the method.

Learning Strategies, Motivation and Learners' Perspectives on Online Multimodal Chinese Learning

This mixed-method empirical study investigated the role of learning strategies and motivation in predicting L2 Chinese learning outcomes in an online multimodal learning environment.Both quantitative and qualitative approaches also examined the learners'perspectives on online multimodal Chinese learning.The participants in this study were fifteen pre-intermediate adult Chinese learners aged 18-26.They were originally from different countries(Spain,Italy,Argentina,Colombia,and Mexico)and lived in Barcelona.They were multilingual,speaking more than two European languages,without exposure to any other Asian languages apart from Chinese.The study's investigation was composed of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL),motivation questionnaire,learner perception questionnaire,and focus group interview.The whole trial period lasted three months;after the experiment,the statistics were analyzed via the Spearman correlation coefficient.The statistical analysis results showed that strategy use was highly correlated with online multimodal Chinese learning outcomes;this indicated that strategy use played a vital role in online multimodal Chinese learning.Motivation was also found to have a significant effect.The perception questionnaire uncovered that the students were overall satisfied and favoring the online multimodal learning experience design.The detailed insights from the participants were exhibited in the transcripted analysis of focus group interviews.

A Parallel Search Genetic Algorithm Based on Multiple Peak Values and Multiple Rules

In this paper the Hamming distance is used to contr ol individual difference in the process of creating an original population, and a peak-depot is established to preserve information of different peak-points. So me new methods are also put forward to improve optimization performance of genet ic algorithm, such as point-cast method and neighborhood search strategy around peak-points. The methods are used to deal with genetic operation besides of cr ossover and mutation, in order to obtain a global optimum solution and avoid GA ’s premature convergence. By means of many control rules and a peak-depot, the new algorithm carries out optimum search surrounding several peak-points. Alon g with evolution of individuals of population, the fitness of peak-points of pe ak-depot increases continually, and a global optimum solution can be obtained. The new algorithm searches around several peak-points, which increases the prob ability to obtain the global optimum solution to the best. By using some example s to test the modified genetic algorithm, the results indicate what we have done makes the modified genetic algorithm effectively to solve both of linear optimi zation problems and nonlinear optimization problems with restrictive functions.

Differences and determinants in access to essential public health services in China： a case study with hypertension people and under-sixes as target population

Background Since 2009, health reform had launched in China and essential public health services were provided for all residents to ensure service equity and accessibility, and to achieve sustained population-wide health improvement. This study aimed to investigate the differences and determinants among populations with different characteristics access to essential public health services in China, especially hypertension people and children aged 0-6 years. Methods A cross-sectional study with socio-demographic data analysis was undertaken to estimate distribution characteristics of receiving essential public health services of hypertension patients and children. Regular follow-ups and effective blood pressure control reflected the effective management for hypertension patients, and for children, public services provided were vaccination on schedule and regular physical check-up. Logistic regression was used to determine the predictors for effective management. Results A total of 1 505 hypertension patients and 749 children were involved; 39.14% of hypertension participants could control their blood pressure in the normal range, and the rate in urban areas （43.61%） was higher than that in rural （31.88%）. And 34.68% of them could receive more than 4 times follow-ups by the medical technician. Of 754 children, 79.84% could receive the periodic physical examination and 98.40% had vaccinated regularly. Children living in rural areas were more likely to have regular check-ups （83.96%） and regular vaccination （nearly 99%）. Overall, geographic location and education level were the determinants of people access to essential public health services. Conclusions Implementation of the health reform since 2009 has headed China＇s public health system in the right direction and promoted the improvement of public health system development. Our study highlights the growing needs for more public health services in China, and China＇s public health system needs to be greatly improved in terms of its quality and accessibility.

Author's Reply:Comments on “Vitamin Pharmacogenomics:New Insight into Individua Differences in Diseases and Drug Responses”

Dear Editor, We thank the author for making meaningful comments on our recent article [1]. The SNP 772G 〉 A （rs602662） in exon 2 of the gene encoding fucosyl transferase （FUT2） has been found to be related with the alterations in plasma vitamin B12 levels. GG carriers possessed lower levels of vitamin B12. However, we didn＇t know the mechanism behind this association.

A two-dimensional MoS_(2) array based on artificial neural network learning for high-quality imaging

As the basis of machine vision,the biomimetic image sensing devices are the eyes of artificial intelligence.In recent years,with the development of two-dimensional(2D)materials,many new optoelectronic devices are developed for their outstanding performance.However,there are still little sensing arrays based on 2D materials with high imaging quality,due to the poor uniformity of pixels caused by material defects and fabrication technique.Here,we propose a 2D MoS_(2)sensing array based on artificial neural network(ANN)learning.By equipping the MoS_(2)sensing array with a“brain”(ANN),the imaging quality can be effectively improved.In the test,the relative standard deviation(RSD)between pixels decreased from about 34.3%to 6.2%and 5.49%after adjustment by the back propagation(BP)and Elman neural networks,respectively.The peak signal to noise ratio(PSNR)and structural similarity(SSIM)of the image are improved by about 2.5 times,which realizes the re-recognition of the distorted image.This provides a feasible approach for the application of 2D sensing array by integrating ANN to achieve high quality imaging.

A CONSIDERATION OF DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL FACTORS IN CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TEACHING

Students’ individual differences pose a challenge to language teachers and influence the way in which a foreign language is learned. We are therefore invited to consider the role of our students’ personalities,motivation and cognitive styles in the language classroom. LANGUAGE teaching would be much easier if all students were alike. The number of instructional decisions would be greatly reduced; teaching methods would be rather simpler; lesson designs would not have to be modified; teachers would not have to consider alternative procedures; teacher-student