The Interactional Features of Billingual Teacher Talk in the Classroom of Arabic as a Foreign Language

Communication is essential in studying Arabic as a foreign language to make the lesson interactive. This research aimed to identify and assess three aspects. First, the Teacher Talk (TT) interaction feature appeared in the Arabic Education Study Program, Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training, Raden Intan State Islamic University of Lampung. Second, each lecturer's primary type of TT interaction element. Third, the utilization of code-switching as a component of bilingual learning interactions. This research was a case study of three Arabic lecturers (T1, T2, and T3) who used Google Meets to conduct online learning. Each lecturer was videotaped three times and then examined using Miles and Huberman's qualitative approach. The findings of the L2 investigation demonstrate that 1) T1 produced twelve different types of interaction features. Furthermore, T2 produced eleven different types of interaction features. Finally, T3 produced twelve different types of interaction features. 2) The most dominant TT interaction features in the classrooms by T1 was Scaffolding (18.2 percent), T2 was Display Questions (24.6 percent), and T3 was Confirmation Check (23.1 percent). 3) In the context of bilingual classes, this study also found that L2 lecturers used other interaction features to facilitate interaction, namely code-switching from Arabic (L2) to Indonesian (L1) and vice versa. The total occurrence of code-switching by T1 was 9.1 percent (the least), code-switching by T2 was 27.3 percent, and code-switching by T3 was 63.6 percent (the most dominant). Code-switching can be an excellent alternate approach or interaction tool for facilitating communication in the classroom when learning Arabic; nevertheless, it must be used appropriately and proportionally.

What Would You Do? Types of Ethical Challenging Situations Depicted in Vignettes Published in the Veterinary Literature from 1990 to 2020

Veterinary team members encounter a wide range of ethically challenging situations (ECS) in their work. Inability to resolve ECS in accordance with their values may negatively impact the wellbeing of veterinary team members. We sought to determine the types of ECS described in published ethical vignettes in the veterinary literature. We performed a strategic literature search, followed by a thematic analysis of vignettes published in the veterinary literature from 1990–2020. We identified 567 published vignettes in 544 publications. In the majority of vignettes, the protagonist was a veterinarian (61.6%) and the most common categories of animal involved were dogs (28.0%), livestock in general (10.8%), and cattle (10.6%). The primary type of ECS was coded for each scenario, generating 29 themes. These findings extend knowledge about types of ECS that may be encountered by veterinary team members. These themes can help to inform curricula and better prepare veterinary team members to navigate ECS. They may also highlight factors that contribute to ECS that can be addressed on a broad scale, such as through regulation, continuing professional development, or stakeholder education. Knowing that others may experience similar ECS may help veterinary team members feel part of a moral community.

A review of tangle-veined flies (Nemestrinidae, Diptera) in Egypt

The Egyptian fauna of the genus Nemestrinus Latreille, 1802 is revised. In 1967, Steyskal and El-Bialy listed 12 species from the region, but only six species are now recognized. The primary type specimens of the species N. aegyptiacus (Wiedemann, 1828), N. rufipes (Olivier, 1810), and N. lateralis Wiedemann, 1828 (N. lateralis being a synonym of N. rufipes) deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany were examined. Two species (N. abdominalis Olivier, 1811 and N. fascifrons (Bigot, 1888) are placed as new synonyms of N. ater (Olivier, 1811), and N. ruficornis Macquart, 1840 is synonymized with N. rufipes (Olivier, 1811). Nemestrinus jullieni (Efflatoun, 1925) is confirmed as a synonym of N. aegyptiacus. Furthermore, three species (N. caucasicus Fischer, 1806, N. pallipes (Olivier, 1811), and N. persicus Lichtwardt, 1909) have been removed and are doubtful records from Egypt. A key to the species, lists of specimens examined, and Illustrations and distributions for each species are provided. The status of species of doubtful occurrence in Egypt is discussed.

A worldwide catalog of the Vermileonidae (Diptera: Brachycera)

The genera and species of worldwide wormlions (Diptera: Rhagionidae) are listed, with annotated references to nomenclature, synonymies and generic combinations, type localities, primary type depositories, distribution, and citations for the most recent revisions. The most diverse genera of the family are Vermileo Macquart, Vermipardus Stuckenberg and Lampromyia Macquart, with 13 described species each. The bulk of Vermileonidae diversity, with nearly half of the valid species, remains in the Afrotropical region.

Measuring metacognitive performance: type 1 performance dependence and test-retest reliability

Research on metacognition—thinking about thinking—has grown rapidly and fostered our understanding of human cognition in healthy individuals and clinical populations. Of central importance is the concept of metacognitive performance, which characterizes the capacity of an individual to estimate and report the accuracy of primary (type 1) cognitive processes or actions ensuing from these processes. Arguably one of the biggest challenges for measures of metacognitive performance is their dependency on objective type 1 performance, although more recent methods aim to address this issue. The present work scrutinizes the most popular metacognitive performance measures in terms of two critical characteristics: independence of type 1 performance and test-retest reliability. Analyses of data from the Confidence Database (total N = 6912) indicate that no current metacognitive performance measure is independent of type 1 performance. The shape of this dependency is largely reproduced by extending current models of metacognition with a source of metacognitive noise. Moreover, the reliability of metacognitive performance measures is highly sensitive to the combination of type 1 performance and trial number. Importantly, trial numbers frequently employed in metacognition research are too low to achieve an acceptable level of test-retest reliability. Among common task characteristics, simultaneous choice and confidence reports most strongly improved reliability. Finally, general recommendations about design choices and analytical remedies for studies investigating metacognitive performance are provided.

QiangGuYin Modulates the OPG/RANKL/RANK Pathway by Increasing Secretin Levels during Treatment of Primary Type I Osteoporosis

QiangGuYin (QGY) is a common Traditional Chinese medicine prescription for the treatment of osteoporosis. Previous clinical studies have found that QGY effectively improves bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women, but its underlying mechanism remains unclear. The osteoprotegerin (OPG)/receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (RANKL)/receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B (RANK) pathway is a classic pathway involved in osteoporosis. Secretin levels are a serum marker of osteoporosis, but their effect on the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway has not been reported. Hence, we investigated the relationship between the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway and secretin and further revealed the mechanism underlying the effect of QGY in the treatment of osteoporosis. Mice were divided into secretin knockdown, secretin overexpression, and corresponding control groups. Micro-computed tomography was used to detect BMD in different groups, and the results show that QGY significantly improved BMD in mice of the secretin knockdown group. To further verify this, the serum levels of OPG, RANKL, RANK, and secretin were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and femur levels of OPG, RANKL, RANK, and secretin were evaluated by real-time quantitative PCR and western blotting. The results show that the expression of OPG was inhibited and that of RANKL and RANK was increased in mice from the secretin knockdown group, whereas the expression of OPG was upregulated and that of RANKL and RANK was downregulated after QGY intervention. Therefore, QGY inhibited bone resorption by promoting the expression of secretin and modulating the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway. In addition to the effect of QGY, we also revealed the general regulatory effect of secretin on the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway. We conclude that QGY modulates the OPG/RANKL/RANK pathway by increasing secretin levels during treatment of primary type I osteoporosis. This work provides a theoretical basis for the clinical use of QGY in the treatment of osteoporosis.

Agroecological Transitions: A Systematic Review of Research Approaches and Prospects for Participatory Action Methods

There have been many calls for an agroecological transition to respond to food shocks and crises stemming from conventional food systems. Participatory action research and transformative epistemologies, where communities are research actors rather than objects, have been proposed as a way to enhance this transition. However, despite numerous case studies, there is presently no overview of how participatory approaches contribute to agroecological transitions. The present article therefore aims to understand the effect of applying participatory action research (PAR) in agroecology. We undertook a systematic review of articles reporting methods and results from case studies in agroecological research. On the one hand, our systematic review of 347 articles shows that the agroecological research scope is broad, with all three types—as science, a set of practices and social movement—well-represented in the corpus. However, we can see a clear focus on agroecology “as a set of practices” as the primary type of use of the concept. On the other hand, we found a few case studies (23) with a participatory approach while most studies used extractive research methods. These studies show that understanding the drivers and obstacles for achieving an agroecological transition requires long-term research and trust between researchers and farmers. Such transformative epistemologies open doors to new questions on designing long-term PAR research in agroecology when confronted with a short-term project-based society.

TAXIS REPRESENTANTS IN THE GERMAN AND DUTCH LANGUAGES

Постановка задачи. В статье описываются таксисные репрезентанты в немецком и нидерландском языках, каковыми являются полипропозитивные высказывания с предложными девербативами с таксисными предлогами темпоральной и обстоятельственной семантики. Результаты. Описаны высказывания двух типов (примарного и секундарного), являющиеся ядерными и периферийными конституентами функционально-семантического субполя зависимого таксиса в немецком и нидерландском языках. К ядерным конституентам относятся высказывания примарного типа с таксисными предлогами темпоральной семантики, а к периферийным конституентам следует относить высказывания секундарного типа с таксисными предлогами обстоятельственной семантики. Таксисные предлоги темпоральной семантики маркируют примарно-таксисную семантику одновременности и разновременности, а таксисные предлоги обстоятельственной семантики эксплицируют секундарно-таксисную семантику одновременности. Выводы. Обследованные высказывания примарного и секундарного типов являются прототипическими репрезентантами как примарно-таксисных значений одновременности и разновременности в «чистом виде», так и секундарно-таксисных значений одновременности, совмещенных с сопутствующими обстоятельственными значениями (условия, уступки, цели, образа действия и др.). Problem statement. The article describes taxis representatives in German and Dutch, which are polypropositive statements with prepositional deverbatives with taxis prepositions of temporal and circumstantial semantics. Results. The statements of two types (primary and secondary) are described, which are the core and peripheral constituents of the functional-semantic subfield of the dependent taxis in the German and Dutch languages. The core constituents include statements of the primary type with taxis prepositions of temporal semantics, while the peripheral constituents should include statements of the secondary type with taxis prepositions of circumstantial semantics. Taxis prepositions of temporal semantics mark the primary taxis semantics of simultaneity and non-simultaneity, and taxis prepositions of circumstantial semantics explicate the secondary taxis semantics of simultaneity. Conclusion. The examined statements of the primary type and of the secondary type are prototypical representatives of both primary-taxis values of simultaneity and non-simultaneity in «pure form», and secondary taxis values of simultaneity, combined with concomitant circumstantial values (conditions, concessions, purpose, mode of action, etc.).

Sponge City Program (SCP) and Urban Flood Management (UFM)—The Case of Guiyang, SW China

Flood management is a complex issue in Chinese cities that exhibit high populations and have undergone rapid urbanization. Urban flood management (UFM) approaches can be used to mitigate urban flood risk. To address urban issues of poor water quality and urban surface flooding, the Sponge City Program (SCP) was initiated in 2013 in China. The SCP aims to provide an opportunity for Chinese cities to improve their current UFM practices. This study looks at Guiyang (a pilot sponge city located in SW China) as a case study to identify the challenges and opportunities of UFM in China. Guiyang is a valley city surrounded by a hilly landscape. Using interview records and flood data, we illustrate that the primary type of flood in Guiyang is fluvial rather than surface water flooding. In Guiyang, the current function and targets of the SCP have yet to engage with the catchment level flood management, instead mainly focusing on the site-specific context (i.e., community level). Catchment flood management planning (CFMP) and natural flood management (NFM) both address this problem and may be a more suitable approach to manage flood discharge from the upper and middle catchments in Guiyang. In addition, it is suggested that a mixed option combining “hard” infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs and floodwalls) with “soft” flood management measures (e.g., improving people awareness and participation) may improve urban flood resilience in Chinese cities.