BACKGROUND Although it is useful for COPD patients to relieve their dyspnea by bracing their arms, the relationships between the arm bracing posture and expiratory flow limitation (EFL) and lung volume are unknown. Whether arm bracing affects dyspnea, EFL, and lung volume in elderly COPD patients was investigated. METHODS Sixteen elderly subjects (median [interquartile range] age 81 [77-85] y...

This article begins by accounting the development of Second language theories .It describes major ESL theories ever since the 18th century to those currently adopted in ESL field. Then it proceeds to demonstrate their influences on EFL teaching in China, like nowadays an increasing awareness of non-cognitive factors in teaching foreign languages, reforms in some traditional teaching methodologi...

This article reports on a study that examined the effects of integrating corpus and contextualized lexicogrammar in foreign and second language teaching. The study was conducted in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) courses at 1 Chinese university and 2 U.S. universities, involving 244 participants (236 EFL/ESL students and 8 instructors). A variety of da...

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between learner factors and the reported choice of language learning strategies (LLSs) in both an EFL context (Japan) and an ESL context (Australia). The study used a revised version of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) designed by Oxford (1990) to ascertain the choice of LLSs and a specifically designed questionnaire to identif...

Researchers have extensively compared different L2 learning contexts, such as EFL versus study-abroad, for their impacts on oral production; however, scant attention, if any, has been paid to comparing EFL settings in terms of input factors such as textbooks, amount of contacts in L2, and teachers. Accordingly, the effects of these factors on the oral production skills were investigated in this...

Performance deficiencies and inconsistencies among SLA or FL learners can be attributed to variety of sources including both systemic (i.e., language issues) and individual variables.  Contrary to a rich background, the literature still suffers from a gap as far as delving into the issue from language proficiency and learning style is concerned. To fill the gap, this study addressed EFL learner...

To obtain insight into the role of the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene (Rb; also known as Rb1) in apoptosis, we analyzed Caenorhabditis elegans mutants lacking a functional lin-35 RB gene. We found that the loss of lin-35 function results in a decrease in constitutive germ cell apoptosis. We present evidence that lin-35 promotes germ cell apoptosis by repressing the expression of ced-9, an a...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Dynamic hyperinflation (DH) and expiratory flow limitation (EFL) are physiologically linked and seem to be involved in the genesis of dyspnea and the quality of life (QL) impairment in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Advanced COPD patients often show expiratory muscles dysfunction that could be involved in DH development. AIM Study the relationships bet...