Employing a sequential mixed-methods design, the current study examined the role of Chinese EFL teachers' emotion regulation and resilience in predicting their work engagement. To this end, 314 ...Chinese EFL teachers with various academic degrees and teaching experiences were opted from different schools, institutes, and universities of China. To obtain the quantitative data, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) were electronically distributed among participants. Performing correlational analyses, a strong association was found between teacher resilience and work engagement. The inspection of the correlations also revealed a moderate correlation between cognitive reappraisal and resilience as well as cognitive reappraisal and work engagement. To probe the predictability power of teacher resilience and emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal), structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed. The results of the SEM analysis demonstrated that Chinese EFL teachers' work engagement was predicted significantly and favorably by their resilience. Using semi-structured interviews, some qualitative data were also collected to fully understand Chinese EFL teachers' perceptions of work engagement. The thematic analysis (TA) of Chinese EFL teachers' responses to interview questions resulted in two main themes and 14 sub-themes, revealing extrinsic and intrinsic factors contributing to teaching engagement. The findings of TA illuminated that both personal resources and job resources can predict teaching engagement. The pedagogical implications for administrators and teacher trainers are further discussed.
Following the recent special issue in Frontiers in Psychology, entitled “
The Role of Teacher Interpersonal Variables in Students’ Academic Engagement, Success, and Motivation
,” calling educational ...researchers worldwide to examine different teacher interpersonal communication behaviors that contribute to student-related academic outcomes, this conceptual review article is written to familiarize educational researchers, teachers, and students with main concepts in instructional communication and their role as the main pillar of successful teaching and learning processes. To this aim, by drawing on the positive psychology movement and the rhetorical and relational goal theory in instructional communication, we argue that positive teacher interpersonal communication behaviors are facilitators of a wide range of desirable student-related academic outcomes. Then, to support our argument, we provide empirical evidence. In doing so, we introduce and define seven instances of positive teacher interpersonal communication behaviors, namely teacher care, clarity, credibility, rapport with students, stroke, immediacy, and confirmation, and expound how they positively predict academic outcomes such as motivation, learning, engagement, involvement, class attendance, willingness to communicate, performance, and success in students. Subsequently, we highlight the critical role of teacher interpersonal variables in the foreign/second language classroom context. Next, we suggest some pedagogical implications with the potential to enlighten the practice of key educational stakeholders (i.e., teachers, students, teacher educators, materials developers, administrators, and teacher recruiters). At the end, the limitations in this line of research are identified, and avenues for future research on teacher interpersonal communication in both general education and language education domains are put forward for interested researchers.
We construct a Kawamata type semiorthogondal decomposition for the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves of nodal quintic del Pezzo threefolds, decomposing the bounded derived category into ...bounded derived categories of finite dimensional algebras. This is achieved by constructing birational maps from nodal quintic del Pezzo threefolds to quadric surface fibrations over the projective line.
Graphene-based membranes have great potential to revolutionize nanofiltration technology, but achieving high solute rejections at high water flux remains extremely challenging. Herein, a family of ...ultrafine metal oxide/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites are synthesized through a heterogenous nucleation and diffusion-controlled growth process for dye nanofiltration. The synthesis is based on the utilization of oxygen functional groups on GO surface as preferential active sites for heterogeneous nucleation, leading to the formation of sub-3 nm size, monodispersing as well as high-density loading of metal oxide nanoparticles. The anchored ultrafine nanoparticles could inhibit the wrinkling of the rGO nanosheet, forming highly stable colloidal solutions for the solution processing fabrication of nanofiltration membranes. By functioning as pillars, the nanoparticles remarkably increase both vertical interlayer spacing and lateral tortuous paths of the rGO membranes, offering a water permeability of 225 L m
h
bar
and selectivity up to 98% in the size-exclusion separation of methyl blue.
We provide a semiorthogonal decomposition for the derived category of fibrations of quintic del Pezzo surfaces with rational Gorenstein singularities. There are three components, two of which are ...equivalent to the derived categories of the base and the remaining non-trivial component is equivalent to the derived category of a flat and finite of degree 5 scheme over the base. We introduce two methods for the construction of the decomposition. One is the moduli space approach following the work of Kuznetsov on the sextic del Pezzo fibrations and the components are given by the derived categories of fine relative moduli spaces. The other approach is that one can realize the fibration as a linear section of a Grassmannian bundle and apply homological projective duality.
•Data reconstruction is a valuable tool for drought detection and monitoring under limited conditions.•The performance of reconstruction approaches are drought indices- and evaluation ...metrics-dependent.•HANTS outperforms the Savitzky–Golay filter and Whittaker Smoother.•VCI and VHI outperform the other drought indices.
Droughts pose significant economic and ecological concerns, and considering climate change projections, timely monitoring and early warning based on satellite observations must be realized at regional to global scales. Nevertheless, whether data reconstruction is necessary to produce high-quality satellite-based time series data for drought monitoring and the data reconstruction approaches to be applied, if necessary, remain unclear. We attempted to fill this knowledge gap by investigating three widely used data reconstruction approaches, i.e., the Savitzky–Golay filter, harmonic analysis of time series (HANTS) and Whittaker Smoother, across the Lancang–Mekong river basin through the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) MOD13Q1 and MOD11A2 products for 2001–2018 and Google Earth Engine cloud platform. Several remote sensing drought indices based on the unreconstructed and reconstructed vegetation indices (VIs) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) were retrieved for basin-wide drought detection. The performance of the examined reconstruction approaches was evaluated using three statistical indices (coefficient of determination (R2), standard deviation of bias (BIAS(std)) and mean squared error (MSE)), spatial consistency with the reference dataset and capability to characterize the drought events. Data reconstruction considerably enhanced the drought index performances for drought detection; however, reconstruction was not necessary in all situations. The reconstructed drought indices exhibited higher R2 values (by 10.6–10.8%), lower BIAS(std) values (by −1.7– −12.5%), and smaller MSE values (by −5.8– −13.4%) compared to those of unreconstructed indices. For most evaluation indicators, HANTS outperformed the other methods, and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Vegetation Health Index (VHI) outperformed the other drought indices. The findings highlight the importance of data reconstruction to detect and characterize drought events and the dependency of the performance of reconstruction methods on drought indices and evaluation metrics when using MODIS time series data.
We examine whether corporate governance mechanisms, especially the market for corporate control, affect the profitability of firm acquisitions. We find that acquirers with more antitakeover ...provisions experience significantly lower announcementperiod abnormal stock returns. This supports the hypothesis that managers at firms protected by more antitakeover provisions are less subject to the disciplinary power of the market for corporate control and thus are more likely to indulge in empire-building acquisitions that destroy shareholder value. We also find that acquirers operating in more competitive industries or separating the positions of CEO and chairman of the board experience higher abnormal announcement returns.
ABSTRACT
We examine the impact of foreign institutional investors on firms' voluntary disclosure practices measured by management forecasts. In a sample of 32 non-U.S. countries, we find that, on ...average, foreign institutional investments lead to improved voluntary disclosure, and their impact is larger than that of domestic institutional investors. These results are more pronounced when foreign institutional investors (1) are unfamiliar with the firm's home country, (2) have longer investment horizons, and (3) are from countries with stronger investor protection and disclosure requirements than the firm's home country. However, we also find some evidence of voluntary disclosure deterioration in firms with foreign institutional investors from countries with inferior disclosure requirements and securities regulations and with concentrated foreign institutional ownership. Overall, our results suggest that the relation between foreign institutional investors and voluntary disclosure is much richer and more complex than what has been documented for domestic institutional investors in the literature.
In order to study pore structure and fractal characteristics of the organic-rich marine shale, fourteen shale samples from Lower Cambrian Qiongzhusi formation in Malong block of eastern Yunnan ...province were investigated by organic geochemical analysis (total organic carbon content analysis and thermal maturity analysis), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, porosity and permeability tests, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), low-pressure nitrogen adsorption and methane adsorption experiments. Fractal dimensions D1 and D2 (at relative pressure of 0–0.5 and 0.5–1, respectively) were obtained from the nitrogen adsorption data using the fractal Frenkel–Halsey–Hill (FHH) method. Not only have the relationships among pore structure parameters of shale, the relationships between TOC content, mineral compositions, pore structure parameters and fractal dimensions been discussed, but also the significance of two fractal dimensions D1 and D2 and the impact of fractal dimensions on adsorption capacity have been investigated. The results showed that fourteen shale samples have TOC content ranging from 1.25% to 7.72%, two fractal dimensions both increase with the increasing TOC content, and gradually come to a standstill—the curves present the shape of “parabola”. The major mineralogical compositions of shales are quartz and clay minerals, the quartz contents are between 25.5% and 42.7%, the clay contents are between 26.6% and 44.2%. Fractal dimension D1 has a negative correlation with quartz contents and a positive correlation with clay minerals contents, but fractal dimension D2 has no apparent relationship with quartz and clay minerals contents. The specific surface area is in the range of 4.98 m2/g–19.66 m2/g, the total pore volume is between 0.00479 cm3/g and 0.01765 cm3/g, and the average pore diameter is between 3.37 nm and 6.02 nm. Two fractal dimensions increase with the increasing surface area and pore volume, and also increase with the decreasing average pore diameter because of the complicated pore surface and structure of small pores. Further investigation indicates that D1 represents fractal characteristics from the irregular pore surface, while D2 represents fractal characteristics related to the complicated pore structure, and shale samples with larger fractal dimensions have higher methane adsorption capacity. Therefore fractal analysis is helpful to have a better understanding of pore structure and adsorption capacity of marine shale.
•Fractal dimensions of 14 marine organic-rich shale core samples were studied.•The relationship between fractal dimensions and TOC content is characterized by a parabolic curve.•Fractal dimensions increase with increasing surface area and total pore volume, and with decreasing average pore diameter.•Shale with greater pore surface fractal dimension and pore structure fractal dimension has higher adsorption capacity.
Abstract
Aims
Emerging evidence indicates that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a vital role in cardiovascular physiology and pathology. Although the lncRNA TUG1 is implicated in atherosclerosis, ...its function in calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) remains unknown.
Methods and results
In this study, we found that TUG1 was highly expressed in human aortic valves and primary valve interstitial cells (VICs). Moreover, TUG1 knockdown induced inhibition of osteoblast differentiation in CAVD both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, silencing of TUG1 increased the expression of miR-204-5p and subsequently inhibited Runx2 expression at the post-transcriptional level. Importantly, TUG1 directly interacted with miR-204-5p and downregulation of miR-204-5p efficiently reversed the suppression of Runx2 induced by TUG1 short hairpin RNA (shRNA). Thus, TUG1 positively regulated the expression of Runx2, through sponging miR-204-5p, and promoted osteogenic differentiation in CAVD.
Conclusion
All together, the evidence generated by our study elucidates the role of lncRNA TUG1 as a miRNA sponge in CAVD, and sheds new light on lncRNA-directed diagnostics and therapeutics in CAVD.
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