from gene to chromosome

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An early New Year's greeting

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Summaries

In the lecture, the author points out some differences between interpersonal and mass communications. The process of communication involves four basic elements: sender, the person who sends information, receiver, the person who receives the information, message content of information send by sender, and feedback response from receiver. Interpersonal communication is the process of sending and receiving information between two people. In contrast, mass communication refers to using many devices and materials to communicate to millions of people simultaneously. Message in interpersonal communication is flexible. The source can modify the message, but in mass communication message is produced by a production team, so it is not particularly flexible. When we are talking about the source, we can say in interpersonal communication it is individual and in mass communication it is usually a team. Noise is a kind of interruption which can be divided into two parts. First, physical noise is an interruption by sound or any kind of the voices. Another interruption is semantics noise, which interferes with the main message.

There are some differences between interpersonal and mass comunication . The interpersonal communication is between two people, usually face to face. In contrast, in the mass comunication the identical message is created by a team of people usually professional and also is produced and distributed by technology to large numbers of people. The source in the interpersonal comunication is individual and people have control over what they want to say. On the other hand, mass comunication this is not true. In addition, in the interpersonal comunication the message is used to inform, to persuade and to entretain. The message usually is flexible. However, in the mass communication the message is not flexible at all because of the lack of the media feedback. The reciever in the interpersonal comunication has a direct contact with the source. Whereas, mass communication doesn't. Similary, both types of communication can be affected by semantic and physical noises, which interrupts the decoding of the message.

In the lecture, the author points out some differences between interpersonal and mass communications. The definition of interpersonal communication is face-to-face between 2 people; in contrast, the mass communication is distribution which is using technology. The difference of source between interpersonal and mass communication is that in interpersonal communication the source is an individual with a high level of control, whereas the source in mass communication is a group and is much less controled. Likewise, the receiver in interpersonal communication is usually one person, and the source is connected to that person. Additionally, noise can be physical or semantic. The noise is more of a problem in mass communication because of lack of feedback. Lastly, the message is different in interpersonal and mass communications. Interpersonal comm uses both sound and gestures.

Party ideas

Put your ideas here.

AC6 update

1. Communication model discussion on Thursday
2. Vocabulary test on Friday
3. Communication model write up with well-formatted references for 5 models for Friday
4. Record and transcribe your model for Monday
   
5. Listening test from communication chapter on Tuesday
6. Communication model formal presentation on Wednesday

Communication audio files

Activity 8
Activity 9
Activity 12
Activity 13
Activity 24

Comparing models

1. Unlike Laswell's uni-directional model, SW's model indicates the importance of the noise.
2. L's model is more related to linear human communication. Similarly, SW's model reflects a uni-directional communication process.
3. Whereas Honda's civic 2-door is a sports car, the Mazda 6 is a sedan.
4. S's model concentrates on the individuals rather than on how the message is sent in contrast to/with the others two models.
5. Different from L's model, the SW model reconizes the possible influence of noise.
6. SW's model, which shows semantic noise, is different from L's & S's model.
7. SW's model shows that information source, in contrast with destination, should be at the beginning of the model.
8. While S's model contains a clear source and destination, only the other two models transmit directly.

Effects Topics - AW6

Hello everyone,

Here are your topics for the in-class writing test on Monday, November 26. Choose one topic and do some research on it. Your supporting details must include statistics / facts / expert opinion, etc. Like your first assignment (Advertising), you will have to write at least 3 paragraphs.

You must bring a one-page, typed outline to the test on Monday. You might want to use your time off tomorrow to do some of this.

Check the "comments" area for your topics.

Good luck

Adjective (Relative) Clauses - AW6

Hi again class,

Click on "comments" to see your homework.

The due date is end of next week (November 29).

Passive Voice - AW6

Hello all,

Click on "comments" to see your homework.

Do the homework by next Monday.

Advertisement Assignment - AW6

Hello everyone,

As I promised in class yesterday, I am posting a sample assignment from last term, complete with the ad, the information chart, and the actual essay.

you can find the ad here

you can find the sample essay here

you can find the sample information chart here

Have a great weekend. You can post questions under the comments section of this post.

Homework from Friday, Nov 16

• Study vocabulary for test on Wed.
• Finish graded reader for discussion on Thursday
  
• Review all readings from Obesity chapter
• Complete ex 24 outline (p 176)
  
• Complete ex 30 & 31 test preparation (pp. 184 & 185)
• Listen again to the lecture from yesterday. Take notes on paper & give the notes to me on Monday. Again, just include main ideas. Dates, names, kinds of bacteria, etc. are not needed.
  

Homework for Thursday, Nov 15

1. Finish your outline or paragraph comparing the two article and send it to me.
2. Do a quick read of selection #3, on pp. 169-175. You don't need to take notes or read it carefully yet.
3. Listen to this podcast (you can download it and put it on an MP3 player) and take notes. It's about 20 minutes long (you can skip the first 60 seconds). Take notes about the main ideas. You DO NOT need to note details such as names, dates, kinds of bacteria, etc.
   
   Podcast vocabulary:
   gut = stomach & intestines
   microbe = bacteria, fungi, etc.
   lean & slim = thin; not fat
   

Compare & Contrast

In the Reading Textbook, we find two articles describing obesity. Despite the fact that these two articles are both from newspapers and both regarding obesity, there is a difference in their focus and the types of data used. While the first article looks at causes, the second one is more about treatments.

The first article reports a scientific study of the number of obese and overwieght children in a specific school, and it also gathered data on the amount of physical activity and level and type of food intake. The study found that obesity occurred in 7.4% of the sample and that, of all the children, only 19% had daily physical activity. The survey also showed that 46% of the sample visited fast food restaurants once or twice a week. The article doesn't have any data that actually shows cause and effect, but it speculates that the lack of activity and fatty foods are major causes of weight gain. This seems fairly obvious.

In contrast, the second article is an unscientific description of one particular "fat farm" in China and how it is treating obesity. The information is mostly anecdotal, coming from interviews with the director and a number of patients. They say that the farm uses an alternative holistic treatment. Specifically, they use accupuncture, a special diet, and exercise along with education. Although the institute claim to be alternative, many of the treatments appear to be quite standard.

Homework from Wed, Nov 14

Tests
Vocabulary: Wed, Nov 21
Reading: Friday, Nov 23

Homework

• Find an article in English that is really just an advertisement OR an article that seems to be a comparison but really only looks at one group at one time.
• Review all the obesity readings
• Write and hand in a COMPLETE outline for reading #1
  

Changing numbers

Post your comments about the difference between 200 -> 300 & 100 -> 50.

For a change from 200 to 300:

1. it increased by 50%
2. it increased to 150% of the original
3. it went up by 100 units
4. It added 100 units
5. it went up by 1/2 (from the base amount)
6. The base amount was 66.66% of the final amount
7. The base amount increased by 33.33% of the final amount
8. The rate of increase is 50%
9. There's a difference of more than 30% of the final

For a change from 100 to 50

1. It decreased by 50%
2. it is now (0).5 times the original value
3. the final amount is half of the original amount
4. it went down by 50 units
5. it went down to 50 units
6. it decreased by 1/2 of the based amount
7. it dropped by the result of 2x = 100 (solve for x)
8. The original value is twice the final amount
9. The original value is double the final amount

Noun Clause Homework

Post your sentences under the "comments" section of this post.

Advertising Methods - AW6

Read this article on advertising methods and be prepared to discuss it in class on Thursday (Nov. 15).

You can find the article here.

Homework from Monday, Nov 12

1. Complete Activity 9 (outlining)
2. Read News Report 1, pp. 159-160
3. Prepare for your graded reader discussions on Tuesday

By the way, here are two related articles from last Saturday's Toronto Star. You may find them interesting and useful.

Heavy noun phrases

1. Increased consumption of more energy-dense nutrients or foods with high levels of sugar and saturated fat, combined with reduced physical activity, has led to obesity rates that have risen.
2. A major cause of obesity and being overweight is the variety of junkfood.
3. Our society has many misconceptions about overweight children.
4. The people who were undernurished in early life and become obese in adulthood tend to develop worse conditions.
5. Nowadays the percentage of people that do daily physical activity has decreased.
6. Obesity and being overweight pose a major risk of serious chronic disease including type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer.
7. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally with more than 1 million adults overweight and this is a major contribution of chronic disease.
8. As we can tell, people need motivation and orientation regarding weight management.
9. Interestingly, people in many countries, who eat very heavily daily, not only face overweight problems, but also suffer a lot of diseases.
10. Taking daily physical activity is helpful for us to build a healthier, stronger body condition and decrease hypertension and type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke, and certain forms of cancer.

Forwarding HMail

If you don't check HMail regularly, you can set it to forward to another mail address. The instructions are here.

How to search

1. Use Google's various tools including images, news, and scholar
2. Use quotation marks " ~ " to search for a phrase instead of searching for individual words
3. Use the Humber library
   
4. Search in particular web sites such as NewScientist, History Chanel, Discovery Chanel, etc.
5. Use English Wikipedia and Simple English Wikipedia
   

Homework from Thursday, November 8

1. prepare for test: bring 1 page of notes from the lectures
   
2. read "obesity". Make note of sections you find difficult and be prepared to ask questions on Monday.
   
3. do ex 8-12 for Monday.
   
4. study vocab
5. read graded reader #2 and prepare for discussion on Tuesday.
   

Paraphrases from p. 145

Around the world, there are about 1 billion overweight adults. At least 300 million of them are obese.
Around the world, there are more than 1 billion overweight people. 1/3 of them have obesity.
About 13% of the population of the world are overweight. And 300 million of them are obese.
In the world there are more than 1 billion "fat" adults. At least 300 million of them are obese.
All around the world statistics point out that from 1 billion overweight adults, there are 300 million who are obese.

Obesity and being overweight can be a major risk of chronic disease and certain forms of cancer.
Being obese and being overweight can cause a serious risk for chronic disease including...
Obesity and being overweight make some problems for health, for example....
Obesity and its initial stages create a major risk for chronic disease including...
Obesity and being overweight cause the main risk for long-term disease including...

Homework from Wed, Nov. 7

1. Looking at exercise 2, write a paragraph comparing/contrasting TWO of the following diets.
   a. your personal diet
   b. the traditional healthy Asian diet
   c. the traditional healthy Latin American diet
   d. the vegetarian food pyramid
   e. the Canadian food guide

Homework from Tuesday, Nov 6

1. Prepare to recite the poem
2. Do activities 25-27 on pp. 24-25
3. Preview chapter about obesity.
4. Study vocabulary (test on November 20)
5. If you haven't already, get a new graded reader
6. Answer the following questions:
1. In a short paragraph, explain what Edison's main purpose related to movies was and give three examples from the lecture to support your view.
2. What two mistakes did Edison originally make in planning his movie business?
3. What legal, political, geographic, and labor factors attracted the independent producers to California? Write a short paragraph explaining why each of these factors was important.
4. Explain why a government would take power away from a monopoly.

Transcription

Here's the transcribed text from Activity 12 b.

So, let’s turn to the beginning of the 20 century, when Edison and his business partners tried to monopolize the film industry in the same way that other business people in the US were trying to control other parts of the economy. Some of you might remember studying about Ford with the automobile industry and Rockefeller and the oil industry.

In December 1908, Edison and nine other producers formed the Motion Picture Patents Company—that’s MPPC. The Motion Picture Patents Company. The MPPC set up many rules for all movie producers to follow, and if they didn’t, they faced legal problems. One of the rules was to keep movies short because they believed, although the Lumiere brothers probably thought differently, that audiences wouldn’t want to sit for a long time and watch a movie. Second, the MPPC didn’t give actors any credit for the movie so that they wouldn’t ask for more money. In other words, the MPPC didn’t want the names of the actors to be recognized by audiences, which is obviously much different from what we have today. Third, in order to make the most money, they only distributed movies to those who used equipment and film that was patented. An example of this is George Eastman of Kodak film. Do you know the name? He got in on the money-making prospects and sold his film only to producers who were authorized by the MPPC. Lastly, the MPPC controlled the price of the ticket. If the MPPC found out that studios were not following their rules, they sent people to interrupt the filming and even threatened to stop the distribution of the film.

Friday's listening test

The test will have three main parts.

The first part will be a new lecture which is about 10 minutes long. The topic will be related to what we've read and listened to. Here, the focus will be on taking notes and answering short, factual questions.

The second part is a dictation from the reading on page 7 and will be about 100 words long. This is scored out of 10. With each mistake you lose 0.1 marks.

The last part is based on the lectures from the chapter (mainly activities 12 & 24). For this part you may bring in one piece of paper with notes on one side. The notes should be regular-sized writing (if typed, use a 12-point font.) The lectures will NOT be played during the test, so you must rely on your notes and your memory. There will be some short answer questions about dates, people, etc., but mostly the questions will focus on why or how something happened, or on explaining or comparing.

Homework from Monday, Nov 5

• Prepare for graded reader discussion on Tuesday. Be ready to talk about your book for 5 minutes. You'll be talking in pairs.
• Study the poem and be ready to recite it on Wednesday.
• Listen to activity 24 and take notes.
• Prepare sample test questions for Friday's listening test. Focus on questions that ask: why, how, explain, & compare.

Homework

1. Watch this trailer from the movie, Chaplin. Then watch this clip. Then watch clips from The Great Dictator. Finally, write two pages (double spaced) about your reaction to this. Don't summarise it; just say what it made you think or feel.
2. Review reading from p. 7
3. Review lectures.
4. Prepare for vocabulary test on Monday.
5. Prepare for graded reader discussion on Tuesday: finish reading your graded readers from the library and be ready to spend 5 minutes explaining about it.
   

Daylight Saving Time

Remember that daylight saving time ends this Saturday (November 3). This means the time will move back one hour. Don't forget to set your clocks/watches at midnight on Saturday.
Enjoy the extra hour!

AW6 Verb Tense Homework

Please post your completed homework under the "comments" section of this post.

Wikipedia history of US Cinema

Here's the link to the Wikipedia page and here are some early films from the Lumiere brothers.