This study attempted to look into the second language (L2) learners' attitude toward and perception of their L2 pronunciation, and make suggestions for L2 pronunciation teaching within English as an international language (EIL) perspective which is theoretically supported by the variationist approach and multi-competence model of the sociocultural framework. Based on the qualitative analysis of what English as a second language (ESL) learners had discussed through individual interviews, the study showed how they perceived the importance of pronunciation, as well as revealed what kind of difficulties and obstacles they had faced in improving their pronunciation skills. It also indicated the types of efforts and strategies that the learners employed to improve pronunciation skills. The research findings made known the factors driving L2 learners to commit themselves to refining their pronunciation skills. Having considered the unique status of EIL as well as respected the identity of EIL speaker as multi-competent language user, the study made suggestions as to what should be taken care of for L2 pronunciation teaching.

In anticipation of starting a new online journal in the field of educational technology, we conducted a review of existing journals, dividing them into two categories-online-only and online +print. The 30 journals in the review were analyzed with respect t frequency of publication; their content emphases, goals, and audiences; policies on subscription and copyright,· and technical functions, such as search and discussion. We were looking for the features that made the online journals distinctive from the others, which were based in the print paradigm. The aspects that yielded significant differences were subscription policy, redistribution policy, and search function. The online-only journals were more liberal in their subscription and redistribution policies, but the online + print journals had more extensive search capabilities. In addition, we identified gaps in the topical coverage of the existing journals, in the areas of educational technology management, educational systems design/reform, policy issues, and cultural issues.

The purpose of carrier tracking and tracing is to achieve more information over shipments via carrying in mobile business. At multimodes, especially consignor wants to be aware of the exact situation and position of goods. As an innovative business model, we present CGPS(Carrier Global Positioning System) scheme using LEO(Low Earth Orbital) satellite. The LEO collects the data periodically and sends to the web server, and eventually customer's PC or PDA. This provides shipping company or freight forwarder with more robust information such as door status, container inside condition, etc.

In order to explore the cosmic ray acceleration at the cosmological shocks, we have performed numerical simulations of one-dimensional, plane-parallel, cosmic ray (CR) modified shocks with the newly developed CRASH (Cosmic Ray Amr SHock) numerical code. Based on the hypothesis that strong Alfven waves are self-generated by streaming CRs, the Bohm diffusion model for CRs is adopted. The code includes a plasma-physics-based 'injection' model that transfers a small proportion of the thermal proton flux through the shock into low energy CRs for acceleration there. We found that, for strong accretion shocks with Mach numbers greater than 10, CRs can absorb most of shock kinetic energy and the accretion shock speed is reduced up to 20%, compared to pure gas dynamic shocks. Although the amount of kinetic energy passed through accretion shocks is small, since they propagate into the low density intergalactic medium, they might possibly provide acceleration sites for ultra-high energy cosmic rays of E > 10 18eV. For internal/merger shocks with Mach numbers less than 3, however, the energy transfer to CRs is only about 10-20% and so nonlinear feedback due to the CR pressure is insignificant. Considering that intracluster medium (ICM) can be shocked repeatedly, however, the CRs generated by these weak shocks could be sufficient to explain the observed non-thermal signatures from clusters of galaxies.